Bushy Bride - Part Seven

The third night, the king went to the kitchen again. This time, the king set two men to hold him and jerk him awake when he fell asleep.

The king also sent two of his men to watch Bushy Bride.

But as the lovely maiden was about to come to the palace, the Bushy Bride began to sing.

The king fell asleep and his head drooped to the side.

The girl came and brushed her hair.

This time, she sent her dog out to see if it had become day. The dog came back twice. However, the king was fast asleep.

The two men with the king tried their best to wake him up. When nothing worked, the two men forced a knife in the king’s grasp.

The knife made a cut in the king’s little finger. When the king’s blood fell, the spell was broken.

The king woke up and the girl told the king all that had happened and how the Bushy Bride and her step-mother had done this.

The brother was immediately removed from the snake pit. Miraculously, none of the snakes harmed the brother.

The step-mother and the Bushy Bride were thrown into the snake pit as punishment.

After that, the king married his real bride and the marriage was spoken about in seven kingdoms.

The king and his bride lived happily ever after.

Adapted fromNorwegian Folktales

Bushy Bride - Part Six

On the night after this happened, a beautiful girl came into the kitchen of the king’s palace.

She asked the kitchen maid who slept there to give her a brush.

The kitchen maid gave her a brush and gold dropped from the women's hair. 

There was a little dog with the girl and the girl turned to the little dog. “Go out, Little Snow and see if it will soon become day.”

After asking the dog to do this three times it was dawn.

It was obvious that the girl had to leave at dawn, but before she left she spoke about the ugly Bushy Bride who slept next to the king, when she had been forced to make her bed on stone and sand and her brother slept with a cold snake.

The girl then turned to the maid. “I will come two more times but never again.”

The next morning the kitchen maid went and told the king what had happened.

The Bushy Bride crooned and sang when the king went to the kitchen. It was because of this that though the king tried his best to stay awake, he fell asleep the next night when the beautiful young girl came to the kitchen.

The young girl sang the same song about the Bushy Bride after the gold dropped from her brush and this time she turned to the kitchen maid and said that she can come only once more and then never again.

Adapted from Norwegian Folktales

Bushy Bride - Part Five

Sometime later the brother who was at the helm pointed at the palace which was in between the land in front of them. “That is the palace that you will live in."

This time too the sister did not hear what the brother had said and she asked the stepmother for guidance. The stepmother proved her cunning again. “He says that you must throw Little Snow into the sea.”

The sister’s heart was broken when she heard the words of the stepmother. She debated with herself on whether to carry out her brother's instruction because Little Snow was one of the closest things to her in her life.

But this time too the sister convinced herself that this was the right thing to do and she threw her dog into the ocean.

The brother kept piloting the ship towards the island and he could see the king come out of the palace.

“The king is coming to see you little sister.” The brother told the sister pointing at the palace again.

This time too the sister did not hear the words of the brother and the stepmother convinced the sister to throw herself into the ocean.

The sister did this too.

Finally when the ship landed on the island the king was aghast to find such an ugly girl in front of him. However the wedding preparations had already been made. 

Angrily the king sent the brother to the snake pits. 

But decided to go through with the wedding with the ugly girl because the preparations for the wedding were already made.

Adapted from Norwegian Folktales

Bushy Bride - Part Four

 

“I have not seen a more beautiful woman than this.” The king murmured inspite of himself.

Finally the brother told the king that the portrait belonged to his sister and that he had painted her. The brother also told the king that his sister was prettier than the picture.

“I will have her as my queen.” The king announced firmly. 

He commanded the brother to go back to his own place and bring his sister to the king’s palace as soon as possible.

The brother followed the orders of the king and he came back home.

When the brother arrived home his stepmother and step sister insisted that they also wanted to come and see the king. The brother found no way to avoid this and so all of them set out together to go to the king’s palace.

The girl had inherited a casket and a dog from her own mother.

The dog was called Little Snow. 

The girl put all the gold that she had in her casket.

It so happened that they had to go back to the king's palace, they had to cross a sea. So they went on a ship.

At the ship the brother was at the helm. The mother and the two sisters were in the fore-part of the vessel and they kept sailing for a long time.

Finally they saw land. 

The brother who was at the helm, pointed at the land across the sea to his sister. “Look at that white patch of land. That is where we will land.”

The sister was far off on the other side of the ship and she could not hear the words of the brother.

“What is my brother saying?” The sister asked her step mother and her step sister.

The stepmother was very cunning and she replied immediately. “Your brother said that you are to throw your casket into the sea.”

