Segnius Irritant: or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories/Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes
Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes.
There was a king and he was now old, and had but one son. Once he called this son to him, and said: “My dear son, thou well knowest that the mature fruit falls to give place to another. My head is also ripening to decay, and perhaps in a short time the sun will no more shine upon it; but kefore thou buriest me, I would gladly see my future daughter, thy bride. Marry thee, my son.” And the king’s son said: “I should gladly have submitted to thy wishes, father, but I have no sweetheart, and know of no one. And so the old king felt in his pocket, drew out a golden key, and offered it to his son. “Go up on to the tower, to the top storey: look round there and tell me which thou fanciest.” The king’s son tarried not, but went. All his life he had never yet been up there, and also had never heard what there might be there.
When he came up above to the last storey, he saw in the ceiling a small iron door like a trap-door; it was locked; he opened it with the golden key, raised it, and stepped out into the room above. This was a large circular hall, the ceiling blue, like the sky in a clear night; silver stars twinkled upon it; the floor was a carpet of green silk, and round the wall stood twelve lofty windows in golden mouldings, and in each window on crystal glass was a virgin depicted in rainbow hues, with a royal crown on her head, different in each window, and in a different dress, but one more beautiful than the other, so that the king’s son could scarely take his eyes off them; and when he thus looked upon them with astonishment, not knowing which to choose, these virgins began to move as if alive, looked round at him, smiled, and all but spoke.
Then the king’s son observed that one of these twelve windows was covered with a white curtain; and so he tore aside the curtain that he might see what was under it. And there was a virgin in a white dress, girdled with a silver girdle, with a crown of pearls on her head; she was the most beautiful of all, but pale and sorrowful as if she had risen from the grave. The king’s son stood a long time before this picture as if in the presence of an apparition; and as he thus looked his heart melted within him, and he said: “Her I wish to have, and no other.” And as he said these words this virgin bowed her head, blushed like & rose, and in a moment all the pictures vanished.
When after this he came down again and told his father what he had seen, and which of the virgins he had chosen, the old king grew gloomy, reflected awhile, and said: “Thou hast done ill, my son, in uncovering what was veiled, and by this word thou hast put thyself in great peril. This virgin is in the power of a wicked sorcerer or prince of darkness, and is imprisoned in a castle of iron; no one who has attempted to set her free has ever yet returned. But what is done cannot be undone: given word is law. Go, try thy fortune, and come home again to me safe and sound.”
The king’s son bade farewell to his father, mounted his horse, and rode away for this bride. And so it befell him to ride through a great wood, and in this wood he rode on and on until at last he quite lost his way. And when he and his horse had thus wandered among thickets and among rocks and quagmires [bazinami: baziti means to desire], not knowing whither he went nor where he was, he heard some one calling after him: “Hi! wait a minute!” The king’s son looked round and saw how a tall man was hurrying after him. “Stop and take me with you, and if you take me into your service you will not repent it.” “Who art thou?” said the king’s son, “and what art thou skilled in?” My name is Long, and I am skilled in stretching. Do you see up there on that tall fir tree a bird’s nest? I will take the nest for you, and there is no need for me to climb up the tree the least little bit.”
And so Long began to stretch; his body quickly grew until it was as tall as the fir tree; then he reached for the nest, and in a twinkling crumpled himself up again, and offered it to the king’s son. “Well hast thou learnt thy feat of skill; but what good are birds’ nests to me if thou canst not lead me out of this wood?”
“QOh! that is an easy matter,” said Long, and began to stretch himself out again, until he was three times as tall as the tallest pine tree in that wood; looked round about him, and says: “In yonder direction we shall find the shortest way out of the wood.” Then he crumpled himself up, took the horse by the bridle, and walked before it, and ere the king’s son expected it, they were out of the wood. Far before them stretched a broad plain, and beyond the plain were lofty grey rocks, like the walls of a great city, and mountains overgrown with forest.
