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Hans
Fingerhut’s Frog-lesson.
A Fairy Tale
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Long ago, almost out of recollection, there lived
in a
small town in a woody German valley a poet named
Hans Fingerhut. He had come from the far north somewhere,
and
had travelled many years with his harp from court
to court and
hall to hall, buying his bread with songs that the
gentlefolk at |
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first
were never tired of hearing. But Hans Fingerhut’s
desires were of the largest. He longed for unlimited
good living, sym- pathy, and above all, for praise.
But it seemed to him that the further he travelled
the less the world had to give him. Other
poets received as much praise as he; and those who
were of |
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better
figure and bearing were more successful in many
things than he. Many a rebuff and many an ill deed
befell him. Then
his songs began to grow peevish and querulous, and
men
would no longer listen to them as they had done
to the fresh
and joyous ones of his youth. His querulousness
grew to |
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anger.
His harp-strings no longer trembled to the recital
of wonderful and beautiful things; but shrieked
and thundered
with songs full of wrath and bitterness. The great
people
turned him from their gates; and in despair he broke
his harp, rented a stall in the town, and became
a tailor—for he had |
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been
apprenticed to that trade in his youth. All day
he sewed
and stitched, and scowled at the passers-by, and
half the night
he wandered about the streets, scrawling satires
on the gates
of all whom the people honored. Nothing prospered
with him. Often as he sat and sewed, great songs
seemed to come to him, |
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beautiful
visions and thoughts that dawned on him and strove
to combine with the restless melody in his soul;
but the remembrance of his disappointments and forlorn
condition
always turned them into chants so dreadful and ferocious
that
little children were afraid to pass his door. At
such times his |
30 |
cutting
and sewing all went wrong, and people refused to
pay
him for his shapeless work. |
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At last one day, driven to distraction, he left
his stall and
passed away out of the town, determined never to
return. Everything seemed to mock him as he walked;
the blue sky |
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and
the fresh green earth, the song of the birds, the
piping of
the crickets and grasshoppers, the wind in the trees
and the
clink of the cow-bell, all so full of fair delight
and content-
ment. The farther he went the fiercer he grew. He
cursed the heavens and the earth and all happy
and beautiful things in |
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them.
At last he came to a forest
and then to a little stream run-
ning among stones and fallen moss-grown trees. More
than
ever the cheery ripple and murmur of the water angered
him.
It seemed to say to him—"How very miserable
you are, to be |
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sure,
Hans Fingerhut, you dishevelled outcast; see how
happy
I am and how delightfully I sing." And Hans
Fingerhut began
to fling stones into the stream; but it never heeded.
Every stone that he flung made the water ripple
and dance and sing the merrier, and the bigger the
stones the louder the song. Then he |
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seized
a great stick and stirred the stream, and raised
thick clouds of mud, so that the water ran away
yellow and foul; but
the song never ceased. At last in his rage he leaped
into it him- self, and kicked and danced, and lashed
the water with his
stick till he was tired. But when he was done the
stream still |
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rippled
round his legs in perfect contentment. Weary, wet
and distracted, he laid himself down on the bank
among the ferns,
and after a long while fell into a sound sleep.
He had not been long asleep,
he thought, when something pricked him sharply on
the end of the nose, and he awoke with |
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a
great start, for behold, there stood beside him
a more curious and beautiful little elf than he
had ever described in any of his
old-time songs. He was not more than a foot high.
He wore for
a hat a big thistle bloom, hollowed out on the underside
so as
to fit his head. His jerkin was made of the white
petals of the |
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water-lily,
wonderfully pieced together, and buttoned with
crimson seeds. His hose and stockings were made
of the down
of the most delicate alder catkins, woven in an
elfin loom; his shoes of the thickest golden petals
of the marsh-marigold,
laced with silver threads of flax; around his shoulders
was cast |
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for
a mantle a great leaf of the water-lily, and in
his hand he
held a sprig of thistle, with the spiked blade of
which he had pricked Hans Fingerhut on the nose.
He had little keen, calm
blue eyes, a soft yellow beard that reached to his
waist, and
long yellow hair that hung and curled in delicate
fringes over |
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the
great green water-lily mantle.
The elf looked very sternly
at Hans Fingerhut. "Wretched mortal,"
he said, "you have disturbed my beautiful stream,
because it retains forever the peace and gladness
which you by your own fault have lost; because it
sings to you, as you once |
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sang
imperfectly in your youth; because it teaches you
a won- derful lesson, which you are now too blind
and degraded to understand. In your songs long ago
you interpreted the song of
the stream more than once, but not rightly. Do you
know it
now?" "No," answered Hans Fingerhut,
"I have no heart now- |
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adays
to interpret anything but what is dark and dismal."
