Steel - The Close Alliance - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

In the past I've listed the Lunar New Year as Chinese New Year as that is more familiar here in the U.S.  Actually many Asian countries celebrate at the same time.  In addition the spread of Covid19 may be linked to the celebration of it in China.  Let's not avoid this time of celebration, however you may wish to do it.  The Year of the Tiger starts on February 1st of this year.  That link lets you explore more about it, but there are so many wonderful stories about tigers, especially from India, that I want to start right away on one I found delightful.

The illustrator of this story, J. Lockwood Kipling, from Flora Annie Steel's Tales of the Punjab is mentioned in my first of two earlier posts by Steel as the father of Rudyard Kipling.  At the time I just used the label of Kipling to let me also use it for Rudyard.  Have yet to post anything by Rudyard, although I love his Just So Stories!  If you've never found a copy, preferably with good illustrations, go to your library or bookstore IMMEDIATELY!  In the meantime I've given J. Lockwood's Wikipedia link as he deserves your attention, too.  

My copy is a newer edition of Tales of the Punjab, but look at the glorious style of the original edition's binding.  No dust cover can compare.

I've also commented on the problem of copying many of my books and how I often use a Gutenberg edition.  Today's copy came from there, but it must have been from a time when illustrations were omitted and merely noted where they were in the text.  I've added them, giving them a bit more attention that way.

One last thing, it's often said that the moral of a story should be left unsaid, letting the audience decide what it is for each person.  The moral is stated here.  I'm going to give you a chance to think of your own before showing what Steel says it is.

Now for the story and don't let the subtitle, "A Tale of Woe" stop you for it can be rollicking good fun seeing what happens to the tiger.

THE CLOSE ALLIANCE

A TALE OF WOE

One day a farmer went with his bullocks to plough his field. He had just turned the first furrow, when a tiger walked up to him and said, 'Peace be with you, friend! How are you this fine morning?'

'The same to you, my lord, and I am pretty well, thank you!' returned the farmer, quaking with fear, but thinking it wisest to be polite.

'I am glad to hear it,' replied the tiger cheerfully, 'because
Providence has sent me to eat your two bullocks. You are a
God-fearing man, I know, so make haste and unyoke them.'

'My friend, are you sure you are not making a mistake?' asked the farmer, whose courage had returned now that he knew it was merely a question of gobbling up bullocks; 'because Providence sent me to plough this field, and, in order to plough, one must have oxen. Had you not better go and make further inquiries?'

'There is no occasion for delay, and I should be sorry to keep you waiting,' returned the tiger. 'If you'll unyoke the bullocks I'll be ready in a moment.' With that the savage creature fell to sharpening his teeth and claws in a very significant manner.

But the farmer begged and prayed that his oxen might not be eaten, and promised that if the tiger would spare them, he would give in exchange a fine fat young milch cow, which his wife had tied up in the yard at home.

To this the tiger agreed, and, taking the oxen with him, the farmer went sadly homewards. Seeing him return so early from the fields, his wife, who was a stirring, busy woman, called out, 'What! lazybones!—back already, and my work just beginning!'

Then the farmer explained how he had met the tiger, and how to save the bullocks he had promised the milch cow in exchange. At this the wife began to cry, saying, 'A likely story, indeed!—saving your stupid old bullocks at the expense of my beautiful cow! Where will the children get milk? and how can I cook my pottage and collops without butter?'

'All very fine, wife,' retorted the farmer, 'but how can we make bread without corn? and how can you have corn without bullocks to plough the fields? Pottage and collops are very nice, but it is better to do without milk and butter than without bread, so make haste and untie the cow.'

'You great gaby!' wept the wife, 'if you had an ounce of sense in your brain you'd think of some plan to get out of the scrape!'

'Think yourself!' cried the husband, in a rage.

'Very well!' returned the wife; 'but if I do the thinking you must obey orders; I can't do both. Go back to the tiger, and tell him the cow wouldn't come along with you, but that your wife is bringing it'

The farmer, who was a great coward, didn't half like the idea of going back empty-handed to the tiger, but as he could think of no other plan he did as he was bid, and found the beast still sharpening his teeth and claws for very hunger; and when he heard he had to wait still longer for his dinner, he began to prowl about, and lash his tail, and curl his whiskers, in a most terrible manner, causing the poor farmer's knees to knock together with terror.

