The House of the Cats

  In memory of my father,

  John Hancock, who told me

  my first stories.

  Contents

  The Soldier’s Bride

  Austria

  The Traveller from Paradise

  Belgium

  The Fish that Flew and the Hare that Swam

  Bulgaria

  The White Wolf

  Croatia

  Why Dogs Hate Cats

  Cyprus

  The Mandrake Child

  Czech Republic

  Peter Bull

  Denmark

  The Three Sneezes

  Estonia

  The Fox and the Bear

  Finland

  The Pope’s Mule

  France

  Mannikin Spannalong

  Germany

  The House of the Cats

  Greece

  The Magical Fiddle

  Hungary

  Munachar and Manachar

  Ireland

  A Very Expensive Omelette

  Italy

  Misery

  Latvia

  The Amber Princess

  Lithuania

  Melusina

  Luxembourg

  The Happy Man

  Malta

  Tyl Uilenspiegel, Painter

  Netherlands

  The Glass Mountain

  Poland

  The River

  Portugal

  The Voice of Death

  Romania

  Violets in January

  Slovakia

  The Most Beautiful Flower

  Slovenia

  Half-Chick

  Spain

  Lars, my Lad!

  Sweden

  Tam Lin

  United Kingdom

  Afterword

  The Soldier’s Bride

  Austria

  He was a soldier and she was his sweetheart. They promised to love one another till death and beyond. Then off he went to fight in the emperor’s wars.

  ‘I’ll come back for you,’ he promised, ‘just as soon as I’ve made my fortune, and we’ll find a place where we can be together always.’

  She waited and waited but he didn’t come and he didn’t write.

  So she crept down to the charnel house and she stole a dead man’s skull. She put it in a pan of water, tossed in a handful of millet and set it on the stove to simmer.

  As midnight struck, the water began to bubble and boil.

  The skull bobbed up to the surface and three times it spoke.

  The first time, ‘He is coming,’ it said.

  The second time, ‘He is on his way.’

  The third time, ‘He is here, outside your door!’

  She went to the door and opened it and there was her lover, seated on a horse as black as midnight.

  ‘I have kept my promise,’ he said. ‘I have come for you. Do you still love me?’ he asked her.

  ‘I do!’ she said. ‘Till death and beyond. So, have you made your fortune and have you found a place for us?’

  ‘I have,’ he said. ‘I’ve found a place where we can be together always. Mount up behind me and I’ll take you there.’

  So up she got and away they went, no sound but the horse’s hooves on the darkling road, no light but a sliver of light from the new moon, thin as a miser’s smile.

  On they went and on again until they came to a graveyard and a new grave freshly dug.

  ‘This is it,’ said her soldier lover, helping her down from the horse beside it. ‘This is our new home, where we can be together always.’

  Poor girl! She did still love him and she always would, till death and beyond, but she wasn’t about to be buried alive.

  ‘In you get,’ he said.

  But, ‘You go first,’ she said. ‘Then you can help me down.’

  So in he got, into that freshly dug grave, but when he turned to help her down – she was away and running as if all the fiends of hell were at her heels!

  Out of the churchyard and off down the road she ran, the sound of his footsteps pounding behind her. (Luckily he’d left the horse behind or she’d have stood no chance at all.)

  On she ran, through the still, dark night, with her dead lover pounding after her. Not a creature stirring; not a mortal soul to help her; not a house where she could go for help.

  Step by step he was gaining on her, the sound of his boots on the dark road coming nearer, nearer, and her own body growing – oh! – so weary, weary almost to death, when at last she spied a light in the distance.

  So on she went and on again till she came to a house where the door stood open, and in she ran and down a long, dark passageway to where the light was shining in a little, low, windowless room at the other end.

  She slammed the door shut behind her and turned the key – not a moment too soon!

  ‘Let me in!’ cried the soldier, hammering on the door.

  And a voice from behind her answered him, ‘Who calls?’

  Looking round, she saw that the light she’d run towards came from four candles standing round a coffin. In the coffin lay a dead man with his eyes wide open.

  ‘Who calls?’ cried the dead man.

  ‘One of your own kind,’ answered the soldier. ‘Brother, let me in.’

  ‘Brother, I will!’ Slowly the dead man raised himself up in his coffin and the girl was thinking her last hour had surely come when from somewhere outside she heard the sound of a cock crowing to greet the morning sun.

  At which the dead man lifted up his head, then lay down in his coffin again, and the hammering on the door was suddenly stilled.

  When the people of the house broke down the door they thought at first it was an old, old woman they found there, crouched, sobbing and shivering, in the corner, for her hair had turned quite white.

  The Traveller from Paradise

  Belgium

  There was an old woman who had been widowed once and married twice.

  One day, while her second husband was out working on the farm, a travelling man came knocking at the door in search of a bite to eat. So she gave him a bit of bread and cheese.

  ‘Oh, this is good, ma’am!’ he said. ‘Very good.’

