ADVIENTO - El hada del río

El hada del río

En las profundidades de un gran bosque había un magnífico río cuyas aguas se vestían de los colores del arcoíris por los penetrantes rayos del sol.

Era un río fantástico con aguas limpias y cristalinas que motivaba a un joven príncipe a irse de pesca todo el verano.

Un buen día mientras pescaba descubrió a una joven de larga y abundante cabellera sentada sobre una roca jugando con los peces. El príncipe sonrió al ver el panorama y  luego vociferó:

_ ¡Hola!

La joven lo miró con sus penetrantes ojos verdes sin decir nada.

_ ¿Por qué no sales del agua y pescamos juntos? _ clamó el príncipe rompiendo el silencio.

Pero la joven como no le gustaba estar en compañía se sumergió bajo el agua y comenzó a nadar alejándose del lugar metiéndose en una cueva.

Allí, en su soledad, comenzó a sentir curiosidad por saber qué se sentiría al estar en  compañía de alguien.

Esta curiosidad hizo que comenzara a nadar hasta donde había dejado al príncipe. Pero cuando sacó la cabeza del río el príncipe ya no estaba.

Salió del agua y anduvo por el bosque durante varias horas con la ilusión de encontrarlo; pero se detuvo al escuchar una rara voz  susurrar: 

_ ¡Ya tengo mi banquete! ¡Ya tengo mi banquete!

Con mucha curiosidad siguió el sonido de la voz descubriendo a un duende de fuego en pijama que estaba haciendo una hoguera para comerse al príncipe asado.

_ ¡Duende malvado, suéltalo ya!_ ordenó la joven.

Éste la miró con sus ojos envueltos en llamas e inmediatamente comenzó a lanzarle llamas de fuego por su boca. En ese mismo instante la joven levantó sus manos  y soltando grandes chorros de aguas por sus dedos apagó el fuego.

Viendo esto, el duende levantó sus manos e hizo que sus afiladas uñas comenzaran a crecer apuntando hacia la joven. Pero seguidamente la joven frotó sus manos expulsando miles de burbujas de colores para distraerlo.

Cuando el duende vio tantas burbujas flotando en el aire comenzó a jugar felizmente dando saltitos pinchándolas con sus uñas.

La joven aprovechó esta situación y escapó junto al príncipe hacia la orilla del río.  Allí el príncipe le agradeció que le salvara la vida cantándole una dulce canción.

Al final de la canción la joven le miró con ternura y le dijo:

_ He comprendido que es mejor vivir en compañía; porque de esta manera se construye mejor la felicidad…

Después de haber dicho esto levantó sus manos y produjo una corriente de aire que chocó con la superficie del río haciendo que muchos peces de colores salieran a la orilla a hacer piruetas. El príncipe entre risas sólo observaba el espectáculo descubriendo que la joven era el hada u ondina del río.

A partir de ese momento se hicieron muy buenos amigos. El príncipe iba a visitarla cada tarde hasta que al final decidió declararle su amor.

Cada día construían la felicidad, lejos del rencor, haciendo crecer la serenidad del alma.

Autora: María Abreu

THE CAPTIVE PRINCESS I

I

THE FIRE EATERS
After waiting many long years, the two most intelligent people upon Earth, who had been both looking for their intellectual equal, the lock to fit his key and vice versa, found one another.

They were both old, but kings came from all sides to their wedding, and offered themselves as god-parents to the first-born of the new race that was to be. But, to the grief of his parents, the child, when he arrived, proved to be a simpleton; and no second child ever came to repair the mistake of the first.

That he was a simpleton was evident; his head was small and his limbs were large, and he could run long before he could talk or do arithmetic. In the bitterness of their hearts his father and mother named him Noodle, without the aid of any royal god-parents; and from that moment, for any care they took in his bringing-up, they washed their wise hands of him.

Noodle grew and prospered, and enjoyed [pg 5]life in his own foolish way. When his father and mother died within a short time of each other, they left him alone without any friend in the world.

For a good while Noodle lived on just what he could find in the house, in a hand-to-mouth sort of way, till at last only the furniture and the four bare walls were left to him.

One cold winter's night he sat brooding over the fire, wondering where he should get food for the morrow, when he heard feet coming up to the door, and a knock striking low down upon the panel. Outside there was a faint chirping and crackling sound, and a whispering as of fire licking against the woodwork without.

