THERE was once upon a time a widow who had two daughters. The eldest was so much like her in the face and humor that whoever looked upon the daughter saw the mother whether they wanted to or not. They were both so disagreeable and so proud that there was no living with them, but of course neither of them had much of a choice in the matter.
The youngest, who was the very picture of her father for courtesy and sweetness of temper, was withal one of the most beautiful girls ever seen. That isn’t necessarily to her credit, mind you; sweetness of temper came naturally to her, without any effort, which is to say that she did as she pleased, and anyone can do that. What I mean to say is that’s not an accomplishment; acting according to one’s own nature doesn’t take any effort.
As people naturally love their own likeness, this mother even doted on her eldest daughter and at the same time held a coldness in her heart for the youngest. This could not be helped either, but never mind. The youngest daughter pleased without trying, and the eldest couldn’t please whether she tried or no, so it seemed easier after a while not to try at all. So things went on.
Among other things, this youngest child was forced twice a day to draw water above a mile and a-half off the house, and bring home a pitcher full of it. It was an easy walk along a level path, but people can’t stand the sight of a beautiful person doing chores. It breaks their hearts.
One day, as she was at this fountain, there came to her a poor woman, who begged of her to let her drink.
“Oh! ay, with all my heart, Goody,” said this pretty little girl; and rinsing immediately the pitcher, she took up some water from the clearest place of the fountain, and gave it to her, holding up the pitcher all the while, that she might drink the easier. Some things come easy to people. Some lives come easy. Some people nod and smile their way easy from cradle to grave, and people fall all over themselves to thank them for it. Well, let be.
The good woman, having drunk, said to her:
“You are so very pretty, my dear, so good and so mannerly, that I cannot help giving you a gift.”
There are some who would say the daughter had already been given a gift, had been given more than her fair share of gifts, but there is something about the sight of someone already obviously blessed that makes strangers want to heap further blessings on them. Let them, then.
For this was a fairy, who had taken the form of a poor country woman, to see how far the civility and good manners of this pretty girl would go. “I will give you for a gift,” continued the Fairy, “that, at every word you speak, there shall come out of your mouth either a flower or a jewel.” Some people can’t help but please. All right. All right.
When this pretty girl came home her mother scolded her for staying so long at the fountain.
“I beg your pardon, mamma,” said the poor girl, “for not making more haste.”
And in speaking these words there came out of her mouth two roses, two pearls, and two diamonds
“What is it I see there?” said the mother, quite astonished. “I think I see pearls and diamonds come out of the girl’s mouth! How happens this, child?”
This was the first time she had ever called her child.
The poor creature told her frankly all the matter, not without dropping out infinite numbers of diamonds.
“In good faith,” cried the mother, “I must send my child thither. Come hither, daughter; look what comes out of thy sister’s mouth when she speaks. Wouldst not thou be glad, my dear, to have the same gift given thee? Thou hast nothing else to do but go and draw water out of the fountain, and when a certain poor woman asks you to let her drink, to give it to her very kindly.”
It would have been nice, too, to have the same gift given, but she did not know how to want it properly. When you are too far from a virtue to want it for its own sake, you cannot ask for it. But she did know enough to want to not be like herself as she was.
I’m only being honest, she had tried to explain.
No, you’re not; you’re being cruel.
Better not to try to explain after all.
“I have no real wish to be try to be kind,” she said, “only I would not dislike to wake up kind tomorrow, and to feel kindly, and to be treated as if I were kind.”
And her mother said, “Well, that’s ridiculous.”
“It would be a very fine sight indeed, then,” snapped the minx, “to see me go draw water.” (She had forgotten to want to be kind already; it is very easy to forget to.)
“You shall go, hussy!” said the mother; “and this minute.”
So away she went, but grumbling all the way, taking with her the best silver tankard in the house.
She was no sooner at the fountain than she saw coming out of the wood a lady most gloriously dressed, who came up to her, and asked to drink. This was, you must know, the very fairy who appeared to her sister, but now had taken the air and dress of a princess, to see how far this girl would go.
Which is hardly fair, to tempt one towards goodness and to tempt the other towards rudeness, when one is already almost entirely good and the other hardly good at all. She was ready to help an old beggar-woman; not a queen, who could already help herself.
