Princess Fire-Fly - Frank Rinder - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Firefly Catching, by Mizuno Toshikata, 1891

This weekend is the start of a prolonged Fourth of July celebration.  In some places fireworks are returning.   At the same time dry conditions and smoke from the widespread Canadian wildfires make fireworks unwise in many other locations.  Either way, nature is trying to bring us the unpredictable fireworks of the firefly.  Look outside when it's dark and enjoy the display of Lightning Bugs or Fireflies.  They are believed to be declining.  At one point their gathering for scientific study and also pesticide spraying made me believe it, too, but I live in a semi-rural area and now think they may be returning.  Over the centuries fireflies have fascinated people.  The Japanese legend has been translated many times.  I found four stories of the same legend in early Twentieth Century anthologies, but my favorite retelling was in The Turquoise Story Book, an anthology of summer stories by the Skinner sisters, Ada and Eleanor, which I've credited here before.  In their table of contents they credit the retelling to Frank Rinder.  A bit of further searching finds he was both an artist and a writer with his longer, but still poetic version of the story in his anthology, Old-World Japan; Legends of the Land of the Gods.  Surprisingly he chose artist T.H. Robinson to illustrate the book, but Rinder was also "art critic of the Glasgow Herald, and a writer on and collector of primarily early 20th Century prints", so that may explain his choice.  I think the story stands well enough on its own, but it does show the style of "Old-World Japan."

My only additional comment is I had to look up what a cockchafer is.  Wikipedia says it is "colloquially called the Maybug, Maybeetle, or doodlebug, is a species of scarab beetle."

Princess Fire-Fly

DEEP in the pinky petals of a lotus bloom that grew in the castle moats of Fukui, in Echizen, lived Hi-O, the King of the Fire-Flies. In this beautiful flower his daughter, the Princess Hotaru, passed her childhood exploring every shady nook and fragrant corner of the bell-like palace, listening to the buzz of life around, and peeping over the edge of the petals at the wonderful world which lay mysteriously beyond. Hotaru-Himé had few youthful companions, but, as she daily bade her father farewell, she dreamed of the time when she, too, would fly abroad, and her brilliant light would attract universal admiration.

Gradually, a beautiful sheen o’erspread her body; night by night it became brighter, until at last her home, in the hours of darkness, was as a globe of coral wherein shone a lamp of gold. So glorious was her light that the stars paled before it, and the bright sickle moon withdrew behind a cloud from jealousy.

Himé was now allowed to fly from her home, to loiter among the pleasant rice fields, and to explore the indigo meadows which lay far off on the horizon. She had no lack of friends and would-be lovers; thousands of insects, attracted by her magic light, came and offered their homage, but Himé never forgot that she was of royal blood, and, while she haughtily thanked her many suitors, none found a way into her heart.

But the Princess whispered to herself, “Only he who loves me more than life shall call me bride.”

One evening the Princess, seated on a throne formed by the heart of the lotus, held her court. Soon the faint roseate petals of the flower were thronged with a host of ardent lovers. But the Princess whispered to herself, “Only he who loves me more than life shall call me bride.”

The golden beetle laid his fortunes at her feet, the cockchafer wooed her in passionate words, the dragon-fly proudly proffered his hand, and the hawk-moth humbly, yet persistently, addressed her. Countless other insects gained audience, but her answer was ever the same, “Go, and bring me fire, and I will be your bride.”

One by one they took wing, enraptured by the hope of success, and unconscious that they were all bent on the self-same errand. The hawk-moth entered the Buddhist Temple and circled round and round the tall wax lights, until, in an ecstasy of love, he flew into the flame, exclaiming, “Now to win the Princess or meet my death!” His poor singed body fell heavily to the ground. The beetle watched intently, for a moment or two,  the log fire crackling on the hearth, and then, regardless of his fate, boldly caught at a tongue of flame he hoped to carry to Himé—but his end was that of the hawk-moth. The dragon-fly, notwithstanding his sunlit splendours, could not fulfil the bidding of the Lady of the Lotus Bloom; he also fell a prey to her imperious command. Other lovers there were who tried to steal from the diamond his heart of fire, who winged their way to the summit of Fukui, or sped to the depths of the valleys in search of the talisman that was to make Himé their bride. The sun rose in morning splendour over untold numbers of dead bodies, which alone remained to tell of the great devotion that had inspired the lovers of Princess Hotaru.