Now, when the farmer had left the house, his wife went to the stable and saddled the pony; then she put on her husband's best clothes, tied the turban very high, so as to make her look as tall as possible, bestrode the pony, and set off to the field where the tiger was.

She rode along, swaggering and blustering, till she came to where the lane turned into the field, and then she called out, as bold as brass, 'Now, please the powers! I may find a tiger in this place; for I haven't tasted tiger's meat since yesterday, when, as luck would have it, I ate three for breakfast.'

Hearing these words, and seeing the speaker ride boldly at him, the tiger became so alarmed that he turned tail, and bolted into the forest, going away at such a headlong pace that he nearly overturned his own jackal; for tigers always have a jackal of their own, who, as it were, waits at table and clears away the bones.

'My lord! my lord!' cried the jackal, 'whither away so fast?'

'Run! run!' panted the tiger; 'there's the very devil of a horseman in yonder fields, who thinks nothing of eating three tigers for breakfast!'

At this the jackal sniggered in his sleeve. 'My dear lord,' said he, 'the sun has dazzled your eyes! That was no horseman, but only the farmer's wife dressed up as a man!'

'Are you quite sure?' asked the tiger, pausing.

'Quite sure, my lord,' repeated the jackal; 'and if your lordship's eyes had not been dazzled by—ahem!—the sun, your lordship would have seen her pigtail hanging down behind.'

'But you may be mistaken!' persisted the cowardly tiger; 'it was the very devil of a horseman to look at!'

'Who's afraid?' replied the brave jackal. 'Come! don't give up your dinner because of a woman!'

'But you may be bribed to betray me!' argued the tiger, who, like all cowards, was suspicious.

'Let us go together, then!' returned the gallant jackal.

'Nay! but you may take me there and then run away!' insisted the tiger cunningly.

'In that case, let us tie our tails together, and then I can't!' The jackal, you see, was determined not to be done out of his bones.

To this the tiger agreed, and having tied their tails together in a reef-knot, the pair set off arm-in-arm.

Now the farmer and his wife had remained in the field, laughing over the trick she had played on the tiger, when, lo and behold! what should they see but the gallant pair coming back ever so bravely, with their tails tied together.

'Run!' cried the farmer; 'we are lost! we are lost!'

'Nothing of the kind, you great gaby!' answered his wife coolly, 'if you will only stop that noise and be quiet. I can't hear myself speak!'

Then she waited till the pair were within hail, when she called out politely, 'How very kind of you, dear Mr. Jackal, to bring me such a nice fat tiger! I shan't be a moment finishing my share of him, and then you can have the bones.'

At these words the tiger became wild with fright, and, quite forgetting the jackal, and that reef-knot in their tails, he bolted away full tilt, dragging the jackal behind him. Bumpety, bump, bump, over the stones!—crash, scratch, patch, through the briars!

In vain the poor jackal howled and shrieked to the tiger to stop,—the noise behind him only frightened the coward more; and away he went, helter-skelter, hurry-scurry, over hill and dale, till he was nearly dead with fatigue, and the jackal was quite dead from bumps and bruises.

***

I said earlier I would give you a chance to think of your own moral.  Here's that original picture of the tiger to give you a moment to draw your own conclusion.

Now do you see why the tiger's portrait is encircled in tails?  In the original story it also formed the letter "O" for the opening words of "One day."

Here's the offiffiffic'al moral:

Moral

—Don't tie your tail to a coward's.

It's an interesting and good moral, but I bet you thought of something else.

May the Year of the Tiger be good to all of us, certainly better than happened to today's tiger, and have fun reading more stories!

***********

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:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - 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 October 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.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - 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!

 

Miller - The Little Man in the Dog Cart - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Olive Beaupre Miller established the publishing company of The Book House for Children and produced the classic My Book House set and more.  Among those "and more" books was a three book set called My Travelship with books focused on Japan, Holland, and France.  Tales Told in Holland was published in 1926 and is now in Public Domain.   

