Foreign Tales and Traditions/Volume 2/A Story of Number Nip

by Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte Fouqué

A STORY OF

 

NUMBER NIP

 

BY THE BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE.

 

In an inn, near the entrance of one of the valleys of the Giant Mountains, several peasants met together one evening, and after having made themselves merry over trencher and flagon, began to tease a young bashful looking lad, who had taken his station behind the stove, and looked like a travelling scholar. The youth had been observed to betray some symptoms of fear, when, by chance, the name of the whimsical Number Nip fell out in the discourse of the peasants, and the merry rustics took a malicious pleasure in heightening his alarm by telling story after story of the far famed Lord of the Mountain.

The young stranger made several ineffectual attempts to change the subject of conversation. At last one of the peasants, willing to display his wit, thus addressed him: “Now, my young lily-faced master, as you look somewhat like a travelling scholar, methinks it would be but wise and fitting in you to draw some good moral from all our stories; and, I suppose, one is quite as good as another to you in this respect.”

“Oh,” replied the student, “I would willingly comply with what you suggest; but I am only afraid, that, were I to try to turn every thing you tell me to such good account, you might find some cause of blame in me; and I am very timid.”

The peasants laughed aloud at so modest a speech, but promised to listen to all that he might say without taking offence, and to pay his reckoning for him besides, if he should be able to deduce some profitable moral from every story that they might tell him of Number Nip. So one of the company thus began:

“Once upon a time a certain man took his way up the Giant Mountain with the special design of meeting with Number Nip, and begging from the Spirit the gift of a little magical book which should teach him how to rule the weather according as it pleased him, how to transform himself into any shape, how to bewitch his neighbour’s cattle, and, in short, how to perform a great many very strange and surprising tricks. Well, after looking about him for a long time, he at last perceived Number Nip, in the form of a little, old, decrepit man, seated in the mouth of a cave, who gave him such a little book as he described, and the impudent varlet took his way homewards again in great joy. But on the following morning, when he opened the little book, thinking to do some strange cantrip with it, lo and behold, every trace of the wonderful lines and figures which Number Nip had shown him in it the day before had vanished, and instead of a nicely written book, he had nothing but a parcel of worthless green leaves in his hand, with no other trace of figures or writing upon them than the shapeless lines and strokes which the hand of Nature has drawn upon the leaves of every tree and bush and shrub!”

The peasants were highly pleased with this story, and thought the novice in necromancy well-punished for his daring; but at last they asked the student to treat them with the moral of the story, and he, after a little reflection, began to recite the following strophe in a low voice:

“He who famous deeds would do,
First must humbly listen to
School-dame Nature’s teaching, and
Read the books which she has penn’d;—
Sealed these books to vulgar eyes,
Open only to the wise.
He who can read a flower aright
Will surely soar to wisdom’s height;
But he who nought therein can see,
A rustic clown for aye will be.”

“Sirrah, I think you are mocking us!” exclaimed the peasant who had told the story, in great wrath.

“Yes, yes,” murmured another, “the fellow is taking his sport off us. I am sure none of us could ever read what was written on the leaf of a tree; and therefore are we to understand that we are all blockheads?”

“Now, you see, my respected friends,” replied the student, “you see how instantly you begin to quarrel with me! Would that I had remained silent; but I trusted to your promise!”

The rustics, thus reminded of their pledge, promised to observe it, and another of them proceeded thus:

“Now, my good master student, I will tell you a story about one of your own sort of folks, for it is but fit that we should have our joke in turn at your expense. One of your scholar-kind of people was one day crossing the mountain; he wore a sword dangling at his side, and carried a guitar in his hand, and ever as he stalked along, he shouted some of his love songs into the blue air.”

“Nay, then he was a great deal bolder than I am,” interrupted the youth.