“Look, master, there goes my comrade,” said Long, and pointed in the direction of the plain. “Him you ought also to have taken into your service; faith! he would have served you well.” “Shout to him, and summon him, that I may see who he is.” It is rather far, master,” said Long, *" he would scarcely hear me, and it would be sometime before he came, for he has much to carry. I had rather take a skip after him.” Then Long stretched himself out so tall that his head was quite buried in the clouds, took two—three steps, seized his comrade by the shoulder, and placed him before the king’s son. He was a dumpy little fellow, with a paunch like a four-gallon souterkin. “Who art thou, pray?” enquired the king’s son, “and what art thou skilled in?” “I, master, am called Broad, and I know how to broaden out.” “Then shew me.” “Master, ride back into the wood, quick, quick,” cried Broad, and began to puff himself out.
The king’s son could not conceive why he was to ride back; but seeing that Long was flying in haste to the wood, he spurred his horse and rode after him at a gallop. And it was high time for him to ride away, or Broad would have crushed him to pieces, horse and all, his paunch grew so rapidly in all directions; for all at once everything was full of him, just as if a mountain had come down in an avalanche. Then, after this, Broad ceased to puff himself out, blew the wind off, so that the woods bent double, and again made himself just as he was at first. A pretty breathing thou hast given me,” said the king’s son to him, “but such a fellow I shall not find every day; come with me.”
And so after this they continued their journey. When they came near to those rocks they met a certain one, and he had his eyes bound with a handkerchief. “Master, that is our third companion,” says Long. “Him you ought also to have taken into your service; faith! he would not have eaten your victuals in vain.” “Who, pray, art thou?” enquired the king’s son of him, “and why hast thou thy eyes bandaged; why thou canst not see the road?” “Hoj! master, on the contrary, it is just because I see too sharply that I have to have my two eyes bandaged; I, with my two eyes bandaged, see as much as another fellow with his eyes unbandaged, and when I unbandage myself, I look everything through and through; and when I look hard at anything, it catches fire, and what cannot burn splits in pieces. Therefore I am called Sharp-Eyes.” Then he turned to a rock not far off, unbound the handkerchief, and fixed upon the rock his glowing eyes; and the rock began to crackle, and pieces to fly from it in all directions, and after a very short time nothing remained but a heap of fine dust. And in this dust something flashed and quivered like fire. Sharp-Eyes went to fetch it and brought it to the king’s son. It was pure gold.
“Ho! ho! Thou art a lad beyond money’s worth,” said the king’s son. “A fool were he who would not desire to use thy services. But since thou hast such a good sight, please look again and tell me if I have still far to go to the castle of iron, and what is going on there.” “If you had been riding alone there, master,” answered Sharp-Eyes, “perhaps you would not have reached it even by next year; but with us you will get there this very day; for us and no one else they are now preparing supper.” “And what is my destined bride doing there?” “In an iron-grated bower, all upon a lofty tower, Black-Prince holds her in his power.” And the king’s son said: “Thou who art good, help me to set her free.”
And they all promised to help him. And so they led him between those grey rocks by that cleft which Sharp-Eyes had made in them with his two eyes, on and on among those rocks and lofty mountains and deep forests; and where there was any kind of obstacle in the way, those three jolly mates had cleared it off in no time; and as the sun inclined towards the west, the mountains began to lower, the woods to thin out, and the rocks to cower among the heather; and when it was already above the west, the king’s son saw not far before him a castle of iron; and when it was just setting, he rode over the iron bridge into the gateway of the castle, and the instant it had set, the iron bridge rose of itself, the gates closed with a bang, and the king’s son and his companions were imprisoned in the castle of iron.
When they had looked about here in the courtyard, the king’s son put his horse into the stable—and everything was already prepared there for it; then after this they went into the castle. In the courtyard, in the stable, in the castle hall, and also in the rooms, they saw in the twilight many people richly dressed, some of them masters and some servants, but none of them moved the least; they were all turned to stone. They passed through several rooms and came to the dining hall. It was brightly lighted, in the middle a table on which were plenty of good eatables and good drinkables; it was laid for four persons. They waited and waited, and thought that someone would come; but when after a long time no one came, they sat down and ate and drank to their hearts’ content.
