A Treasury of Fairy Tales Read online

  This man already had a daughter, and she was kind and gentle and beautiful. So the stepmother and her daughters were thoroughly jealous of her, and soon set about making her life as miserable as they could.

  They gave her all the dirty work in the house. She scrubbed and scoured and dusted all day long while her new sisters lay polishing their nails or prinking themselves in the glass. They wore jewels and silks and satins while their poor sister had only a few rags to her back. They slept on soft feather mattresses, deep and warm, while she shivered on straw in the draughty attic.

  And she patiently worked and shivered and half-starved without saying a single word of complaint to her father.

  At the end of the day when all the work was done, she would sit huddled among the cinders in the chimney corner of the kitchen, trying to keep warm. Even this did not make the ugly sisters sorry. Instead, they laughed, and gave her the nickname of Cinderella.

  One day, the king of all the land gave a great ball for his son, the prince. The stepmother and her daughters were invited, and were soon busily planning what they would wear and how they would dress their hair.

  While the two ugly sisters posed before the glasses, trying out sashes and twirling their hair into ringlets, Cinderella was sent rushing hither and thither to fetch and carry, to sew and press, so that everything would be ready on the night of the ball. Instead of being grateful for her help, the two sisters mocked her.

  “How would you like to go to the ball, Cinderella?” they asked.

  “Oh, I would!” she cried wistfully. “But people would only laugh. Look at me, in my old rags!”

  “Laugh? I should think they would!” cried the two sisters. “A fine sight you would be at the king’s ball!”

  On the great day Cinderella worked harder than ever in her life before, trying her hardest to send her sisters off to the ball looking their very best. And when the last bow was tied and the last ringlet curled, they did look their very best – though even that was not saying very much.

  Off they went with a proud flurry of rustling skirts, out to the waiting coach, with not so much as a wave of the hand to Cinderella, let alone a thank you. When the sound of the carriage wheels had died away and she was alone at last in the great, empty house, Cinderella crept back to her usual place by the hearth, and began to cry.

  After a while she heard a knocking at the door, and drying her eyes, went to answer. In stepped a little old woman who looked like a beggar in her tattered cloak.

  “Why are you crying, child?” asked she.

  “Because… because…” Cinderella did not like to say why she was crying.

  “You need not tell me,” said the old lady surprisingly. “I know quite well why you are crying. It is because you want to go to the ball.”

  Cinderella stared at her.

  “I am your godmother,” explained the other then. “Your fairy godmother. And now, child, there’s work to be done. Go out into the garden and fetch a pumpkin, quick!”

  Cinderella was out in the garden searching for a pumpkin before she had even time to think. When she brought it back, her godmother rapped it smartly with a long black stick – or was it a wand? – and there in a trice stood a golden carriage! It winked and glittered and shone bright as the sun itself.

  “Two mice!” ordered the godmother, without a blink.

  Cinderella opened the pantry door and as two mice came scampering out – poof! A wave of the magic wand and they were high-stepping horses with flowing manes and rearing heads.

  “What about a coachman?” murmured the godmother. “Run and fetch the rat-trap, will you?”

  Cinderella did not wait to be asked twice. Off she ran to fetch it, and next minute there stood a stout coachman with brass buttons and a large three-cornered hat.

  “If you look behind the watering can beside the well,” went on the godmother, without so much as the twitch of an eyebrow, “you will find six lizards. We could do with them, I think.”

  Sure enough, there were the six lizards exactly where she had said, and a flick of that busy wand transformed them instantly into six tall footmen with dashing liveries.

  “Well!” exclaimed the fairy godmother then. “That carriage could take a queen to the ball. Do you like it?”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful!” cried Cinderella. “But godmother, I still can’t go to the ball!”

  “And why not?”

  “My dress! Look at me! Whoever saw a sight like this at a king’s ball?”

  “That is easy enough,” replied the old lady. “Stand still a moment, child, and shut your eyes.”

  Cinderella stood quite still, her eyes tight shut. There was a slow, cool rustling, a breath of scented air and a soft silken brushing and then “Open!” commanded that thin, high voice.

  Cinderella opened her eyes.

  “Oh!” she gasped. It was all she could say. “Oh!”

  About her, billowed the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, sky blue and stitched with pearls, threaded with silver. And there, beneath the hem of her skirt, glittered a pair of shining crystal shoes.

  “Glass slippers!” gasped Cinderella.

  “Off you go now, child,” said her godmother briskly. “Off to the ball and enjoy yourself!”

  Cinderella gathered up her shimmering skirts and stepped into the golden coach. The footmen bowed. The coachman lifted his whip.

  “Wait!” cried the godmother.

  Cinderella put her head out of the carriage window.

  “Home by twelve sharp! Do you hear? Not a minute later!”

  “I shall be back,” promised Cinderella.

  “Listen for the clock,” warned her godmother. “Not a single moment after the last stroke of twelve. If you’re even a second late –”

  “What?” cried Cinderella in alarm. “What will happen, godmother?”

  The old lady waved her arms.

  “Poof! Gone! Coach to pumpkin, horses to mice, coachman to rat – poof! Gone! All of it!”

