CflWB^ttU? COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. ^■<-'i-,... ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. TANGLEVVOOD TALES, AND BIOGRAPHICAL STORIES NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. BOSTON : HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. ®(je Btoermfce Press, Cambrrtiffe. 1881. ■r)i 1881 Copyright, 1850 and 1853- By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. Copyright, 1878 and 1881, By ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP. All rights reserved. ♦ * TANGLEWOOD TALES FOR GIRLS AND BOYS. BEING A SECOND WONDER-BOOK. CONTENTS JPACl THE WAYSIDE— INTRODBCTOltt 7 1 THE MINOTAUR. - . ■ • • l9 H. THE PYGMIES, 71 III. THE DRAGON'S TEETH, ... . • • • • lfl6 IV CIRCE'S PALACE, ... 161 \ THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS .214 Vi THE GOLDEN FLEECE, . . • • • ** THE WAYSIDE. INTRODUCTORY. A short time ago, I was favored with a fly- ing visit from my young friend Eustace Bright, whom I had not before met with since quitting the breezy mountains of Berkshire. It being the winter vacation at his college, Eustace was allowing himself a little relaxation, in the hope, he told me, of repairing the inroads which severe application to study had made upon his health ; and I was happy to conclude, from the excellent physical condition in which I saw him, that the remedy had already been attended with very de- sirable success. He had now run up from Bos- ton by the noon train, partly impelled by the friendly regard with which he is pleased to honor me, and partly, as I soon found, on a matter of literary business. It delighted me to receive Mr. Bright, for the first time, under a roof, though a very humble (7) 8 THE WAYSIDE. one, which I could really call my own. Noi did I fail (as is the custom of landed proprietors all about the world) to parade the poor fellow up and down over my half a dozen acres ; secretly rejoicing, nevertheless, that the disarray of the \nclement season, and particularly the six inches of snow then upon the ground, prevented him from observing the ragged neglect of soil and shrubbery into which the place has lapsed. It was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from Monument Mountain, Bald Summit, and old Graylock, shaggy with primeval forests, could see any thing to admire in my poor little hillside, with its growth of frail and insect- eaten locust trees. Eustace very frankly called the view from my hill top tame ; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, head- long Berkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college residence had made him familiar. But to me there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentle eminences. They are better than mountains, because they do not stamp and stereotype themselves into the brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impres- THE WAYSIDE. 9 sion, repeated day after day. A few summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines forever new, because continually fading out of the memory — such would be my sober choice. I doubt whether Eustace did not internally pronounce the whole thing a bore, until I led him to my predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer house, midway on the hillside. It h a mere skeleton of slender, decaying tree trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a tracery of branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. It looks, and is, as evanescent as a dream ; and yet, in its rustic network of boughs, it has somehow en- closed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has be- come a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it. I made Eustace Bright sit down on a snow bank, which had heaped itself over the mossy seat, and gazing through the arched window opposite, he acknowledged that the scene at once grew picturesque. " Simple as it looks," said he, " this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. It is 10 THE WAYSIDE. full of suggestiveness, and, in its way, is ab good as a cathedral. Ah, it would be just the spot for one to sit in, of a summer afternoon, and tell the children some more of those wild stories from the classic myths ! " " It would, indeed," answered I. " The sum- mer house itself, so airy and so broken, is like one of those old tales, imperfectly remembered ; and these living branches of the Baldwin apple tree, thrusting themselves so rudely in, are like your unwarrantable interpolations. But, by the by, have you added any more legends to the series, since the publication of the Wonder Book ? " " Many more," said Eustace ; " Primrose, Periwinkle, and the rest of them, allow me no comfort of my life, unless I tell them a story every day or two. I have run away from home partly to escape the importunity of those, little wretches . But I have written out six of the new stories, and have brought them for you to look over." "Are they as good as the first?" I in- quired. " Better chosen, and better handled," replied THE WAYSIDE. 