Christmas Tales Of Flanders - Andre de Ridder

INTRODUCTION the christmas tales of flanders presented in this volume are popular fables and legends current in flanders and brabant which have for centuries been told to children throughout belgium their origin is doubtful as all literature handed down by oral tradition must be a good many of these stories are found in a different guise in the legends of other nations sepi is closely akin to the rhyme of the old man who lived in the wood and the prototypes of others will be readily recognized but all of them have peculiar flemish traits they have the picturesqueness characteristic of the country which produce such a glorious school of painting and the freshness of their presentation is a high tribute to the creative imagination of the flanders folk sometimes they are primitive to a degree and in such tales as simple john and the boy who always said the wrong thing the story-teller attributes the most elementary and artless mentality to his heroes so as to explain the extravagant adventures he relates these tales occupy for the flemish the place nursery rhymes take in england and as the nursery rhymes have been collected in england at various times and in different forms and guises so the flemish folk tales have also been collected in various ways and in various parts of flanders messrs de mont and de kock produced a book entitled zoe vertellen de flemingen from which collection a good many of these stories are taken others came from the brabantish sagan book which j teichlinck wrote for the flemish academy they were translated by m c o morris and are here published for the first time in english introduction part i of the christmas tales of flanders compiled by andre de ridder and translated by m c o morris this libervox according is in the public domain part i the rich woman and the poor woman on a cold winter night thousands of years ago st peter took one of his occasional walks on earth towards nightfall he knocked at a rich peasant's door the farmer's wife was busy making pancakes in her rosy kitchen her little chubby baby was watching her as she poured the batter into the frying-pan she spied the stranger through the window and said to herself this fellow is attracted by the good smell but i do not waste my pancakes on strangers she sent the beggar away wishing him god-speed he went on his way and presently arrived at a mud cabin where a poor widow lived with her six children on hearing the old man begging her to have pity on him for god's sake she opened the door and bade him stay the night in her little hut night is falling she said it is bitterly cold stay with us and you shall have my bedroom i will doze in a chair near the fire the stranger gratefully accepted her offer and after having supped retired to bed before leaving the next day he thanked the good woman and said to her listen little mother as you welcomed me in your house i give you a wish ask anything you like and you shall have it the good woman thought at once of an unfinished roll of cloth which her dead husband was weaving a little before his death without further hesitation she answered my good man as you are so kind and so powerful grant that the work which i began the first thing in the morning may continue all day it shall be as you wish said the stranger as he bade her good-bye her six children accompanied him to the outskirts of the village where they bade him god speed very early the next day the busy little woman began to measure the piece of cloth which was about twelve yards long marvellous to relate she measured and measured and she found that when she had measured a certain length of cloth the pattern texture and designs changed she then cut it off carefully and rolled it up and thus as the day advanced she had rolls of cloth of every imaginable shade design and material they filled the whole cabin to the rafters there was scarcely room to move her children were huddled together in one spot staring open-mouthed as she went on measuring the neighbors came to say good-day but the cloth blocked up the door it was with the greatest difficulty that they succeeded in squeezing their heads through the crack others on tiptoe were craning their necks to gaze in amazement through the window which was half hidden in cloth by midnight she had sufficient cloth to supply ten villages the wonderful news soon spread abroad it was the wonder of the hour when it reached the ears of the mean rich peasant woman who had turned the old man so roughly from her door she was disgusted with herself and did not sleep a wink the following night she thought out innumerable plans to repair her mistake she could not come to a decision and she had to patiently await the return of the stranger Probably he will return next year, she said.