Fairy Tales

THE STORY OLD JOHANNA TOLD

THE WIND’S SIGHING THROUGH the old willow branches.

It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house. She knows it. She was born here in the district.

Years ago, when the King’s highway still passed by here, the tree was already big and conspicuous. It stood where it still stands, out from the tailor’s white-washed half-timbered house right near the pond, which at that time was so big that the cattle were watered there, and where in the warm summer time, the farmers’ small children ran around naked and splashed in the water. Right up under the tree a milestone of carved stone had been raised, but now it has fallen over, and brambles grow over it.

The new King’s highway was laid right beside the rich farmer’s land, and the old road became a track. The pond became a puddle, overgrown with duckweed. If a frog jumped in, the green separated, and you saw the black water. Cattails, bog beans, and yellow iris grew round about, and grow there still.

The tailor’s house became old and crooked, and the roof became a hotbed for moss and houseleeks. The pigeon coop collapsed, and the starlings built their nests there. The swallows built nest upon nest along the gable of the house and under the roof, as if this were a lucky place to live.

And once it was. Now it had become lonely and quiet. But “poor Rasmus,” as he was called, simple and weak-willed, lived there. He was born there and had played there as a child, running over meadows and jumping fences. He had splashed as a little boy in the open pond and climbed the old tree.

It lifted its big branches in magnificent beauty, as it still does, but storms had already twisted the trunk a little, and time had cracked it. Weather and wind had deposited dirt in the crack; grass and greenery were growing there, and even a little mountain ash tree had planted itself.

When the swallows came in the spring, they flew around among the trees and the roof—patching and repairing their old nests. Poor Rasmus let his nest stand or fall as it would. He neither patched nor propped it up. “What good does it do?” was his saying, as it had been his father’s.

He remained in his home. The swallows flew away, but they came back, those faithful creatures. The starlings flew away, and they returned and whistled their songs. Once Rasmus had whistled in competition with them, but now he no longer whistled or sang.

The wind sighed through the old willow, and is still sighing. It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poorhouse. She knows it. She knows a lot about old times. She’s like a historical register, full of memoirs and old memories.

When the house was a good new one, the village tailor Ivar Ølse moved in there with his wife Maren. Both of them were hard-working, honest folks. Old Johanna was a child then, the daughter of a clog maker, one of the poorest men in the district. She got many a good sandwich from Maren, who didn’t lack for food, and was on good terms with the mistress of the estate. She was always laughing and happy. She remained cheerful and used her mouth as well as her hands. She was as nimble with the needle as with her mouth and looked after her house and children. There were nearly a dozen of them, eleven to be exact—the twelfth failed to appear.

“Poor people always have a nest full of kids!” growled the squire. “If you could drown them like you do kittens and only keep one or two of the strongest, there would be less misery!”

“Good Lord!” said the tailor’s wife. “Children are a blessing from God. They’re the joy of the house. Every child is one more prayer to God. If things are tight, and there are many mouths to feed, then you work harder and find ways and honest means. The Lord doesn’t let go, if we don’t let go of him!”

The mistress of the manor agreed with her, nodded in a friendly way, and patted Maren on the cheek. She had done that many times and kissed her too, but that was when the mistress was a little child, and Maren was her nanny. They had always cared about each other, and they still did.

Every year at Christmas time winter supplies came from the manor to the tailor’s house: a barrel of flour, a pig, two geese, a quarter barrel butter, cheese, and apples. That helped the pantry! Ivar Ølse looked pleased about it too, but soon expressed his old saying, “What good does it do?”

The house was neat and clean. There were curtains in the windows and flowers too, both pinks and impatiens. Hanging in a picture frame was a sampler with the family name, and close by hung an acrostic letter in rhyme that Maren Ølse had written herself. She knew how rhymes went. She was actually quite proud of the family name “Ølse” because it was the only word in Danish that rhymed with “pølse,” sausage. “It’s always something to have what no one else has!” she said and laughed. She always retained her good humor. She never said “What good does it do?” like her husband did. Her motto was “Have faith in yourself and the Lord.” That’s what she did, and that held everything together. The children thrived and grew from the nest, traveled far afield, and did well. Rasmus was the youngest. He was such a beautiful child that one of the great portrait painters from the city had borrowed him to use as a model, with him as naked as the day he was born. That painting hung now at the King’s palace where the mistress of the manor had seen it and recognized little Rasmus, even without his clothes on.

But then came difficult times. The tailor got arthritis in both hands, and it left big knots in his hands. No doctor could help him, not even the wise woman Stine, who did some “doctoring.”