11 Eustace Bright. " You will say so when yoa read them." " Possibly not," I remarked. " I know, from my own experience, that an author's last work is always his best one, in his own estimate, until it quite loses the red heat of composition. After that, it falls into its true place, quietly enough. But let us adjourn to my study, and examine these new stories. It would hardly be doing yourself justice, were you to bring me acquainted with them, sitting here on this snow bank ! " So we descended the hill to my small, old cot- tage, and shut ourselves up in the south-eastern room, where the sunshine comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a winter's day. Eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my hands ; and I skimmed through it pretty rapidly, trying to find out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a veteran story teller ought to know how to do. It will be remembered, that Mr. Bright con- descended to avail himself of my literary ex- perience by constituting me editor of the Won- der Book. As he had no reason to complain of 12 THE WAYSIDE. the reception of that erudite work, by the public he was now disposed to retain me in a similai position, with respect to the present volume, which he entitled " Tanglewood Tales." Not, as Eustace hinted, that there was any real necessity for my services as introductor, inas- much as his own name had become established, in some good degree of favor, with the literary world. But the connection with myself, he was kind enough to say, had been highly agreeable ; nor was he by any means desirous, as most people are, of kicking away the ladder that had perhaps helped him to reach his present eleva- tion. My young friend was willing, in short, that the fresh verdure of his growing reputation should spread over my straggling and hall- naked boughs ; even as I have sometimes thought of training a vine, with its broad leanness, and purple fruitage, over the worm-eaten posts and rafters of the rustic summer house. I was not insensible to the. advantages of his proposal, and gladly assured him of my acceptance. Merely from the titles of the stories, I saw at once that the subjects were not less rich than those of the former volume ; nor did I at all THE WAYSIDE. 13 doubt that Mr. Bright's audacity (so far as that endowment might avail) had enabled him to take full advantage of whatever capabilities they offered. Yet, in spite of my experience of his free way of handling them, I did not quite see, I confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of rendering them pre- sentable to children. These old legends, so brimming over with every thing that is most abhorrent to our Christianized moral sense — some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the Greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that ever the world saw ; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of! How were they to be purified ? How was the blessed sunshine to be thrown into them ? But Eustace told me that these myths were the most singular things in the world, and that he was invariably astonished, whenever he be* gan to relate one, by the readiness with which it adapted itself to the childish purity of his au- ditors. The objectionable characteristics seem to be a parasitical growth, having no essential 14 THE WAYSIDE. connection with the original fable. They fall away, and are thought of no more, the instant he puts his imagination in sympathy with the innocent little circle, whose wide-open eyes are fixed so eagerly upon him. Thus the stories (not by any strained effort of the narrator's, but in harmony with their inherent germ) transform themselves, and reassume the shapes which they might be supposed to possess in the pure childhood of the world. When the first poet or romancer told these marvellous legends, (such is Eustace Bright's opinion,) it was still the Golden Age. Evil had never yet existed; and sorrow, misfortune, crime, were mere shadows which the mind fancifully created for itself, as a shelter against too sunny realities ; or, at most, but prophetic dreams, to which the dream- er himself did not yield a waking credence. Children are now the only representatives of the men and women of that happy era ; and therefore it is that we must raise the intellect and fancy to the level of childhood, in order to re-create the original myths. I let the youthful author talk as much and as extravagantly as he pleased, and was glad THE WAYSIDE. l/> to see him commencing life with such confi- dence in himself and his performances. A few years will do all that is necessary towards show- ing him the truth in both respects. Meanwhile, it is but right to say, he does really appear to have overcome the moral objections against these fables, although at the expense of such liberties with their structure as must be left to plead their own excuse, without any help from me. Indeed, except that there was a necessity for it, — and that the inner life of the legends cannot be come at save by making them entire- ly one's own property, — there is no defence to be made. Eustace informed me that he had told his stories to the children in various situations — in the woods, on the shore of the lake, in the dell of Shadow Brook, in the play room, at Tangle- wood fireside, and in a magnificent palace of snow, with ice windows, which he helped his little friends to build. His auditors were even more delighted with the contents of me present volume than with the specimens which have already been given to the world. The classical- ly learned Mr. Pringle, too, had listened to two 16 THE WAYSIDE. or three of the tales, and censured them even more bitterly than he did The Three Golden Apples ; so that, what with praise, and wha^ with criticism, Eustace