The sister did not think how ridiculous the words were and she just nodded. “If that is what my brother says I must do I will do it.” 

And after those words the sister flung her casket into the sea.

Adapted from Norwegian Folktales

Bushy Bride - Part Three

The step-mother was furious when she saw what had happened to her own daughter. But no amount of screaming or lamenting could bring her daughter’s appearance back to what it had been.

Meanwhile, the brother who had gone to work for the king, now had found good work in the King’s stables. 

The brother had a portrait of his sister and the brother kept the portrait in his own room.

Now every night, the brother prayed for the well-being of his sister in front of his sister’s portrait. 

The other stable-boys were curious about the brother’s behaviour and they peered through the key-hole of the brother’s room to see what he did.

The other stable-boys saw that the brother prayed every night before a portrait. But the other stable-boys could not see the face on the portrait clearly from the key-hole.

Finally, the stable boys told the king what the brother was doing every night.

The king was curious.

Finally one night, the king knocked on the brother’s door asking him to open the door.

However, the brother was so deep in his prayer that he heard none of it.

Finally, when the king knocked the door harder, the brother got up from his prayer and hurriedly opened the door of his room. In his hurry, the brother had not been able to hide the portrait of his sister before the king came inside the room.

The king came inside the brother’s room and the king saw the portrait and he was stunned by the beauty of the girl in the portrait.

Adapted from the Norwegian Folktales

Bushy Bride - Part Two

Once the girl had done all the tasks set out for her the three heads began to talk to each other.

All the three heads wanted to give some gifts to the girl who was so kind to them. 

The first head spoke first. “She will be the prettiest girl in the world.”

The second hand made sure that gold would drop from our hair whenever she brushes it and the third head said that gold will drop for a mouth whenever she speaks on seeing the girl come to their home looking even more beautiful than possible her stepmother and her step sister became even more angry they were even more furious when they saw that gold dropped out from her mouth when she spoke. 

The stepmother became so angry that she asked the girl to live in the pic sty. 

Though the girl could live there with her gold, the stepmother did not let her set foot inside the house.

Naturally after this incident the stepmother wanted her own daughter to have all the gifts like her step-daughter and the woman sent her own daughter to the same brook to get some water.

This time to the first head rose out of water and asked the girl to wash her 

However the woman's daughter was disgusted and she shook her head. “You should wash yourself. I will not do it.”

They two other heads also rose up from the water and asked the girl to do the same things. 

However the girl refused to do anything.

This time the three heads talked together and they punished her by making her very ugly and also that ashes would drop from her mouth when she spoke.

Adapted from Norwegian Folktales 

Bushy Bride - Part One

Once upon a time, there lived a man who had lost his wife. He had two children - a boy and a girl. The brother and sister loved each other a lot and were there for each other after they had lost their mother.

Unfortunately for the siblings, their father remarried a widow who had a daughter. Now their father’s new wife and the daughter of the new wife were both wicked.

The boy could no longer stay at home, after the man had remarried and decided to go out into the world and earn his own money.

The boy traveled and then came to the king’s palace. There, the boy worked under a coachman. The boy looked after his horses so wel that his horses were all fat and sleek and these horses shone brightly.

Meanwhile the sister was not doing so well.

The step-mother and the step-sister found fault with everything that the girl did. She did the hardest work in the house and still she found no peace.

Things went on from bad to worse for the sister. 

She once went to a brook to get some water.

At that time an ugly head rose up from the water. 

“Wash me.” The head commanded the girl.

The girl felt that this was very unpleasant work, but she decided to do as she was told and washed the ugly face.

She had done her work well, when another ugly face with wild hair came out of the water. “Brush me.” The face commanded the girl.

The hair of the second hair was messy and tangled, but the girl set about working on it.

After she was done, a third face came out of the water. “Kiss me.” The third face told the girl.

The girl felt this was the worst thing she had to do in her life, but she did this too.

Adapted from Norwegian Folktales

The Faraway Sky - Part Three

As the party went on, the sky suddenly became dark.

The sky shook from the thunder and lightning cracked through.

“You are greedy and you waste food!” The Sky thundered in a loud voice.

All the festive mood of the people evaporated and they looked fearfully at the sky.

“I will no longer provide you with food.” The Sky told the people. 

The people were shocked.

The sky moved away from the earth. The people could no longer reach out to the sky and take it.

“What will we do for food?” Some of the people on earth cried when they saw that even the tallest among them could not reach the sky.