“We mustn’t get discouraged,” said Maren. “It never helps to hang your head! Now that we no longer have father’s hands to help, I must use mine more and better. Little Rasmus can also sew.”

He was already at the table, whistling and singing. He was a happy boy. But he shouldn’t sit there the whole day, his mother said. That would be a shame for a child. He should play and run around too.

The clogmaker’s Johanna was his favorite playmate. She was even poorer than Rasmus. She was not pretty, and she went barefoot. Her clothes hung in tatters because she had no one to mend them, and it didn’t occur to her to do it herself. But she was a child and as happy as a bird in the Lord’s sunshine.

Rasmus and Johanna played by the stone milepost under the big willow tree.

He had big dreams. He wanted to become a fine tailor and live in the city, where there were masters who had ten journeymen working for them. He had heard this from his father. He would be an apprentice there, and then he would become a master tailor. Later Johanna could come and visit him, and if she could cook, she would make food for all of them and have her own room.

Johanna didn’t dare believe it, but Rasmus thought it would happen.

They sat under the old tree, and the wind sighed in the branches and leaves. It was as if the wind sang and the tree told the story.

In autumn every leaf fell from the tree, and rain dripped from the naked branches.

“They’ll grow green again,” said mother Ølse.

“What good does it do?” said her husband. “New year—new struggles to survive!”

“The pantry is full,” said his wife. “Thanks to our kind mistress. I am healthy and strong. It’s sinful of us to complain.”

The gentry stayed in their manor in the country through Christmas, but the week after New Year they were going to the city, where they would spend the winter in pleasure and with entertainment. There would be dances, and they were even invited to a party at the Court.

The mistress had ordered two expensive dresses from France. They were of such a fine fabric, cut and assembly that Maren the tailor’s wife had never seen anything so splendid before. She asked the mistress if she could bring her husband up to see the dresses. A village tailor would never see anything like that, she said.

He saw them, but didn’t have a word to say until he got home, and what he said then was only what he always said, “What good does it do?” And this time his words proved to be true.

The gentry went up to town. The dances and partying had started, but in all that magnificence, the old gentleman died, and his wife never did wear the fancy clothes. She was grief-stricken and dressed from head to foot in closely woven, black mourning. There was not so much as a shred of white to be seen. All of the servants were in black, and even the best coach was draped with fine black cloth.

It was a cold frosty night. The snow was shining, and the stars twinkled. From the city the heavy hearse arrived with the body to the manor church, where it would be buried in the family vault. The farm manager and the district council official sat on horseback with torches at the gate to the churchyard. The church was alight, and the pastor stood in the open door of the church and received the body. The coffin was carried up into the chancel, and the entire congregation followed after it. The pastor spoke, and a hymn was sung. The widow was there in the church. She had been driven there in the black draped coach which was black both inside and out, and such a coach had never before been seen in the district.

People talked about the mourning pomp the entire winter. It really was a funeral for the Lord of a manor. “You can see what that man represented,” the people of the district said. “He was nobly born and he was nobly buried.”

“What good does it do?” asked the tailor. “Now he has neither life nor property. At least we have one of them.”

“Don’t talk like that!” said Maren. “He has eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.”

“Who told you that, Maren?” said the tailor. “A dead man is good fertilizer. But this man here was evidently too distinguished to be a boon to the earth. He’s to lie in a vault.”

“Don’t talk so irreverently!” said Maren. “I tell you again: He has eternal life!”

“Who told you that, Maren?” repeated the tailor.

And Maren threw her apron over little Rasmus. He mustn’t hear such talk.

She carried him out to the woodshed and cried.

“Those words you heard over there, little Rasmus, were not your father’s. It was the devil who walked through the room and took your father’s voice. Say the Lord’s Prayer. We’ll both say it!” She folded the child’s hands.

“Now I’m happy again,” she said. “Have faith in yourself and the Lord.”

The year of mourning was over. The widow bore half-mourning clothing, but only joy in her heart. It was rumored that she had a suitor and was already thinking of marriage. Maren knew a little about it, and the pastor knew a bit more.

On Palm Sunday, after the sermon, the banns were to be read for the widow and her fiance. He was a wood carver or a stone carver. They didn’t exactly know the name of his occupation because at that time Thorvaldsen¹ and his art weren’t yet household words. The new lord of the manor was not noble, but still a very imposing man. He was someone who was something that no one understood. They said that he carved pictures, was good at his work, and he was young and handsome.

“What good does it do?” said tailor Ølse.