“I think so too, sir,” replied the peasant. “But as my gentleman marched onwards, what think you befell him? A young spark, whom he took for a student like himself, comes up to him, and, after talking all sorts of learned stuff, takes his guitar, pretending that he was going to teach him a very pretty song. But no sooner has he got hold of the instrument than up he jumps with it, faster than any squirrel, into a very high tree, and there he sits among the green branches, and sings and plays away quite at his ease! At first this nimble-footed magician chose such merry and pleasant songs, that the poor fellow at the foot of the tree stood and listened as if to a nightingale; but all at once he changed both time and tune and song, and began to bawl out such scurvy rhymes that his companion at the foot of the tree called out to him, in great wrath, to descend and restore his guitar, which was never intended for such a blockhead’s hands. But the fellow in the tree became more outrageous than ever, and began to make such provoking songs about the poor scholar and his sweatheart, that my gentleman unable any longer to contain himself, drew his sword, and leaped a yard high in the air, calling on the scoundrel musician to come down and defend his life. Thereupon an ugly visage grinned down upon him from the tree, and at the same moment the guitar fell at his feet with a crash as if it had been shivered into a thousand pieces. The poor scholar swooned away when he beheld the hideous visage above him; but when he recovered and found his guitar lying unhurt at his side, he concluded that he had met with Number Nip himself; and from that hour he has never set foot again on the Giant Mountains.”

“Faith, I can well believe that!” exclaimed one of the group, highly delighted with the story of the unlucky minstrel.—“And I think that fellow would sing as little as possible all his lifetime afterwards!” remarked another.—“Nay, for that very reason,” began a third, “I half suspect we have got the unfortunate minstrel in proper person behind the stove there!”

“Do you really think so?” said the student, looking very thoughtful and pensive. “But I am still owing you the moral, my good friends. Give attention, it runs somewhat thus:

“Let the youth to whom belong
The envied arts of verse and song,
Shunning jest and idle word
Use his gifts to praise the Lord.
But should he in some evil hour
Pervert the heaven-descended power—
Sure the minstrel’s hand is free
And the strain may changed be,
While the chords unbroken still
Wake to music at his will!
Has thy babbling tongue revealed
Secrets thou shouldst have concealed,—
Erring minstrel, let this be
A lasting lesson unto thee,
And henceforth more discreet and wise,
Veil thy love’s charms from vulgar eyes.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed one of the peasants. “If that is not meant for us, nothing in the world is! ‘Vulgar eyes!’ Well, well, I see through your learning, master student, and warn you once for all to let us alone with your quizzing.”

“Never mind, man!” shouted another of the group. “I say, never mind. If he knows Greek, surely we are no blockheads!”

This observation kept down the rising wrath of the rest, and the assurances and protestations of the student that he meant nothing personal to such honourable gentlemen, completely mollified their resentment, and it was resolved to carry on the jest.

“A man of high rank,” began one of the company, “becoming dissatisfied with one of his acquaintances, resolved to send him a very insulting and threatening letter. But somehow or other—nobody can tell how—Number Nip took hold of the pen with which he was writing, and so guided it, that he wrote just the very contrary of what he meant to express. Thus, for example, instead of writing, ‘Thou art a perjured rascal, unworthy to loose the shoe-ties of an honourable man like me,’ he actually wrote, ‘I am a perjured rascal, unworthy to loose the shoe-ties of an honourable man like thee.’ Consequently instead of a letter of insult and provocation, as was meant, the nobleman’s enemy received a pitiful and humble confession from him, and so the poor man of quality was laughed and sneered at by every body for a long time afterwards.”

The company were highly pleased with this story, and some of them jeeringly besought the student to tell them all that such a funny letter might contain; for—they added with affected humility—they were such poor ignorant creatures that none of them had great skill in the mysteries of letter-writing.

“Listen to me, gentlemen,” began the student. “I shall, with your leave, propound you something on my side, and, for once at least, the moral shall be a brief one. Here it is in two words:

You with the torch, let your neighbour alone,
Lest in singing his fingers, you scorch your own.

Now, my worthies, would you desire to witness my trick? It needs no learned clerk’s skill to understand it!”

“Go on! Go on!” shouted the half-tipsy peasants.