"Then," said the elf, "I will turn
you into a frog and you must
remain a frog until you find out the meaning of
the stream
song." So saying he pricked the poet again
with the end of the thistle staff and Hans Fingerhut
sank down into a great frog, |
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with
webbed feet, wide ugly mouth, and staring eyes.
The elf was gone and for
many hours Hans sat on the bank
of the stream utterly stunned and wretched; he felt
himself so clumsy and ugly, and more than ever useless.
The grass, which
a few hours ago he had brushed aside with his strong
feet, now |
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towered
high above his head, and the thick weeds hung so
close and rank around and above him that he could
scarcely
think of penetrating them. At last, however, he
grew very hun-
gry and fell to snapping at the flies and mosquitoes.
Presently
as the evening drew on he heard the innumerable
voices of the |
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frogs,
at first sharp and fitful and at last swelling into
a steady thunder far away down the stream. Finally
he jumped into the stream, and all that night journeyed
down with the curling
water to a great marsh, where thousands of the other
frogs
were congregated. The stream flowed by itself through
the flat |
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watery
waste, and Hans, knowing that he must discover the
meaning of its song, kept generally near to its
bank.
For many days he sat among
the long coarse grasses, lis-
tening intently to the ripple in the reeds, snapping
now and
then at the gnats and flies, and keeping a vigilant
lookout for |
110 |
the
long-legged cranes that waded sometimes in the shallows
or passed low over the marshes with wide heavy wings,
or sometimes perched themselves on the limbs of
dead trees and peered remorselessly down into the
deep grasses. At times he grew fierce and restless,
and jumping away into the pools out- |
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did
all the other frogs in the marsh in the depth and
harshness
of his discordant bellowings. Here it was just as
it had been
before with him. The thick grass teased and impeded
him, flies were hard to catch, and the long-billed
cranes haunted him perpetually. There was no satisfaction
in life anywhere, so he |
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lifted
up his discordant voice and reviled the marsh and
the
cranes and the frogs, and, when he was tired, went
back and listened wearily to the mysterious song
of the stream.
One day he said to himself,
"I know the song of the
stream," and instantly the little elf appeared
beside him, and |
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pricked
him with his thistle wand. "What, then, is
the song of
the stream?" he said. Hans Fingerhut answered
very humbly,
"I am very weary and confused and can hardly
grasp the
meaning of anything, but it seems to me the water
says this: ‘I
see the green earth round me, and the blue sky above
me, and |
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the
sweet stars at night. The wind murmurs in the trees
and
many little birds sing—more than I can count. The
voice of the frogs and the sigh of the gnats, the
call of the water hen and
the chatter of the wild goose are pleasant. All
these things and many others are joyous; why should
I be sad? Because every- |
135 |
thing
is glad so am I glad.’" "That is good,"
said the elf, "but
it is not the song of the stream: you must find
out the stream
song." But before he vanished the little elf,
seeing how
pinched and hungry Hans looked, waved his wand and
brought out of the grasses a swarm of rich plump
gnats, so |
140 |
thick
that Hans had no difficulty in catching two or three
of
them at a time, and so enjoyed the first square
meal he had had since he became a frog.
Many days Hans sat beside
the stream, either listening and thinking or rending
the drowsy air with his lonely and cheer- |
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less
bellowings. The other frogs would have nothing to
do
with him; nay, even sat around sometimes and abused
him, for
there was something uncanny about Hans Fingerhut.
He
talked often to himself in a tongue unknown to them.
Some-
times he wept in silence—a thing which astonished
them very |
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much,
for no other frogs could weep—and then he was very
clumsy at catching flies, and was grown quite starved
and thin.
Again, Hans Fingerhut said
to himself, "I know the song of
the stream," and immediately the elf was beside
him. "What,
then, is the stream song?" he said. "More
than ever I doubt |
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myself,
for I am very tired," said Hans humbly, "but
it seems
now to me that the stream song is this, ‘My way
is slow and crooked and hard to go.The grey stones
and the reeds impede me. The sun dries me up. The
cattle come down and trample
in me and fill me with mud. The millers dam me and
turn me |
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and
disturb me with their eternal wheels. I have need
to do something to keep my heart up against all
these things. I sing gladly, therefore, as the weary
weaver may sing to cheer him-
self at his loom.’" "You have wandered
farther away from the stream song," said the
elf; "you must wait yet till you find it |
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out.
