Part Four of Folk Tales of the Netherlands continues William Elliot Griffis's Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks of 1918 in our own telling, with the book's seventh and eighth tales, in his order.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
"The Ice King and His Wonderful Grandchild" is Uller, the good fairy of the ice whose home was Ulrum in Friesland, and Skadi the huntress, his wife; of their six white daughters, Glacier, Cold, Snow, Drift, Snow Whirl, and Snow Dust, whom Vuur the fire fairy melted into one, Regen, the rain; and of their child Stoom, steam itself, the mischievous grandchild who blew every shut vessel to pieces until men learned to harness him to wheels. In keeping with this shelf's practice, the tale stands as Griffis told it: the hunting life of Uller and Skadi stands in his summary narration, the duels of the early days in one reported clause, and Stoom's explosions in his explanatory telling of what confined steam will do; no completeness is claimed beyond what is read here.
"The Elves and Their Antics" is the little white people of the meadows and moonlight, their tricks in stable, kitchen, and dairy, the klomps of a whole party mixed in a pile, and the misers fooled with leaves for money; and it is Old Styf, cock's comb cap and all, who out-invents men themselves, learning from Fro and the kabouters the secret of starch, until the linen of Holland glistens like snow and the great ruffs rise. The tale stands as Griffis told it: the elf-shot stands in his reporting of what country folk believed, and Fro's wonderful sword in a single descriptive clause; no completeness is claimed beyond what is read here.
Chapters:
00:10 — The Ice King and His Wonderful Grandchild
10:42 — The Elves and Their Antics
Source: William Elliot Griffis, Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1918), from the public-domain 1918 edition (Project Gutenberg eBook #7871). Griffis retold these tales in his own English; our telling is a fresh in-house rendering of his 1918 text. Music: gentle instrumental bed under the narration.
Thank you for listening — Part 5 of the Dutch tales follows on this shelf.
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