You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘sons’ tag.
Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,
Where I had seven sons until to-day—
A little hill of hay your spur has scattered….
This is not Paris. You have lost the way.
You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,
Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,
Who shaking and breaking barriers not a little,
Find never more the death-door of Sedan.
Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,
Paying you a penny for each son you slay?
Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment
For what you have lost. And how shall I repay?
What is the price of that red spark that caught me
From a kind farm that never had a name?
What is the price of that dead man they brought me?
For other dead men do not look the same.
How should I pay for one poor graven steeple
Whereon you shattered what you shall not know?
How should I pay you, miserable people,
How should I pay you everything you owe?
Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?
Though I forgave, would any man forget?
While all the great green land has trampled on her
The treason and terror of the night we met.
Not any more in vengeance or in pardon,
One old wife bargains for a bean that’s hers.
You have no word to break: no heart to harden.
Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.
G. K. Chesterton 1917
From POEMS of the GREAT WAR raising funds for the Royal British Legion (the equivalent of the Returned Servicemen’s Association or Veterans Association)
http://abelapublishing.com/poems-of-the-great-war–1914-to-1918_p28280158.htm
Once Upon A Time the two Bead girls were sent by their mother to marry Cocoon-Man’s son. He was wrapped up and put away. He had never been outside, and had never eaten anything.
The Bead sisters came from a place far off in the ocean. They came on the water, brought by the wind, and they always sang the song of the wind. It took just one day for them to reach Cocoon-Man’s house. His daughters liked the two girls and gave them food. All the men were out hunting, and the daughters sent the two girls into the sweathouse and told them to sit by Pine-Marten’s bed. They could not get Cocoon-Man’s son, the one their mother had sent them for. Cocoon-Man would not listen to it, so they took Pine-Marten, and stayed three days with him. At the end of that time they wanted to go home. Pine-Marten asked all his people for blankets and shells to give his wives to carry home. They started. Cocoon-Man made a trail to the west to walk on. He sent his words out west, put his hand out west and east to make a trail, and immediately it was open. Cocoon-Man sat on the ground in the center,
and made a rainbow reaching from the place where he sat to the home of the girls.
The company started. Weasel went with Pine-Marten up to the top of the rainbow, and thewomen went under it. While they were travelling, Weasel made a flute out of a reed, and made sweet music that sounded through the world and was heard by every living being.
The two sisters walked on the lower rainbow, the reflection, and reached home safely. Next year Pine-Marten had children. He made a boy of beadshells, and from a round shell which he threw into his wife a girl was born. In the spring of the second year, he came back on the same trail that Cocoon-Man had made. His children grew very fast. Then he left his boy at home, and sent his girl to her grandmother in the ocean. The boy stayed with Cocoon-Man. The third year he had two sons and two daughters.
Now Pine-Marten’s wife took one son and one daughter to her mother in the ocean; and Pine-Marten kept one son and one daughter, and they lived with him at Fall River.
An excerpt from Achomawi and Atsugewi Myths and Tales
URLs
Paperback http://abelapublishing.com/achomawi-and-atsugewi-myths-and-tales_p23332600.htm
eBook http://abelapublishing.com/achomawi-and-atsugewi-myths-and-tales-ebook_p24837956.htm only US$0.50 formats PDF end ePub
HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!
Listen to the laughing Wizard with the pointed eyes!
IN OLD times there lived a King. He had only one daughter. He would not give her in marriage except to the man who could perform three great tasks even if he were most miserable of beggars. Many tried, but none succeeded.
Now not far away dwelt a poor man who had three sons. The eldest and wisest said:
“I am going to win the Princess.”
On the way thither he met an old Beggar, and he never even said good morning to him.
The Beggar said, “Whither do you speed, my Son?”
“What business is that of yours?” he growled in passing.
The old one answered, “Your going will be in vain.”
And so it was. The eldest and wisest returned home without having accomplished anything.
The second and wise son, now said he was going, and surely he would win the Princess. But it happened to him, as it had happened to the first.
Then the third and stupid son spoke:
“Since the two elder have been, I am going. Perhaps I shall succeed.”