The Netherlands is informally called Holland even though that is only the name of two (North Holland and South Holland) of the twelve regions.  At the time of publishing both North and South were all one district.

Tales Told in Holland covers all of the Netherlands, which the Foreword says attempts "to reveal all sides of Dutch life, -- Dutch history, Dutch art, Dutch literature, Dutch geography, Dutch customs, and withal, the Dutchman' sense of humor, his love of cleanliness and thrift, his sturdy independence and the character of his fancies."  That's a large job for a country with a complicated history.  Today's tale is set in the transitional time after both Spain and France were removed in the Dutch Revolt and in the story we meet the Dutch William of Orange or William the Silent (sometimes even called William the Taciturn).  Don't confuse this William of Orange with either his descendants, William II nor the English William III who is the one commonly called "William of Orange", from the reign of "William and Mary" over England, Ireland and Scotland.

Portrait by Adriaen Thomasz. Key, c. 1570–84

Yes, it's confusing, and adding in both Spain and France trying to claim Holland adds to more than I want to discuss.  It's enough to know the country had tried for a long time to be left alone to run its own affairs.  The real focus is William the Silent or Taciturn opposite an ordinary man wanting self-government of the land and so proud of his team of dogs that he outruns the King and his fine horses.

Miller retells the folktale from the province of Gelderland and, as for the rest of the Tales Told in Holland, the illustrations are by Maud and Miska Petersham.  Their over 50 year career in illustrating children's books is excellent and in this book they even recreate illustrations by Dutch master artists to celebrate its art.  For this story, however, I quibble with the picture of the "Little Man in the Dog Cart" -- or more precisely there only being one dog pulling the cart.  

Why the quibble?

Because I love sled dogs, huskies, malamutes and more.  The picture makes it look like one dog is pulling.  Right now my own "Malamutt" (husky/malamute commonly called an "Alaskan Husky") is getting on in years.  As a senior dog he's finally trying more indoor life.  Notice I said "trying"?  Too often he's like this picture found ages ago on the internet.

He's now often the only dog on the trail panting, while other dogs and their humans are FREEZING!

Now you can see why I keep coming back to this story.  Obviously sled dogs aren't a Dutch breed, but the nature of this "little man" thumbing his nose at unappreciated rulers by letting dogs show his own superiority reveals "the Dutchman' sense of humor" with a dash of that "sturdy independence."   It also includes a Dutch song or nursery rhyme.

To which I'll add a picture I often use as wallpaper on my computer at this time of year.

Happy travels with or without a dog, but always with a story!

************************ 

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:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - 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 October 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.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - 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!

Grimm - The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

I remember telling today's story when I was a children's librarian.  Library and school usage of copyrighted works falls under the category of "Fair Use" letting stories be used, but not electronically reproduced.  The current pandemic has permitted some use on virtual storytimes within limited calendars.  Public Domain works, however, avoid copyright restrictions.

At the start of this month books published in the U.S. in 1926 became Public Domain.  This always requires time before those books are copied and published on places like Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive.  Lately I've been using those sources for two reasons: my older books are more fragile or, as happens with many of my books, they were "library bound."  This means the books held up better for library usage than the standard glued bindings, BUT it also means the book is much harder to copy well.  More of the inside margin is sewn into the binding leaving both less space and also a much tighter space for the book to open. I remember the comment of one librarian that they almost shut so tightly you could get your nose caught in it!  Today's story, "The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs" can be found in the 1926 A Book of Giant Stories by Kathleen Adams and Frances Elizabeth Atchinson.  Their A Book of Princess Stories will enter Public Domain next year.  Both are excellent resources, but unavailable online, with the possible exception of buying them.

Unfortunately Adams and Atchinson gave the sources of many of their tales in A Book of Giant Stories, but not for this story.  It seems the story is sometimes called "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs" and can be found in many collections of Grimm.  An 1876 translation by Edgar Taylor in a book called Grimm's Goblins called it "The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs" and may be where that title began.