Now tidings came to Hi-Maro, a Prince of the Fire-Flies living hard by, that the Princess Hotaru was exceedingly beautiful; whereupon he flew swiftly to her home among the lotus flowers. Even as, with a flood of golden light, he entered, the charms of Himé were not dimmed. One look passed between the youth and the maiden, and then each felt that a great love filled their hearts. Hi-Maro wooed and wed, and for many years lived happily with Hotaru-Himé in the castle moats of Fukui.

Centuries have passed since Hi-Maro won his bride, and still the dazzling fire-fly Princesses send their insect lovers in search of fire.

****

As other insects fly into your fires or lights and you see the fireflies winking on and off, I hope you will remember this legend...and also watch out for the demands of beautiful princesses.

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

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 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.

       - 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

Damon and Pythias - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Summer Reading Programs are beginning, including my

The stewpot is loaded with 37 stories from all over the globe and ethnic groups.  It will be up to the audience to select the stories.  (The titles are on colorful strips of paper, but nobody -- including me -- can tell what the story is until it is selected.)

Today's story of the friendship of Damon and Pythias is legendary.  Wikipedia gives a bit of background to this tale placing its telling firmly in the hands of such classical authors as Cicero and happening at the time when Dionysius I (r. 405–367 BC) ruled Syracuse.  While the story, if told with sufficient suspense, will interest them, children will not care about the principles of the Pythagorean ideal of friendship.  Some say a test of that ideal was the reason this story actually happened.  Similarly I may have been told in school that Geometry owed many of its principles to Pythagoras.  I had enough problems with Geometry and certainly couldn't have told you about his philosophy.  As for Damon & Pythias, I'd heard the names, but never really heard the story.  It's time to correct at least knowledge of the story -- we'll continue muddling along on mathematics.  The fact that this is a story said to have actually happened may be why it continues to fascinate people over the many centuries.

DAMON AND PYTHIAS

Once a young man who had done something that displeased the King, was dragged to prison, and the day set for his death. His home was far away. “Let me go and bid good-bye to my father and mother and friends,” he said to the King, “and I will return and die.” The King laughed and said, “Ah! ah! he wishes to save himself! He would never return!” A young man stepped forward from the crowd, and said: “O King, put me in prison until he returns. I know he will do as he has promised, for he is a man who has never broken his word. If he does not return, I will die for him.”

The King, surprised at such an offer of friendship, agreed. So Pythias went to bid his friends good-bye, and Damon was put in prison. Many days passed. By and by the day arrived for the death of Pythias, and he had not returned. Damon said, “I know something has prevented, or he would be here to keep his word. I am ready to die for him!” The jailer led him out, and was just about to put him to death, when suddenly, far away on the distant road, a cloud of dust was seen growing larger and larger.

  

It was Pythias running, swift as the wind, to keep his promise. He told them how he had been hindered by storm and shipwreck. He thanked his friend again and again for his faith in him. And then giving himself for death into the hands of the jailer, he was led out for execution. “Stop! Stop!” cried the King, “such friends must not suffer unjustly. Pythias shall be free! And I could give all that I possess to have one such true friend!”

Still from Universal's film Damon and Pythias (1914)

That particular version came from the General Historical Stories section of World Stories Retold by William James Sly.  While we may look at the 1914 copyright and scoff at how the inside title continues as "For Modern Boys and Girls",  the editor's explanation of why Historical Stories should be told is still true.

10. HISTORICAL STORIES

Idealistic stories—fairy tales, folk-lore, myths, legends, fables, and allegories—have their place. They add to the poetry, imagery, enjoyment, spirituality, and enrichment of a life that would often be wholly prosaic without them. But after all, the growing boy and girl who pleads “Tell me a true story,” at approximately the age of six, reveals the truth that the mind cannot be satisfied without the solid, hard, real ground of historical and scientific fact. For this reason by far the larger number of stories that must be told, and that are demanded by advancing childhood and youth, are realistic stories. These are stories from national or world history, biography, personal reminiscences and adventures, true stories of animals, and all others that recount actual happenings. “These have a special value because, besides suggesting a principle, they also indicate how it may receive specific application in life. The deeds of the Christian martyrs and of the modest heroes of every-day life have a certain power which is beyond that of the most beautiful myth. The story of what Jesus did means more than all the visions of all the prophets.”[4]

[Pg 32]Stories of national history impress the mind of the young with patriotism. Historical world stories inspire the heart of the young with a broader human sympathy for all the nations of the earth. The hunger for the heroic, which is native to the imagination and emotion of every growing boy and girl, may be fed by these classic stories of heroic action, endurance, decision, courage, faith, and self-sacrifice.

