

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, David E. Brown, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
      file which includes the original illustrations.
      See 38654-h.htm or 38654-h.zip:
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38654/38654-h/38654-h.htm)
      or
      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38654/38654-h.zip)


Transcriber's note:

      Text in italics is surrounded by underscores (_italics_).





[Illustration: THE MARKET PLACE IN NUREMBURG]


Everychild's Series

GREAT OPERA STORIES

Taken from Original Sources in Old German

by

MILLICENT S. <DW12>

Illustrated







New York
The Macmillan Company
1935

All rights reserved

COPYRIGHT, 1912,
By the Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912.
Reprinted March, 1913; June, 1915; January, September,
1916; November, 1917 July, 1931; November, 1935.

Printed in the United States of America




CONTENTS


                                        PAGE

  CHILDREN OF KINGS                        1

  HAENSEL AND GRETEL                      35

  THE MASTER SINGERS                      57

  LOHENGRIN, THE KNIGHT OF THE SWAN      101

  THE FLYING DUTCHMAN                    137

  TANNHAEUSER, THE MINSTREL KNIGHT       156




GREAT OPERA STORIES

[Illustration]




CHILDREN OF KINGS


I

Once upon a time, in a lonely glade between high mountains far, far
above the World of Men, there stood a hut. It was a miserable,
tumbledown, little hut, and the mosses of many summers clung to its
sloping roof. It had a bent stovepipe where its chimney should have
been, a slanting board in place of a doorstep, and just one, poor,
little, broken window.

Yet it was not its forlorn appearance alone that made the hut hide
behind the shadows of the grim forest, far away from the sight of man.
It had more, much more than that to be ashamed of. For a hideous Witch
lived there,--and with her, a Goosegirl.

They lived alone, those two,--the Goosegirl, with the joy of youth in
her heart; and the Witch, unmindful of joy or youth, thinking only of
magic and evil and hate. While the Goosegirl had been growing from
babyhood to girlhood, from girlhood to womanhood, dreaming and wondering
and wishing,--she knew not what,--the Witch had been trying to make her
as ugly and as wicked as herself. But try as she would, the heart of the
Goosegirl was so pure that evil could find no spot in it to lodge. As
for her face, each passing year left it lovelier than the last. The
sunshine was no brighter than her yellow hair, the sky no bluer than her
clear blue eyes. The lone lily before the hut envied the whiteness of
her skin, and the birch tree in the woods, the slenderness of her form.

Now it chanced upon a sunny afternoon in summer that the Goosegirl lay
on her back in the long grass before the hut. Now and then she tossed a
handful of corn to her quacking geese or played with a wreath of wild
daisies. But her thoughts were far away. Her eyes were full of the
wonder of things,--of the sun that shone, the brook that laughed, the
flowers that bloomed, the birds that sang, and the blue sky over all.
And her dreams were full of the World of Men, which she had never seen
and to which she longed to go. Something within her whispered that
happiness was to be found there, and the Goosegirl desired happiness
above all things. And she desired kindness and love, too, although she
had never heard of them, and did not know what they were.

As far back as she could remember, ever since she was a tiny little
child, the Goosegirl had lived in the wretched hut. And the hideous
Witch had been her only companion. The Goosegirl wondered whether all
the people in the World of Men had such gruesome bodies, such ugly
faces, such evil ways, as the Witch. She had never seen any one else, so
she could not tell. For fear of the Witch no one had ever come that way.
Winter and summer, summer and winter, it had always been the same.

The Goosegirl's dreams were suddenly interrupted by the hoarse voice of
the Witch.

"Where are you, good-for-naught?" came from the doorway. "Idle, I'll be
bound, when there's work to be done!"

The Goosegirl turned her eyes toward the figure of the Witch, and,
familiar as it was, for the thousandth time she shuddered with disgust.
The crooked back, the burning eyes peering out from under the tangled
hair, the rags, the ugliness,--oh, must she always stay? She arose
slowly and walked toward the door. With hands outstretched she begged
