Fairy Tales

MOTHER ELDERBERRY

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little boy who had a cold. He had been out and gotten wet feet. No one could understand how he had done that because the weather was quite dry. So his mother undressed him and put him to bed, and she brought in the tea urn to make him a good cup of elderberry tea because that warms you up! Just then the old amusing gentleman who lived on the top floor of the house came through the door. He lived quite alone because he had neither a wife nor children, but he was very fond of children and knew so many good fairy tales and stories that it was a delight.

“Now drink your tea,” said the mother, “and maybe you’ll get a fairy tale.”

“If I just knew a new one,” said the old man and nodded gently. “But where did the little guy get his feet wet?” he asked.

“Where indeed?” said his mother. “No one knows.”

“Are you going to tell me a story?” asked the boy.

“Well, first you have to tell me exactly how deep the gutter is in that little street where you go to school. I must know that.”

“Exactly to the middle of my boots,” said the boy, “but that’s when I walk in the deepest hole.”

“See, that’s where the wet feet came from,” said the old man. “Now I should really tell a fairy tale, but I don’t know any new ones.”

“You can make one up,” said the little boy. “Mother says that everything you look at can become a fairy tale, and that you can get a story from everything you touch.”

“But those fairy tales and stories are no good! No, the real ones come by themselves. They knock at my forehead and say, ‘Here I am!’”

“Won’t one knock soon?” asked the little boy, and his mother laughed as she put the tea in the pot and poured boiling water over it.

“A story! a story!”

“Well, if one would just come by itself, but they are so uppity that they only come when they want to—stop!” he said suddenly. “There it is! Look now, there’s one in the teapot.”

The little boy looked at the teapot. The lid raised itself higher and higher, and elderberry blooms came out so fresh and white. They shot out big, long branches, even out of the spout. They spread to all sides and became bigger and bigger. It was the most beautiful elderberry bush—a whole tree. It protruded onto the bed and shoved the curtains to the side. Oh, how it flowered and smelled! And in the middle of the tree sat a friendly old woman wearing an odd dress. It was quite green like the leaves of the elderberry tree and covered with white elderberry blossoms. You couldn’t tell right away whether it was cloth or real greenery and flowers.

“What’s that woman’s name?” asked the little boy.

“Well, the Romans and Greeks called her a dryad,”¹ said the old man, “but we don’t understand that. Over in Nyboder² they have a better name for her. They call her Mother Elderberry. Now keep your eye on her and on the beautiful elderberry tree while you listen:

“A tree just like this one stands blooming over there in Nyboder in the corner of a poor little garden. One afternoon two old people sat under that tree in the beautiful sunshine. They were a very old seaman and his very old wife. They were greatgrandparents, and they were soon going to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary, but they couldn’t quite remember the date. Mother Elderberry sat in the tree and looked self-satisfied, like she does here. ‘I certainly know when your anniversary is,’ she said, but they didn’t hear her. They were talking about the old days.

“‘Can you remember the time when we were small children?’ said the old seaman, ‘And we ran around in this same garden where we’re now sitting. We stuck sticks in the ground to make a garden.’

“‘Yes,’ said the old woman. ‘I remember it well. And we watered the sticks, and one of them was an elderberry branch which took root and shot out shoots. Now it’s the big tree we’re sitting under as old people.’

“‘Yes indeed,’ he said, ‘And over there in the corner was a water tub where my little boat sailed. I had carved it myself, and how it sailed! But soon I had sailing of a different kind!’

“‘But first we went to school and learned a few things,’ she said, ‘and then we were confirmed. We both cried, but in the afternoon we walked hand in hand up to the top of the Round Tower and looked out over Copenhagen and the water.³ Then we went to Fredericksberg where the king and queen were sailing on the canals in their splendid boat.’

“‘But my sailing for many years was of a different kind. Far away on big trips!’

“‘And I often cried for you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were dead and gone and lying down there in the deep waters. Many a night I got up to see if the weather vane had shown a wind change. And it did turn, but you didn’t come! I remember so clearly how the rain was pouring down one day when the garbage man came where I was working. I came down with the garbage pail and was standing by the door. What terrible weather! And as I stood there, the mailman was by my side and gave me a letter. It was from you! And how it had been around! I tore right into it and read—laughed and cried. I was so happy! You wrote that you were in the warm countries where the coffee beans grow. What a wonderful land that must be! You described so much, and I saw it all, while the rain was pouring down and I was standing with the garbage pail. Just then someone put his arm around my waist—’

“‘And you gave him such a box on the ears that his head spun around!’