“What can you do, when the wisest could not succeed?”
But he did not ask for anything, and set out for the King. He met the old Beggar, bowed to him, took off his cap, and wished him a good morning.
The old man thanked him, and asked where he was going. The lad showed him his whole heart, he hid nothing. The Beggar then gave him a whistle, and said:
“Today you will have to tend a hundred hares. Just whistle to them, and they will obey you.”
It happened as he said.
When the lad came to the King, the lad’s first word was:
“Where is your daughter? I want to see her, whether she pleases me.
When he had looked at her he said, “She pleases me. For her sake I will perform the three tasks.”
The King set him the task for that day, of tending a hundred hares. When they carried them to the field and turned them loose, the hares ran away in every direction.
At first the stupid son let them do as they wished; but when they were all out of sight, he wanted to see if they would obey him. He blew on his whistle, and the hares were there like lightning. He counted them, and missed none.
“Good! Run away again and feed. When I need you, I will whistle,” said he to the hundred.
I do not know who saw all this and reported it to the King. But he was in a great rage. He sent his wife to the lad that she might ask and beg for a hare. She dressed herself like an old woman, came slyly to the lad, and asked if he would give her just one hare, she needed it so much!
He answered, “I can neither sell it nor give it. The hares are not mine.”
She kept on begging and begging, “You could easily give me just one.”
He marked who she was, and finally said he would give her a hare, if she would give him a hearty kiss. She said no! and no! but when she saw it was the only way out she gave him a kiss.
She stuffed the hare into a covered basket, and went away happy, thinking she had deceived the stupid lad. He waited till she was near home, drew out his whistle, and whistled hard. Bang! the hare sprang against the cover and, heigh ho! leaped back to his master. The Queen stood still with her mouth open. The hare was gone!
That evening the stupid lad chased his hundred hares home, and handed them over to the King.
The next morning the old Beggar came again. He gave the lad a horn to call together horses. That day the King set him the task of herding a hundred horses, and of driving them all home at evening.
When they let the horses loose in the field, they ran away in every direction. But in a little while the lad sounded his horn, and they all came galloping up and stood around him.
Then the King told his wife to go and beg for a horse. But she would not go. She said she was afraid of horses, that he should go. The King disguised himself so that no one should know him, and rode to the field where the lad was, and asked him if he had a horse to sell.
“I have none, for sale,” said he.
Well, could it be borrowed?
No indeed!
Well, could it be given away?
“O if need be, I could give one, but only if you will kiss your donkey.”
The King twisted his mouth this way and that. But it was of no use! He had to kiss the donkey, or he would get no horse.
When he had done this, he placed himself joyfully on the horse, rode home, and shut the animal in the stable, thinking:
“I have certainly deceived that lad! There will be one of his horses missing tonight!”
The youngest son, not knowing that the King had already reached home, sounded his horn soon after the horse was in the stable. When the horse heard the horn, he sprang against the door. The door opened crick, crack! and the King hearing the noise ran to the window. All he could see was the whisk of a tail.
In the evening the lad chased the horses home, and drove them together into the stable.
On the third day, the King ordered him to tell lies into an empty sack till he, the king, called out:
“Bind it!”
The lad stuck his mouth into the sack, lied and fibbed as hard as he could, but the sack stayed empty. Then it came into his head to fill the sack with truth!
He began to relate how he had tended hares, and how the Queen had come to buy, but that he had given her nothing till she kissed him!
Ha! ha! ha! The King roared with laughter, and enjoyed the shame of his wife.
Now the lad began to tell further, that while he was herding the horses the King himself had come to get a horse, but that he, the lad, had given him nothing till he–the donkey–
“Bind the sack, quick!” cried out the King before the lad could finish. “It is full!”
And so the lad won the Princess, as easily as rolling off a log.
————–
From “Wonder Tales from Baltic Wizards”
ISBN: 978-1-907256-58-5
URL http://abelapublishing.com/wonder-tales-from-baltic-wizards_p23332702.htm
Wonder Tales from Baltic Wizards – Cover
Folklore and Fairytales - Free Stories for Children 