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Once upon
a time...
In a small hut, right in the middle of the forest, lived a
man, his wife, three sons and a daughter. For some reason, all the
animals seemed to have left that part of the country, and food grew
very scarce; so, one morning, after a night of snow, when the tracks
of beasts might be easily seen, the three boys started off to hunt.
They kept together for some time, till they reached a place where
the path they had been following split into two, and one of the
brothers called his dog and went to the left, while the others took
the trail to the right. These had not gone far when their dogs
scented a bear, and drove him out from the thicket. The bear ran
across a clearing, and the elder brother managed to place an arrow
right in his head.
They both took up the bear, and carried it towards home, meeting the
third at the spot where they had parted from him. When they reached
home they threw the bear down on the floor of the hut saying,
'Father, here is a bear which we killed; now we can have some
dinner.'
But the father, who was in a bad temper, only said:
'When I was a young man we used to get two bears in one day.'
The sons were rather disappointed at hearing this, and though there
was plenty of meat to last for two or three days, they started off
early in the morning down the same trail that they had followed
before. As they drew near the fork a bear suddenly ran out from
behind a tree, and took the path on the right. The two elder boys
and their dogs pursued him, and soon the second son, who was also a
good shot, killed him instantly with an arrow. At the fork of the
trail, on their way home, they met the youngest, who had taken the
left-hand road, and had shot a bear for himself. But when they threw
the two bears triumphantly on the floor of the hut their father
hardly looked at them, and only said:
'When I was a young man I used to get three bears in one day.'
The next day they were luckier than before, and brought back three
bears, on which their father told them that he had always killed
four. However, that did not prevent him from skinning the bears and
cooking them in a way of his own, which he thought very good, and
they all ate an excellent supper.
Now these bears were the servants of the great bear chief who lived
in a high mountain a long way off. And every time a bear was killed
his shadow returned to the house of the bear chief, with the marks
of his wounds plainly to bee seen by the rest.
The chief was furious at the number of bears the hunters had killed,
and determined that he would find some way of destroying them. So he
called another of his servants, and said to him:
'Go to the thicket near the fork, where the boys killed your
brothers, and directly they or the dogs see you return here as fast
as ever you can. The mountain will open to let you in, and the
hunters will follow you. Then I shall have them in my power, and be
able to revenge myself.'
The servant bowed low, and started at once for the fork, where he
hid himself in the bushes.
By-and-by the boys came in sight, but this time there were only two
of them, as the youngest had stayed at home. The air was warm and
damp, and the snow soft and slushy, and the elder brother's
bowstring hung loose, while the bow of the younger caught in a tree
and snapped in half. At that moment the dogs began to bark loudly,
and the bear rushed out of the thicket and set off in the direction
of the mountain. Without thinking that they had nothing to defend
themselves with, should the bear turn and attack them, the boys gave
chase. The bear, who knew quite well that he could not be shot,
sometimes slackened his pace and let the dogs get quite close; and
in this way the elder son reached the mountain without observing it,
while his brother, who had hurt his foot, was still far behind.
As he ran up, the mountain opened to admit the bear, and the boy,
who was close on his heels, rushed in after him, and did not know
where he was till he saw bears sitting on every side of him, holding
a council. The animal he had been chasing sank panting in their
midst, and the boy, very much frightened, stood still, letting his
bow fall to the ground.
'Why are you trying to kill all my servants?' asked the chief. 'Look
round and see their shades, with arrows sticking in them. It was I
who told the bear to-day how he was to lure you into my power. I
shall take care that you shall not hurt my people any more, because
you will become a bear yourself.'
At this moment the second brother came up--for the mountain had been
left open on purpose to tempt him also--and cried out breathlessly:
'Don't you see that the bear is lying close to you? Why don't you
shoot him?' And, without waiting for a reply, pressed forward to
drive his arrow into the heart of the bear. But the elder one caught
his raised arm, and whispered: 'Be quiet! can't you tell where you
are?' Then the boy looked up and saw the angry bears about him. On
the one side were the servants of the chief, and on the other the
servants of the chief's sister, who was sorry for the two youths,
and begged that their lives might be spared. The chief answered that
he would not kill them, but only cast a spell over them, by which
their heads and bodies should remain as they were, but their arms
and legs should change into those of a bear, so that they would go
on all fours for the rest of their lives. And, stooping over a
spring of water, he dipped a handful of moss in it and rubbed it
over the arms and legs of the boys. In an instant the transformation
took place, and two creatures, neither beast nor human stood before
the chief.
Now the bear chief of course knew that the boys' father would seek
for his sons when they did not return home, so he sent another of
his servants to the hiding-place at the fork of the trail to see
what would happen. He had not waited long, when the father came in
sight, stooping as he went to look for his sons' tracks in the snow.
When he saw the marks of snow-shoes along the path on the right he
was filled with joy, not knowing that the servant had made some
fresh tracks on purpose to mislead him; and he hastened forward so
fast that he fell headlong into a pit, where the bear was sitting.
Before he could pick himself up the bear had quietly broken his
neck, and, hiding the body under the snow, sat down to see if anyone
else would pass that way.
Meanwhile the mother at home was wondering what had become of her
two sons, and as the hours went on, and their father never returned,
she made up her mind to go and look for him. The youngest boy begged
her to let him undertake the search, but she would not hear of it,
and told him he must stay at home and take care of his sister. So,
slipping on her snow-shoes, she started on her way.