When they had finished eating, they began to look about to see where they were to sleep. At this moment the door unexpectedly flew open with a bang, and into the room stepped the sorcerer, a hump-backed old man, in a long black robe, with a bald head, grey beard and whiskers down to the knees, and instead of a belt, three iron hoops. By the hand he led a beautiful, surpassingly beautiful virgin, dressed in white, round her waist she wore a silver girdle, and a crown of pearls on her head, but she was pale and sorrowful as though she had risen from the tomb. The king’s son recognised her at once, started, and went towards her; but before he could utter a word Black-Prince, the sorcerer, had addressed him as follows: “I know why thou art come; this queen thou wouldst take away from here. Very well. Be it so. Take her if thou canst manage to keep watch over her for three nights so that she does not escape thee. But if she eludes thee, thou shalt be turned to stone, servants and all, like all who have come before thee.” After this he shewed the queen to a chair that she might sit down, and departed.
The king’s son could not take his eyes off this virgin a moment, she was so beautiful. He even began to speak to her, and to ask her all sorts of questions; but she did not answer him, she did not smile, and never once looked at any one, as if she had been of marble. And so he seated himself beside her, and determined not to sleep the whole night, that she might not escape him; and for greater security Long stretched himself out like a thong and wound himself all round the room against the wall; Broad settled himself at the door, puffed himself out, and stopped it up, so that not even a little mouse could have crept through, and Sharp-Eyes posted himself by the pillar in the middle of the room on guard. But after a very short time they all began to snooze, dropped off, and slept the whole night, as if he had thrown them into water.
In the morning when it began to dawn, the king’s son was the first to awake. But it was just as if someone had thrust a knife into his heart—the queen was flown! And he immediately roused his servants and asks what is to be done. “Don’t be the least anxious, master,” said Sharp-Eyes, and looked hard out of the window. “Why, I see her already! A hundred miles from here is a wood, in the middle of the wood an old oak, and on this oak, on the top of it, an acorn—and this acorn is she. Let Long take me on his shoulders and I’ll get her.” And Long at once put Sharp-Eyes on his back, stretched himself out, and went, every step was ten miles, and Sharp-Eyes pointed out the way.
And before time enough had passed for one to run three times round the cottage, lo! they were back again, and Long offered this acorn to the king’s son: “Master, drop it on the ground!” The king’s son dropped it on the ground, and at that moment the queen stood before him. And as the sun began to show itself beyond the mountains, the door flew open with a clatter, and Black-Prince entered the room and smiled maliciously; but when he perceived the princess he frowned, grumbled—and crack! one iron hoop on him split and bounded off. Then he took the virgin by the hand and led her away.
The whole day after this the king’s son had not anything to do but to wander through the castle and round the castle, and to gaze at all that was strange there. Everywhere it was just as though life had expired at one and the same moment. In one hall he saw some sort of royal personage who held in his two hands an uplifted hunting knife, as if he meant to cut someone in half, but the blow fell not, he was turned to stone. In one room was a knight also turned to stone; he fled as if in terror before someone, and stumbling at the threshold missed his footing but did not fall. In the chimney corner sat some servant or other; he held in one hand a piece of roast meat from supper, and with the other he carried a mouthful to his lips, but it never got so far; when it was just before his lips it also had been turned to stone. And many others besides he saw there turned to stone, every one exactly in the attitude he was in when the sorcerer said: “Be turned to stone.” And also many handsome horses he saw here which had been turned to stone. And in the castle and around the castle everything was dead and desolate; there were trees, but without leaves; there were meadows, but without grass; there was a river, but it did not flow; no little bird singing; no little flower springing—earth’s daughter, not one wee white fish in the water.
Morning, mid-day, evening, the king’s son and his companions found in the castle a good and abundant feast, the dishes served themselves up, the wine poured itself out. And when supper was over the doors again opened and the sorcerer led in the queen for the king’s son to guard. And although they all determined to try with all their might to prevent themselves from going to sleep, it was all of no use, off to sleep again they went. And when in the morning the king’s son awoke at daybreak and saw that the queen had vanished, he leapt out of bed and twitched Sharp-Eyes by the shoulder. “Hi! get up, thou Sharp-Eyes! Knowest thou where the queen is?” Sharp-Eyes rubbed his two eyes, looks, and says: “Now I see her; two hundred miles from here is a mountain, and in that mountain a rock, and in that rock a precious stone, and that stone is she. When Long takes me there we shall get her.”
