Two more tales from "Polish Fairy Tales" — tales of the peasantry of Poland's eastern provinces as collected by A. J. Gliński and printed at Wilna in 1862, in Maude Ashurst Biggs's English translation (John Lane, 1920). In her preface Biggs tells the reader plainly that she shortened Gliński's tellings for English readers; her shortened English text is what is read here, faithfully as printed.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In "The Good Ferryman and the Water Nymphs," the youngest of three ferry brothers ferries a poor old traveller across the river for nothing, and is rewarded with a purse that is always full of gold and, in time, a bride from the waters of the river herself. When a king covets that bride, the ferryman is sent on three journeys on pain of death — to learn the cause of an eclipse of the sun, to bring back a sea-maiden, and to fetch the Self-playing Guitar, whose music raises the murdered, and with them the truth about the king's own crown. In "The Princess of the Brazen Mountain," a kind-hearted prince first gives a forgotten hermit a proper burial, and so wins the magic whip and, from bands of robbers, the seven-league boots and the invisible cap that carry him up the smooth sides of the Brazen Mountain to the bride who flew away on their wedding day.
Notes on the reading, at the weight the tales themselves give them: in the Ferryman's tale the two greedy elder brothers come to bad ends that are reported, not shown — one drowned with his ship, one murdered by robbers; the Sun tells how he burned the dragon that attacked him to ashes; the ferryman is left to starve in a treasure vault and is freed; and at the end the murdered late king rises at the guitar's music and his brother, who had caused him to be murdered, falls dead. In the Brazen Mountain tale the magic whip thrashes the robbers and the old miller, and no one is hurt beyond the thrashing.
The book's other tales are not read on this shelf. Excluded by name: "Princess Miranda and Prince Hero," "The Eagles" and "The Whirlwind" — each turns on killing, told at length — and "The Bear in the Forest Hut," whose night trial in the hut is a lethal one, and in which a second girl dies of it on the page. With Part 1, three of the book's seven tales are told on this shelf; no completeness claim is made for the collection.
A. J. Gliński, Polish Fairy Tales, translated by Maude Ashurst Biggs (John Lane, 1920) — public domain.
Narrated by Benedetto. Music: opening and closing theme, "The Longest Night by the River".
Chapters:
00:00 Opening theme — "The Longest Night by the River"
01:38 The Good Ferryman and the Water Nymphs
20:02 The Princess of the Brazen Mountain
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