Last week I promised another tale from Frances Jenkins Olcott, in this case from her book, The Wonder Garden; Nature Myths and Tales from All the World Over... That subtitle is condensed, but it goes on to say it's "For Storytelling and Reading Aloud and for the Children's Own Reading." Last week I once again gave a bit of Olcott's background. Her desire to keep children reading and intent for storytelling was very much a part of her success. I went to https://www.amortization.org and learned the half million dollars earned in her lifetime today would be over five million dollars! Clearly her work was well-loved. It took a bit of prowling, but discovered she wrote today's story for The Churchman. It's a very unusual Easter tale. Personally I love the way it incorporates the Easter greeting of "Christ is risen!" and it's response of "He is risen indeed!"
THE BEAUTY OF THE LILY
Easter Tale
ONCE upon a time, in a far-distant
land, there dwelt a peasant named Ivan, and with him lived his little
nephew Vasily.
Ivan was gloomy and unkempt, and his
restless eyes looked out from his matted hair and beard. As for the
little Vasily, he was a manly child; but though his uncle was kind
enough to him in his way, he neither washed him, nor combed his hair,
nor taught him anything.
The hut they lived in was very
miserable. Its walls were full of holes, the furniture of its one
room was broken down and dusty, and its floor unswept. The little
garden was filled with stones and weeds. The neighbours passing by in
the daytime turned aside their heads. But they never passed at night,
for fear of Ivan.
Now it happened one Easter morning that
Ivan, feeling restless, rose early and went and stood before the door
of the hut. The trees were budding, the air was full of bird-songs,
the dew lay glittering on the grass, and a near-by brook ran leaping
and gurgling along. The rays of the rising Sun shone slanting from
the tops of the distant hills, and seemed to touch the hut.
And as Ivan looked, he saw a young man
coming swiftly and lightly from the hills,
and he bore on his arm a sheaf of pure white Lilies. The stranger
drew near, and stopped before the hut.
"Christ is risen!" he said in
flute-like tones.
"He is risen indeed!"
muttered Ivan through his beard.
Then the young man took a Lily from his
sheaf and gave it to Ivan, saying: —
"Keep it white !”: And, smiling,
he passed on.
Wonderingly Ivan gazed at the flower in
his hand. Its gold-green stem seemed to support a pure white crown, —
or was it a translucent cup filled with light! And as the man looked
into the flower's gold-fringed heart, awe stole into his soul.
Then he turned and entered the hut,
saying to himself, "I will put it in water."
But when he went to lay the Lily on the
window-sill, so that he might search for a vessel to set it in, he
dared not put it down, for the sill was covered with thick dust.
He turned to the table, but its top was
soiled with crumbs of mouldy bread and cheese mingled with dirt. He
looked about the room, and not one spot could he see where he might
lay the Lily without sullying its pure loveliness.
He called the little Vasily, and bade
him stand and hold the flower. He then searched for something to put
it in. He found an empty bottle, which he carried to the brook and
washed and filled with sparkling water. This he placed upon the
table, and in it set the Lily.
Then as he looked at the begrimed hands
of little Vasily he thought to himself, "When I leave the room
he may touch the flower and soil it." So he took the child and
washed him, and combed his yellow hair; and the little one seemed to
bloom like the Lily itself. And Ivan gazed on him in amazement,
murmuring, “I never saw it thus before!'
From that hour a change came over Ivan.
He cared tenderly for the little Vasily. He washed himself and combed
his own hair. He cleaned the hut and mended its walls and furniture.
He carried away the weeds and stones from the garden. He sowed
flowers and planted vegetables. And the neighbours passing by no
longer turned their heads aside, but stopping talked with Ivan, and
sometimes gave the little Vasily presents of clothes and toys.
As for the Lily, seven days it
blossomed in freshness and beauty, and gave forth a delicate
fragrance; but on the eighth day, when Ivan and Vasily woke, it was
gone. And though they sought it in hut and garden, they did not find
it.