Taylor's translation comes the closest to the version found in Adams and Atchinson and can be found on Wikisource since my library bound book is hopeless for copying.  

Along the way I'm going to give a few illustrations found for the story.  Twice I use the black and white illustration by John Hassall.  It is one of 9 illustrations auctioned by Bonhams in 2013.   Hassall made them for "The Travelling Musicians and the Giant with the Three Golden Hairs (London: Blackie & Son, 1929 & Pook Press, 2013."  Hassall died in 1948 so the U.K. copyright of 70 years after his death allows reprinting his work.

The other illustrations come from Gustaf Tenggren.  Many children grew up with his classic work for  Disney films and Little Golden Books.  I heartily recommend looking at that Wikipedia article to learn how "Although the name Gustaf Tenggren remains relatively unknown, his work is widely recognized".  The Little Golden Book edition of Tenggren's The Giant with the Three Golden Hairs deserves its collectable status.  I'm going to give two of the Amazon images they show to sell it.

From Amazon.com

THE GIANT WITH THE THREE GOLDEN HAIRS.

THERE was once a poor man who had an only son born to him. The child was born under a lucky star; and those who told his fortune said that in his fourteenth year he would marry the king's daughter. It so happened that the king of that land soon after the child's birth passed through the village in disguise, and asked whether there was any news. "Yes," said the people, "a child has just been born, that they say is to be a lucky one, and when he is fourteen years old, he is fated to marry the king's daughter." This did not please the king; so he went to the poor child's parents and asked them whether they would sell him their son. "No," said they; but the stranger begged very hard and offered a great deal of money, and they had scarcely bread to eat, so at last they consented, thinking to themselves, he is a luck's child, he can come to no harm.

The king took the child, put it into a box, and rode away; but when he came to a deep stream, he threw it into the current, and said to himself, "That young gentleman will never be my daughter's husband." The box, however, floated down the stream; some kind spirit watched over it so that no water reached the child, and at last about two miles from the king's capital it stopped at the dam of a mill. The miller soon saw it, and took a long pole, and drew it towards the shore, and finding it heavy, thought there was gold inside; but when he opened it, he found a pretty little boy, that smiled upon him merrily. Now the miller and his wife had no children, and therefore rejoiced to see the prize, saying, "Heaven has sent it to us;" so they treated it very kindly, and brought it up with such care that everyone admired and loved it. 

From Amazon.com

About thirteen years passed over their heads, when the king came by accident to the mill, and asked the miller if that was his son. "No," said he, "I found him when a babe in a box in the mill-dam." "How long ago?" asked the king. "Some thirteen years," replied the miller. "He is a fine fellow," said the king, "can you spare him to carry a letter to the queen? it will please me very much, and I will give him two pieces of gold for his trouble." "As your Majesty pleases," answered the miller.

Now the king had soon guessed that this was the child whom he had tried to drown; and he wrote a letter by him to the queen, saying "As soon as the bearer of this arrives, let him be killed and immediately buried, so that all may be over before I return."

The young man set out with this letter, but missed his way, and came in the evening to a dark wood. Through the gloom he perceived a light at a distance, towards which he directed his course, and found that it proceeded from a little cottage. There was no one within except an old woman, who was frightened at seeing him, and said, "Why do you come hither, and whither are you going?" "I am going to the queen, to whom I was to have delivered a letter; but I have lost my way, and shall be glad if you will give me a night's rest." "You are very unlucky," said she, "for this is a robbers' hut, and if the band returns while you are here it may be worse for you." "I am so tired, however," replied he, "that I must take my chance, for I can go no further;" so he laid the letter on the table, stretched himself out upon a bench, and fell asleep.

When the robbers came home and saw him, they asked the old woman who the strange lad was. "I have given him shelter for charity," said she; "he had a letter to carry to the queen, and lost his way." The robbers took up the letter, broke it open and read the directions which it contained to murder the bearer. Then their leader tore it, and wrote a fresh one desiring the queen, as soon as the young man arrived, to marry him to the king's daughter. Meantime they let him sleep on till morning broke, and then showed him the right way to the queen's palace; where, as soon as she had read the letter, she had all possible preparations made for the wedding; and as the young man was very beautiful, the princess took him willingly for her husband.