The student stept round the company, and drew some signs in the air with his finger before the mouth of each individual while he recited the following singular verses

The tongue and the cat
Are sly to overreach;
Fit couple they make,
Slaying each after each,
One with its teeth,
And one with its speech.

The tongue and the cat
Are not sly enough;
There’s a spell that has power
To give both a rebuff!
Come chatter, dear tongue,
Your true tipsy stuff!”

The peasants were much amused at so great an increase of boldness in the student’s demeanour; and attributing it to the influence of the liquor, they thought that if they could only get the fellow drunk they would have rare sport with him. So, when the youth had resumed his seat behind the stove, one of them presented him with a full bumper, saying:

“Now, courage, my hearty! I must drink till I measure my length on the ground, or all will not be well with me.”

“Do as you please,” replied the student very calmly.

“Yes,” responded the peasant, with assumed sternness, “you may do as you please,—quite as you please,—and if ever the very thought should cross my mind of preventing you, may I be soundly basted with your staff!”

“John,” exclaimed his comrades, laughing aloud, “what are you saying!”

Hereupon one of them, who was esteemed the wisest of their number, began with an air of great gravity: “Leave my honest friend, John, in peace! What is it that you are making such a fuss about? Had such a thing happened to me, who, you well know, am the stupidest blockhead amongst you, you might well laugh at it; but John is a wiser fellow, and you may well leave him to his own guidance.”

The company stared upon one another: “Children,” began another of the circle, “it is my grave belief you have bewitched this young student by sinful and wicked means.”

“I thought so from the very beginning!” added a third; and all broke out into a furious burst of passion, exclaiming: “Nothing shall prevent the student from beating each and all of us till he leave not a sound bone in our bodies! We have used him vilely! But wait a little; we shall be repaid in our own coin.”

Thus matters went on; the peasants fully conscious that their lips gave utterance to the express contrary of what they meant, grew more and more incensed at each impotent attempt to speak their wrath, and were about to rush in upon the magician who had so bewitched them, when suddenly the lights were extinguished, and the peasants could only discern the glaring eyes of an enormous owl which sat before them on the table. In their terror they made a simultaneous rush to the door; but outlet they could find none, while in their distress they kept shouting aloud in the most lamentable tone: “We are sorcerers! We are goblins! The student might have known this from the very beginning!”

Then the owl spoke to them in a grim voice: “Keep yourselves easy, my beloved friends; there is no occasion for alarm. Here I am, quite comfortable I assure you, and just as much the master as ever. Do you not know, my dears, that the owl is the bird of wisdom? Well, a student is just such a bird, and a very merry bird he is too, I assure ye, and there is no occasion for any great change amongst us. To be sure our situation is a little altered; just a trifle of a few hundred miles have we, my worthies, sunk down into the ground. But this should be a matter of no uneasiness to you, for I am Number Nip, and this is one of my palace halls. Don’t you see the roof above you is solid gold, and the rafters are entire diamonds! Come set to work and enrich yourselves for life!”

Stimulated by conflicting terror and avarice, the peasants now began to climb up upon one another’s shoulders to get at the diamonds. The innkeper himself was foremost of the band; and in a short time, so dexterously had they used their knives, the sky with its sparkling stars appeared through the gap in the roof. The brilliance of the heavenly gems gap only excited their cupidity to a higher pitch,—one loaded himself with a huge rafter,—another groaned under the load of rushes and straw he had piled upon his own back,—and jealousy and anger had their full play amongst them, each one striving to appropriate to himself the largest portion of what appeared inestimable treasures.

When the first ray of the morning-sun shone upon them, they found themselves standing on the roof of the inn, each one loaded with an immense weight of rafters and rushes; and it may easily be conceived how silly they looked in such a situation,—the more especially as some of their neighbours, who were going a-field to the hay-making at an early hour, got their eyes upon them, and indulged in some hearty jokes at their expense.

It is said that from that time, the innkeeper and his companions, evinced great politeness towards all strangers, and treated travelling students with especial respect.

 

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