“‘I didn’t know it was you! You came home as fast as your letter, and you were so handsome—as you still are, and you had a long yellow silk handkerchief in your pocket, and you were wearing a shiny hat. You were dressed up so fine. But dear God, what weather there was, and how the street looked!’

“‘Then we got married.’ he said, ‘Do you remember? And we had our first little boy, and then Marie, and Niels, and Peter, and Hans Christian.’

“‘And they all grew up to be decent people that everyone likes.’

“‘And their children have children!’ said the old sailor, ‘And those great grand-children have some spirit in them!—But it seems to me it was this time of year that we got married.’

‘“Yes, today is your Golden Anniversary,’ said Mother Elderberry and stuck her head right down between the two old people. They thought it was their neighbor who had popped in. They looked at each other and held hands. A little later their children and grandchildren came. They knew very well that it was the Golden Anniversary day. They had, in fact, been around with congratulations in the morning, but the old couple had forgotten that, although they remembered very well everything that had happened many years before. The elderberry tree gave off such a lovely fragrance and the sun, that was about to set, shone right into the old ones’ faces. They both looked so red-cheeked, and the smallest of the grandchildren danced around them and yelled happily that tonight there would be a feast—they were going to have roasted potatoes! And Mother Elderberry sat in her tree nodding and cheering ‘hurray’ along with everyone else.”

“But that wasn’t a fairy tale,” said the little boy who had listened to it.

“Well, that’s what you think, but let’s ask Mother Elderberry,” said the story-teller.

“That wasn’t a fairy tale,” said Mother Elderberry, “but here it comes! The most wonderful fairy tales grow right out of reality, otherwise my lovely elderberry tree couldn’t have sprouted from the teapot!” And then she took the little boy out of the bed, held him by her breast, and the elderberry branches, full of flowers, closed around them. They sat as if in a completely enclosed garden pavilion, and it flew away with them through the air. Oh, it was marvelous! Mother Elderberry had at once become a beautiful young girl, but her dress was still the same green, white-flowered one that Mother Elderberry had worn. On her breast was a real elderberry flower, and on her curly yellow hair was a wreath of elderberry blossoms. Her eyes were so big and so blue. Oh, how beautiful she was! She and the boy kissed, and then they were the same age and felt the same.

They walked hand in hand out of the arbor of leaves and into the lovely garden of the boy’s home. His father’s walking cane was tethered to a stick on the lawn. There was life in that cane for the little ones. As soon as they put a leg over it, the shiny button changed to a magnificent neighing head with a long black flowing mane, and four slender, strong legs pushed out. The animal was strong and lively. They rushed around the lawn at a gallop. Giddy-up! “Now we’ll ride for many miles,” said the boy, “we’ll ride to the big manor house where we were last year,” and they rode and rode around on the grass. The little girl, whom we know was no one other than Mother Elderberry, called out, “Now we’re in the country. Do you see the farmer’s house? There’s a big baking oven—it was a big lump like an egg in the wall out towards the road. The elderberry tree is holding its branches out above it, and the rooster is scratching about in front of the hens. See, how he’s swaggering! Now we’re at the church! It stands high on a hill between the big oak trees. One of them is partly dead. Now we’re at the smithy’s, where the fire is burning, and half-naked men are hammering so sparks are flying. Away! Away to the magnificent manor house!” Everything the little girl mentioned went flying by. She was sitting behind him on the cane. The boy saw it all, but still they were just riding on the lawn. Then they played in the side yard and scratched out a little garden in the soil. She took the elderberry flower from her hair and planted it, and it grew just as it had for the old people in Nyboder when they were little, like the story we heard earlier. They walked hand in hand like the old couple had done as children, but they didn’t go up to the top of the Round Tower or out to Fredericksberg. No, the little girl put her arm around the boy’s waist, and they flew around all over Denmark. Spring turned to summer, then autumn, followed by winter. A thousand pictures were mirrored in the little boy’s eyes and heart, and the entire time the little girl sang for him, “you’ll never forget this,” and the whole time the sweet and lovely scent of the elderberry blossoms was with them. He noticed the roses and the fresh beech trees, but the elderberries’ perfume was even more wonderful because the blossoms were fastened by the little girl’s heart, and his head often rested there during the flight.