On Palm Sunday the marriage banns were announced from the pulpit, followed by hymn singing and Communion. The tailor, his wife, and little Rasmus were in church. The parents took Communion, but Rasmus stayed in the pew. He was not yet confirmed. Lately there had been a lack of clothing in the tailor’s house. The old things they wore had been turned and turned again, sewed and patched. Now all three were wearing new clothes, but in black material as if for a funeral. They were dressed in the draping material from the funeral coach. The tailor had gotten a jacket and pants from it, Maren a high-necked dress, and Rasmus had an entire suit to grow into for Confirmation. Cloth from both the inside and outside of the coach had been used. No one needed to know what the cloth had been used for previously, but people soon found out anyway. The wise woman Stine and a couple of other wise women, who didn’t support themselves by their wisdom, said that the clothes would draw disease and death to the house. “You can’t dress in shrouding unless you’re on your way to the grave.”

The clogmaker’s Johanna cried when she heard such talk, and when it now happened that after that day the tailor became more and more ill, it seemed apparent who the victim would be.

And it became apparent.

On the first Sunday after Trinity, tailor Øse died. Now Maren had to hold on to everything alone. And she held on, with her faith in herself and the Lord.

A year later Rasmus was confirmed, and he was going to the city to be apprenticed to a master tailor. Not one with twelve journeymen, but with one. Little Rasmus could be counted as a half. He was happy and looked pleased, but Johanna cried. She cared more about him than she herself knew. The tailor’s widow remained in the old house and continued the business.

That was at the time when the new King’s highway was opened. The old one that went by the willow tree and the tailor’s became just a track. The pond grew over, and duckweed covered the puddle of water that was left. The milepost fell over. It had no reason to stay standing, but the tree stayed strong and beautiful. The wind sighed through its branches and leaves.

The swallows flew away, and the starlings flew away, but they returned in the spring; and when they returned for the fourth time, Rasmus also came home. He had finished his apprenticeship and was a handsome, if slender, fellow. Now he wanted to tie up his knapsack and travel to foreign countries. His mind was set on it. But his mother held him back. Home was best, after all! All the other children were widely dispersed. He was the youngest, and the house was to be his. He would have plenty of work if he would travel around the area. He could be a traveling tailor, sew for a few weeks at one farm and then at another. That was traveling too! And Rasmus took his mother’s advice.

So he once again slept in the home of his childhood and sat again under the old willow tree and heard it sighing.

He was good looking and could whistle like a bird and sing both new and old ballads. He was welcomed at the big farms, especially at Klaus Hansen’s, the second richest farmer in the district.

Hansen’s daughter Else looked like the most beautiful flower and was always laughing. There were even people unkind enough to say that she laughed just to show off her lovely teeth. She was mirthful and always in the mood for jokes and pranks. Everything suited her.

She fell in love with Rasmus, and he fell in love with her, but neither of them said anything about it in so many words.

Rasmus became depressed. He had more of his father’s disposition than his mother’s, and was only in a good mood when he was with Else. Then they both laughed and joked and played pranks. But even though there was plenty of opportunity, he never said a single word of his love. “What good does it do?” was his thought. “Her parents will want prosperity for her, and I don’t have that. It would be the smart thing to go away.” But he wasn’t able to leave because it was as if Else had him on a string. He was like a trained bird that sang and whistled for her pleasure at her command.

Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was a servant there on the farm, employed to do menial chores. She drove the milk wagon out in the field, where she milked the cows with the other maids. She also had to haul manure when needed. She never came up to the living room and saw little of Rasmus and Else, but she heard that the two of them were as good as engaged.

“Then Rasmus will be well-off,” she said. “I’m pleased for him.” And her eyes filled, but there was surely nothing to cry about!

It was market day, and Klaus Hansen drove to town. Rasmus went along and sat beside Else both coming and going. He was head over heels in love with her, but he didn’t say a word.

“He has to say something to me about this!” the girl thought, and she was right about that. “If he won’t speak, I’ll have to scare him into it.”

And soon there was talk around the farm that the richest farmer in the district had proposed to Else, and he had, but no one knew what she had answered. Rasmus’ head was swimming.

One evening Else placed a gold ring on her finger and asked Rasmus what it meant.

“Engagement!” he said.

“And who with, do you think?” she asked.

“With the rich farmer,” he answered.

“You hit it on the head,” she said, nodded to him and slipped away.

But he slipped away too and came back agitated to his mother’s house and packed up his knapsack. He was going away into the wide world, no matter how much his mother cried. He cut himself a walking stick from the old willow and whistled as if he were in a good mood. He was off to see the splendors of the world.

