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Once upon
a time...
There was once a turtle who lived among a great many people
of different kinds, in a large camp near a big river which was born
right up amongst the snows, and flowed straight away south till it
reached a sea where the water was always hot.
There were many other turtles in the camp, and this turtle was kind
and pleasant to them all, but he did not care for any of them very
much, and felt rather lonely.
At last he built himself a hut, and filled it with skins for seats,
and made it as comfortable as any hut for miles round; and when it
was quite finished he looked about among the young women to see
which of them he should ask to be his wife.
It took him some time to make up his mind, for no turtle likes being
hurried, but at length he found one girl who seemed prettier and
more industrious than the rest, and one day he entered her home, and
said: 'Will you marry me?'
The young woman was so surprised at this question that she dropped
the beaded slipper she was making, and stared at the turtle. She
felt inclined to laugh--the idea was so absurd; but she was
kind-hearted and polite, so she looked as grave as she could, and
answered:
'But how are you going to provide for a family? Why, when the camp
moves, you will not even be able to keep up with the rest!'
'I can keep up with the best of them,' replied the turtle, tossing
his head. But though he was very much offended he did not let the
girl see it, and begged and, prayed her so hard to marry him that,
at last, she consented, very unwillingly.
'You will have to wait till the spring, though,' she said; 'I must
make a great many slippers and dresses for myself, as I shall not
have much time afterwards.'
This did not please the turtle; but he knew it was no use talking,
so all he answered was:
'I shall go to war and take some captives, and I shall be away
several months. And when I return I shall expect you to be ready to
marry me.'
So he went back to his hut, and at once set about his preparations.
The first thing he did was to call all his relations together, and
ask them if they would come with him and make war on the people of a
neighbouring village. The turtles, who were tired of doing nothing,
agreed at once, and next day the whole tribe left the camp. The girl
was standing at the door of her hut as they passed, and laughed out
loud--they moved so slowly. Her lover, who was marching at the head,
grew very angry at this, and cried out:
'In four days from now you will be weeping instead of laughing,
because there will be hundreds of miles between you and me.'
'In four days,' replied the girl--who only promised to marry him in
order to get rid of him--'in four days you will hardly be out of
sight.'
'Oh, I did not mean four days, but four years,' answered the turtle,
hastily; 'whatever happens I shall be back by then.'
The army marched on, till one day, when they felt as if they must
have got half round the earth, though they were scarcely four miles
from the camp, they found a large tree lying across their path. They
looked at it with dismay, and the oldest among them put their heads
together to see what was to be done.
'Can't we manage to get past by the top?' asked one.
'Why, it would take us years,' exclaimed another. 'Just look at all
those tall green branches, spreading in every direction. If once we
got entangled in them, we should never get out again!'
'Well then, let us go round by the bottom,' said a third.
'How are we to do that, when the roots have made a deep hole, and
above that is a high bank?' replied a fourth. 'No; the only way I
can think of, is to burn a large hole in the trunk.' And this they
did, but the trunk was very thick, and would not burn through.
'It is no use, we must give it up,' they agreed at last. 'After all,
nobody need ever know! We have been away such a long while that we
might easily have had all sorts of adventures.' And so the whole
company turned homewards again.
They took even longer to go back than they had to come, for they
were tired and footsore with their journey. When they drew near the
camp they plucked up their courage, and began to sing a war- song.
At this the villagers came flocking to see what spoils the turtles
had won, but, as they approached, each turtle seized some one by the
wrist, exclaiming: 'You are our spoils; you are our prisoners!'
'Now that I have got you I will keep you,' said the leader, who had
happened to seize his betrothed.
Everybody was naturally very angry at this behaviour, and the girl
most of all, and in her secret heart she determined to have her
revenge. But, just at present, the turtles were too strong, so the
prisoners had to put on their smartest slippers and their brightest
clothes, and dance a war dance while the turtles sang. They danced
so long that it seemed as if they would never stop, till the turtle
who was leading the singing suddenly broke into a loud chant:
Whoever comes here, will die, will die!
At this all the dancers grew so frightened that they burst through
the ring of their captors, and ran back to the village, the turtles
following--very slowly. On the way the chief turtle met a man, who
said to him:
'That woman who was to have been your wife has married another man!'
'Is that true?' said the turtle. 'Then I must see him.'
But as soon as the villager was out of sight the turtle stopped, and
taking a bundle containing fringes and ornaments from his back, he
hung them about him, so that they rattled as he walked. When he was
quite close to the hut where the woman lived, he cried out:
'Here I am to claim the woman who promised to be my wife.'
'Oh, here is the turtle,' whispered the husband hurriedly; 'what is
to be done now?'
'Leave that to me; I will manage him,' replied the wife, and at that
moment the turtle came in, and seized her by the wrist. 'Come with
me,' he said sternly.
'You broke your promise,' answered she. 'You said you would be back
soon, and it is more than a year since you went! How was I to know
that you were alive?'
At her words the husband took courage, and spoke hastily:
'Yes, you promised you would go to war and bring back some
prisoners, and you have not done it.'
'I did go, and made many prisoners,' retorted the turtle angrily,
drawing out his knife. 'Look here, if she won't be my wife, she
sha'n't be yours. I will cut her in two; and you shall have one
half, and I the other.'
'But half a woman is no use to me,' answered the man. 'If you want
her so much you had better take her.' And the turtle, followed by
his relations, carried her off to his own hut.
Now the woman saw she would gain nothing by being sulky, so she
pretended to be very glad to have got rid of her husband; but all
the while she was trying to invent a plan to deliver herself from
the turtle. At length she remembered that one of her friends had a
large iron pot, and when the turtle had gone to his room to put away
his fringes, she ran over to her neighbour's and brought it back.
Then she filled it with water and hung it over the fire to boil. It
was just beginning to bubble and hiss when the turtle entered.
'What are you doing there?' asked he, for he was always afraid of
things that he did not understand.
'Just warming some water,' she answered. 'Do you know how to swim?'
'Yes, of course I do. What a question! But what does it matter to
you?' said the turtle, more suspicious than ever.
'Oh, I only thought that after your long journey you might like to
wash. The roads are so muddy, after the winter's rains. I could rub
your shell for you till it was bright and shining again.
'Well, I am rather muddy. If one is fighting, you know, one cannot
stop to pick one's way. I should certainly be more comfortable if my
back was washed.'
The woman did not wait for him to change his mind. She caught him up
by his shell and popped him straight into the pot, where he sank to
the bottom, and died instantly.
The other turtles, who were standing at the door, saw their leader
disappear, and felt it was their duty as soldiers to follow him;
and, springing into the pot, died too. All but one young turtle,
who, frightened at not seeing any of his friends come out again,
went as fast as he could to a clump of bushes, and from there made
his way to the river. His only thought was to get away as far as
possible from that dreadful hut; so he let the river carry him where
it was going itself, and at last, one day, he found himself in the
warm sea, where, if he is not dead, you may meet him still.
The Turtle And His
Bride
from the Brown Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
