Fairy Tales: The Happy Family

Reading bedtime stories and fairy tales together is an enjoyable family activity. One beloved fairy tale is "The Happy Family."

 

The largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf. If you hold it in front of you, it's like a whole apron. If you hold it over your head in rainy weather, it's almost as good as an umbrella, because it's so large. The herb never grows alone; where one grows, there are always several. It is a great delight, and all this delightfulness is food for great white snails that people of quality in former times made fricassees of, ate, and said, "Hem, hem! how delicious!" The snails lived on dock-leaves and therefore herb seeds were sown.

 

There was an old manor house where they no longer ate snails. The snails were extinct, but the herb was not extinct; they grew and grew all over the walks and all the beds and they could not get control of them. It was a whole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple and a plum tree, or else one never would have thought that it was a garden, and the two last respected old snails lived there.

 

They didn't know how old they were, but they could remember very well that there had been many more, they were of a family from foreign lands, and the whole forest was planted for them. They had never been outside it, but they knew there was still something more in the world, which was called the manor house. They knew that at the manor house, they were boiled and became black, and were then placed on a silver dish. They didn't know what happened after that or, in fact, what it was like to be boiled and to lie on a silver dish. They could not possibly imagine, but it was said to be delightful, and particularly elegant and stylish. They asked the beetles, toads or earthworms about it, but none could give them any information. None of them had been boiled or laid on a silver dish.

 

The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the world, as far as they knew. The forest was planted for their sake and the manor house was there so they could be boiled and laid on a silver dish.

 

Now they lived a very lonely and happy life and since they had no children, they adopted a little common snail. They brought it up as their own, but the little one would not grow because he was of a common family.

 

One day there was a heavy storm of rain. "Hear how it beats like a drum on the dock-leaves!" said Father Snail. "There are also rain drops!" said Mother Snail. "And now the rain pours right down the stalk! You will see that it will be wet here! I am very happy to think that we have our good house, and the little one has his also! There is more done for us than for all other creatures, but can't you see that we are folks of quality in the world? We are provided with a house from our birth, and the herb forest is planted for our sakes! I would like to know how far it extends and what there is outside!"

 

"There is nothing at all," said Father Snail. "No place can be better than ours and I have nothing to wish for!"

 

"Yes," said the dame. "I would willingly go to the manor house, be boiled, and laid on a silver dish. All our forefathers have been treated that way. There is something extraordinary in it, you may be sure!"

 

"The manor house has most likely fallen to ruin!" said Father Snail. "Or the herbs have grown up over it so they can't come out. There needn't be any hurry about that, but you are always in such a tremendous hurry, and the little one is beginning to be the same. Hasn't he been creeping up that stalk the past three days? It gives me a headache when I look up to him!"

 

"You must not scold him," said Mother Snail. "He creeps so carefully. He will give us much pleasure and we have nothing but him to live for! But haven't you thought about where we will get a wife for him? Don't you think there are some of our species far away inside the herb forest?"

 

We might give the ants a commission to look out for us" said the old one. "They run around as if they had something to do, and they certainly know of a wife for our little snail!"

 

"I know one, for sure; the most charming one!" said one of the ants. "But I am afraid we will not succeed, because she is a queen!"

 

"That's nothing!" said the old folks. "Does she have a house?"

 

"She has a palace!" said the ant. "The finest ant's palace, with 700 passages!"

 

"I thank you!" said Mother Snail. "Our son will not go into an ant-hill. If you don't know anything better than that, we will give the commission to the white gnats. They fly far and wide, in rain and sunshine. They know the whole forest here, inside and out."

 

"We have a wife for him," said the gnats. "At 100 human steps from here, sits a little snail on a gooseberry bush in her house. She is very lonely, and old enough to be married."

 

So they went to get little Miss Snail. It was a whole week before she arrived, but that was the best part because one could then see that she was of the same species.

 

Then the marriage was celebrated. The whole thing went off very quietly because the old folks could not stand noise and merriment. They gave the married couple the whole forest of herbs as a dowry and inheritance, and said, what they had always said, that it was the best in the world. If they lived honestly and decently, and increased and multiplied, they and their children would over time come to the manor house, be boiled black and laid on silver dishes. After this speech was made, the old ones crept into their shells to sleep and never again came out. The young couple governed the forest and had a lot of children, but they were never boiled and never came on the silver dishes. So from this they concluded that the manor house had fallen to ruins and that all the men in the world were extinct. No one contradicted them, so, of course it was so. The rain beat on the dock-leaves to make drum music for their sake, the sun shone in order to give the herb forest color for their sakes, and they were very happy and the whole family was happy.

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