  ‘Have you come far?’ she asked him.

  ‘From Paris,’ he said.

  Now this old woman was a little bit simple and a bit on the deaf side too. When he said Paris, she thought he said Paradise.

  ’There’s a coincidence,’ she said, ‘that’s where they say my first husband went when he died. I wonder if you know him?’

  The travelling man cottoned on fast. ‘Know him?’ he said. ‘Why, he’s my next-door neighbour! He told me to drop in if I happened to be passing.’

  ‘How is he, then?’ she said.

  ‘He’s well enough,’ said the travelling man, ‘and he makes the best of things, but to tell you the truth, Paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Take clothes, for instance. They don’t give you any new clothes. Would you believe this was my best suit that I was buried in?’

  The old woman looked him up and down, all rags and tatters.

  ‘It never is!’ she cried. ‘Oh, my poor husband! We buried him in nothing but a winding sheet.’

  ‘Like I said,’ said the travelling man, ‘he makes the best of things. Says it makes him look a bit like a Roman emperor.’

  ‘All the same, I can’t have him walking around like that,’ said the old woman. ‘Can you hang on a moment? I’ll put a few things together for him to wear and you can take them back to him.’

  ‘I’d be happy to,’ said the travelling man.

  And while she was doing that he was looking round the kitchen and munching on his bread and cheese.

  ‘The food’s not too good either,’ he said. ‘I haven’t tasted home-baked bread since – well, you know.’

  ‘Take the rest of the loaf back with you,’ she said. ‘I can soon make some more. And how are you off for cheese?’

  ‘There’s no cheese in Paradise.’

  ‘Better take that too.’

  ‘And no meat either,’ said the travelling man, eyeing the leg of ham hanging over the fireplace, ‘they’re all vegetarians there.’

  ‘No meat? Dear, dear!’ In went the leg of ham.

  ‘You know what he misses most? It’s your home-made apple pie.’

  ‘Well, isn’t it lucky? I’ve just made one!’

  In went the apple pie, along with a small keg of beer and the old man’s pipe and a pouch of tobacco.

  ‘But how am I going to carry all this?’ the travelling man said, when she’d pretty well stripped the kitchen bare.

  ‘Why, you can borrow the donkey. Bring him back next time you’re passing.’

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  Off went the travelling man, leading the laden donkey.

  Back came the second husband, hot and hungry from working out in the fields all day. Went to put the horse away.

  What did he find? The donkey – gone!

  ‘Where’s the donkey?’ he asked her. Then, ‘Where’s my supper?’ said he, for the table was bare. ‘And where are my Sunday boots?’

  Well, it wasn’t long before he had the whole story out of her, of the travelling man from Paradise.

  ‘You silly old woman!’ he cried and he was mounting his horse and off down the road, lickety-split, after his donkey, his boots and his supper.

  He hadn’t gone far when he came on a man lying flat on his back by the roadside.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ sai
d the farmer.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said the man. ‘I just saw the most amazing thing. I saw a man leading a donkey.’

  ‘Yes! Where did they go?’ said the farmer.

  ‘Up there! Up into the sky, walking up a beam of sunlight as easily as if they were walking along this very road.‘

  ‘They never did!’

  ‘I’m telling you they did. If you’re quick you can still see them. Lie down here. I’ll hold your horse for you.’

  So the farmer gave him his horse to hold and lay down by the roadside, while the travelling man (for that’s who it was, though I dare say you guessed) vaulted into the saddle and was off and away, pausing just long enough to collect the donkey and its load from the wood up the road where he’d hidden it.

  ‘Why did you rush off like that?’ the old woman demanded when the farmer limped in at the door. ‘What have you done with the horse? And why did you call me a silly old woman?’ she asked him.

  He wasn’t going to admit he’d been had for a fool.

  ‘Why, for not waiting till I came home,’ he said. ‘So I could lend him the horse. I suppose you’d have let him walk all the way back to Paradise!’

  The Fish that Flew and the Hare that Swam

  Bulgaria

  Georgi’s wife, Ana, was pretty and plump, a good housewife and an even better cook. But could she talk! She’d talk to anyone – her mother, her neighbours, the market stall holders or a total stranger who’d only stopped to ask the way – talk about anything and everything, she would, whatever came into her head.

  So when Georgi’s plough turned up an old Roman pot full of gold coins one day he knew it was only a matter of time – and a very short time at that – before the world and his wife and the governor, too, got to hear of it. And, the governor being no believer in finders-keepers, the two of them would be lucky to end up with the odd coin or two as a reward for finding the gold in the first place.

  Then he had an idea.

  He went to the market and bought a fine, fat fish and a live hare. He stashed the poor hare in the fishing net he’d set close to the river bank and left the fish high up in a wild cherry tree.

  Then home he went to fetch Ana.

  ‘Guess what I’ve found!’ he cried. ‘Not a word to a soul! It looks like a pot of gold coins. Do you want to come and help me dig it up?’

  Of course she did.