Bright thinks that there is good hope of at least as much success with the public as in the case of the Wonder Book. I made all sorts of inquiries about the chil dren, not doubting that there would be greal eagerness to hear of their welfare, among some good little folks who have written to me, to ask for another volume of myths. They are all, I am happy to say, (unless we except Clover,) in excellent health and spirits. Primrose is now almost a young lady, and, Eustace tells me, is just as saucy as ever. She pretends to consider herself quite beyond the age to be interested by such idle stories as these; but, for all that, whenever a story is to be told, Primrose never fails to be one of the listeners, and to make fun of it when finished. Periwinkle is very much grown, and is expected to shut up her baby house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. Sweet Fern has learned to read and write, and has put on c jacket and pair of pan- taloons — all of which improvements I am sorry THE WAYSiDE. 17 for. Squash Blossom, Blue Eye, Plantain, and Buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily through it. Huckleberry, Milkweed, and Dandelion were attacked with the hooping cough, but bore it bravely, and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. Cowslip, dur- ing the autumn, had either the measles, or some eruption that looked very much like it, but was hardly sick a day. Poor Clover has been a good deal troubled with her second teeth, which have made her meagre in aspect and rather fractious in temper; nor, even when she smiles, is the matter much mended, since it discloses a gap just within her lips, almost as wide as the barn door. But all this will pass over, and it is predicted that she will turn out a very pretty girl. As for Mr. Bright himself, he is now in his senior year at Williams College, and has a pros- pect of graduating with some degree of honor- able distinction at the next commencement. In his oration for the bachelor's degree, he gives me to understand, he will treat of the classical myths, viewed in the aspect of baby stories, and has a great mind to discuss the expediency of 2 L8 THE WAYSIDE. using up the whole of ancient history, for the same purpose. I do not know what he means to do with himself after leaving college, but trust that, by dabbling so early with the danger- ous and seductive business of autnorship, he will not be tempted to become an author by profession. If so, I shall be very sorry for the little that I have had to do with the matter, in encouraging these first beginnings. I wish there were any likelihood of my soon seeing Primrose, Periwinkle, Dandelion, Sweet Fern, Clover, Plantain, Huckleberry, Milkweed, Cowslip, Buttercup, Blue Eye, and Squash Blos- som again. But as I do not know when I shall revisit Tanglewood, and as Eustace Bright probably will not ask me to edit a third Wonder Book, the public of little folks must not expect to hear any more about those dear children from me. Heaven bless them, and every body else, whether grown people or children! The Wayside, Concoed, (Mass.,) March 13, 1853. THE MINOTAUR. 19 THE MINOTAUR In the old city of Trcezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named Theseus. His grand- father, King Pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man ; so that Theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instruc- tions. His mother's name was iEthra. As for his father, the boy had never seen him. But, from his earliest remembrance, iEthra used to go with little Theseus into a wood, and sit down upon a moss-grown rock, which was deeply sunken into the earth. Here she often talked with her son about his father, and said that he was called ^Egeus, and that he was a great king, and ruled over Attica, and dwelt at Athens^ 20 THE MINOTAUR. which was as famous a city as any in the world, Theseus was very fond of hearing about King iEgeus, and often asked his good mother ^Ethra why he did not come and live with them at Trcezene. " Ah, my dear son," answered iEthra, with a sigh, " a monarch has his people to take care of. The men and women over whom he rules are in the place of children to him ; and he can sel- dom spare time to love his own children as other parents do. Your father will never be able to leave his kingdom for the sake of seeing his little boy." " Well, but, dear mother," asked the boy, " why cannot I go to this famous city of Athens, and tell King iEgeus that I am his son ? " " That may happen by and by," said ^Ethra. " Be patient, and we shall see. You are not yet big and strong enough to set out on such an errand." " And how soon shall I be strong enough ? " Theseus persisted in inquiring. " You are but a tiny boy as yet," replied his mother. " See if you can lift this rock on which we are sitting ? " THE MINOTAUR- 2 . The iitti.3 fellow had a great opinion of his own strength. So, grasping the rough protuber- ances of the rock, he tugged and toiled amain, and got himself quite out of breath, without being able to stir the heavy stone. It seemed to he rooted into the ground. No wonder he could not move it ; for it would have taken all the force of a very strong man to lift it out of its earthy bed. His mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy. She could not help being sorrowful at finding him already so impatient to begin his adventures in the world. " You see