“Am I come hither,” said the proud one, “to serve you with water, pray? I suppose the silver tankard was brought purely for your ladyship, was it? However, you may drink out of it, if you have a fancy.”
Which, for the eldest daughter, was fairly restrained. If it helps, you should know she was sorry as soon as she said it.
“You are not over and above mannerly,” answered the Fairy, without putting herself in a passion.
“I suppose not,” answered the daughter, without apologizing or snapping. She only said it. It was only true. “And I don’t suppose you’re a princess at all.”
“No,” said the Fairy.
“And I don’t suppose you’re at all inclined to feel sorry for me,” the girl said.
“No,” the Fairy said.
“And I don’t suppose there would be much point asking about the diamonds, and the rubies.”
“I don’t suppose there would be,” the Fairy said. “Well, then, since you have so little breeding, and are so disobliging, I give you for a gift that at every word you speak there shall come out of your mouth–”
“I have a suggestion,” the girl said. “What if you changed it so that every word that came out of my lips was pleasing, and kind, and made people feel at ease, instead of — instead of the way they come out now?”
And the fairy said nothing.
“I know you could fill my lips with toads and vipers and that sort of thing. But it isn’t fair, really, to appear to her as an old woman in need of help, and to come to me as — as you are now.”
“Would you apologize?” the fairy asked. “If I gave you your wish?”
“Apologize for what?” the girl said without thinking, but knowing full well what she said. “For not offering to fetch water for every beautiful stranger who wanders in front of a well?”
“I think,” said the fairy, whose mouth was ordered in a straight line from left to right, “that I will let you continue as you are, only slightly more so.”
“No toads? No vipers?”
“No toads will fall from your lips,” said the fairy, “and no vipers. But no apologies either. And no explanations. And you will transgress, and wound, and be misunderstood, and you will not have the words to set it right.”
“But no toads,” said the daughter, which was really the sticking point.
“No toads,” said the fairy, “But no one will ever understand you again, and you will never bring yourself to make right what you’ve done wrong.” The fairy vanished.
And, as there was very little the daughter could do about it, she went home.
So soon as her mother saw her coming she cried out:
“Well, daughter?”
“Well, mother?” answered her daughter crossly, and went to poke at the fire with an iron. She was sorry to have said it, of course, but there’s no putting off a curse.
And they were both so disagreeable and so proud that there was no living with them, but of course neither of them had much of a choice in the matter.
Tags: andrew lang, diamonds and toads, fairy tales, folklore, spells, the blue fairy book
Oh, I love this. I mean, I’m a sucker for fairy tale retellings in general, but I especially love this one.
“Apologize for what?” the girl said without thinking, but knowing full well what she said. “For not offering to fetch water for every beautiful stranger who wanders in front of a well?”
OH SNAP
Eventually she married a man very similar to her father and had two daughters of her own, and the cycle of dysfunction was perpetuated. Christmas dinners were especially awkward, what with the girls’ aunt and her constant need to have a bucket into which to spit her rubies, emeralds, poinsettias, and mistletoe. The fairy had obviously had a sense of humor.
I loved this!
“I’m only being honest, she had tried to explain.
No, you’re not; you’re being cruel.”
mallory how did you kNOW???
because it’s *turns into all members of one direction at once*
THE STORY OF MY LIIIIFE
actual thing said to me this weekend after a [seemingly innocuous] statement: “Awww, I miss your meanness!”
I will give you 0 guesses on how I responded, it would be like putting together a two piece puzzle.
I really like this. A more complex retelling of a fairytale that always stuck in my heart as being a little mean-spirited, even in the general sense of fairytales.
This got me right in the chest.
in a similar vein (dark, lush, feminist re-imaginings of fairy tale tropes), everyone should go read Catherynne Valente’s “Orphan’s Tales” series. also read everything else she wrote, because she’s amazing and I want to talk about her always (feminist re-telling of a Russian folk story set in Stalinist Russia! feminist wild west re-telling of Snow White, with a mixed race protagonist! I DIE).
Deathless was gorgeous and I am not sure I will be able to stand waiting until the sequel comes out.