I'm often asked by young audience members "Is that story true?"  There is plenty of truth in this legend.

Brown - The Young Dragon - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

Relevant to absolutely nothing other than my love and fascination with dragons, here is a literary story about a young dragon.  It comes from The Mermaid's Gift by Julia Brown.  Normally I prefer telling folk tales to something created by a specific author.  (Although I find a "retelling" is fine as it comes from the folk tradition, just as my own "retelling" does.)  The problem with literary tales is they seem to expect word for word relaying to convey the author's meaning.  I can find nothing about Brown other than another Public Domain book from 1925, The Enchanted Peacocks, and other stories.  That is close enough to "Mermaid's" 1912 edition and publisher, Rand McNally, so it  probably is the same author, although it has a different illustrator.  I can find nothing about her (and her fairly common name doesn't help).  Authors live through their books just as live storytellers live through their immediate effect upon an  audience.  The Ms Brown who wrote this story kept it simple enough to re-tell.

The book is illustrated by Maginel Wright Enright.  Her biography and images of her work is far easier to find.  The Internet Archive version of The Mermaid's Gift uses a different edition from the one I own.  It has a frontispiece not in my copy, but it doesn't have the opening image to the story.  I have copied my book to open the story.

I love the way the story stops in an open-ended way.  Of course the prince & princess live "happily ever after."  That is easily expected, but what about that young dragon and also that community of dragons divided between the Liberal and Conservative dragons?  The story cries out for more story creation!  

As you might imagine, I love bringing an audience to the point of story creation!!!   But be careful please, for as my friend and fellow storyteller and lover of dragons,

Loretta Vitek

loves to say:

  

 

 

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crispy, and would be good with sauce!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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 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.

       - 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 Goblins - (and Maurice Sendak) - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

If we were able to keep Maurice Sendak alive and generating his many wonderful books and illustrations for others, today, June 10, 2023, would be his 95th birthday instead of a year and a decade after his death.  Unfortunately as the Wikipedia article about him points out:

Sendak died on May 8, 2012, at age 83, in Danbury, Connecticut, at Danbury Hospital, from stroke complications, a month before his 84th birthday. In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at an undisclosed location.^[24][25]

Wikipedia: The characters illustrated in Where the Wild Things Are caused some controversy for their grotesque appearance that parents alleged to be too scary for children.^{[citation needed]}

 

 

That Wikipedia article names many influences and also a 1968 exhibition at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he loaned the bulk of his work, including nearly 10,000 works of art, manuscripts, books and ephemera.  I couldn't help noticing there were "Unique materials from the Rosenbach collection that relate to Sendak's work, including an 1853 edition of the tales of the Brothers Grimm."

There are a multitude of editions and translations of the tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.  As near as I can tell the 1853 edition is the book called Household Tales by Brothers Grimm  that was translated by Margaret Hunt.  It is the complete collection and offers 200 tales plus an additional ten legends.  Out of those 210 stories in that complete collection, Sendak worked with Lore Segal to produce The Juniper Tree, and Other Tales from Grimm.  Copyright prevents my using that book's translations, but Hunt's translation can be used.  You can see it and her translation of the complete Grimm tales at Project Gutenberg.  She has the story Juniper Tree calls "The Goblins" as the third of three stories she groups together as Tale number 39, "The Elves." Hunt's translation isn't really different except for calling them "Elves."  I'm going to reprint this brief little "Household Tale" but change it to "Goblins" as that certainly fits Sendak and his "Wild Things."

                                                        The Goblins

A certain mother’s child had been taken away out of its cradle by the goblins, and a changeling with a large head and staring eyes, which would do nothing but eat and drink, laid in its place. In her trouble she went to her neighbour, and asked her advice. The neighbour said that she was to carry the changeling into the kitchen, set it down on the hearth, light a fire, and boil some water in two egg-shells, which would make the changeling laugh, and if he laughed, all would be over with him. The woman did everything that her neighbour bade her. When she put the egg-shells with water on the fire, the imp said, “I am as old now as the Wester forest, but never yet have I seen any one boil anything in an egg-shell!” And he began to laugh at it. Whilst he was laughing, suddenly came a host of little goblins, who brought the right child, set it down on the hearth, and took the changeling away with them. 