“How lovely it is here in the spring!” said the young girl, and they stood in the newly green sprouted beech woods where the green sweet woodruff wafted under their feet, and the pale pink anemones looked so lovely in the open air. “Oh, if it could always be spring in the fragrant Danish beech forests!”

“How lovely it is here in the summer!” she said, and they sped past old manor houses from the age of chivalry where the red walls and notched gables were reflected in the canals where the swans were swimming and looking up at the old cool avenues of trees. In the fields the grain was billowing as if it were a sea. There were red and yellow flowers in the ditches, and the fences were covered with wild hops and flowering bindweed. And in the evening the moon rose round and huge, and the scent of cut hay in the meadows filled the air. “This will never be forgotten!”

“How lovely it is here in the fall!” said the little girl, and the sky seemed doubly high and blue. The forest had the most lovely colors of red, yellow, and green. The hunting hounds bounded away, and big flocks of screeching wild birds flew over the burial mound where blackberry vines hung on the old stones. The sea was dark blue with white sails, and old women, girls, and children sat on the threshing floor picking hops into a big vat. The young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales about gnomes and trolls. It couldn’t get better than this!

“How lovely it is here in the winter!” said the little girl. And all the trees were heavy with frost. They looked like white coral. The snow crunched under your feet as if you were always wearing new boots, and from the sky fell one falling star after another. The Christmas tree was lit in the living room, and there were presents and good cheer. In the country the fiddle was played in the farmer’s living room. Little apple cakes were everywhere, and even the poorest child said, “it really is lovely in winter!”

It was lovely! And the little girl showed the boy everything, and the smell of elderberry flowers was always with them. The red flag with the white cross, under which the old sailor in Nyboder had sailed, waved everywhere. And the boy became a young man and was going out into the wide world, away to the warm countries where coffee beans grow. At parting the little girl took an elderberry flower from her bosom and gave it to him to keep. It was placed in his hymnal, and in foreign lands, whenever he opened the book, it always opened to the place where the keepsake flower was lying. The more he looked at it, the fresher it became, and it was as if he smelled the fragrance of the Danish forests, and he saw clearly the little girl with her clear blue eyes peer out from between the petals. And she whispered, “how lovely it is here in spring, in summer, in fall and in winter!” and hundreds of pictures passed through his mind.

Many years passed, and then he was an old man and sat with his old wife under a flowering tree. They were holding hands, like great-grandfather and great-grandmother in Nyboder did, and they talked like they had about the old days and about their Golden Anniversary. The little girl with the blue eyes and the elderberry flowers in her hair sat up in the tree, nodded at them both and said, “today is your Golden Anniversary,” and then she took two flowers from her wreath and kissed them. First they shone like silver, then like gold, and when she placed them on the old folks’ heads, each flower became a golden crown. There they sat like a king and a queen under the fragrant tree that looked absolutely just like an elderberry tree. And he told his old wife the story about Mother Elderberry as it had been told to him when he was a little boy. They both thought there was much in it that reminded them of their own story, and those were the parts they liked best.

“That’s the way it is!” said the little girl in the tree. “Some call me Mother Elderberry, others call me a dryad, but my real name is Memory. I’m the one who sits in the tree that grows and grows. I can remember, and I can tell stories! Let me see if you still have your flower.”

And the old man opened his hymnal. The elderberry flower was lying there as fresh as if it were just placed there, and Memory nodded, and the two old people with the gold crowns sat in the rosy evening sunshine. They closed their eyes—and—and then the fairy tale was over!

The little boy lay in his bed. He didn’t know if he had been dreaming, or if he had heard a story. The teapot stood on the table, but there was no elderberry tree growing from it, and the old man who had told the story was just going out the door, and that’s what he did.

“How beautiful it was,” said the little boy. “Mother, I’ve been in the warm countries!”

“That I can well believe,” said his mother. “When you drink two brimming cups of elderberry tea you surely do come to warm countries!” And she tucked him in so he wouldn’t get cold. “You must have been sleeping while we sat and argued about whether it was a story or a real fairy tale.”

“And where is Mother Elderberry?” asked the boy.

“She’s in the teapot,” his mother said, “and there she can stay!”

NOTES

1 In Greek and Roman mythology, dryads are wood nymphs that live in trees.

2 Section of Copenhagen founded by Christian IV as a neighborhood for seamen; it is characterized by small gardens with elderberry trees.

3 It was a custom for confirmands to climb to the top of the Round Tower the day after their confirmation.