Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks | Page 8

will be smoother than stone."
In a moment a tempest arose, which drove the king for shelter behind
some rocks hard by. After a few minutes, the wind ceased and the sky
was clear. The king looked and there lay the oak, fallen at full length,
and the aurochs lay lifeless beside it.
Just then, the king's woodmen, who were out--thinking their master

might be hurt--drew near. He ordered them to take out the right horn of
the aurochs and to split up part of the oak for slaves. The next day, they
made a wooden petticoat and a horn comb. They were such novelties
that nearly every woman in the kingdom came to see them.
After this, the king called himself the Lord of the Land of Ten Eyck,
and ever after this was his family name, which all his descendants bore.
Whenever the princess showed bad temper, she was forced to wear the
wooden petticoat. To have the boys and girls point at her and make fun
of her was severe punishment.
But a curious thing took place. It was found that every time the maid
combed the hair of the princess she became gentler and more sweet
tempered. She often thanked her governess and said she liked to have
her curls smoothed with the new comb. She even begged her father to
let her own one and have the comb all to herself. It was not long before
she surprised her governess and her parents by combing and curling her
own hair. In truth, such a wonderful change came over the princess that
she did not often have to wear the wooden petticoat, and after a year or
two, not at all. So the gossips nearly forgot all about it.
One summer's day, as the princess was walking in the open, sunny
space, where the old oak had stood, she saw a blue flower. It seemed as
beautiful as it was strange. She plucked it and put it in her hair. When
she reached home, her old aunt, who had been in southern lands,
declared it to be the flower of the flax.
During that spring, millions of tiny green blades sprang up where the
forest had been, and when summer came, the plants were half a yard
high. The women learned how to put the stalks in water and rot the
coarse, outer fibre of the flax. Then they took the silk-like strands from
the inside and spun them on their spinning-wheels. Then they wove
them into pretty cloth.
This, when laid out on the grass, under the sunshine, was bleached
white. The flax thread was made first into linen, and then into lace.
"Let us name the place Groen-e'-veld" (Green Field), the happy people

cried, when they saw how green the earth was where had been the dark
forest. So the place was ever after called the Green Field.
Now when the princess saw what pretty clothes the snow white linen
made, she invented a new style of dress. The upper garment, or "rok,"
that is, the one above the waist, she called the "boven rok" and the
lower one, beneath the waist, her "beneden rok." In Dutch "boven"
means above and "beneden" means beneath. By and by, when, at the
looms, more of the beautiful white linen was woven, she had a new
petticoat made and put it on. She was so delighted with this one that
she wanted more. One after the other, she belted them around her waist,
until she had on twenty petticoats at a time. Proud she was of her skirts,
even though they made her look like a barrel. When her mother, and
maids, and all the women of Groen-é-veld, young and old, saw the
princess set the fashion, they all followed. It was not always easy for
poor girls, who were to be married, to buy as many as twenty petticoats.
But, as it was the fashion, every bride had to obey the rule. It grew to
be the custom to have at least twenty; for only this number was thought
proper.
So, a new rule, even among the men, grew up. A betrothed young man,
or his female relatives assisting him, was accustomed to make a present
of one or more petticoats to his sweetheart to increase her wardrobe.
Thus the fashion prevailed and still holds among the women of the
coast. Fat or thin, tall or short, they pile on the petticoats and swing
their skirts proudly as they walk or go to market, sell their fish, cry
"fresh herring" in the streets, or do their knitting at home, or in front of
their houses. In some parts of the country, nothing makes a girl so
happy as to present her with a new petticoat. It is the