When I found out about The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two I made a sound like an excited tea-kettle. I’m not ashamed, those books are gorgeous and glorious and other lush words.
Hi, I read this comment three weeks ago and added Deathless to my queue on Goodreads, and now I’m reading it because I couldn’t wait and it is SO GOOD. I just read the wartime Leningrad chapter and now I am dead and a puddle. Wanted to come back to say thank you! I had never heard of her.
You had me at “Goody” (classic Grimm).
this story used to bother me so much because I could not help imagining and wondering at what point the toads sort of swelled into being — like do you feel one kind of growing back at your epiglottis when you form the words in your head, as it were a frog in your throat, or does it kind of pop out in front of your lips without actually being in your mouth at all? If you close your lips and mumble do you get a whole bunch of toads stuck in there like Pam with the three billiard balls? what if you stutter, do you get half a toad?
same questions for the diamonds I guess.
hey remember the story where the mean stepmother sent the pretty girl out in a paper dress and to prove her kindness she had to give like keratin treatments and blowouts to three giant hairy heads even though she had never been to barber college or anything? that was wild.
OH I DO REMEMBER the giant story! Wasn’t there, like, a handsome prince who came around every once in a while to play ninepins with the giants or something, and then he saw the pretty girl and was all “cool, I’d tap that?”
wait I don’t know because I am pretty sure these giant heads were just heads, sprouting up from the ground like giant salon training models or whatever, and you can’t play at ninepins with just a head. There was an illustration (by H.J. Ford I expect) of her working away with a hairbrush while this big dumb giant head just grinned. & then the heads talked amongst themselves after she left about how they would reward her for being such an awesome stylist? And then the bad sister tried to do the same thing but they demanded a kiss too and she said no, fuck you?
BUT I also think that I conflated two other stories myself because the paper dress one was the one where she had to sweep the back steps and found strawberries and maybe it was little men and not big heads that told her to do the sweeping. shit I don’t know anymore
I am probably conflating like seven different fairy tales. 🙂
While neither is precisely ideal vomiting up a stream of toads sounds way easier on the esophagus than diamonds.
The real lesson here, as with all fairy tales, is that fairies are arbitrary spiteful dicks and if you see a wizened old crone or a talking animal at the crossroads run the hell away
Especially if they were like those cute little tree frogs. I mean, who wouldn’t want to sit and chat with me, if doing so meant they’d end up surrounded by a mass of brightly patterned little hopping critters?
Giving a mean old hermit the power to spit poison dart frogs in your eye from across the room is exactly something a fairy would do.
Yeah, I was always conflicted about this fairytale because of course one wants to be the good one and get rewarded by fairies, but please please no diamonds in my mouth because ow.
Seriously. Even if we assume the best case scenario, which is that when you speak a diamond magically appears next to your lips and falls to the ground without touching you, isn’t this still horrifying? Imagine trying to talk to someone about a serious issue in your life, and suddenly jewels start popping out of your mouth with each word. Who in the world is going to listen to you? Who in the world is going to be able to concentrate on your words more than the stream of riches you are pooling onto the floor? This fairy has just highly incentivized all others to use this girl and see her as less of a human and more of a horn of plenty.
Also, if you are continuously spawning jewels, it’s not going to take long for the supply to outweigh the demand, hence reducing the price of jewels to near-nothingness. Within a few years, she may as well be spitting out marbles. Which is a great gift! Thanks, fairy!
Nalo Hopkinson wrote a great story where the heroine spitting out jewels was a terrible thing. She had an abusive boyfriend who was using her for money and would force her to make noises so that she’d spit out money. I can’t remember the title but it was in Skin Folk (2001).
Jane Yolen’s The Girl Who Cried Flowers is also a good take on this.
So… did Laura like eat the last oreo or something?
no. because it’s fiction.
Just projecting my sibling rivalry then.
I remember a similar fairy tale in which an old wizard man appeared to each of three sisters in turn and asked them to share their food with him. The oldest gave him some food, but kept the majority of the food for herself. The middle sister split the food equally. The youngest gave him all of her food except what she needed to survive.
He rewarded the youngest and punished the other two. EVEN THOUGH THEY ALL GAVE HIM FOOD.
Wizards are jerks.