After awhile the king returned; and when he saw the prediction fulfilled, and that this child of fortune was, notwithstanding all his cunning, married to his daughter, he inquired eagerly how this had happened, and what were the orders which he had given. "Dear husband," said the queen, "here is your letter, read it for yourself." The king took it, and seeing that an exchange had been made, asked his son-in-law what he had done with the letter which he had given him to carry. "I know nothing of it," answered he; "it must have been taken away in the night while I slept." Then the king was very wroth, and said, "No man shall have my daughter who does not descend into the wonderful cave and bring me three golden hairs from the head of the giant king who reigns there; do this and you shall have my consent." "I will soon manage that," said the youth;—so he took leave of his wife and set out on his journey.

At the first city that he came to, the guard of the gate stopped him, and asked what trade he followed and what he knew. "I know everything," said he. "If that be so," replied they, "you are just the man we want; be so good as to tell us why our fountain in the market-place is dry and will give no water; find out the cause of that, and we will give you two asses loaded with gold." "With all my heart," said he, "when I come back."

Then he journeyed on and came to another city, and there the guard asked him what trade he followed, and what he understood. "I know everything," answered he. "Then pray do us a piece of service," said they; "tell us why a tree which used to bear us golden apples, now does not even produce a leaf." "Most willingly," answered he, "as I come back." 

 At last his way led him to the side of a great lake of water over which he must pass. The ferryman soon began to ask, as the others had done, what was his trade, and what he knew. "Everything," said he. "Then," said the other, "pray inform me why I am bound for ever to ferry over this water, and have never been able to get my liberty; I will reward you handsomely." "I will tell you all about it," said the young man, "as I come home."

When he had passed the water, he came to the wonderful cave, which looked terribly black and gloomy. But the wizard king was not at home, and his grandmother sat at the door in her easy chair. "What do you seek?" said she. "Three golden hairs from the giant's head," answered he. "You run a great risk," said she, "when he returns home; yet I will try what I can do for you." Then she changed him into an ant, and told him to hide himself in the folds of her cloak. "Very well," said he: "but I want also to know why the city fountain is dry, why the tree that bore golden apples is now leafless, and what it is that binds the ferryman to his post." "Those are three puzzling questions," said the old dame; "but lie quiet and listen to what the giant says when I pull the golden hairs."

Presently night set in and the old gentleman returned home. As soon as he entered he began to snuff up the air, and cried, "All is not right here: I smell man's flesh." Then he searched all round in vain, and the old dame scolded, and said, "Why should you turn everything topsy-turvy? I have just set all in order." Upon this he laid his head in her lap and soon fell asleep. As soon as he began to snore, she seized one of the golden hairs, and pulled it out. "Mercy!" cried he, starting up, "what are you about?" "I had a dream that disturbed me," said she; "and in my trouble I seized your hair: I dreamt that the fountain in the market-place of the city was become dry and would give no water; what can be the cause?" "Ah! if they could find that out, they would be glad," said the giant: "under a stone in the fountain sits a toad; when they kill him, it will flow again."

This said, he fell asleep, and the old lady pulled out another hair. "What would you be at?" cried he in a rage. "Don't be angry," said she, "I did it in my sleep; I dreamt that in a great kingdom there was a beautiful tree that used to bear golden apples, and now has not even a leaf upon it; what is the reason of that?" "Aha!" said the giant, "they would like very well to know that secret: at the root of the tree a mouse is gnawing; if they were to kill him, the tree would bear golden apples again; if not, it will soon die. Now let me sleep in peace; if you wake me again, you shall rue it."

Then he fell once more asleep; and when she heard him snore she pulled out the third golden hair, and the giant jumped up and threatened her sorely; but she soothed him, and said, "It was a strange dream; methought I saw a ferryman who was fated to ply backwards and forwards over a lake, and could never be set at liberty; what is the charm that binds him?" "A silly fool!" said the giant; "if he were to give the rudder into the hand of any passenger, he would find himself at liberty, and the other would be obliged to take his place. Now let me sleep."