“You will have to work for your food.” The Sky told the people. “That is the only way you will appreciate food.”

The Sky moved further and further away from the reach of people and soon was very far away from earth and its people .

Since that day, the sky has remained far away from the earth and the people on earth had to work to earn their food.

Audio Story Available in YouTube

Adapted from Nigerian Folktales

The Seven Foals - Part Five

 

“We are not foals. We are the brothers of the princess whom you are to marry if you tell the king what we eat and drink.” The foal told Cinderlad. “A Troll cast a spell over us and the only thing that can break the spell is if the king knows what we eat and drink. But we cannot tell the king that because of the spell.” The foal nodded at Cinderlad. “The spell will be broken if you kill us in the foal form.”

Cinderlad nodded.

Then he rode on one of the foals further away.

This time after riding for a long time, Cinderlad saw a bluish streak far away.

“That is a river.” The foal told Cinderlad. “We need to cross it.”

There was a bridge and they crossed it carefully and rode on for some time.

Then they came into a church tower and the seven foals turned into men and had bread and wine there. Cinderlad took some of it with him.

Then the princes turned to foals again and Cinderlad rode on one of them.

They went back the same way that they had come and this time they rode so fast that Cinderlad could not even hear the words that the old witch shrieked from the cleft of the rock.

The king asked Cinderlad what the foals ate and drank for the whole day. Cinderlad showed the bread and the wine to the king.

The king was thrilled and as promised he gave Cinderlad half of his kingdom. 

Cinderlad and the princess were to get married and on that day, Cinderlad went to the stables and killed all the seven foals, just as he had been asked to do.

The seven foals turned into princes.

The king was thrilled with Cinderlad. He gave the whole kingdom to Cinderlad because he was sure that now his sons were princes they could conquer other kingdoms and rule it.

Cinderlad married the princess and ruled the entire kingdom after the king.

Adapted from the Norwegian Folktales

The Seven Foals - Part Four

Cinderlad ended up in the king’s service.

The next morning, the Master of the Horse released the seven foals.

Cinderlad ran after the foals, but unlike his brothers he was not tired. Like his brothers he came to the cleft of the rock where the witch could be found.

“Come here and let me comb your hair, young man!” The witch told Cinderlad.

“You have to come to me.” The young man yelled as he caught the tail of the youngest foal and he crossed the witch. “I do not have the time now.”

The witch was surprised as Cinderlad ran after the foals.

When they had crossed the cleft, the foal turned to Cinderlad. “Get on my back, we have a long way to go.”

Cinderlad did as he was told and rode on.

“Do you see anything now?” The youngest foal asked Cinderlad after traveling for a long time.

Cinderlad shook his head.

The foal rode on.

Finally, the third time that the foal asked the question, Cinderlad saw something white.

“I think it is the trunk of a birch tree.”

The eldest foal broke the trunk of the birch tree and inside it Cinderlad saw a room with a sword hanging from one of the walls.

Cinderlad could not wield the sword at first, but the foals encouraged Cinderlad to keep trying and Cinderland became fairly good at wielding the sword after some time.

The foals looked very grave. “Now that you can use the sword, you have to use the sword and kill us, on the day that you get married to the princess.”

Cinderlad was shocked. 

Adapted from the Norwegian Folktales

The Seven Foals - Part Three

 

After the first son had come back home, he could not tell anything to his family. He was scared that he had been punished and did not want to talk about it.

The second son studied the first son and after seeing that the first son was back, he decided that he had to go and make a living. Though the second son could see that his elder brother was scared, he was determined that he would do better.

He asked the permission of his parents to go out into the world to make his own fortune. 

The parents refused at first. But the second son was insistent.

Finally, the parents had no choice and they let the second son by himself.

The second son walked all day and he also came to the king’s palace.

This time too the king was standing in the outside steps of the palace.

Everything happened as it had happened with the first son and soon the second son found himself a job of finding out what the seven foals ate and drank for the entire day.

Unfortunately, the second son also made the same mistake as the first son. He saw the old lady and did not keep to his job of looking after the seven foals.

He also foolishly took the bottle and the moss from the old woman and showed it to the king in the evening.

The second son was also punished and sent back to his home.

Now, the third son, Cinderlad, heard the story of what had happened to his two elder brothers. “I want to watch the seven foals myself.” Cinderlad thought out aloud to his two brothers.

But the two elder brothers mocked the youngest brother.

The youngest brother was determined and asked his parents permission to go out into the world and make his own fortune.

Adapted from the Norwegian Folktales