Poems (Mansfield)/A Fairy Tale
CHILD VERSES 1907
A FAIRY TALE
Now this is the story of OlafWho ages and ages agoLived right on the top of a mountain,A mountain all covered with snow.
And he was quite pretty and tinyWith beautiful curling fair hairAnd small hands like delicate flowers—Cheeks kissed by the cold mountain air.
He lived in a hut made of pinewoodJust one little room and a doorA table, a chair, and a bedsteadAnd animal skins on the floor.
Now Olaf was partly a fairyAnd so never wanted to eatHe thought dewdrops and raindrops were plentyAnd snowflakes and all perfumes sweet,
In the daytime when sweeping and dustingAnd cleaning were quite at an end,He would sit very still on the doorstepAnd dream—Oh, that he had a friend!
Somebody to come when he called them,Somebody to catch by the hand,Somebody to sleep with at night time,Somebody who'd quite understand.
One night in the middle of WinterHe lay wide awake on his bed,Outside there was fury of tempestAnd calling of wolves to be fed—
Thin wolves, grey and silent as shadows;And Olaf was frightened to death.He had peeped through a crack in the doorpost,He had seen the white smoke of their breath.
But suddenly over the storm windHe heard a small voice pleadinglyCry, "I am a snow fairy, Olaf,Unfasten the window for me."
So he did, and there flew through the openingThe daintiest, prettiest sprite;Her face and her dress and her stockings,Her hands and her curls were all white.
And she said, "O you poor little strangerBefore I am melted, you know,I have brought you a valuable present,A little brown fiddle and bow.
So now you can never be lonely,With a fiddle, you see, for a friend,But all through the Summer and WinterPlay beautiful songs without end."
And then,—O she melted like water,But Olaf was happy at last;The fiddle he tucked in his shoulder,He held his small bow very fast.
So perhaps on the quietest of eveningsIf you listen, you may hear him soon,The child who is playing the fiddleAway up in the cold, lonely moon.