In the morning the giant arose and went out; and the old woman gave the young man the three golden hairs, reminded him of the answers to his three questions, and sent him on his way,

He soon came to the ferryman, who knew him again, and asked for the answer which he had promised him. "Ferry me over first," said he, "and then I will tell you." When the boat arrived on the other side, he told him to give the rudder to any of his passengers, and then he might run away as soon as he pleased. The next place he came to was the city where the barren tree stood: "Kill the mouse," said he, "that gnaws the root, and you will have golden apples again." They gave him a rich present, and he journeyed on to the city where the fountain had dried up, and the guard demanded his answer to their question. So he told them how to cure the mischief, and they thanked him and gave him the two asses laden with gold.

And now at last this child of fortune reached home, and his wife rejoiced greatly to see him, and to hear how well everything had gone with him. He gave the three golden hairs to the king, who could no longer raise any objection to him, and when he saw all the treasure, cried out in a transport of joy, "Dear son, where did you find all this gold?" "By the side of a lake," said the youth, "where there is plenty more to be had." "Pray, tell me," said the king, "that I may go and get some too." "As much as you please," replied the other; "you will see the ferryman on the lake, let him carry you across, and there you will see gold as plentiful as sand upon the shore." 

 Away went the greedy king; and when he came to the lake he beckoned to the ferryman, who took him into his boat, and and as soon as he was there gave the rudder into his hand, and sprang ashore, leaving the old king to ferry away as a reward for his sins.

"And is his Majesty plying there to this day?" You may be sure of that, for nobody will trouble himself to take the rudder out of his hands. 

**********

So beware any old ferryman giving you the controls of their boat!

Another version of the story may also be found by Parker Fillmore at The Project Gutenberg EBook of Czechoslovak Fairy Tales, by Parker Fillmore.  It varies from the style of Adams and Atchinson so much I didn't use it here.  As might be expected from Fillmore's work, however, it's delightful and worth checking when creating your own story to tell.  Maybe you'll also look up some of those Grimm editions calling it "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs."  Either way it's a devil of a good story!

********************

Now for the "fine print" (enlarge it for easy reading, but it gives a lot of good resources.)

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:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - 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 October 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.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - 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!

Seton - A Rabbit's Story of His Life, Written by Himself - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Have you gone for a hike lately?  For many of us right now that means bundling up!  Wind chills and snow have much of the northern hemisphere very much in the grip of winter!  

More about that in today's story, but first a look back at last week.  Public Domain Day was a week ago on January 1st with many 1926 U.S. works and international works by authors, composers, and more also being added.  That latter is worth noting:

• works by people who died in 1951, for countries with a copyright term of “life plus 70 years” (e.g. UK, Russia, most of EU and South America);
• works by people who died in 1971, for countries with a term of “life plus 50 years” (e.g. Canada, New Zealand, and most of Africa and Asia)

I went through my personal collection and found my 1926 edition of Ernest Thompson Seton's Woodland Tales, not realizing an earlier 1922 edition was already at Project Gutenberg.  In Seton's "Things to See in Wintertime" section he has a "Tale" he called "Tracks and the Stories They Tell" with the most common tracks of Dog, Cat, Sparrow, Chicken, and Robin.  He called it a "Tale", but it's really the following #56 that is actually a Tale.  He found a story  discovered by following the tracks of a rabbit all the way through to some final  feathers to solve a Woodland murder mystery.  His illustration is small and a bit hard to follow.  I was able to enlarge it a bit to make it slightly easier to follow.  I would recommend, if you wanted to re-tell the story, getting an artist to make a larger version.  (There's a limit  as to how large a picture may be enlarged before it becomes unreadable.)

One other quick note, Seton in the Preface called his stories "Mother Carey Tales."  Mother Carey is usually a personification of the sea, but he used it as a Mother Nature figure, complete with all the favoring of the strong over the weak.