He opened the door and peered forth into the night. There, just before him, stood seven little men huddled up together; three feet high they were, with bright yellow faces all shrivelled and sharp, and eyes [pg 6]whose light leaped and sank like candle flame before a gust.

When they saw him, they shut their eyes and opened famished mouths at him, pointing inwards with flickering finger-tips, and shivering from head to foot with cold, although it seemed to the youth as if the warmth of a slow fire came from them. 'Alas!' said Noodle, in reply to these signs of hunger, 'I have not left even a crust of bread in the house to give you! But at least come in and make yourselves warm!' He touched the foremost, making signs for them all to enter. 'Ah,' he cried, 'what is this, and what are you, that the mere touch of you burns my finger?'

Without answer they huddled tremblingly across the threshold; but so soon as they saw the fire burning on the hearth, they yelped all together like a pack of hounds, and, throwing themselves face forwards into the hot embers, began ravenously [pg 7]to lap up the flames. They lapped and lapped, and the more they lapped the more the fire sank away and died. Then with their flickering finger-tips they stirred the hot logs and coals, burrowing after the thin tapes and swirls of vanishing flame, and fetching them out like small blue eels still wriggling for escape.

After each blue wisp had been gulped down, they sipped and sucked at their fingers for any least tricklet of flavour that might be left; and at the last seemed more famished than when they began.

'More, more, O wise Noodle, give us more!' they cried; and Noodle threw the last of his fuel on the embers.

They breathed round it, fanning it into a great blaze that leaped and danced up to the rafters; then they fell on, till not a fleck or a flake of it was left. Noodle, seeing them still famished, broke up a stool and threw that on the hearth. And again [pg 8]they flared it with their breath and gobbled off the flame. When the stool was finished he threw in the table, then the dresser, and after that the oak-chest and the window-seat.

Still they feasted and were not fed. Noodle fetched an axe, and broke down the door; then he wrenched up the boards from the floor, and pulled the beams and rafters out of the ceiling; yet, even so, his guests were not to be satisfied.

'I have nothing left,' he said, 'but the house itself; but since you are still hungry you shall be welcome to it!'

He scattered the fire that remained upon the hearth, and threw it out and about the room; and as he ran forth to escape, up against all the walls and right through the roof rose a great crackling sheaf of flame. In the midst of the fire, Noodle could see his seven guests lying along on their bellies, slopping their hands in the heat, [pg 9]and lapping up the flames with their tongues. 'Surely,' he thought, 'I have given them enough to eat at last!'

After a while all the fire was eaten away, and only the black and smouldering ruins were left. Day came coldly to light, and there sat Noodle, without a home in the world, watching with considerate eye his seven guests finishing their inordinate repast.

They all rose to their feet together, and came towards him bowing; as they approached he felt the heat of their bodies as it had been seven furnaces.

'Enough, O wise Noodle!' said they, 'we have had enough!' 'That,' answered Noodle, 'is the least thing left me to wonder at. Go your ways in peace; but first tell me, who are you?' They replied, 'We are the Fire-eaters: far from our own land, and strangers, you have done us this service; what, now, can we [pg 10]do to serve you?' 'Put me in the way of a living,' said Noodle, 'and you will do me the greatest service of all.'

Then the one of them who seemed to be chief took from his finger a ring having for its centre a great firestone, and threw it into the snow, saying, 'Wait for three hours till the ring shall have had time to cool, then take it, and wear it; and whatever fortune you deserve it shall bring you. For this ring is the sweetener of everything that it touches: bread it turns into rich meats, water into strong wine, grief into virtue, and labour into strength. Also, if you ever need our help, you have but to brandish the ring, and the gleam of it will reach us, and we will be with you wherever you may be.'

With that they bowed their top-knots to the ground and departed, inverting themselves swiftly till only the shining print of seven pairs of feet remained, red-hot, over the place where they had been standing.
[pg 11]

Noodle waited for three hours; then he took up the firestone ring, and putting it on his finger set out into the world.

At the first door he came to, he begged a crust of bread, and touching it with the ring found it tasted like rich meats, well cooked and delicately flavoured. Also, the water which he drew in the hollow of his hand from a brook by the roadside tasted to him like strong wine.