Chapter 19: Up and Down and Up Again

Look on the cover of this book and see the bridge at Tournai, with its twin towers. In the bright moonlight, the waters of the Scheldt River are flowing through the arches. Here we have, from the low down to the high up, a true picture of the Land of Towers, Spires, and of those collections of bells, which make music in the air, and are called carillons.

Yet in very early times, in Belgium, there were no bridges, nor any towers, and no churches, except some buildings rudely put together, out of wood, or reeds and rushes, plastered with mud. Nor in the flat and sandy parts, as in Flanders, was there any stone. Few of the craftsmen understood masonry, or chisel work. Moreover, who could carry out stone from the mountains, and bring it hundreds of miles, to be cut and built into lofty campaniles, or bell towers, and splendid churches as in glorious Italy, from which teachers and missionaries came?

Now, one of these good Italian missionaries was named, in the Flemish language, Vrolyke Kwant. He was of a sunny disposition, known to all the children, and much loved by them. He had come from Italy when Belgium was a very wild country, and he greatly missed the bells, the towers and air-music of his dear, beautiful, distant land. So he was often homesick.

But when he heard how kind and well behaved the Belgian fairies were, and that they liked to help good people, he took heart, cheered up, and determined to make their acquaintance.

So he gave out that he would be glad to see them all, of every kind, and welcome them to his house. Knowing that the fairies, who keep out of sight during the day, were very busy between curfew and cock crow, that is, after sunset and before dawn, he spread abroad the notice that he would leave all the doors of his house open at night. If they would only come to see him, and talk over what could be done to make the people and their children happy, he would treat them well.

Now it is surprising how quickly the news spread in fairy land, especially when we think that fairies have no telephones, no telegraph wires, no railroads, no newspapers nor any messenger boys with blue caps.

But Vrolyke—to call him by his first name—had not long to wait. After saying his evening prayers, he went to the front of his house and opened both leaves of his double door. There could not be, at this time of night, any danger of pigs or chickens coming in, for the piggies had gone to sleep and the birds to roost long before. So he unlatched even the heck, or lower half of the door, and slammed it loudly against the wall, as a signal to the fairies outside. He had already seen tiny lights flitting about, like fireflies.

Soon there were two or three gentle taps on the lintels of the doorway, and then trooped in the funniest looking company he had ever seen. Kabouters, Wappers, Manneken, and Red Caps. These were followed by a throng of silvery little ladies, with gauzy wings on their shoulders and with stars on their foreheads. They were dressed in the loveliest, sheeniest, garments, and they seemed prettier, even, than any of the rosiest maidens, which Father Vrolyke, the missionary, had yet seen in the Tournai region. They were, each and all, of them, dressed in the garb, which all the fairies of their several kinds have worn for ages; because fairies are not slaves to fashion. Unlike our girls, who say they have “nothing to wear” and are obliged to change fashions every year, the fairies keep the same style of clothes always. It is no wonder that they are free from care, have no wrinkles on their faces and live long lives.