how it is, my dear Theseus," said she. " You must possess far more strength than now before I can trust you to go to Athens, and tell King iEgeus that you are his son. But when you can lift this rock, and show me what is hid- den beneath it, I promise you my permission to depart." Often and often, after this, did Theseus ask his mother whether it was yet time for him to go to Athens, and still his mother pointed to the 22 THE MINOTAUR. rock, and told him that, for years to come, lie could not be strong enough to move it. And again and again the rosy-cheeked and curly headed boy would tug and strain at the huge mass of stone, striving, child as he was, to do what a giant could hardly have done without taking both of his great hands to the task. Meanwhile the rock seemed to be sinking far- ther and farther into the ground. The moss grew over it thicker and thicker, until at last it looked almost like a soft green seat, with only a few gray knobs of granite peeping out. The overhanging trees, also, shed their brown leaves upon it, as often as the autumn came ; and at its base grew ferns and wild flowers, some of which crept quite over its surface. To all ap- pearance, the rock was as firmly fastened as any other portion of the earths substance. But, difficult as the matter looked, Theseus was now growing up to be such a vigorous youth, that, in his own opinion, the time would quickly come when he might hope to get the upper hand of this ponderous lump of stone. " Mother, I do believe it has started ! " cried he, after one of his attempts. " The eartb around it is certainly a little cracked!" THE MINOTAUR. 23 * No, no, child!" his mother hastily answered. * It is not possible you can have moved it, such a boy as you still are ! " Nor would she be convinced, although The- seus showed her the place where he fancied that the stem of a flower had been partly uprooted by the movement of the rock. But ^Ethra sighed, and looked disquieted ; for, no doubt, she began to be conscious that her son was no longer a child, and that, in a little while hence, she must send him forth among the perils and troubles of the world. It was not more than a year afterwards when they were again sitting on the moss-covered stone. iEthra had once more told him the oft- repeated story of his father, and how gladly he would receive Theseus at his stately palace, and how he would present him to his courtiers and the people, and tell them that here was the heir of his dominions. The eyes of Theseus glowed with enthusiasm, and he would hardly sit still to hear his mother speak. " Dear mother ^Ethra," he exclaimed, "I nevei felt half so strong as now! I am no longer a child, nor a boy, nor a mere youth '. I feel my* 24 THE MINOTAUR. self a man ! It is now time to make one earnest trial to remove the stone." " Ah, my dearest Theseus," replied his mother, " not yet ! not yet ! " " Yes, mother," said he, resolutely, " the time has come . " Then Theseus bent himself in good earnest to the task, and strained every sinew, with manly strength and resolution. He put his whole brave heart into the effort. He wrestled with the big and sluggish stone, as if it had been a living enemy. He heaved, he lifted, he resolved now to succeed, or else to perish there, and let the rock be his monument forever! iEthra stood gazing at him, and clasped her hands, partly with a mother's pride, and partly with a mother's sorrow. The great rock stirred! Yes, it was raised slowly from the bedded moss and earth, uprooting the shrubs and flowers along with it, and was turned upon its side. Theseus had conquered f While taking breath, he looked joyfully at his mother, and she smiled upon him through her tears. u Yes, Theseus," she said, " the time has «i >mp THE MINOTAUR. 25 di\i you must stay no longer at my side! See what King iEgeus, your royal father, left for you, beneath the stone, when he lifted it in his mighty arms, and laid it on the spot whence you have now removed it." Theseus looked, and saw that the rock had been placed over another slab of stone, contain- ing a cavity within it; so that it somewhat resembled a roughly-made chest or coffer, of which the upper mass had served as the lid. Within the cavity lay a sword, with a golden hilt, and a pair of sandals. " That was your father's sword," said iEthra, " and those were his sandals. When he went to be king of Athens, he bade me treat you as a child until you should prove yourself a man by lifting this heavy stone. That task being accom- plished, you are to put on his sandals, in order to. follow in your father's footsteps, and to gird on his sword, so that you may fight giants and dragons, as King iEgeus did in his youth." "I will set out for Athens this very day!" cried Theseus. • But his mother persuaded him to stay a day or two longer, while she got ready some neces- 26 THE MINOTAUR. sary articles for his journey. When his grand father, the wise King Pittheus, heard that The- seus intended to present himself at his father's palace, he earnestly advised him to get on board of a vessel, and go by sea; because he migh* thus arrive within fifteen miles of Athens, with- out either fatigue or danger. " The roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king ; " and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters. A mere lad, like Theseus, is not fit to be trusted on such a peril- ous journey, all by himself. No, no ; let him go by sea ! " But when Theseus heard of robbers and mon- sters, he pricked up his ears, and was so much the more eager to take the road along which they were to be met with. On the third day, therefore, he bade a respectful farewell to his grandfather, thanking him for all his kindness ; and, after affectionately embracing his mother, he set forth, with a good many of her tears glis- tening on his cheeks, and some, if the truth must be told, that had gushed out of his own eyes. But he let the sun and wind dry them, and walk id stoutly on, playing with the golden THE MINOTAUR. 