TALE 56
A Rabbit's Story of His Life, Written by Himself

Yes, the Rabbit wrote it himself and about himself in the oldest writing on earth, that is the tracks of his feet.

A WOODCRAFT TRAGEDY
As shown by the Tracks and Signs in the Snow

In February of 1885, one morning after a light snowfall, I went tramping through the woods north of Toronto, when I came on something that always makes me stop and look—the fresh tracks of an animal. This was the track of a Cottontail Rabbit and I followed its windings with thrills of interest. There it began under a little brush pile (a); the bed of brown leaves showing that he settled there, before the snow-fall began. Now here (b) he leaped out after the snow ceased, for the tracks are sharp, and sat looking around. See the two long marks of his hind feet and in front the two smaller prints of his front feet; behind is the mark made by his tail, showing that he was sitting on it.

Then he had taken alarm at something and dashed off at speed (c), for now his hind feet are tracking ahead of the front feet, as in most bounding forefoots, and the faster he goes, the farther ahead those hind feet get.

See now how he dodged about here and there, this way and that, among the trees, as though trying to escape some dreaded enemy (c, d, e, f).

But what enemy? There are no other tracks, and still the wild jumping went on.

I began to think that the Rabbit was crazy, flying from an imaginary foe; possibly that I was on the track of a March Hare. But at "g" I found on the trail for the first time a few drops of blood. That told me that the Rabbit was in real danger but gave no clue to its source.

At "h" I found more blood and at "j" I got a new thrill, for there, plain enough on each side of the Rabbit track, were finger-like marks, and the truth dawned on me that these were the prints of great wings. The Rabbit was fleeing from an eagle, a hawk, or an owl. Some twenty yards farther "k" I found in the snow the remains of the luckless Rabbit partly devoured. Then I knew that the eagle had not done it, for he would have taken the Rabbit's body away, not eaten him up there. So it must have been a hawk or an owl. I looked for something to tell me which, and I got it. Right by the Rabbit's remains was the large twin-toed track (l) that told me that an owl had been there, and that therefore he was the criminal. Had it been a hawk the mark would have been as shown in the left lower corner, three toes forward and one back, whereas the owl usually sets his foot with two toes forward and two backward, as in the sketch. This, then, I felt sure was the work of an owl. But which owl? There were two, maybe three kinds in that valley. I wished to know exactly and, looking for further evidence, I found on a sapling near by a big soft, downy, owlish feather (m) with three brown bars across it; which told me plainly that a Barred Owl or Hoot Owl had been there recently, and that he was almost certainly the killer of the Cottontail.

This may sound like a story of Sherlock Holmes among the animals—a flimsy tale of circumstantial evidence. But while I was making my notes, what should come flying through the woods but the Owl himself, back to make another meal, no doubt. He alighted on a branch just above my head, barely ten feet up, and there gave me the best of proof, next to eye witness of the deed, that all I had gathered from the tracks and signs in the snow was quite true.

I had no camera in those days, but had my sketch book, and as he sat, I made a drawing which hangs to-day among my pictures that are beyond price.

Here, then, is a chapter of wild life which no man saw, which man could not have seen, for the presence of a man would have prevented it. And yet we know it was true, for it was written by the Rabbit himself.

If you have the seeing eye, you will be able to read many strange and thrilling happenings written for you thus in the snow, the mud, and even the sand and the dust.

*******

Seton in this story and the study of animal tracks in "Tale 55" encourages us to see nature's stories.  I try to observe those stories on my snowy hikes, but confess snow depths make it hard to get a clear view.  They're sometimes as difficult to decipher as in Seton's own small illustrations.

*****************

Now for the "fine print" about Keeping the Stories in Public Domain.  (You can always enlarge it on your computer.)

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:            

         - David K. Brown - http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/stories.html

         - Karen Chace - http://karenchace.blogspot.com/search?q=public+domain

         - Richard Martin - http://www.tellatale.eu/tales_page.html

         - Spirit of Trees - http://spiritoftrees.org/featured-folktales

         - 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 October 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.

       - Tim Sheppard - http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/storylinks.html

       - World of Tales - http://www.worldoftales.com/ 
           - 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!