Yeah! I hate that message! What about putting on your own oxygen mask first, wizard??
but… wizard needs food badly…
wait, Mallory, is this the same story where when they first get married, the father says he won’t marry the widow unless his old boot with a hole in it can hold water, thinking it to be impossible, and then the evil stepmother uses the magic of science and water pressure to make that happen, so they get married? And she says, when we’re married, my daughter will bathe in water and wash with wine, but your daughter will bathe in milk and wash with water, and then that lasts for a couple days and then it is all milk and wine for one and water for the other and I am confused because I am a child and I can’t tell which of those many baths is supposed to be the one for fancy ladies?
I remember this one!
no but it is an AWESOME DIFFERENT STORY
I got confused along with your confusion. All that I can say is that the milk bath must be terrible because if you get any in a nook or a cranny you will smell like rotten dairy, right?
There is a spa in Manhattan where you can soak in a tub filled with either milk, olive oil, red wine, or champagne. I have not been there, I know this from reading their website. it is fake-modeled after ancient baths in the land of pretend but they do not have nubile youths to scrape you with strigils after. although you can get a four-handed massage with a special “wine oil essence” and/or a “warm olive oil marmalade”
I am planning on going there sometime as a fairy tale research project. after that I will get a sack of diamonds.
they do not have nubile youths to scrape you with strigils after
Well, what’s the point, then?
Fairy tale research project though, hell yes.
Bathing in champagne?? You might have to get the sack of diamonds before you do that.
I’m pretty sure they invented this spa just to be ready in advance for when Kanye goes into his Neverland Ranch phase.
Are you allowed to bring your own nubile youths?
Don’t you know only the fanciest of ladies reek of booze and sour milk
Please excuse my fanfiction:
And then six months later both daughters got sick of it all, and decided to leave Mama behind and travel the world. And they traveled for three years, and sometimes the youngest daughter tried to give everything away, and sometimes she succeeded, but luckily she kept spitting out diamonds so they did not starve. And eventually they returned to find that their mother was a little bit kinder (though no less blunt) and that she had set up housekeeping with a beautiful stranger who looked suspiciously familiar (though they could not quite place why), and their cottage was too small for the four of them together. So they traveled, again, and this time the youngest sister was happily ensnared by a benevolent cult where she could love everyone alike and they would love her, and so the sisters parted ways. And the eldest went to college and became a professor of folklore, and everyone thought she was brilliant. The end.
Sadly, this is completely realistic except for the bit about becoming a professor of folklore. That’s the real fairy tale.
Well, we who are in graduate school in liberal arts must retain dreams of something else we whither away entirely.
As someone with an actual doctorate in folklore and mythology studies, I highly recommend arming yourself with as many arrows in your academic quiver as you can cram in there. And may the gods (and ogres, and fairy godmothers, and Helping Animals) be with you.
Thank you! Same to you! Also, sorry for using the wrong wither/whither. How gauche of me.
No toads is an excellent hill to stick on.
“Well, mother?” answered her daughter crossly, and went to poke at the fire with an iron. She was sorry to have said it, of course, but there’s no putting off a curse.
Hey, Mallory, it is not super-cool of you to actually spy on me when I’m visiting my mother’s house.
“Well, mother?” answered her daughter crossly, and went to poke at the fire with an iron. She was sorry to have said it, of course, but there’s no putting off a curse.
Hey, Mallory, it is not super-cool of you to actually spy on me when I'm visiting my mother's house.
The narrative tone reminds me of some of Edgar Pangborn’s stories.
Lawdy I just poopted totally all up in my pants like you have no idea yo.
Have you read Gail Carson Levine’s fairy tale retellings? She wrote Ella Enchanted but also several other princess retellings that are fairly light-hearted but pretty funny. Her version of this depicts the toad daughter of being able to blackmail everyone into doing what she wants so she won’t send toads or snakes after them, while the diamond daughter is basically appropriated by a prince so she can fund his whims and desires.
Hi, I read this comment three weeks ago and added Deathless to my queue on Goodreads, and now I'm reading it because I couldn't wait and it is SO GOOD. I just read the wartime Leningrad chapter and now I am dead and a puddle. Wanted to come back to say thank you! I had never heard of her.