“Good morning, cat! Have you had anything to eat yet to-day?” said the goat.
“O, only a little. My fast has hardly been broken,” said the cat. “I had no more than a dish of mush and a little potful of fat and the man in the house and the woman in the stable and the bell-cow at the manger and the leaf-sweeper in the orchard and the weasel on the stone-pile and the squirrel in the hazel-bush and the fox, the sly-boots, and the hopping hare and the wild wolf and little bear brown-coat and the biting mother bear and bruin good-fellow and the bridal party on the road and the funeral procession at the church and the moon in a cloud and the sun in the sky, and now I’m thinking over whether I ought not to eat you up as well,” said she.
“We’ll fight about that first of all,” said the goat, and butted the cat with his horns so that she rolled off the bridge, and fell into the water, and there she burst.
Then they all crawled out, and each went to his own place, all whom the cat had eaten up, and were every one of them as lively as before, the man in the house and the woman in the stable and the bell-cow at the manger and the leaf-sweeper in the orchard and the weasel on the stone-pile and the squirrel in the hazel-bush and the fox, the sly-boots, and the hopping hare and the wild wolf and little bear brown-coat and the biting mother bear and bruin good-fellow and the bridal party on the road and the funeral procession at the church and the moon in a cloud and the sun in the sky.
NOTE
A real nursery fairy-tale is that of “The Cat Who Could Eat So Much” (Asbjörnsen, N.F.E., No. 102, p. 222. From Gudbrandsdal). It may be a survival from the time when it was believed that the sun and moon in the sky were devoured by a monster when they were obscured by a passing cloud.
XXII
EAST OF THE SUN AND WEST OF THE MOON
Once upon a time there was a poor tenant farmer who had a number of children whom he could feed but poorly, and had to clothe in the scantiest way. They were all handsome; but the most beautiful, after all, was the youngest daughter, for she was beautiful beyond all telling.