***

Of the many tributes upon Sendak's death, I especially appreciate the one by Neil Gaiman:

"He was unique, grumpy, brilliant, wise, magical and made the world better by creating art in it."[26]

That was from an article in the Washington Post of reactions by "authors and celebrities" to Sendak's death.  I was unable to go to an online copy of that article, but think this mural fits all of us who fell under the spell of Sendak.

A mural, at Wicker Park, Chicago, alludes to Sendak's passing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 *****************

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 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.

       - 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

 

Beckwith - The Boy Who Hated Trees - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

 

Photo by Amir Kalhor on Unsplash

I'm blessed in my area by woods for hiking with my dog. . . state recreation area, county and metro parks, a nearby golf course when it's not wanted by golfers, and even more.  Even with all of those areas every year I plant ten trees as they come with my annual membership to the Arbor Day Foundation.  (My membership card says I've been a member since 2011!)  They also offer the option: Send me no trees - Plant 10 trees in one of America's forests devastated by fires, insects, disease, and deforestation.

At least the option of having trees planted gets past the objection a former late brother-in-law had to trees requiring mowing around them and also coping with any leaves or branches on the ground.  I was shocked to learn he cut down century-old trees.

I'm not sure it's fair to say he hated trees, nor do I think the following story would have changed his mind.  I do hope telling it to younger listeners, might etch the importance of trees in their minds so they support the goal of the Arbor Day Foundation "to plant 500 million trees by 2027 in areas where they’re needed most. With a strong network of global partners, a science-based approach, and more than 50 years of planting trees all over the world, we know what it takes to make it happen."

This story comes from the Jewel Series originally published in the early 20th century by Duffield & Company.  The sisters Ada M. and Eleanor L. Skinner did several in the series, including one for each season.  This is from their editing The Turquoise Story Book; Stories and Legends of Summer and Nature now found on Gutenberg.org  as well as in a reprinted paperback by Forgotten Books in their Classic Reprint Series.  The reprinted book omits the frontispiece by Maxfield Parish (included in the Gutenberg version), but is otherwise a good reprint.  That can be hard to verify when ordering reprints unseen.  I've regretted the quality of some, but not those by Forgotten Books.  The Skinner sisters, in their acknowledgements say the story was first published by the Educational Company.

THE BOY WHO HATED TREES
 
Alice L. Beckwith

"Good night, Dick. Remember, now, to wake up with the robins so that you may be ready to help me set out our new trees."

"Good night," answered Dick in a sulky tone, for Dick was cross.

"Trees, trees, trees!" he mumbled to himself, as he began to undress. "I'm so sick of hearing about trees. And now father has bought some old twigs to set out to-morrow, and I want to go fishing.

"I wish I lived in a land where there were no trees. We could get along well enough without them." And with this thought he jumped into bed.

Dick had been asleep perhaps an hour or more when he heard a queer, rustling noise, and then a voice called out: "Here he is—the boy who hates trees!"

There was the strangest procession coming toward him. It was made up of trees of all kinds. The Pine and Elm came first; the Maple and Oak followed: the Maple's leaves were flushed scarlet, she was so excited. The Willow was weeping, and the Poplar was trembling all over.

Next came all the fruit trees, led by the Cherry, while the Walnut, the White Birch, and the Palm were behind.

What did it all mean? Dick was frightened for a moment. It seemed as if every tree of which he had ever heard was there, and he wondered how the room could hold them all.

When they had all grown quiet, the Pine said: "Dear brothers and sisters, here is a boy who hates trees; he cannot see that we are of any use. It is more than I can stand, and I have called this meeting to see what can be done about it. Has anyone anything to say?"

The Cherry looked very sour. "I cannot see that boys are of any use," she said. "Many years ago, when cherry trees were scarce in this country, a boy named George cut down my great-grandfather just to try his new hatchet."

"And boys know so little," said the White Birch; "they are always hacking me with knives, and taking off my coat, no matter how cold the weather is. I loved a boy once, but it was many years ago. He was a little Indian boy. He loved trees. I remember how he stood beside me one day and said:
"'Give me of your bark, O Birch Tree!
For the summer time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white skin wrapper.'

"Then he took off my bark so carefully that he did not hurt me a bit. But he is not living now. This boy is not like him."

