The Windfairies quotes

“

We blow the winds and sweep the earth.

When there are many of us together we make a great hurricane, and human beings are frightened. We it is who turn your mill wheel for you, and make all the little waves on the sea.

“Ah, but that is what all mortals say,” whispered one who had not spoken yet, “no mortal can keep a secret.

Never yet was one known who could be silent.

”

Years passed, and Lucilla never saw the windfairies again, though she watched for them every night. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman, and her father was very proud of her.

She was as tall and as lithe as a willow wand, and when she ran or danced it seemed as if she were as light as a feather blown in the wind.

There were few people to see her, or tell her she was beautiful, for save the fisher folk who lived in little cottages on the beach, scarce anybody came to the downs.

Once there was a tree standing in the middle of a vast wilderness, and beneath the shade of its branches was a little pool, over which they bent.

The pool looked up at the tree and the tree looked down at the pool, and the two loved each other better than anything else on earth.

And neither of them thought of anything else but each other, or cared who came and went in the world around them.

“That is nonsense,” cried a little cloud that was sailing near; “

I was once in the earth like you.

Tomorrow, if the sun shines brightly, he will draw you up into the sky, and you can sail along till you find your tree.”

“How foolish you are!” said the wind. “

Why should you give yourself up for a tree?

You might dance about in the sky for long yet, and then you might drop into the sea and mix with the waves and rise again with them to the sky, but if you fall about the tree you will go straight into the dark …

“Then that will be what I long for,” cried the cloud. “

For then I can lie in the dark where no one may see me, but I shall be close to my tree, and I can touch its roots and feed them, and when the raindrops fall from its branches they will run down to me and tell me how they look.

”

“But I fancy many others can do your work as well, or better than you,” answered the gipsy. “

What can your cups do when they are finished?

I don’t hear you say anything to them, so I should think they would be stupid cups—only fit to drink out of.”

… plain, and there will be no gay colours in it, but when you give it to your true love to drink from, if once you have drunk from it yourself, you will have all her heart, but beware that she doesn’t take a second draught.

For though the first draught that she drinks will be drunk to love, the second draught will be drunk to hate, and though she have loved you more than all else on earth, all her love will turn to hate when she drinks again.

And as you are so ignorant how to make bowls and cups, you will not know how to fashion one so as to win back her love again.”

Both were pretty girls, but the girl who had the hand-loom had the sweetest face the potter had ever seen.

Her eyes were very blue, and her hair was like golden corn, and when she smiled, it was as if the sun shone.

The potter watched her as she sat weaving, and could not keep his eyes from her or attend properly to his own pots, or to the people who wanted to buy them.

“You should tell it to everyone you meet, to all the birds of the air, and the wild animals too. That is what my mother told me to do, if I wanted to send news abroad.

You should say it even to the winds, and write it in the sand, and on the earth, and on the leaves of the trees in case they blow about, for she said all things could pass on a secret, though none can keep one.

And why don’t you weave it into your mats too? For the people who buy them take them far and near, and maybe he will see one, and know that you want him to come home again.”

he was tall and straight, and had curly brown hair, and big brown eyes, and lips that always smiled. He lived with his old mother, who was a widow, and he worked for them both in the fields and on the farms.

When he was a boy he learned the notes of all the birds, and could imitate them so exactly that they would fly down to him and settle on his shoulders.

When the farmers had sown their fields, and the birds would have come to pick up the grain, they sent for Othmar, and he sang and whistled till they all left the field and flew after him. So often he was called the bird-boy.

It made the people weep and laugh.

Othmar lay on the ground listening, and it seemed to him as if the sound were made of silver, and when the musician had started them, and all the other fiddles were playing together, he felt as if he should go mad for joy to hear anything so lovely.

Just behind where Othmar lay sat a young girl, named Hulda. She was an orphan, and dwelt alone with an old woman, who gave her food and lodging for sweeping out her room, and cleaning and cooking.

but instead of answering her the old man at first stared at her in bewilderment, and then he said, “

I can teach you to read and write and many wonderful things, but of dwarfs who can steal a boy’s voice I know nothing.

You would do best not to think more of it.”

“There, that will do,” said the strange little gnome. “That is a nice useful size.

Oh dear, how tiring growing is!

I don’t think I’ll be any bigger just yet. Now be sure you don’t drop me, and handle me very carefully, for I do not like to be roughly touched. I have not slept nearly as long as I meant to.