English Fairy Tales

EARL MAR’S DAUGHTER
O
NE
FINE
SUMMER
’
S
DAY
Earl Mar’s daughter went into the
castle garden, dancing and tripping along. And as she played
and sported she would stop from time to time to listen to
the music of the birds. After a while as she sat under the
shade of a green oak tree she looked up and spied a sprightly
dove sitting high up on one of its branches. She looked up
and said: “Coo-my-dove, my dear, come down to me and I
will give you a golden cage. I’ll take you home and pet you
well, as well as any bird of them all.” Scarcely had she said
these words when the dove flew down from the branch and
settled on her shoulder, nestling up against her neck while
she smoothed its feathers. Then she took it home to her own
room.
The day was done and the night came on and Earl Mar’s
daughter was thinking of going to sleep when, turning round,
she found at her side a handsome young man. She was
startled, for the door had been locked for hours. But she was
a brave girl and said: “What are you doing here, young man,
to come and startle me so? The door was barred these hours
ago; how ever did you come here?”
“Hush! hush!” the young man whispered. “I was that coo-
ing dove that you coaxed from off the tree.”
“But who are you then?” she said quite low; “and how
came you to be changed into that dear little bird?”
“My name is Florentine, and my mother is a queen, and
something more than a queen, for she knows magic and
spells, and because I would not do as she wished she turned
me into a dove by day, but at night her spells lose their power
and I become a man again. To-day I crossed the sea and saw
you for the first time and I was glad to be a bird that I could
come near you. Unless you love me, I shall never be happy
more.”
“But if I love you,” says she, “will you not fly away and
leave me one of these fine days?”
“Never, never,” said the prince; “be my wife and I’ll be
yours for ever. By day a bird, by night a prince, I will always
be by your side as a husband, dear.”
So they were married in secret and lived happily in the
castle and no one knew that every night Coo-my-dove be-
came Prince Florentine. And every year a little son came to

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English Fairy Tales
them as bonny as bonny could be. But as each son was born
Prince Florentine carried the little thing away on his back
over the sea to where the queen his mother lived and left the
little one with her.
Seven years passed thus and then a great trouble came to
them. For the Earl Mar wished to marry his daughter to a
noble of high degree who came wooing her. Her father
pressed her sore but she said: “Father dear, I do not wish to
marry; I can be quite happy with Coo-my-dove here.”
Then her father got into a mighty rage and swore a great
big oath, and said: “To-morrow, so sure as I live and eat, I’ll
twist that birdie’s neck,” and out he stamped from her room.
“Oh, oh!” said Coo-my-dove; “it’s time that I was away,”
and so he jumped upon the window-sill and in a moment
was flying away. And he flew and he flew till he was over the
deep, deep sea, and yet on he flew till he came to his mother’s
castle. Now the queen his mother was taking her walk abroad
when she saw the pretty dove flying overhead and alighting
on the castle walls.
“Here, dancers come and dance your jigs,” she called, “and
pipers, pipe you well, for here’s my own Florentine, come
back to me to stay for he’s brought no bonny boy with him
this time.”
“No, mother,” said Florentine, “no dancers for me and no
minstrels, for my dear wife, the mother of my seven, boys, is
to be wed to-morrow, and sad’s the day for me.”
“What can I do, my son?” said the queen, “tell me, and it
shall be done if my magic has power to do it.”
“Well then, mother dear, turn the twenty-four dancers and
pipers into twenty-four grey herons, and let my seven sons
become seven white swans, and let me be a goshawk and
their leader.”
“Alas! alas! my son,” she said, “that may not be; my magic
reaches not so far. But perhaps my teacher, the spaewife of
Ostree, may know better.” And away she hurries to the cave
of Ostree, and after a while comes out as white as white can
be and muttering over some burning herbs she brought out
of the cave. Suddenly Coo-my-dove changed into a goshawk
and around him flew twenty-four grey herons and above
them flew seven cygnets.
Without a word or a good-bye off they flew over the deep
blue sea which was tossing and moaning. They flew and they

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Joseph Jacobs
flew till they swooped down on Earl Mar’s castle just as the
wedding party were setting out for the church. First came
the men-at-arms and then the bridegroom’s friends, and then
Earl Mar’s men, and then the bridegroom, and lastly, pale
and beautiful, Earl Mar’s daughter herself. They moved down
slowly to stately music till they came past the trees on which
the birds were settling. A word from Prince Florentine, the
goshawk, and they all rose into the air, herons beneath, cyg-
nets above, and goshawk circling above all. The weddineers
wondered at the sight when, swoop! the herons were down
among them scattering the men-at-arms. The swanlets took
charge of the bride while the goshawk dashed down and tied
the bridegroom to a tree. Then the herons gathered them-
selves together into one feather bed and the cygnets placed
their mother upon them, and suddenly they all rose in the
air bearing the bride away with them in safety towards Prince
Florentine’s home. Surely a wedding party was never so dis-
turbed in this world. What could the weddineers do? They
saw their pretty bride carried away and away till she and the
herons and the swans and the goshawk disappeared, and that
very day Prince Florentine brought Earl Mar’s daughter to
the castle of the queen his mother, who took the spell off
him and they lived happy ever afterwards.

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English Fairy Tales