The Juniper-Tree

the green grass under the juniper-tree, and she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the silk handkerchief and the bones were gone.

Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to the table and ate.

The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to sing:

  'My mother killed her little son;   My father grieved when I was gone;   My sister loved me best of all;   She laid her kerchief over me,   And took my bones that they might lie   Underneath the juniper-tree   Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' 

The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street.

'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.'

'Nay,' said the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold chain, and I will sing it you again.'

'Here is the chain, take it,' said the goldsmith. 'Only sing me that again.'

The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang:

  'My mother killed her little son;   My father grieved when I was gone;   My sister loved me best of all;   She laid her kerchief over me,   And took my bones that they might lie   Underneath the juniper-tree   Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' 

Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker's house and sang:

  'My mother killed her little son;   My father grieved when I was gone;   My sister loved me best of all;   She laid her kerchief over me,   And took my bones that they might lie   Underneath the juniper-tree   Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' 

The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun.

'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing!' Then he called through the door to his wife: 'Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it and hear how beautifully it sings.' Then he called his daughter and the children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all