One long tale, told whole, opens this shelf: a Swiss fairy tale from William Elliot Griffis's "Swiss Fairy Tales," published at New York in 1920. Griffis (1843–1928) dedicated the book to the radiant memories of his Swiss maternal ancestry, from whose lips he first heard stories of Switzerland, the land of the edelweiss.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Perrod, a faithful shepherd's boy, tends the cows on the high mountain pastures and makes the cheese that must feed his family through the winter. One night he wakes to find three strange visitors at his caldron — a giant, a hunter, and a golden-haired man with a long horn, whose music sets all the mountains singing with echoes. From the one pot the giant pours three goblets, red, green and white, and Perrod must choose his gift: strength, or gold, or music. What he chooses, and what comes of it at sunrise, is the story of how the Swiss people first received the Alpine horn.
Declared passage notes, exactly as the tale tells them: the first goblet's draught is described as "as red as blood" — a colour simile for the liquid; there is no wound and no bloodshed. The gift of strength is offered in the words "to conquer the strongest man, or fiercest beast" — an offer Perrod declines. The golden-haired man warns him, in one clause, "Any other choice would have meant death" — the fairies' warning; no death is depicted. And the closing paragraph, listing the horn's uses through the centuries — calling the cows, evening prayer, the festal dance, wedding joy — names among them, in one clause, "the signals of defence against enemies."
William Elliot Griffis, "Swiss Fairy Tales" (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1920), Chapter III. One tale of the book's twenty-two, billed by its book and its teller — not the whole of Switzerland. Of the tales not in this part, one is excluded by name and one is held for a ruling (register in the shelf canon).
Narrated by Scratch. Music: instrumental bed, "Santa Fe Springs 2."
Switzerland folk tales · Swiss fairy tales · Alpine folklore · William Elliot Griffis · world folk tales · free audiobook
