Croatian Tales of Long Ago

by Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic

So they wriggled and they worried; they pricked up their ears, and then peered out, the one from the pouch and the other from the shirt. And as they peered they at once saw a brother of theirs rolling about with somebody or something—rolling and writhing, and nothing to be seen but the fur flying.

“A wild beast is worrying him!” cried the terrified goblins. They jumped out, one out of Careful’s pouch and the other out of Bluster’s bosom, and scuttled off to help their friend.

But when they reached him, he would still do nothing but roll about on the skin and howl:

“The boy is dead!—the boy is dead!” The other two goblins tried to quiet him, and thought: “Maybe a thorn has got into his paw, or a midge into his ear”—because they had never lived with a righteous man, and did not know what it means to lament for others.

But the first goblin went on wailing so that you couldn’t hear yourself speak, and he wouldn’t be comforted either.

So the other goblins were in a fine taking as to what they were to do with him? Nor could they leave him there in his sore trouble. At last they had an idea. Each laid hold of the sheep-skin coat by one sleeve, and so they dragged along the coat with their brother inside, scuttled away into the woods, and out of the woods into the osier clump and home to Rampogusto.

So for the first time for a year and a day Bluster and Careful were quit of their goblins. When the imps hopped away from them, the brothers felt as though they had walked the world like blind men for a year and a day, and were seeing it plainly again now for the first time there on the rocky ledge.

First they looked at each other in a maze, and then they knew at once what a terrible wrong they had done their grandfather.

“Brother! kinsman!” each cried to the other, “let us fly and save our grandfather.” And they flew as if they had falcon’s wings, home to the clearing.

When they came to the glade the cabin was roofless. Flames were rising like a column from the hut. Only the walls and the door were still standing, and the door was still tightly wedged.