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  [Illustration]


  The Blue Rose Fairy Book
  Maurice Baring


  [Illustration: THE HOOFS OF HIS STEED LEFT BEHIND THEM A TRAIL OF
  TWINKLING ANEMONES]


  THE BLUE ROSE
  FAIRY BOOK

  BY
  MAURICE BARING

  [Decoration]

  NEW YORK
  DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
  1911



  DEDICATED
  TO
  _MARY and AUBREY_



  NOTE

  One of these stories, "The Glass Mender," appeared first in _The
  English Review_, and six of the shorter stories in _The Morning
  Post_. I wish to thank the editors and proprietors concerned for
  their kindness in letting me republish them. The rest of the
  stories are new.
                                                           M. B.



  CONTENTS

                                                       PAGE
  THE GLASS MENDER                                        1
  THE BLUE ROSE                                          31
  THE STORY OF VOX ANGELICA AND LIEBLICH GEDACHT         45
  THE VAGABOND                                           97
  THE MINSTREL                                          137
  THE HUNCHBACK, THE POOL, AND THE MAGIC RING           151
  THE SILVER MOUNTAIN                                   165
  THE RING                                              179
  THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER                               193
  THE CUNNING APPRENTICE                                219
  ORESTES AND THE DRAGON                                233
  THE WISE PRINCESS                                     247



  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  And as he galloped through the wood, the hoofs
  of his steed left behind them a trail of
  twinkling anemones                                   _Frontispiece_

  One evening he was playing his one-stringed
  instrument outside a dark wall                     _To face p._  41

  As he said this he climbed on to the manuals
  and disappeared into the heart of the organ              "       95

  And there stood before the throng a wonderful
  shining figure with wings                                "      133

  And turning round she saw an old woman, bent
  and worn, who was muttering a supplication               "      139

  The sun was shining on the sea and a fresh
  breeze was blowing                                       "      160

  And towards the evening he emerged from the
  forest and saw the hill before him shining
  in the sunset                                            "      176

  Her mother, when she was walking in the
  garden of the palace, found a silver horseshoe
  lying on one of the paths                                "      181

  A garment on which the month of May, and all
  its flowers, was painted                                 "      210

  He changed himself into a hawk                           "      223

  The dragon appeared, and seizing the little
  Princess with its tail, flew away                        "      235

  She went out on to the step and called out in a
  loud voice, "Oh, you boisterous winds, bring
  hither that same carpet on which I used to
  sit in the house of my father"                           "      252




THE GLASS MENDER


Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen who had one daughter
called Rainbow. When she was christened, the people of the city were
gathered together outside the cathedral, and amongst them was an old
gipsy woman. The gipsy wanted to go inside the cathedral, but the Beadle
would not let her, because he said there was no room. When the ceremony
was over, and the King and Queen walked out, followed by the Head Nurse
who carried the baby, the gipsy called out to them:

"Your daughter will be very beautiful, and as happy as the day is long,
until she sees the Spring!" And then she disappeared in the crowd.

The King and the Queen took counsel together and the King said: "That
gipsy was evidently a fairy, and what she said bodes no good."

"Yes," said the Queen, "there is only one thing to be done: Rainbow must
never see the Spring, nor even hear that there is such a thing."

So an order was issued to the whole city, that if any one should say the
word "Spring" in the presence of Princess Rainbow he would have his head
cut off. Moreover, it was settled that the Princess should never be
allowed to go outside the palace, and during the springtime she should
be kept entirely indoors.

The King and the Queen lived in a city which was on the top of a hill,
and had a wall round it, and the King's palace was in the middle of it.
In the springtime Rainbow was taken to a high tower which looked on to
the little round city, and from her window you could see the spires of
the churches, the ramparts, and the broad green plain beyond. But a
curtain made of canvas was fastened outside Rainbow's window, so that
she could see nothing, and she was not allowed to go outside her tower
until the springtime was over.

Rainbow grew up into a most beautiful Princess, with grey eyes and fair
hair, and until she was sixteen all went well, and nothing happened to
interfere with her happiness.

It was on her sixteenth birthday, which was in April, and she was
sitting alone in her room, looking at her birthday presents, when she
began to wonder for the first time why she was shut up in her tower
during three months of the year, and why a curtain was placed outside
her window, so that she could see nothing outside. Her mother and her
nurse had told her that this was done so that she might not fall ill,
and she had always believed it; but on that day, for the first time, she
began to wonder whether there might be any other reason as well. It was
a lovely Spring day, and the sun shone through the canvas curtain which
was stretched outside Rainbow's open window; a breeze came into her room
from the outside world, and Rainbow felt a great longing to tear aside
the curtain and to see what was happening out of doors.

At that very moment, a sound came into her room from the city: it was
the sound of two or three notes played on some small reed or pipe,
unlike those of any of the musical instruments she had heard in the
palace, more tuneful and more artless and more gay. As she heard the few
reedy notes of this little tune, she felt something which she had never
known before. The whole room seemed to be full of a new sunshine, and
she smelt the fragrance of the grass; she heard the blackbird whistling,
and the lark singing; she saw the apple orchards in blossom, the violets
peeping from under the leaves, the hedges covered with primroses, the
daffodils fluttering in the wind, the fern uncrumpling her new leaves,
the green <DW72>s starred with crocuses; fields of buttercups and
marigolds; forests paved with bluebells; lilac bushes; the trailing gold
of the laburnums; and the sharp green of the awakening beech-trees; and
she heard the cuckoo's note, and a thousand other unknown sounds of
meadow, wood, and stream; and before her passed the whole pageant of the
Spring, with its joyous music and its thousand and one sights.

The vision disappeared and she cried out: "Let me go into the world and
let me taste and see this wonderful new thing!"

Rainbow said nothing about her vision, either to her parents or to her
nurses, but she resolved to steal out of the palace as soon as she
could, and to see in the world what her vision had shown her; but that
very evening she fell ill, and she was obliged to go to bed. The next
day she was no better, and a week passed and she was just as ill as
ever. All the wisest physicians of the land examined her, but not one of
them could say what was the matter with her; some of them prescribed
medicines, and others strange things to eat and drink; but none of them
did her the least good. The months went by, and Rainbow was still lying
in bed, suffering from a strange malady which nobody could even find a
name for. When the Spring was past, Rainbow was borne on a couch into
the garden of the palace; but she got no better.

At last the Queen sent for a Wise Woman who lived in a wood near the
city, and asked her advice. The Wise Woman was told Rainbow's history
and what the gipsy had said, and after she had looked at Rainbow and
spoken to her, she said to the Queen:

"I understand quite well what has happened. Your daughter has seen the
Spring."

"But that's impossible," said the Queen, "for during the whole of the
Spring months she has never left her room."

"Somehow or other the Spring has reached her," said the old woman, and
then she asked Rainbow some more questions, and the end of this was that
Rainbow told her about the tune she had heard on her birthday, and the
vision she had seen.

"I knew it," said the old woman, "she heard somebody playing the
Spring's own tune, and she won't get well until she hears it again, and
even then her troubles will be far from ended." So saying the old woman
went away.

The King at once sent for the court musicians and told them to play the
Spring's Song. They fiddled, and they blew upon every kind of pipe and
fl