Why how thin you are, poor Hans Fingerhut,"
he added
quite kindly, and waving his wand, brought up from
the earth
a host of worms, which Hans devoured with hungry
rapidity.
Once more after many days,
Hans Fingerhut said to him-
self, "I know the song of the stream,"
and the little elf said: |
170 |
"What
then is the stream song?" And he answered more
hum-
bly than ever, "The world is wretched and men
are wretched,
and I more wretched than all. Alas! it seems to
me now that
the stream song is not joyous at all, but very patient
and sad.
It seems to me to say, ‘The stream course is long
and weary, |
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and
I have to go on and on, no rest, or quiet forever;
but yet
there is no use in fretting, so I sing, not angrily,
but sadly and sweetly, as the elves of the hill
do on summer evenings under
their mounds, making beautiful, hopeless music.
Those who imagine my songs to be joyous only think
so because they |
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themselves
for the time are joyous.’"
"Nay, Hans Fingerhut,
you are farther from the stream
song than ever," said the elf, and vanished;
not, however,
before he had refreshed poor Hans with a larger
feast of flies
and worms than ever. |
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Hans Fingerhut sat beside the stream again for many
days utterly wretched, and wished that he might
die. He took no
more heed of the cranes and scarcely ever looked
for a fly or a worm, for he could make nothing of
the stream song, and it
went round and round in his head till he thought
he must go |
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mad.
He had no heart left even to bellow.
At last he determined to
go back up the stream to the place where he first
became a frog, and see if he could not make something
of it in the coolness and stillness of the forest.
It
took him many days to make the journey, he was grown
so |
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weak
and tired. At last one moonlight night he came to
the
bank where he had flung stones in the stream, and
in his envi-
ous rage pelted the clear curling water. As he sat
on the bank
with his big ugly head fallen down between his shoulders
he thought it was marvelously beautiful in the moonlight;
and the |
200 |
murmur
of the water, mingled with the sigh of the midges,
seemed to him the loveliest song he had ever heard;
neither
merry nor sad, but happy and peaceful. Then he wept,
and the tears ran down over a stone into a dark
eddy, and gathered against a small jutting ledge.
And Hans did not see for a long |
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time
that from each tear drop sprang a delicate little
fairy no
larger than a gnat, and that they formed a ring
on the stream, shining in the moonlight, and that
the ring grew ever wider and wider as the drops
ran down. At last he heaved a great sob and two
specially large tears, trickling down and joining
together, |
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passed
out into the middle of the ring and became a fairy
much larger and even more beautiful than the rest.
Hans started and looked down wonderingly into the
glimmering ring and heard
a sweet small voice come up from the shining water.
What it
said was this: "Poor Hans Fingerhut, you have
endured |
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enough
and are very weary. Shall we sing you the song of
the stream in your own mortal tongue?" Hans
Fingerhut’s eyes
looked down now bright and wet with joy and gratitude,
and
he tried to smile, forgetting that he had a frog’s
mouth, which
is not made to smile, so he contented himself with
saying, |
220 |
"Ah,
I must die soon, if I do not hear the stream song."
And the fairy ring widened
till it touched either bank, and
began to go round with a motion so soft and delicate,
and each link was so small and beautiful that Hans
would have been entranced and stupified with wonder
and delight had his mind |
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not
been set with all its faculties to catch the fairy
song. Then
the fairy who stood in the middle waved her wand
and the little song rose up scarcely louder than
the voice of the midges, yet
so distinct that Hans Fingerhut’s frog-ears caught
every word
of it. This was the song they sang—the song of the
water |
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drops;
for Hans used often to repeat it afterwards, and
all the
good children in the town knew it well:—
By
silent forest and field and mossy stone
We come from the wooded
hill and we go to the sea;
We labor and sing sweet songs, but we never moan, |
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For
our mother the sea is calling us cheerily;
We have heard her calling us many and many a day,
From the cool grey stones and the white sand far
away.
The way is long, and winding and slow is the track;
The sharp rocks fret us;
the eddies work us delay; |
240
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But
we sing sweet songs to our mother and answer her
back,
Sweetly we answer our mother,
gladly repay.
Oh, we hear her, we hear her, singing wherever we
roam,
Far, far away in the silence calling us home.
