Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Pushkin Children's Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
Red shoes, golden slippers, seven-league boots... Just step into the shoes of princes and princesses, ogres and orphans, cats and rabbits, and discover a fascinating fairy-tale world of footwear. Did you know that long ago Cinderella lived in China? That dogs in America wear boots? And that a small pair of shoes in France can fall in love? With original illustrations by Lucie Arnoux, this is a timeless and captivating collection of fairy tales and folktales, whose footprints have lasted through the generations, over the centuries, and all around the world.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 87
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them”
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Contents
The Story of Yexian
DUAN CHENGSHI
THERE IS A STORY AMONG SOUTHERNERS THAT before the Qin and the Han there was a cave master named Wu. The local people called the place Wu cave. Wu took two wives but one wife died, leaving a daughter named Yexian. When she was young, she was intelligent and skilled at metalworking. Her father loved her, but before a year had passed, her father also died. She was treated badly by her stepmother, who often ordered her to collect firewood from dangerous places and to draw water from the deeps.
Once Yexian caught a fish about two inches long with red fins and golden eyes. She placed it in a basin of water. She changed the basin several times, and it grew bigger by the day. Finally it got so big she couldn’t find a container for it, and she threw it into the pond in the back. When the girl had leftover food, she would sink it into the water to feed the fish. Whenever the girl came to the pond, the fish would stick its head out and pillow it on the bank, but it wouldn’t do this when other people came. Her stepmother knew about this, but whenever she watched for it, it never showed itself. So she tricked Yexian, saying, “You have certainly worked hard. I’m going to give you some new clothes.” The girl changed out of her old clothes. Later the stepmother sent her to fetch water from another spring. Reckoning that the spring was several hundred li away, the stepmother slowly dressed in the girl’s old clothes, put a long knife in her sleeve, and went to the pond to call the fish. The fish immediately stuck out its head, whereupon she chopped it off and killed the fish. It had already grown to be more than ten feet long. She served its meat, and the taste was twice as good as ordinary fish. Then she hid the bones under the dung heap.
On the following day the girl came back to the pond, and when the fish didn’t appear, she went out to the countryside to wail with grief. Suddenly out of the sky appeared a person with loose hair hanging down and wearing coarse clothing. He comforted the girl, saying, “Don’t cry. Your stepmother has killed the fish, but its bones are under the dung heap. Now you go back home and hide the bones in your room. Whenever you need something, you have but to pray to the bones and your wish will be granted.” The girl did as he said, and gold, pearls, clothing and food came to her as she wished.
On the day of the cave festival the stepmother went out and ordered the girl to keep watch over the fruit trees in the garden. Yexian waited until her stepmother had gone a long way; then she also went out, dressed in a robe spun of kingfisher blue, and wearing shoes of gold upon her feet. The daughter of the stepmother recognized her and said to her mother, “That person looks just like my stepsister.” The stepmother also suspected this. Yexian became aware that she had been discovered and hurriedly went back home. On the way she left behind one shoe, which was picked up by a cave dweller. When the stepmother returned home, she only saw the girl fast asleep in the garden, arms wrapped around a tree, so she didn’t worry any more about it.
The cave was near an island in the sea. On this island was the kingdom of Tohan. It had a strong army and had sovereignty over dozens of islands. Its watery coastline stretched for several thousand li. The cave dweller sold the girl’s shoe in Tohan, and the king acquired it. He told those around him to try it on, but it was an inch too small, even for those with small feet. Then he ordered every woman in his kingdom to try it on, but in the end there was not one person that it fit. It was as light as down, and even when treading on stone, it made no sound. The king of Tohan suspected that the cave dweller had got the shoe in some improper way, so he imprisoned and tortured him, but he never did end up finding out where it had come from. After that, the king threw the shoe down by the wayside, and went through houses everywhere to arrest people. If there was a woman who could wear it, the king’s men were to take her into custody and inform the king.
The Tohan king then found Yexian. He ordered her to put on the shoe; then he believed that it was the girl he had sought. Yexian then dressed in her robe spun of kingfisher blue and her golden shoes and went to the king, as lovely as an angel. She began to serve the king as wife, and he took the fish bones along with Yexian back to his country. Her stepmother and sister were killed by flying stones, but the cave dwellers took pity on them and buried them in a stone pit, calling it the “distressed woman’s tomb”. The cave people did matchmaking sacrifices at this tomb; if they prayed for a woman there, the wish would certainly come true.
When the king of Tohan got back to his country, he made Yexian his primary wife. The first year he greedily prayed to the fish bones and acquired unlimited jewels and jade. The next year the bones simply didn’t respond, so the king buried them by the seashore and covered them over with one hundred bushels of pearls, bordering them with gold. Later, when some conscripted soldiers mutinied, their general opened the hiding place to provide for the army. One night the bones were washed away by the tide.
My long-time household servant, Li Shiyuan, told me this story. Shiyuan originally was a Yangzhou cave dweller, and he remembers many strange occurrences of the south.
This is the earliest version of the Cinderella story that has ever been recorded… and it dates back to the 9th century in China. DUAN CHENGSHI was a chronicler and a scholar who lived during the Tang dynasty. He was very curious and travelled a lot. His version of Cinderella is set on the coast of today’s Vietnam and was written on a scroll in Classical Chinese.
Puss in Boots
CHARLES PERRAULT
A MILLER WHO HAD THREE CHILDREN LEFT NOTHing for them to inherit, except for the mill, a donkey, and a cat. These bequests did not take long to share out, and neither the solicitor nor the notary were called in: their fees would soon have eaten up the whole of the miserable inheritance. The eldest son got the mill, the middle one the donkey, and the youngest got only the cat. The young man was inconsolable at being left so meagre a bequest. “My brothers,” he said, “will be able to make a decent living if they work together; but as for me, once I’ve eaten my cat and made his fur into a muff to keep my hands warm, I shall just have to starve to death.”
The cat, who could understand what he said, but pretended not to, said in a calm and serious manner: “You mustn’t be upset, Master; all you need to do is give me a bag, and have a pair of boots made for me to walk among the brambles, and you will see that you are not as badly provided for as you believe.” The cat’s master did not expect much to come of this, but he had seen the cat play so many cunning tricks when catching rats and mice, such as to play dead by hanging upside down by his feet or burying himself in flour, that he had some hope that the cat might help him in his wretched plight. When the cat had been given what he had asked for, he dressed up smartly in his boots and, putting the bag round his neck, he took hold of the tie-strings in his two front paws. Then he set off for a warren where there were plenty of rabbits. In his bag he put bran and sow-thistles, and then waited, stretching himself out as if he were dead, for some young rabbit, still ignorant of this world’s trickery, to come and poke its nose into it in order to eat the food he had put there. Scarcely had he lain down than he got what he wanted: a silly young rabbit went into the bag, and instantly Master Cat, pulling the strings tight, caught and killed it without mercy.
Full of pride at his catch, he went to visit the King in his palace, and asked to speak to him. He was shown up to His Majesty’s apartments, where he entered and said, bowing low before the King: “Sire, I have here a rabbit from a warren, which My Lord the Marquis of Carabas” (this was the name which he saw fit to give his master) “has commanded me to present to you on his behalf.”
“Tell your master,” said the King, “that I thank him, and that I am well pleased.”