  “I’ll remember,” cried Cinderella. “I promise. The last stroke of twelve! Goodbye, godmother! And thank you!”

  She had a last glimpse of her godmother’s shabby figure and then the coach was rolling on its way. She, Cinderella, was off to a king’s ball!

  When at last the golden coach reached the palace gates the news was quickly spread about that a great lady, certainly a princess, had arrived at the gates. Servants and flunkeys ran to bow and open doors and make a way for Cinderella through the crowds of staring guests. For she was so beautiful that all the people stood quite still to watch her as she passed, and even the music faded as the fiddlers laid down their bows in wonder.

  The king’s son himself watched her walk among the whispering guests. He went to greet her, and was in love before he had even reached her side. He led her on to the floor to dance and the fiddlers picked up their bows again and began to play.

  All the evening long the two of them danced together. The prince could not bear to leave Cinderella’s side for even a moment. The other guests were filled with envy and curiosity, and the two ugly sisters were angriest of all. Not a single dance had either of them had with the prince all night.

  “Whoever can she be?” they cried, craning to peer at her each time she whirled by. Not for a single minute did they suspect that the beautiful stranger was none other than their sister, Cinderella.

  Cinderella herself was so happy that she forgot all about the time. The great ballroom clock was already beginning to chime the hour for midnight when she suddenly remembered her godmother’s warning and her own promise to be home by twelve.

  “O!” she cried. “I’m late! The time!”

  Before the astonished prince could collect his wits she had darted off and was out of the ballroom and running down the great marble staircase to her waiting coach.

  Six… seven… eight… the bell was chiming.

  The coach clattered away out of the palace courtyard. At the top of the staircase the prince stood look
ing left and right for a sign of his vanished partner. He set the servants to search and they ran all through the palace, but in vain. She had gone. Only there, lying half way down the stairs, was a tiny glass slipper – Cinderella’s. Sadly the prince picked it up and wandered away. He did not dance again that night.

  Meanwhile, Cinderella was hardly out of the palace gates when – poof! The spell was broken. All in a moment she found herself out on the empty road and of the shining coach, the footmen and the coachman, there was not a trace. From the corner of her eye she saw running over the road a thin dark shape, that might have been a lizard. And that was all. Clutching her thin rags about her she set off home. Safely there, she climbed up to her cold attic and fell asleep, dreaming of the ball and the handsome prince.

  The prince himself did not sleep at all that night. He paced up and down his room, clasping the glass slipper.

  “I must find her,” he said out loud. “And when I have found her, I shall marry her, and make her my princess.”

  Next day the king called his royal herald.

  “Take this glass slipper,” he commanded, “and search the length and breadth of my kingdom to find the young lady whose foot it fits. When you have found her, bring her to me. For she is the one the prince will marry.”

  Soon the news was spread about the town and the king’s herald was going from door to door reading his proclamation and trying the slipper on one foot after another. He had not known there were so many feet in the world. Then at last he came to the house where the two ugly sisters had been eagerly awaiting his visit, their hair tightly curled and their legs trembling with excitement. One of them, for sure, would fit her foot into the glass slipper and become the prince’s bride.

  At last they heard a loud knocking on the door, and the notes of the herald’s trumpet.

  “Quick!” hissed their mother. “Sit down and look as if you weren’t expecting him. And make sure one of you gets that slipper on!”

  With that, she sent a servant to open the door, and next minute they were all curtseying to the king’s messenger.

  The two ugly sisters tried with all their might and main to fit their great feet into that dainty slipper. They squeezed and tugged and twisted and muttered and groaned, but all in vain. At last, sulky and red-faced, they gave up the attempt, trying hard not to catch their mother’s eye.

  “Is there no other young lady in the house?” asked the herald then. “I have orders to miss not a single one, whoever she is.”

  “No!” cried the three ladies together. “There’s no one else!”

  But just then, Cinderella herself came into the room, carrying a pail. The ugly sisters tried to shoo her from the room, but the herald bowed politely to her and offered her a seat while she tried the slipper.

  Cinderella sat down, held out her foot, – and slid it smoothly into the tiny glass slipper!

  “It fits!” cried the ugly sisters together. “It can’t! It’s a trick!”

  Cinderella smiled, and taking from her pocket the other slipper, placed it on her other foot. And at that moment, her fairy godmother appeared and with a touch of her magic wand transformed Cinderella’s rags into a snow-white bridal gown.

  Only then did the others recognise her as the beautiful stranger at the ball. The ugly sisters and their unkind mother hurried off, afraid of what might happen to them when their wickedness was discovered.

  But Cinderella forgave them willingly, and was driven off in the king’s own coach to meet her prince again. And they were married that very same day, and lived happily ever after.

  Dick Whittington

  Once upon a time, long long ago, a little orphan boy named Dick Whittington came from the country up to the great city of London.

  “The streets of London are paved with gold,” he had heard the villagers say as they told tales under the chestnuts on summer evenings, or by the fireside in winter. And so Dick set out to see for himself. He was ten years old, alone in the world, and determined to make his fortune.