Poor mortal, your ears are dull and you cannot hear; |
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But
we, we hear it, the breast of our mother abeat,
Low, far away, sweet and solemn and clear,
Under the hush of the night,
under the noontide heat.
Gladly we sing for our mother, for so we shall please
her best,
Songs of beauty and peace, freedom and infinite
rest. |
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We
sing and sing through the grass and the stones and
the reeds,
And we never grow tired
though we journey ever and aye,
Dreaming and dreaming, wherever the long way leads,
Of the far cool rocks and
the rush of the wind and the
spray.
Under the sun and the stars we glitter and dance
and are free, |
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| For
we dream and dream of our mother, the width of the
shel- tering
sea.
As
the last echoes of the song died away the fairy
ring faded
off into the quiet moonshine. Only the larger
fairy remained in
the middle, and it was no longer the fairy but
the little elf of
the thistle, looking more beautiful and wise than
ever. "Do you |
260 |
know
now the stream song?" said he, and no frog’s
voice ever sounded so sweetly as Hans Fingerhut’s
as he repeated word
for word the fairy song of the stream. "Was
I not right," said
the elf, "when I said that the water drops
sing forever as you,
too, once sang imperfectly in your youth? Night
and day, as |
265 |
they
journey, they feel the far off strength and grandeur
of the
sea, calling and beckoning them on, and the song
that they
sing is neither weary nor sad, but perfectly happy
and peace-
ful. So everything in the world has something great
and noble
to strive towards. You, too, Hans Fingerhut, gifted
above most |
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men,
have your sea to seek without ceasing—a wondrous
and absorbing sea of strength and beauty and peace.You
can never come to it, but you can approach ever
nearer and nearer.If you understand this rightly,
the troubles and vexations of life, all
its trials and difficulties will no longer fret
you, but only arm |
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you
with the wide knowledge and power." So saying
the elf
once more pricked Hans Fingerhut on the nose with
his thistle
staff and Hans again became a man.
All night long Hans sat
beside the stream in the moonlight,
very quiet and thoughtful, listening to the eternal
ripple of the |
280 |
water.
It seemed to him that he could now render the sweet,
joyous voice distinctly into words, and the murmur
ever
seemed to say:—
"Oh,
we hear her, we hear her, singing wherever we
roam,
Far, far away in the silence, calling us home." |
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At last the dawn came and Hans Fingerhut went down
to
the stream and bathed his face and hands, taking
the utmost
care never to disturb its clearness, and he blessed
the stream
and turned away homeward through the forest. The
voices of
the birds came soft and muffled out of the cool
trees, and the |
290 |
bells
of the waking cattle sounded fitfully across the
far off
hills. As he passed out of the woods the sun rose,
and the birds broke into full chorus; the laborers
began to go afield and anon
the grasshoppers piped in the warm grass. All these
things no longer made Hans Fingerhut angry, but
only seemed to him so |
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many
different versions of the stream song. They seemed
to
say to him, "Ah, Hans Fingerhut, you have changed
and
become like us again. We are all happy and peaceful,
for we
have all something noble and beautiful to work for.
We long to
hear you sing." So Hans came to the town, and
the noise and |
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stir
of the streets were become quite pleasant to him.
He no longer walked with his usual defiant stride,
downcast face and scowling brow. The portly figures
and round faces of the busy burghers, and the well-filled
purses at their girdles no longer
made him fierce and envious, but he greeted them
all with a |
305 |
quiet
and pleasant "good morning."
All that day, and many
days, he sat in his stall and sewed
and stitched diligently and sang so many glad, beautiful
songs
at his work that the little children, instead of
making a long cir-
cuit to escape his door,as they had been wont to
do, came and |
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gathered
round him now and listened to his singing, with
delight and wonder in their eyes. Hans Fingerhut
thanked the
little children, knowing that what they loved must
be good,
and he became very fond of them, for there was something
of
the freshness and beauty of the stream song about
them. He |
315 |
bought
cakes and sweetmeats for them out of his savings,
and sang and played on his harp for them in the
intervals of his
work. The fame of his singing spread, and the halls
of the great were opened to him again. But from
that day the great songs
that he made were nothing like his former ones.
There was |
320 |
never
anything bitter and complaining in them. They were
all
sweet and beautiful and wise. He would receive no
reward for them, nor did he ask the favour of anyone.
When others
received higher praise than he, he never envied
them in the
least, for he knew that what he sang was just such
as the Great |
325 |
Father
had given him. So ends the story of Hans Fingerhut
and
his frog lesson. |
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