Long immediately took him on his shoulder, stretched himself out, and went—every step was twenty miles. Sharp-Eyes then fixed his two burning orbs on the mountain, and the mountain dissipated itself, and the rock split into a thousand pieces, and among them flashed and quivered a precious stone. This they took and brought to the king’s son, and as he dropped it on the ground, there stood the queen again. And when after this Black-Prince came and saw her there, his two eyes sparkled with rage, and crick! crack! again an iron hoop upon him split and bounded off. He grumbled and growled, and led the queen out of the room.
This day was again just like the day before. After supper the sorcerer again brought the queen, peered shrewdly into the eyes of the king’s son, and observed sarcastically: “We shall see who’s master here; whether thou winnest or I!” And so saying, he departed. And so to-day they all took greater pains than ever to prevent themselves from dozing off; they would not even sit down, they would walk up and down the whole night; but it was all in vain, for they were under a spell; one after the other fell asleep as he walked, and the queen escaped as before.
In the morning the king’s son was again the first to awake, and when he did not see the queen, he aroused Sharp-Eyes: “Hi! get up, Sharp-Eyes, look about, where is the queen?” Sharp-Eyes looked out of the window for a long time. “Ho! master,” he says, “she’s a long, long way off. Three hundred miles from here is a black gea, and in the middle of this sea, at the bottom, lies a shell, and in this shell a golden ring, and this ring is she. But do not be uneasy, we will get her yet, only to-day Long must also take Broad with him—we shall want him.” Long put Sharp-Eyes on one shoulder and Broad on the other, stretched himself out and went; every step was thirty miles. And when they came to the black sea, Sharp-Eyes showed him where he must reach into the water for the shell. Long stretched and stretched out his arm as much as he could, but still there was not enough of him to get to the bottom.
“Wait a bit, comrade, wait just a little bit; see if I don’t help you,” said Broad; and puffed himself out as much as his stomach would stand it. Then he laid himself down by the shore and drank. After a very little time the water had fallen so much that Long quite easily reached the bottom, and drew the shell out of the sea. And he took the ring out of it, put his comrades on his shoulders, and hastened back to the castle. But on the way home it was just a little inconvenient to run with Broad on his back, the fellow having half a sea of water inside him, and so he shook him off his shoulders on to the ground in a broad valley. He bounced about like a bladder let fall from a tower, and in a moment the whole valley was under water, like a great lake. Broad himself scarcely managed to creep out of it.
Meanwhile, in the castle, the king’s son was in great anxiety. The sun’s beam began to show itself from behind the two mountains and the servants still returned not; and the more fiercely the rays mounted on high, the greater grew his distress. A deadly sweat started to his forehead. Then soon the sun appeared in the east like a thin glowing stripe, and at that moment the doors flew open with a tremendous bang, and on the threshold stood Black-Prince, and, seeing no signs of the queen, chuckled horribly and stepped into the apartment. But at that moment—crunch!—the window flew in pieces and a golden ring fell upon the floor, and at that very instant there stood the queen again. Sharp-Eyes, seeing what was happening in the castle, and what danger his master was in, informed Long. Long took a step and threw the ring through the window into the room. Black-Prince roared with rage till the castle shook again, and then—crick! crack! crick!—the third iron hoop cleft upon him, bounded off, and Black-Prince turned into a raven and flew away out of the window.
And then immediately this beautiful virgin addressed the king’s son and thanked him for having set her free, and she blushed like a rose. And in the castle and round about the castle all at once everything came to life; he who held in the hall a drawn hunting knife flourished it in the air till the air whistled again, and then stuck it in the sheath; he who stumbled at the threshold finished falling on to the ground, but immediately got up again and caught himself by the nose to see if it was still whole; he who sat by the chimney corner put the mouthful of roast meat between his lips and went on eating; in a word, everyone finished doing what he had begun, and went on where he had left off. In the stables, the horses pawed the ground and whinnied cheerily; the trees about the castle grew green like the periwinkle, on the meadows were plenty of parti-colored flowers; high in air the skylark twittered, and in the rapid river shoals of tiny little fish careered along. Everywhere was life and merriment.