  He was hungry and footsore when he came to London after days of travelling through the countryside, begging food and sleeping in barns and under hedges. But when he saw the domes and spires ahead of him against the sky, he hurried his pace, eager for a glimpse of those marvellous golden streets.

  But as he entered the city at last, the stones beneath his feet were grey – as grey as ever they had been in any other town he had known. On and on he walked, hoping with every mile that he would round a sudden corner and see before him a street of purest gold, where he could stoop and gather up the golden cobbles and cram his pockets with them and be rich for the rest of his life.

  But the people of London did not look rich – they did not even look so well and happy as the villagers at home. They walked in tatters with bent shoulders, though now and then a rich coach would go rolling by, with liveried footmen hanging on behind. Dick slept that night huddled in a doorway, and next morning, wandering through the narrow streets in a thin drizzle of rain, he suddenly lost heart, and said to himself,

  “I have come on a wild goose chase. I shall go back home, to my own village, and work in the fields and be as happy as I can.”

  Sad at heart, he began to retrace his footsteps, and soon was outside the city and walking in the open country back towards home. He sat down propped against a milestone, and opened his bundle to find his last piece of cheese. As he sat there, the sound of bells was wafted over the fields from the city churches. They rang sweet and clear, and as Dick listened, he seemed to hear what they were saying:

  Turn again Whitting-ton

  Thou worthy cit-izen

  Lord Mayor of Lon-don!

  He leapt to his feet and stood with ears cocked. Again the peals came on a light wind, and as Dick stared back towards the city the sun suddenly struck through the clouds and shone on the wet roofs, turning them to gold.

  Turn again Whitting-ton

  Thou worthy cit-izen

  Lord Mayor of Lon-don!

  “And so I will!” cried Dick. And he picked up his knapsack and turned his face again towards the city.

  That night he slept on a doorstep again, but this time he was discovered at dawn by a red-faced Cook, who opened the door and stirred him with her foot.

  “You’ll make a fine scullion!” cried she. “Lazy layabout – asleep at this hour! Five o’clock in the morning, and still fast asleep! You’d best come in and have breakfast and get started working!”

  Dick followed her inside, scarcely believing his luck. He had not known that the household was looking for a scullion, but now, it seemed, he had the job, and was glad of it. He was given a room up in the garret, paid a penny a week and given a new suit of clothes. He worked from morning till night in the kitchen, and Cook scolded him if he did not wash behind his ears and keep his nails clean. But if he did, she would cut him a big slice of jam pie, so Dick’s face was usually red and shining with soap and water.

  This house belonged to a rich merchant named Fitzwarren, who had a little girl of nine years old called Alice. One day, she came down to the kitchen wearing a blue silk dress and a coral necklace. She stared at Dick, who was shelling peas in a corner.

  “Are you the raggedy boy who came from the country?” she asked. “You look quite clean to me.”

  “That’s because Cook chases me with her broom if I’m dirty,” replied Dick. “Besides, I’m used to being clean now, and quite like it.”

  Alice drew up a stool nearby and asked Dick questions about his old life in the country and how he had come to London. So Dick told her about how he had set back home when he had found that the streets of London were not paved with gold after all, and how he had heard the bells calling him back:

  Turn again Whitting-ton

  Thou worthy cit-izen

  Lord Mayor of Lon-don!

  “And perhaps I shall be Lord Mayor, one day,” he said, because even if he did sleep in a garret and spend the day scouring dishes and sweeping floors, he still had his
dreams.

  Alice laughed and spread out her silken skirts and said, “Well, you are quite a clean boy now, and sometimes I may come down to the kitchen and talk to you. But you are only a scullion and I am a lady, so you may not smile at me unless I smile at you first.”

  After that, Alice used to come down and talk to Dick sometimes, and he was well pleased with his life, except for one thing. The garret where he slept was overrun by rats, that scampered all over his bed when he was asleep. So he saved his wages and spent threepence on the biggest cat he could find. Soon all the rats had disappeared, and the cat would purr on Dick’s bed at night instead, and keep his feet warm.

  In those days, when merchants sent a ship to trade with Africa, everyone who worked for them could send in the ship a bale of goods, whatever he liked. This was called a ‘Venture’ or ‘Adventure’. One day, Fitzwarren said to Dick, “Next week my new ship sails for Africa. What will you send as a Venture?”

  “I have nothing,” replied Dick. “Nothing but my cat, that is.”

  “Then you had better send the cat,” said the merchant. “Every single one of us must send a Venture, or it will mean bad luck for the new ship.”

  So when the ship sailed, Dick’s cat went with it, and it came to port in Africa, where the rich Sultan was eager to see all the fine things from London.

  The Captain spread out the cargo before the Sultan and his five hundred and fifty-five wives. They were delighted. The Captain of the ship had more African gold to take back to London than ever before.

  “Now there is only the cat left,” he said to himself. “And for that, I will receive more than its weight in gold!”

  While he had been trading with the Sultan, rats and mice had been scurrying about them the whole time, nibbling at sacks, running up curtains and even biting the Sultan’s queens. When the Captain went to make his farewells, he went with the cat perched on his shoulder.