Belgian Fairy Tales
Copyright© 2024 by William Elliot Griffis
Chapter 4: A Congress of Belgian Fairies
There was great excitement in the Belgic fairyland at the wonderful things that men were doing in the world. The new inventions for flying, diving, racing, and what not, were upsetting all the old ideas as to what fairies alone could do.
It used to be that only fairies could fly in the air, like birds, or go far down beneath the waves and stay there, or travel under water, or move about near the bottom, like fishes.
In old times, it was only the elves, or gnomes, or kabouters, or it might be, dragons, that could find out and possess all the treasures that were inside the earth.
Only the fairies of long ago could rush along like the wind, anywhere, or carry messages as fast as lightning, but now men were doing these very things, for they could cross continents and oceans.
“We’ll hear of their landing in the moon, next,” said one vixen of a fairy, who did not like men.
“By and bye, we fairies won’t have anything to do,” said another.
“If men keep on in this way,” remarked a third, “the children will not believe in us any more. Then we shall be banished entirely from the nursery and the picture books, and our friends, the artists and story-tellers, will lose their jobs.”
“It is just too horrible to think of,” said one of the oldest of the fairies, “but what are we going to do about it? Why, think of it, only last week they crossed the Atlantic, by speeding through the air. Before this, they made a voyage over the same mighty water by going down below the surface.”
“True, but I know the reason of all this,” said a wise, motherly looking fairy.
“Do tell us the reason and all about it,” cried out several young fairies in one breath.
“Well, I do not wonder at what they have been able to do; for long ago, they caught some of our smartest fairies, harnessed them and made beasts of burden of them, to do their work.”
“They lengthen their own life to shorten ours, that’s what they do,” said the fairy, who was very wise, but did not always have a sweet temper.
“How, what do you mean?” asked a couple of young fairies, that looked forward to an old age of about two million years.
“I mean what I have just said. These men are like kidnappers, who first steal children and then give them other names, or alter their appearance. They change their dress, or clip their hair, and even mar their faces. They make them look so different, that even their own mothers, if they ever saw them again would not know them.”
“For instance? Give us an example,” challenged one incredulous, matter-of-fact fairy, who was inclined to take the men’s part.
“I will,” said the old fairy. “We used to have among our number a very strong fairy, called Stoom. Now, in his freedom, he used to do as he pleased. He blew things up whenever he felt like having a little fun, and he made a great fuss when affairs did not suit him. But, by and bye, the men caught him and put him inside of their boilers and pipes. They made stopcocks and gauges, pistons and valves, and all the things that are like the bits, and bridles, and traces, in which they harness horses. Now that they have got him well hitched, they make him work all day and often all night. He has to drive ships and engines, motors and plows, cars and wagons, and inventions and machinery of all sorts. They use him for pumping, hoisting, pounding, lighting, heating, and no one knows what. A windmill or a waterfall nowadays has no chance of competition with him.
“They call him Steam now. At any rate, he is no longer one of us, for men have caught and tamed him. They have all sorts of gauges, meters, dials, regulators, and whatever will keep the poor fellow from blowing things up; for, they can tell at once the state of his temper. He cannot do as he pleases any more.”
“Well, they won’t catch me, I can tell you,” said one big fellow of a fairy, whose name, in Flemish, is frightful, but in English is ‘Perpetual Motion.’ “These men have been after me, for a thousand years and I call them fools; but, just when one thinks he has me, I give him the slip, and this every time. As soon as I see that they are ready to cry ‘Eureka,’ I’m off.”
“Don’t be too sure,” said another big fairy. “Look at our old pal, we used to call Vonk. In playful moods, he liked to rub the cat’s back on winter mornings, and make sparks from poor pussy fly out. Or, with bits of amber, in friction, he could draw up a hair, or a scrap of paper; but when mad, would leap out of the sky in a lightning flash, or come down in a fire-bolt, that would set a house in flames.”
“Who ever thought that a fairy, with such power, could be caught? But he was. First they put him in a jar. Then they drew him from the clouds, with a kite and key. Then they made him dance the tight rope on wires, and carry messages a thousand miles on land. Now, they stretch an iron clothes-line under the sea, and keep him all the time waltzing backwards and forwards between Europe and America. Now, again, they have made a harness of batteries and wires, and, with his help, they write and talk to each other at the ends of the earth. They gabble about ‘receivers’ and ‘volts’ and a thousand things we cannot understand; but, with their submarine cables and overland wires, and wireless stations, they have beaten our English neighbor Puck; for they have ‘put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.’ Besides this, they make this fairy, who was a former member of our family, do all sorts of work, even to toasting, cooking and scrubbing and washing and ironing clothes. Worse than all, where we used to have control of the air, and keep men out of it, now they have put Vonk in a machine with wings, and a motor to drive it through the sky and across the ocean.”
So it went on, in the fairy world. First one, and then the other, told how human beings were doing what, long ago, only the fairies and none else could do. Things were different now, because men had kidnapped some of the fairies, and harnessed them to work, as if they were horses or dogs, or donkeys; that’s the reason they are so smart.
“We shall all be caught, by and bye,” grumbled a young and very lazy fairy. “Men will catch and drag us out, just as fish are caught in nets, or pulled out by hook and line. Who can, who will escape these mortals?”
“There won’t be any fairies left in Belgic land,” wailed another who seemed ready to cry.
“We’ll all be no better than donkeys,” sobbed another. “I know we shall.”
So after a long chat, it was proposed that a delegation should wait on the king of the fairies, to ask him to call a convention of all his subjects, of every sort and kind, to see what could be done in the matter. It would not do to let things go on at this rate, or there would not be one fairy left; but all would become servants, slaves, or beasts of burden for human beings. They might even make the fairies wear iron clothes, so they should have no freedom, except as their masters willed: and, even women would be their bosses.
They agreed unanimously to hold the Congress, or Convention, at Kabouterberg, or the Hill of the Kabouters, near Gelrode. All promised to lay aside their grudges, and forget all social slights and quarrels. Even the sooty elves, from the deep mines, were to be given the same welcome and to be treated with the same politeness, as the silvery fairies of the meadows, that were as fresh as flowers and sparkling as sapphires. It was agreed that none should laugh, even if one of the Kluddes should try to talk in meeting.
The invitations were sent out to every sort of fairy known in Belgium, from Flanders to Luxemburg, and from the sandy campine of Limburg, to the flax fields of Hainault. Over land and sea, and from the bowels of the earth, from down in the coal and zinc mines, to the highest hill of the Ardennes, the invitations were sent out. Not one was forgotten.
Of course, not every individual fairy could come, but only committees or delegations of each sort.
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