“This makes me very sad,” said his mother. “But for you it’s probably the right and best thing to get away, so I must bear it. Have faith in yourself and the Lord, and I will surely get you back again, happy and satisfied.”

He set off on the new highway and saw Johanna coming with a load of manure. She hadn’t seen him, and he didn’t want her to see him. He sat down behind the hedge along the ditch. He was hidden there, and Johanna drove past.

Into the wide world he went. No one knew where. His mother thought he would return before the year was out. He would see new things and have new things to think about, and would fall into his old groove that couldn’t be pressed out with any iron. “He has a little too much of his father’s temperament. I would rather he had mine, poor child! But he’ll surely come home. He can’t let go of me and the house.”

His mother would wait for ages. Else only waited for a month, and then she secretly visited the wise woman Stine Madsdatter, who did “doctoring,” and could tell fortunes in cards and coffee grounds and knew more than the Lord’s Prayer. And she knew where Rasmus was. She read it in the coffee grounds. He was in a foreign city, but she couldn’t make out the name of it. There were soldiers and lovely young maidens in that city, and he was deciding whether to take up a musket or one of the girls.

Else couldn’t stand hearing that. She would gladly use her savings to ransom him, but no one must know it was her.

And old Stine promised that he would come back. She knew a magic remedy, a dangerous one for the person concerned, but it was a last resort. She would set the pot to cooking for him, and then he would have to come. No matter where in the world he was, he would have to come home, home to where the pot was cooking and his sweetheart was waiting for him. It could take months for him to come, but come he must, if he was still alive.

Night and day without peace or rest he had to travel over sea and mountains, whether the weather was fair or foul, no matter how tired his feet were. He was going home. He had to go home.

The moon was in its first quarter, and that’s how it had to be for the magic to work, said old Stine. The weather was stormy, so the old willow tree creaked. Stine cut off a branch, and tied it into a knot. This was going to help pull Rasmus home to his mother’s house. Moss and house leeks were taken from the roof and placed into the pot that was put on the fire. Else had to tear a page from a hymnal, and as it happened she tore out the last one, the one with the printing errors. “It’s all the same,” said Stine and threw it into the pot.

Many things had to go into that porridge, and it had to boil and keep boiling until Rasmus came home. Old Stine’s black rooster had to lose its red comb. It went in the pot. Else’s thick golden ring went in, and Stine told her ahead of time that she’d never get it back. That Stine was so wise! Many things that we can’t even name went into the pot. It stood on the fire continuously, or on glowing embers or hot ash. Only she and Else knew about it.

A new moon came and then waned. Every time Else came and asked, “Can you see him coming?”

“I know a great deal,” said Stine, “and I see a great deal, but I can’t see how long his road is. He’s been over the first range of mountains. He’s been on the sea in bad weather. His road is long through big forests. He has blisters on his feet, and fever in his body, but he must walk.”

“No! No!” cried Else. “I’m so sorry for him!”

“He can’t be stopped now. If we do that, he’ll fall over dead on the road.”

A long time passed. The moon was shining round and huge and the wind sighed in the old tree, and in the sky there was a rainbow in the moonlight.

“That is a sign of confirmation!” said Stine. “Now Rasmus is coming.”

But still he didn’t come.

“It’s a long wait,” said Stine.

“I’m tired of this,” said Else. She came less often to Stine and didn’t bring her any new presents.

She became happier, and one fine morning everyone in the district knew that she had accepted the rich farmer.

She went over there to look at the farm and fields, the cattle and the furniture. Everything was in good shape, and there was no reason to delay the wedding.

It was celebrated for three days with a huge party. There was dancing to the music of clarinets and violins. Everyone in the district was invited. Mother Ølse was there too, and when the festivities were over, and the hosts had said good bye to the guests, and the final fanfare was blown by the trumpets, she went home with leftovers from the feast.

She had only locked the door with a latch, and it was unhooked. The door stood open, and in the room sat Rasmus. He had come home, only just arrived. But dear God, what he looked like! He was just skin and bones, his skin pale and yellow.

“Rasmus!” said his mother. “Is it you? How seedy you look! But my soul is so happy to have you back.”

And she gave him the good food she had brought home from the feast, a piece of roast, and a piece of the wedding cake.

He said that lately he had thought often of his mother, his home, and the old willow tree. It was odd how often in his dreams he had seen that tree and barefooted Johanna.

He didn’t mention Else at all. He was sick and took to his bed. But we don’t believe that the pot was at fault in this, or that it had had any power over him. Only old Stine and Else believed that, but they didn’t talk about it.

Rasmus had a fever, and his illness was contagious. No one came to the tailor’s house except Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter. She cried when she saw how miserable Rasmus was.