As no fresh snow had fallen, the trail was quite easy to find, and
she walked straight on, till it led her up to the pit where the bear
was waiting for her. He grasped her as she fell and broke her neck,
after which he laid her in the snow beside her husband, and went
back to tell the bear chief.
Hour after hour dragged heavily by in the forest hut, and at last
the brother and sister felt quite sure that in some way or other all
the rest of the family had perished. Day after day the boy climbed
to the top of a tall tree near the house, and sat there till he was
almost frozen, looking on all sides through the forest openings,
hoping that he might see someone coming along. Very soon all the
food in the house was eaten, and he knew he would have to go out and
hunt for more. Besides, he wished to seek for his parents.
The little girl did not like being left alone in the hut, and cried
bitterly; but her brother told her that there was no use sitting
down quietly to starve, and that whether he found any game or not he
would certainly be back before the following night. Then he cut
himself some arrows, each from a different tree, and winged with the
feathers of four different birds. He then made himself a bow, very
light and strong, and got down his snow-shoes. All this took some
time, and he could not start that day, but early next morning he
called his little dog Redmouth, whom he kept in a box, and set out.
After he had followed the trail for a great distance he grew very
tired, and sat upon the branch of a tree to rest. But Redmouth
barked so furiously that the boy thought that perhaps his parents
might have been killed under its branches, and stepping back, shot
one of his arrows at the root of the tree. Whereupon a noise like
thunder shook it from top to bottom, fire broke out, and in a few
minutes a little heap of ashes lay in the place where it had stood.
Not knowing quite what to make of it all, the boy continued on the
trail, and went down the right-hand fork till he came to the clump
of bushes where the bears used to hide.
Now, as was plain by his being able to change the shape of the two
brothers, the bear chief knew a good deal of magic, and he was quite
aware that the little boy was following the trail, and he sent a
very small but clever bear servant to wait for him in the bushes and
to try to tempt him into the mountain. But somehow his spells could
not have worked properly that day, as the bear chief did not know
that Redmouth had gone with his master, or he would have been more
careful. For the moment the dog ran round the bushes barking loudly,
the little bear servant rushed out in a fright, and set out for the
mountains as fast as he could.
The dog followed the bear, and the boy followed the dog, until the
mountain, the house of the great bear chief, came in sight. But
along the road the snow was so wet and heavy that the boy could
hardly get along, and then the thong of his snow-shoes broke, and he
had to stop and mend it, so that the bear and the dog got so far
ahead that he could scarcely hear the barking. When the strap was
firm again the boy spoke to his snow-shoes and said:
'Now you must go as fast as you can, or, if not, I shall lose the
dog as well as the bear.' And the snow-shoes sang in answer that
they would run like the wind.
As he came along, the bear chief's sister was looking out of the
window, and took pity on this little brother, as she had on the two
elder ones, and waited to see what the boy would do, when he found
that the bear servant and the dog had already entered the mountain.
The little brother was certainly very much puzzled at not seeing
anything of either of the animals, which had vanished suddenly out
of his sight. He paused for an instant to think what he should do
next, and while he did so he fancied he heard Redmouth's voice on
the opposite side of the mountain. With great difficulty he
scrambled over steep rocks, and forced a path through tangled
thickets; but when he reached the other side the sound appeared to
start from the place from which he had come. Then he had to go all
the way back again, and at the very top, where he stopped to rest,
the barking was directly beneath him, and he knew in an instant
where he was and what had happened.
'Let my dog out at once, bear chief!' cried he. 'If you do not, I
shall destroy your palace.' But the bear chief only laughed, and
said nothing. The boy was very angry at his silence, and aiming one
of his arrows at the bottom of the mountain, shot straight through
it.
As the arrow touched the ground a rumbling was heard, and with a
roar a fire broke out which seemed to split the whole mountain into
pieces. The bear chief and all his servants were burnt up in the
flames, but his sister and all that belonged to her were spared
because she had tried to save the two elder boys from punishment.
As soon as the fire had burnt itself out the little hunter entered
what was left of the mountain, and the first thing he saw was his
two brothers--half bear, half boy.
'Oh, help us! help us!' cried they, standing on their hind legs as
they spoke, and stretching out their fore-paws to him.
'But how am I to help you?' asked the little brother, almost
weeping. 'I can kill people, and destroy trees and mountains, but I
have no power over men.' And the two elder brothers came up and put
their paws on his shoulders, and they all three wept together.
The heart of the bear chief's sister was moved when she saw their
misery, and she came gently up behind, and whispered:
'Little boy, gather some moss from the spring over there, and let
your brothers smell it.'
With a bound all three were at the spring, and as the youngest
plucked a handful of wet moss, the two others sniffed at it with all
their might. Then the bearskin fell away from them, and they stood
upright once more.
'How can we thank you? how can we thank you?' they stammered, hardly
able to speak; and fell at her feet in gratitude. But the bear's
sister only smiled, and bade them go home and look after the little
girl, who had no one else to protect her.
And this the boys did, and took such good care of their sister that,
as she was very small, she soon forgot that she had ever had a
father and mother.
How The Little Brother
Set Free His Big Brothers
from the Brown Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