27 hilt of his sword, and taking very manly strides in his father's sandals. I cannot stop to tell you hardly any of the ad- ventures that befell Theseus on the road to Athens It is enough to say, that he quite cleared that part of the country of the robbers, about whom King Pittheus had been so much alarmed. One of these bad people was named Procrustes ; and he was indeed a terrible fellow, and had an ugly way of making fun of the poor travellers who happened to fall into his clutches. In his cavern he had a bed, on which, with great pre- tence of hospitality, he invited his guests to lie down ; but if they happened to be shorter than the bed, this wicked villain stretched them out by main force ; or, if they were too tall, he lopped oft" their heads or feet, and laughed at what he had done, as an excellent joke. Thus, however weary a man might be, he never liked to lie in the bed of Procrustes. Another of these robbers, named Scinis, must likewise have been a very great scoundrel. He was in the habit of fling- ing his victims off a hign cliff into the sea ; and, in order to give him exactly his deserts, Theseus tossed him off the very same place. But if yon SO THE MINOTAUR. will believe me, the sea would not pollute itself by receiving such a bad person into its bosom neither would the earth, having once got rid of him, consent to take him back ; so that, between the cliff and the sea, Scinis stuck fast in the air, which was forced to bear the burden of his naughtiness. After these memorable deeds, Theseus heard of an enormous sow, which ran wild, and was the terror of all the farmers round about ; and, as he did not consider himself above doing any good thing that came in his way, he killed this monstrous creature, and gave the carcass to the poor people for bacon. The great sow had been an awful beast, while ramping about the woods and fields, but was a pleasant object enough when cut up into joints, and smoking on 1 know not how many dinner tables. Thus, by the time he reached his journey's end, Theseus had done many valiant feats with his father's golden-hilted sword, and had gained the renown of being one of the bravest young men of the day. His fame travelled faster than he did, and reached Athens before him. As he entered the city, he heard th THE MINOTAUR. 29 inhabitants talking at the street corners, and aaying that Hercules was brave, and Jason too, and Cantor and Pollux likewise, but that The- seus, the son of their own king, would turn out as great a hero as the best of them. Theseus took longer strides on hearing this, and fancied himself sure of a magnificent reception at hia father's court, since he came thither with Fame to blow her trumpet before him, and cry to ffing iEgeus, " Behold your son ! " He little suspected, innocent youth that he was, that here, in this very Athens, where Ins father reigned, a greater danger awaited him than any which he had encountered on the road. Yet this was the truth. You must understand that the father of Theseus, though not very old in years, was almost worn out with the cares of government, and had thus grown aged before his time. His nephews, not expecting him to live a very great while, intended to get all the power of the kingdom into their own hands. But when they heard that Theseus had arrived in Athens, and learned what a gallant young man he was, they saw that he would not be at all the kind of person to let them steal away his father's so THE MINOTAUR. crown and sceptre, which ought to be his own by right of inheritance. Thus these bad-hearteo nephews ol King iEgeus, who were the own cousins of Tneseus, at once became his enemies. A still more dangerous enemy was Medea, the wicked enchantress ; for she was now the king's wife, and w T anted to give the kingdom to hei son Medus, instead of letting it be given to the son of iEthra, whom she hated. It so happened that the king's nephews met Theseus, and found c^t who he was, just as he reached the entrance of the royal palace. With all their evil designs against him, they pretended to be their cousin's best friends, and expressed great joy at making his acquaintance. They proposed to him that he should come into the king's presence as a stranger, in order to trv whether iEgeus would discover in the young man's features any likeness either to himself or his mother iEthra, and thus recognize him for a son. Theseus consented; for he fancied that his father would know him in a moment, by Ihe love that was in his heart. But, while he wailed at the door, the nephews ran and told King /Egsus that a young man had arrived in Athens THE MINOTAUR. ^1 who, to their certain knowledge, intended tc put him to death, and get possession of his royal crown. " And he is now waiting for admission to your majesty's presence," added they. " Aha ! ' ?