  So off they went and dug up the gold.

  On the way home, he said, ‘Do you know what I fancy? I fancy a fine fat fish for supper, to celebrate.’

  ‘Fish for supper?’ said Ana. ‘You’ll be lucky! You never catch anything in those nets of yours and the market’s closed by now.’

  ‘Maybe this is our lucky day,’ said Georgi. ‘First I found that pot of gold. Now look up there, in the cherry tree. Isn’t that a fish?’

  ‘A fine, fat one, by the look of it,’ said Ana. ‘Up you go, then, and fetch it down.’

  So up he went and fetched it down. On they jogged till they came to the river.

  ‘I might as well check my nets as we’re passing,’ said Georgi. ‘Not that I do ever catch anything. Except that today seems to be my lucky day. Well, well! Look at this! A live hare caught in my fishing net!’

  ‘A fish and a hare!’ said Ana. ‘We shall eat well tonight. And a pot of gold, too!’

  ‘Mind you tell no-one about that,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ she promised.

  So how was it, then, that her mother was soon in on the secret? How come the neighbours were all in the know? All of them promised not to breathe a word, of course.

  So however did the governor get to hear the news? News that brought him galloping hotfoot on his mule, with his clerk jogging behind him on his donkey.

  ‘About that pot of gold you found…’ said the governor.

  ‘What pot of gold?’ said Georgi.

  ‘According to your wife – ’

  ‘Oh, my wife!’ Georgi shook his head. ‘She’s a sad case, your honour. You won’t get a word of sense out of her.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said the governor. ‘Send for Georgi’s wife!’

  Ana came, fresh from stabling the governor’s mule along with the clerk’s donkey.

  ‘What pot of gold? Oh, that pot of gold!’ said Ana. ‘You must remember, Georgi! You found it the same day you caught the fish in the cherry tree.’

  Georgi gave the governor a look as if to say, ‘You see what I mean? Not a word of sense!’

  ‘He caught a fish in a cherry tree?’ said the governor.

  ‘I thought it was a bit odd myself,’ said Ana. ‘I mean, fish can’t fly, can they? Or climb trees. But when Georgi caught a hare in his fishing net the very same day – ’

  The governor frowned. He looked at Georgi. Georgi shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘He caught a hare? In his fishing net?’ said the governor.

  ‘Alive and kicking, wasn’t it, Georgi?’ said Ana. ‘I thought it must be one of those days when odd things happen.’

  ‘She has times like this,’ sighed Georgi. ‘I don’t know if she makes these things up or whether she really believes they happened.’

  ‘Oh! Making things up, am I?’ scoffed Ana. ‘And I suppose the clerk’s donkey was making things up just now when I heard him tell the governor’s mule that the clerk was head over heels in love, and planning to run off with – ’

  But at this point the clerk was taken by such a fit of coughing that nobody heard the rest. After Georgi had thumped the clerk hard on the back, ‘What was that you were saying?’ said the governor. ‘About my clerk?’

  Ana didn’t answer; she just went rattling on. ‘“Call that news?” says the governor’s mule. “That’s nothing to what my master’s been up to. He’s only been paying for that lovely new house of his out of the money he creams off from the tax – ”’

  ‘Enough!’ cried the governor. ‘A talking mule? Ridiculous! You’re right, Georgi. Your wife is clearly off her head.’

  Off he galloped, on his mule, with the clerk jogging behind him on his donkey.

  ‘Well! What was all that about?’ said Georgi.

  Ana smiled. ‘I know I talk too much,’ she said, ‘but I do know how to listen, too. Every woman in town knows the clerk’s sweet on the governor’s daughter. Maybe they are planning to run away together. As for the governor creaming off money from the taxes he collects, was there ever a governor who didn’t? The wonder is they go on fooling themselves that nobody knows. Now, about that gold you found – ’

  ‘What gold?’ said Georgi.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell another soul.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Georgi. Who was there left to tell? But, wisely, he kept that thought to himself.

  The White Wolf

  Croatia

  Still and silent the old mill stood. Silent, that is, apart from the mice that had made their home there and the birds nesting in the eaves. Quite still, apart from the spiders spinning their webs and the little fish playing in the mill stream, darting in and out of the rotting mill wheel.

  Until one day a soldier happened along, looking to settle down now this particular war was over, find himself a wife maybe, and maybe start a family. Millering seemed like as good an occupation as any and one thing the army had taught him was that nothing was ever so broke that it couldn’t be fixed.

  So he set to work, measuring and sawing, hammering and planing.

  Muttering, shaking their heads, the villagers watched him.

  ‘Just watch out for the wolf!’ they told him.

  ‘What wolf?’

  ‘A great white wolf!’

  ‘She haunts this place!’

  ‘Why do you think the mill’s stood empty all these years?’

  ‘A wolf?’ scoffed the soldier. ‘Is that all?’ He’d faced a lot worse in battle. ‘But thanks for tipping me off.’ He slept with his gun close to hand after that.