The doctor gave him a prescription, but he wouldn’t take the medicine. “What good does it do?” he said.

“It will make you better,” said his mother. “Have faith in yourself and the Lord. I would gladly give my life if I could see a little meat on your bones again, and hear you whistle and sing.”

And Rasmus recovered from his illness, but his mother caught it. The Lord called her and not him.

It was lonely in the house, and it became a poorer place. “He’s worn-out,” they said in the district. “Poor Rasmus.”

He had carried on a wild life in his travels, and it was that, and not the boiling black pot that had sucked the strength out of him and made him restless. His hair grew thin and grey, and he couldn’t be bothered to engage in anything. “What good does it do?” he said. He was more often at the pub than in the pew.

One autumn evening he was walking with difficulty on the muddy road from the pub to his house, through rain and wind. His mother was long gone and buried. The swallows and starlings were gone too, those faithful creatures. But Johanna, the clogmaker’s daughter, was not gone. She caught up with him on the road and walked along with him for a while.

“Pull yourself together, Rasmus!”

“What good does it do?” he said.

“That’s a bad motto you have,” she said. “Remember your mother’s words: Have faith in yourself and the Lord! You aren’t doing that, Rasmus, but you must and shall! Never say ‘What good does it do?’ because then you uproot all possible action.”

She walked with him to his door, and then she left. He didn’t go inside but headed for the old willow tree and sat down on a rock from the toppled milestone.

The wind sighed through the branches of the tree. It was like a song; it was like a story, and Rasmus answered. He spoke aloud, but no one heard except the tree and the sighing wind.

“Such a chill has come over me. It must be time to go to bed. Sleep! Sleep!”

And he went, not towards the house, but towards the pond where he staggered and fell. The rain was pouring down, and the wind was icy cold, but he didn’t notice. When the sun came up and the crows flew over the reeds in the pond, he woke up, half-dead. If he had laid his head where his feet were lying, he would never have gotten up. The green duckweed would have been his shroud.

During the day Johanna came to the tailor’s house. She helped him and got him to the hospital.

“We have known each other since childhood,” she said. “Your mother gave me both food and drink, and I can never pay her back. You’ll get your health back and really live again.”

And the Lord wanted him to live. But both his health and spirits had their ups and downs.

The swallows and starlings came and flew away and came again. Rasmus became old before his time. He sat alone in his house, which fell more and more into disrepair. He was poor, poorer than Johanna now.

“You don’t have faith,” she said, “and if we don’t have the Lord, what do we have then? You should go take Communion,” she said. “You probably haven’t done that since you were confirmed.”

“Yes, but what good does it do?” he said.

“If you say and believe that, then let it be. The Lord doesn’t want to see unwilling guests at his table. But just think about your mother and your childhood years. You were a good and pious boy. May I read a hymn for you?”

“What good does it do?” he asked.

“It always comforts me,” she answered.

“Johanna, I guess you’ve become a saint!” And he looked at her with dull, tired eyes.

And Johanna read the hymn, but not from a book. She didn’t have one. She knew the hymn by heart.

“Those were beautiful words,” he said, “but I couldn’t quite follow it. My head is so heavy.”

Rasmus became an old man, but Else, if we can mention her, wasn’t young any longer either. Rasmus never talked about her. She was a grandmother, and had a little talkative granddaughter who was playing with the other children in the village. Rasmus came and leaned on his cane and stood watching the children play. He smiled at them, and old times shone in his memory. Else’s grandchild pointed at him—“Poor Rasmus!” she yelled. The other little girls followed her example and shouted, “Poor Rasmus!” They ran shouting after the old man.

It was a grey, oppressive day and more followed, but after grey and heavy days comes a day of sunshine.

It was a beautiful Whit Sunday. The church was decorated with green birch branches. It smelled like the forest in the church, and the sun shone over the pews. The big candles on the altar were lit, and there was communion. Johanna was among the kneeling, but Rasmus was not among them. Just that morning the Lord had called him, and with God he found mercy and compassion.

Many years have passed since then. The tailor’s house is still standing there, but no one lives there now. It could collapse in the first storm in the night. The pond is overgrown with reeds and bog beans. The wind sighs in the old tree. It’s as if you heard a song. The wind is singing it, and the tree is telling the story. If you don’t understand it, ask old Johanna in the poor house.

She lives there and sings her hymn, the one she sang for Rasmus. She thinks about him and prays to the Lord for him, that faithful soul. She can tell about the times that are past, and the memories that sigh in the old tree.

NOTE

1 Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844).