So Ivan and the little Vasily worked
from day to day among their flowers and vegetables, and talked to
their neighbours, and were happy. When the long winter nights came,
Ivan read aloud about the Lilies of the Field,
that toil not, neither do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was
not arrayed like them. He read of that Beloved that feedeth among the
Lilies, and of the Rose of Sharon and the Lily -of -the- Valley.
. . . . . .
So Easter came again. And early, very
early in the morning, Ivan and the little Vasily arose and dressed,
and went and stood before the hut. And when the splendour of the
coming day shone above the distant hills, lo! the young man came
swiftly and lightly, and in his arms he bore crimson Roses.
He drew near, and, stopping before the
hut, said sweetly: —
"Christ is risen!"
"He is risen, indeed !': responded
Ivan and Vasily joyously.
"How beautiful is thy Lily!'1'
said the young man.
"Alas!'' answered Ivan, "it
is vanished away, and we know not whither."
"Its beauty lives in thy heart,"
said the young man. "It can never die!"
And he took from his arm a crimson Rose
and gave it to Vasily, saying : —
"Keep it fresh!"
But he smiled tenderly at Ivan, and
passed on.
*****************************
This
is part of a series of postings of stories under the category,
"Keeping the Public in Public Domain." The idea
behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the
authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel
strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the
20th century. My
own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public
Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy
discovering new stories.
At
the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates
projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an
audience. Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing
of Public Domain stories will not occur that week. This is a return to
my regular posting of a research project here. (Don't worry, this
isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future
storytelling to an audience.) Response has convinced me that "Keeping
the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other
postings as often as I can manage it.
Other
Public Domain story resources I recommend-
There
are many online resources for Public Domain stories, maybe none for
folklore is as ambitious as fellow storyteller, Yoel Perez's
database, Yashpeh,
the International Folktales Collection. I have long
recommended it and continue to do so. He has loaded
Stith Thompson's Motif Index into his server as a database so
you can search the whole 6 volumes for whatever word or expression
you like by pressing one key. http://folkmasa.org/motiv/motif.htm
You may have noticed I'm no
longer certain Dr. Perez has the largest database, although his
offering the Motif Index certainly qualifies for those of us seeking
specific types of stories. There's another site, FairyTalez
claiming to be the largest, with "over 2000 fairy tales,
folktales, and fables" and they are "fully optimized for
phones, tablets, and PCs", free and presented without ads.
Between those two sites, there
is much for story-lovers, but as they say in infomercials, "Wait,
there's more!"
The
email list for storytellers, Storytell,
discussed Online Story Sources and came up with these additional
suggestions:
-
Story-Lovers - http://www.story-lovers.com/ is now only accessible
through the Wayback Machine, described below, but the late Jackie Baldwin's
wonderful site lives on there, fully searchable manually (the Google
search doesn't work), at https://archive.org/ . It's not easy, but go to Story-lovers.com snapshot for December 22 2016 and you can click on SOS: Searching Out Stories to scroll down through the many story topics and click on the story topic that interests you.
- Zalka Csenge Virag - http://multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com
doesn't give the actual stories, but her recommendations, working her
way through each country on a continent, give excellent ideas for
finding new books and stories to love and tell.
You're
going to find many of the links on these sites have gone down, BUT
go to the Internet Archive
Wayback Machine to find some of these old links. Tim's
site, for example, is so huge probably updating it would be a
full-time job. In the case of Story-Lovers, it's great that
Jackie Baldwin set it up to stay online as long as it did after she
could no longer maintain it. Possibly searches maintained it.
Unfortunately Storytell list member, Papa Joe is on both Tim
Sheppard's site and Story-Lovers, but he no longer maintains his old
Papa Joe's Traveling Storytelling Show website and his Library
(something you want to see!) is now only on the Wayback Machine. It
took some patience working back through claims of snapshots but finally
in December of 2006 it appears!
Somebody
as of this writing whose stories can still be found by his website
is the late Chuck Larkin - http://chucklarkin.com/stories.html.
I prefer to list these sites by their complete address so they can
be found by the Wayback Machine, a.k.a. Archive.org, when that
becomes the only way to find them.
You
can see why I recommend these to you.
Have fun
discovering even more stories
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