madam!" "Is it JEMMY?" "It is not."

"Can

your name be RUMPEL-STILTS-KEN?" said the lady slily. "Some witch told you that! some witch told you that!" cried the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out.

Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, "We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr. RUMPEL-STILTS-KEN!"

BRUIN AND THE TITS.*

ONE bright summer's day, as Mr. Bruin the bear and his friend the wolf were taking a walk together arm-in-arm in a wood, they heard a bird singing merrily. "Hist, hist! brother, stop a bit!" said the bear; "what can that dear bird be that sings so sweetly?" "My dear friend Bruin," said the wolf, "why, don't you know? that is his majesty the king of birds. We must take care to show him all kinds of honour." (Now

* "Der Zaunkönig und der Bär" of Grimm, from Zwehrn. We have Reynard here in his proper character; and the smaller animals triumphing by superior wit over the larger, in the same manner as, in many of the Northern traditions, the dwarfs obtain a constant superiority over their opponents the giants. In Tuhti Nameh's eighth fable [Calcutta and London, 1801], an elephant is punished for an attack upon the sparrow's nest, by an alliance which she forms with another bird, a frog, and a bee.

between ourselves, you must know, Master Wolf was a wag, and was hoaxing Bruin; for the bird was after all neither more nor less than a tom-tit.) "If that be the case," said the bear gravely, "I should very much like to see the royal palace; so pray come along and show it me!" "Softly my dear friend," said the wolf, we cannot see it just yet, for her majesty is not at home; we had better call again when the queen comes home."

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Soon afterwards the queen came with food in her beak, and she and the king her husband began to feed their young ones. "Now for it!" said the bear; family are at dinner." So he was about to follow them,

and see what was to be Bruin!" said the wolf;

seen.

"the

Stop a little, Master

we must wait now till their majesties are gone again." So they marked the hole where they had seen the nest, and went away.

But the bear, being very eager to see the royal palace, soon slipped away, wishing his friend good morning, and came back again, and peeping into the nest, saw five or six young birds lying at the bottom of it. "What nonsense!" said Bruin: "this is not a royal palace; I never saw such a filthy place in my life; and you are no royal children, you little base-born brats!" As soon as the young tom-tits heard this they were very angry, and screamed out, "We are not baseborn, you brute of a bear! our father and mother are good honest people and you shall be well paid for your slander!" At this the bear grew frightened, and ran away to his den. But the young tits kept crying and screaming; and when their father and mother

came home and showed them food, they all said, "We will not touch a bit, no, not the leg of a fly, though we should die of hunger, till that rascal Bruin has been well trounced for calling us base-born brats." "Make yourselves easy, my darlings!" said the old king; "you may be sure he shall have his due.”

So he went out and stood before the bear's den, and cried out with a loud voice, "Bruin the bear! thou hast shamefully slandered our lawful children : we therefore hereby declare bloody war against thee and thine; which shall never cease until thou hast had thy due, thou wicked one!" Now when the bear heard this, he called together the ox, the ass, the stag, and all the beasts of the earth, in order to talk about what he should do, and how to get up an army. And the tom-tit, on his side, gathered together all the birds of the air, both great and small; and a very large army of hornets, gnats, bees, and flies, and other insects.

As the time drew near when the war was to begin, the tom-tit sent out spies, to see who was the commander-in-chief of the enemy's forces. And the gnat (who was by far the cleverest spy of them all) flew backwards and forwards in the wood where the bear's troops were, and at last hid himself under a leaf on a tree, close by which the orders of the day were given out. Then the bear, who was standing so near the tree that the gnat could hear all he said, called to the fox, and said, "Reynard, you are the cleverest of all the beasts; therefore you shall be our chief, and lead us to battle: but we must first agree upon some signal, by which we may know what you want us to do."

"Be

hold," said the fox, "I have a fine, long, bushy tail, which looks like a plume of red feathers, and gives me a very warlike air now bear in mind, when you see me raise up my tail, you may be sure that the battle goes well, and that you have nothing to do but to rush down upon the enemy with all your force. On the other hand, if I drop my tail, the day is lost; and you must run away as fast as you can." Now when the gnat had heard all this, she flew back to the tom-tit, and told him everything that had passed.

At length the day came when the battle was to be fought; and as soon as it was light, behold! the army of beasts came rushing forward, with such a fearful sound that the earth shook. And his majesty the tom-tit, with his troops, came flying along in warlike array, flapping and fluttering, and beating the air, so that it was quite frightful to hear; and both armies set themselves in order of battle upon the field. Now the tom-tit gave orders to a troop of hornets, that at the first onset they should march straight towards Captain Reynard, and fixing themselves about his tail, should sting him with all their might and main.

The hornets did as they were told: and when Reynard felt the first sting, he started aside and shook one of his legs, but still held up his tail with wonderful bravery. At the second sting he was forced to drop his tail for a moment. But when the third hornet had fixed itself, he could bear it no longer, but clapped his tail between his legs, and scampered away as fast as he could. As soon as the beasts saw this, they thought of course all was lost, and scoured across the country

in the greatest dismay, leaving the birds masters of the field.

Then the king and queen flew back to their children, and said, "Now, children, eat, drink, and be merry, for the battle is won!" But the young birds said, "No! no! not till Master Bruin has humbly begged our pardon for calling us base-born."

So the king flew off to the bear's den, and cried out, "Thou villain bear! come forthwith to my abode, and humbly beseech my children to forgive thee for the reproach thou hast cast upon them; for if thou wilt not do this, every bone in thy wretched body shall be broken into twenty pieces!"

Then the bear was forced to crawl out of his den very sulkily, and do what the king bade him; and after that the cloth was laid, and the table spread, and the young birds sat down together, and ate and drank, and made merry till midnight.

THE NOSE-TREE.*

DID you ever hear the story of the three poor soldiers, who, after having fought hard in the wars, set out on their road home, begging their way as they went?

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*This story comes from Zwehrn, and has been given by MM. Grimm only in an abridged form in their notes; hut we wished to preserve the adventures substantially, as connected with our DonkeyWort," and as illustrating the antiquity and general diffusion of the leading incidents of both. The usual excrescence is a horn or horns; not, as here, "nasus, qualem noluerit ferre rogatus Atlas."