"I don't like boys, either," spoke up the Apple. "One day a boy climbed up into my branches and broke off one of my limbs. He was a very silly boy, for he wanted green apples. Had my fruit been ripe, I would have tossed one down to him. How happy we should be if it were not for boys!"

The Maple was very angry. "This boy said we were of no use, but it was only this morning that I heard him tease his grandfather for a cake of my sugar."

"He ate it as if he liked it, too," said the Palm. "I saw him; he was fanning himself with one of my leaves."

The Willow wiped her eyes. "Boys, boys, boys!" she said. "I'm so sick of boys! This same boy made a whistle out of one of my children this very night, when he went for the cows."

Then a queer tree in the corner spoke in a thick voice: "We are of no use, are we? If it were not for me, where would he get the tires for his bicycle? There are his rubber boots, too. Why, he uses me every day about something. But I've thought of a plan."

The trees crowded around him, talking together excitedly. "But how shall we do it?" Dick heard them say. "Oh," said the Elm, "the Wind will help us. He is our friend."

Before Dick could cry out, he found himself being carried away by the Wind.

"Where am I going?" he called.

"To the land of no trees," they answered; and they bowed and smiled. Even the Willow held up her head long enough to call, "Good-by!" and then home and trees were left far behind.

How fast the Wind traveled! On and on they rushed, until suddenly the Wind dropped him and went whistling away.

Dick felt really frightened when he found himself all alone.

"Oh, I'm so hot!" he exclaimed. "Where am I?"

Certainly he had never before been in such a place.

There were no trees nor green grass anywhere in sight. As far as he could see, there was only sand—white sand, hot and scorching.

"It seems to me I've seen pictures in my geography like this," he said to himself. "I can't stay here. What shall I do?"

All at once he noticed a tiny speck far away in the distance. Now it looked larger. He brushed away something that looked very much like a tear, though he told himself that it was only because he was so warm.

Yes, that speck surely moved, and was coming nearer. What if it were a bear!

"There is no tree to climb, and I cannot run—I am so tired, and it is very hot."

Nearer and nearer it came, moving slowly. Dick watched it with a beating heart. At last he saw that it was not a single animal, but a great many in line.

"Oh, they are camels!" he cried. "Yes, I know they are. Once at a circus I saw some that looked just like them—but what queer-looking men are on them!"

They were now very near him, and one of the men beckoned with his hand and said something.

"I can't understand him," said Dick to himself, "but I suppose he meant he'll give me a ride."

The man helped him up and they journeyed on. After a time Dick grew very tired even of riding.

"The camel joggles me so," he said, "and I am so thirsty I shall die. If they would only stop a minute!"

What was the matter? What were they saying? Each man was bowing himself toward the ground and waving his hands.

"I don't see what they are making all that fuss about. I can't see anything; the sun hurts my eyes so." And Dick covered his eyes with his hand.

Suddenly there was a shout, and the camels stood still. Dick lifted his head. Could he believe his eyes? Right before him was a little spot of green grass, a spring of cool water, and one of those things he hated—a tree.

Hate a tree? He thought that he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

He fairly tumbled off the camel in his haste to reach it. The tears ran down his face as he threw his arms around its trunk.

"Dear tree!" he cried.

"Dick, Dick, are you going to help me plant the new trees?" called his father.

Opening his eyes, Dick found himself in his own little room, both hands clasping his pillow.

Dick was soon dressed and downstairs, and so anxious was he to plant trees that he could hardly eat his breakfast.
In just one night he had learned to see
The wonderful beauty there is in a tree.
 

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If that story seems improbable, look to Lebanon.  Wikipedia does an excellent job of summarizing what deforestation can do. 

In ancient times, Lebanon was covered by large forests of cedar trees, the national emblem of the country.^[171] Millennia of deforestation have altered the hydrology in Mount Lebanon and changed the regional climate adversely.^[172] As of 2012, forests covered 13.4% of the Lebanese land area;^[173] they are under constant threat from wildfires caused by the long dry summer season.^[174]

As a result of longstanding exploitation, few old cedar trees remain in pockets of forests in Lebanon, but there is an active program to conserve and regenerate the forests.

  The cedar is Lebanon's national emblem and on the national flag.  May it replace the deserts.

*** One last comment: Arbor Day members also can purchase all kinds of trees far less expensively and trees come with a one year guarantee.  Now I really need to get back to my newly planted trees.

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