Meanwhile many nobles gathered together to the room where the king’s son was, and they all thanked him for their liberation. But he said: “Me you ought not to thank; if it had not been for my trusty servants, Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes, I should have been in the same state you were in yourselves.” And immediately after this he set off on his way home to his father, the old king, he and his bride and his servants, Long and Sharp-Eyes, and all those nobles escorted him. On their way they met Broad and took him with them, too.
The old king wept with joy that his son’s affairs had turned out so prosperously; he thought that he was fated never to return. Soon after this there was a noisy wedding. All the nobles whom the king’s son had set free were invited. When the wedding was over, Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes announced to the young king that they were going again into the world to look for work. The young king begged and prayed them to remain at his palace. I will give you everything you may stand in need of till the day of your death.” But to them such a lazy kind of existence was distasteful; they took leave of him and went in spite of everything, and ever since have been tramping it somewhere in the world.
NOTE.
This story, perhaps a primitive form of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, occurs in various forms in the folk-lore of the Italianised Slavs of Venice. In the Venetian variants of the Slav stories there are several things worth noticing, for they prove conclusively that the Venetian folk-lore, or at all events the main bulk of it, comes directly from the Slav reservoir of Central and Eastern Europe, and not vice versâ. It might have been supposed that the Venetian fairy stories, like the Slav so Eastern in many of their aspects, had been brought direct from the East in the palmy days of Venetian grandeur and had thence penetrated among the Western Slavs; but this is not the case. One famous Venetian legend, that of the Merchant of Venice, is identical with, and perhaps has been taken from the episode of the Falcon and the Dove, which occurs in the Mahabharata, and has been so splendidly versified in the late Lord Lytton’s Glenaveril; but nothing resembling this story is at all general, if it occurs, amongst the folk-lore of the Western Slavs. On the other hand, many of the characteristics of annual myths have disappeared from the stories in the milder climate of Venice. In the Three Sisters and the Twelve Brothers, the frozen lords and their retainers take the form of marble statues, who are resuscitated by a vial of elixir found in the head of the enchanter; in the Dead Man, winter is simply represented by a dead man who comes to life after being watched by the heroine a year, three months, and & week—exactly the period, it will be observed, we have deduced from internal evidence as the period of the story, Three Golden Hairs of Father Know-All. But the most conclusive evidence is perhaps to be found in the punishment of the witches, step-mothers, and mothers-in-law of the Venetian Slav and the Central European Slav stories respectively. In the latter the invariable punishment is to be torn to pieces by four wild horses, perhaps representing the four points of the compass. In the former it is as invariably to be burnt alive on a barrel of tar. Now if the stories had been transplanted from Venice to the pine forests of Slavonia, Hungary, and Bohemia, there is no reason why this penalty should not have figured in the stories of Central Europe, the genial methods of Christian love having naturalised this horrible form of it all over Christendom in the Middle Ages; but there is an overwhelming reason why, transplanted to Venice, the Central European Slav stories should lose their horse element, namely that, from the nature of the case, there is not a single horse, carriage, cart, or pony to be found from one end of the city of Venice to the other. To anyone conversant with the stories in their original dialects, definite proofs of this kind are superfluous, the fact emerges in a thousand minute details of fact and manner, but to the general reader a general proof may be not unwelcome. Though not strictly relevant to the present story, another remarkable difference between the Central European and the Venetian Slav folk-lore is worth pointing out. In the former it is invariably the hero who undergoes hardships in search of the heroine, but in the Venetian variants it is quite as often the heroine who goes in search of and rescues the hero—an extraordinary fact when one considers the purely passive rôle conceded to the weaker sex by Italian social usage and custom. The only other part of Italy where the women play an active part in social life is amongst the riveral population of East Liguria, where it has earned for them and their region amongst other Italians the cynical saying that Liguria is a region where the mountains are without woods, the seas without fish, and the women without shame. Several facts of folk-lore, and more of language and place-names, seem to point to some close connection in early times between the peoples of the northwest mountain district of the Venetian province and those of isolated Liguria.
It is worth noting, finally, that in this story the enchanted maiden is invariably styled not “princess,” but queen, and this is the case generally in the Venetian stories in which a king’s daughter is the heroine. She is spoken of as a queen and not as a princess.