The Forest Bride
(Continued from last week) Veikko, too, had serious doubts of the little mouse’s ability at the loom.
“Whoever heard of a mouse that could weave?” he said to himself as he pushed open the door of the forest hut.
“Oh, there you are at last!” the little mouse squeaked joyfully.
She reached out her little paws in welcome and then in her excitement she began dancing about on the table.
“Are you really glad to see me, little mouse?” Veikko asked.
“Indeed I am!” the mouse declared. “Am I not your sweetheart? I’ve been waiting for you and waiting, just wishing that you would return! Does your father want something more this time, Veikko?”
“Yes, and it’s something I’m afraid you can’t give me, little mouse.” “Perhaps I can. Tell me what it is.” “It’s a sample of your weaving. I don’t believe you can weave. I never heard of a mouse that could weave.”
“Tut! Tut!” said the mouse. “Of course I can weave! It would be a strange thing if Veikko’s sweetheart couldn’t weave!”
She rang the little silver bell, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, and instantly there was the faint scratch-scratch of a hundred little feet as mice came running in from all directions and sat up on their haunches awaiting their Princess’ orders.
“Go each of you,” she said, “and get me a fibre of flax, the finest there is.”
The mice went scurrying off and soon they began returning one by one each bringing a fibre of flax. When they had spun the flax and carded it, the little mouse wove a beautiful piece of fine linen. It was so sheer that she was able when she folded it to put it into an empty nutshell.
“Here, Veikko,” she said, “here in this little box is a sample of my weaving. I hope your father will like it.”
Veikko when he got home felt almost embarrassed for he was sure that his sweetheart’s weaving would shame his brothers. So at first he kept the nutshell hidden in his pocket.
The sweetheart of the oldest brother had sent as a sample of her weaving a square of coarse cotton.
“Not very fine,” the farmer said, “but good enough.”
The second brother’s sample was a square of cotton and linen mixed. “A little better,” the farmer said, nodding his head. Then he turned to Veikko.
“And you, Veikko, has your sweetheart not given you a sample of her weaving?”
Veikko handed his father a nutshell at the sight of which his brothers burst out laughing.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” they laughed. “Veikko’s sweetheart gives him a nut when he asks for a sample of her weaving.”
But their laughter died as the farmer opened the nutshell and began shaking out a great web of the finest linen.
“Why, Veikko, my boy!” he cried, “however did your sweetheart get threads for so fine a web?”
Veikko answered modestly: “She rang a little silver bell and ordered her servants to bring her in fibres of finest flax. They did so and after they had spun the flax and carded it, my sweetheart wove the web you see.”
“Wonderful!” gasped the farmer. “I have never known such a weaver! The other girls will be all right for farmers’ wives but Veikko’s sweetheart might be a Princess! Well,” concluded the farmer, “it’s time that you all brought your sweethearts home. I want to see them with my own eyes. Suppose you bring them tomorrow.”
“She’s a good little mouse and I’m very fond of her,” Veikko thought to himself as he went out to the forest, “but my brothers will certainly laugh when they find she is only a mouse! Well, I don’t care if they do laugh! She’s been a good little sweetheart to me and I’m not going to be ashamed of her!”
So when he got to the hut he told the little mouse at once that his father wanted to see her.
The little mouse was greatly excited.
“I must go in proper style!” she said.
She rang the little silver bell and ordered her coach and five. The coach when it came turned out to be an empty nutshell and the five prancing steeds that were drawing it were five black mice. The little mouse seated herself in the coach with a coachman mouse on the box in front of her and a footman mouse on the box behind her.
“Oh, how my brothers will laugh!” thought Veikko. But he didn’t laugh. He walked beside the coach and told the little mouse not to be frightened, that he would take good care of her. His father, he told her, was a gentle old man and would be kind to her.
When they left the forest they came to a river which was spanned by a footbridge. Just as Veikko and the nutshell coach had reached the middle of the bridge, a man met them coming from the opposite direction.
“Mercy me!” the man exclaimed as he caught sight of the strange little coach that was rolling along beside Veikko. “What’s that?”
He stooped down and looked and then with a loud laugh he put out his foot and pushed the coach, the little mouse, her servants, and her five prancing steeds—all off the bridge and into the water below.
“What have you done! What have you done!” Veikko cried. “You’ve drowned my poor little sweetheart!”
The man, thinking Veikko was crazy, hurried away.
Veikko with tears in his eyes looked down into the water.
“You poor little mouse!” he said. “How sorry I am that you drowned! You were a faithful loving sweetheart and now that you are gone I know how much I loved you!”
As he spoke he saw a beautiful coach of gold drawn by five glossy horses go up the far bank of the river. A coachman in gold lace held the reins and a footman in a pointed cap sat up stiffly behind. The most beautiful girl in the world was seated in the coach. Her skin was as red as a berry and as white as snow, her long golden hair gleamed with jewels, and she was dressed in pearly velvet. She beckoned to Veikko and when he came close she said: “Won’t you come sit beside me?”
“Me? Me?” Veikko stammered, too dazed to think.
The beautiful creature smiled.
“You were not ashamed to have me for a sweetheart when I was a mouse,” she said, “and surely now that I am a Princess again you won’t desert me!”
“A mouse!” Veikko gasped. “Were you the little mouse?”
The Princess nodded. “Yes, I was the little mouse under an evil enchantment which could never have been broken if you had not taken me for a sweetheart and if another human being had not drowned me. Now the enchantment is broken forever. So come, we will go to your father and after he has given us his blessing we will get married and go home to my kingdom.”
And that’s exactly what they did. They drove at once to the farmer’s house and when Veikko’s father and his brothers and his brothers’ sweethearts saw the Princess’ coach stopping at their gate they all came out bowing and scraping to see what such grand folk could want of them.
“Father!” Veikko cried, “don’t you know me?”
The farmer stopped bowing long enough to look up.
“Why, bless my soul!” he cried, “it’s our
Veikko!”
“Yes, father, I’m Veikko and this is the Princess that I’m going to marry!”
“A Princess, did you say, Veikko? Mercy me, where did my boy find a Princess?”
“Out in the forest where my tree pointed.”
“Well, well, well,” the farmer said, “where your tree pointed! I’ve always heard that was a good way to find a bride.”
The older brothers shook their heads gloomily and muttered:
“Just our luck! If only our trees had pointed to the forest we, too, should have found princesses instead of plain country wenches!”
But they were wrong: it wasn’t because his tree pointed to the forest that Veikko got the Princess, it was because he was so simple and good that he was kind even to a little mouse.
Well, after they had got the farmer’s blessing they rode home to the Princess’ kingdom and were married. And they were happy as they should have been for they were good and true to each other and they loved each other dearly.
(Edited by Parker Fillmore and published in Fillmore’s collection, Mighty Mikko: A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales (1922). Illustrated by Jay Van Everen. Reprinted by https://americanliterature.com )