Little Daylight.

*This is the story of little Daylight. Has anybody ever heard of this story? It's a story by George MacDonald. It was adapted and illustrated by Erick Ingraham. So that means that this story is not mine in any way. So I don't want to get sued. I'm just putting this story here so everybody can read it. Enjoy.*

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Summary:

When little Daylight was born, there was great happiness, if you could call it that, in the palace, for this was the queen's first baby. But when seven fairies came to bestow their remarkable gifts on the child, the king and queen never thought of inviting the old had who lived in the swampy part of the forest. This vengeful fairy casts a terrible spell-little Daylight will sleep during the day and awake only at night, and her her beauty will wax and wane with the cycles of the moon, until a prince comes who will kiss her without knowing who she is.

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There was a very grand wood beside the palace of the king who was going to be Daylight's father--such a grand wood that nobody had yet reached the other end of it. Near the house it was kept very trim and nice, and it was free of brushwood for a long way in; but by degrees it got wild, and it grew wilder, and wilder, and wilder, until some said wild beasts at last did what they liked in it. The king and his courtiers often hunted, however, and this kept the wild beasts far away from the palace.

One glorious summer morning, when the wind and sun were out together, when weathervanes were glittering and flags were frolicking against the blue sky, little Daylight made her appearance from somewhere--nobody could tell where--a beautiful baby, with such bright eyes that she might have come from the sun, only by and by she showed such lively ways that she might equally well have come out of the wind. There was great jubilation in the palace, for this was the queen's first baby, and there is as much happiness over a new baby in a palace as in a cottage.

But there is one disadvantage of living near a wood: You do not know quite who your neighbors may be. Everybody knew there were in it several fairies living within a few miles of the palace. The curious houses they lived in were well known also: one, a hollow oak; another, a birch tree, though nobody could ever find how that fairy made a house of it; another, a hut of growing trees intertwined and patched up with turf and moss. But there was another fairy that had lately come to the place, and a wicked old thing she was, indeed. The people thought she was a witch, and those who knew her by sight were careful to avoid offending her. She lived in a mud house in a swampy part of the forest.

In all history we find that fairies give their remarkable gifts to prince or princess, or any child of sufficient importance in their eyes, always at the christening. Of course all the known fairies were invited to Daylight's christening. But the king and queen never thought of inviting an old witch. The old hag was there without being asked. Not to be asked was just what she wanted, that she might have a reason for doing what she wished to do. For somehow even the wickedest of creatures likes a pretext for doing the wrong thing.

Five fairies had one after the other given the child such gifts as each counted best. The fifth had just stepped back to her place in the surrounding splendor of ladies and gentlemen, when, mumbling a laugh between her toothless gums, the wicked fairy hobbled out into the middle of the circle, and at the moment when the archbishop was handing the baby to the lady at the head of the nursery, addressed him thus, giving a bite or two to every word before she could part with it: "Please your Grace, I'm deaf. Would your Grace mind repeating the princess's name?"

"With pleasure, my good woman," said the archbishop, stooping to shout in her ear. "The infant's name is little Daylight."

"And little Daylight it shall be," cried the fairy, in the tone of a dry axle, "and little good shall any of her gifts do her. For I bestow upon the gift of sleeping all day long, whether she will or not. Ha, ha! Hi, hi!"

Then out started the sixth fairy, which, of course, the others had arranged should come after the wicked one, in order to undo as much as she might. She was wearing a flowing light green dress, wearing a half crest of the moon on a necklace around her neck.

"If she sleeps all day," she said mournfully, "she shall, at least, wake all night."

"A nice prospect for her mother and me!" thought the poor king; for they loved her far too much to give her up to nurses, especially at night, as most kings and queens do--and are sorry for it afterward.

"You spoke before I was done," said the wicked fairy. "That's against the law. It gives me another chance."

"I beg your pardon," said the other fairies, all together.

"She did. I wasn't done laughing," said the crone. "I had only got to 'Hi, hi!' and I had to go through 'Ho, ho!' and 'Hu, hu!' So I decree that if she wakes all night, she shall wax and wane with its mistress the moon. And what that may mean I hope her royal parents will live to see. Ho, ho! Hu, hu!"

But out stepped another fairy, for they had been wise enough to keep two in reserve, because every fairy knew the trick of one.

"Until," said the seventh fairy, "a prince comes who shall kiss her without knowing it."

The wicked fairy made a horrid noise like an angry cat and hobbled away. She could not pretend that she had not finished her speech this time, for she had laughed 'Ho, ho!' and 'Hu, hu!'

"I don't know what that means," said the poor king to the seventh fairy. She wore a crown of pink flowers and a necklace made of thorned wood. Obviously a nature fairy.

"Don't be afraid. The meaning will come with the thing itself," said she.

The assembly broke up, miserable enough--the queen, at least was prepared for a good many sleepless nights; and the lady at the head of the nursery was anything but comfortable in the prospect before her, for of course the queen could not do it all.

I will not attempt to describe what they had to go through for some time. But at last the household settled into a regular system--a very irregular one in some respect. For at certain seasons the palace rang all night with bursts of laughter from little Daylight, whose heart the old fairy's curse could not reach; she was Daylight still, only a little in the wrong place, for she always dropped asleep at the first hint of dawn in the east. But her merriment was of short duration. When the moon was at the full, she was in glorious spirits, and as beautiful as it was possible for a child of her age to be. But as the moon waned, she faded, until at last she was wan and withered like the poorest, sickliest child you might come upon.

When well, she was always merriest out in the moonlight; but even when near her worst, she seemed better when, on warm summer nights, they carried her gorgeous cradle out into the light of the waning moon. Then in her sleep she would smile the faintest, most pitiful smile.

For a long time very few people ever say her awake. As she grew older she became such a favorite, however, that about the palace there were always some who would contrive to keep awake at night, in order to be near her. But she soon began to take every chance of getting away from her nurses and enjoying her moonlight alone.

As she grew older, she had grown more and more beautiful, with the sunniest hair and the loveliest eyes of heavenly blue, brilliant and profound as the sky of a June day. But so much more painful and sad was the change as her bad time came on. The more beautiful she was in the full moon, the more withered and worn did she become as the moon waned. She looded, when the moon was small or gone, like an old woman exhausted with suffering. This was the more painful since her appearance was unnatural; her hair and eyes did not change. Her wan face was both drawn and wrinkled, and had an eager, hungry look. Her skinny hands moved as if wishing, but unable, to lay hold of something. Her shoulders were bent forward, her chest went in, and she stooped as if she were eighty years old. At last she had to be put to bed, and there await the flow of the tide of life. But she grew to dislike being seen, still more being touched by any hands, during this season. One lovely summer evening, when the moon lay all but gone upon the verge of the horizon, she vanished from her attendants, and it was only after searching for her a long time in great terror that they found her fast asleep in the forest, at the foot of a silver birch, and carried her home.

A little way from the palace there was a great open glade, covered with the greenest and softest grass. This was her favorite haunt; for here the full moon shone free and glorious, while through a vista in the trees she could generally see more or less of the dying moon as it crossed the opening. Here she had a little rustic house built for her, and here she mostly resided. None of the court might go there without leave, and her own attendants had learned by this time not to be officious in waiting upon her, so that she was very much at liberty. Whether the good fairies had anything to do with it or not I cannot tell, but at last she got into the way of retreating farther into the wood every night as the moon waned, so that sometimes they had great trouble in finding her; but as she was always very angry if she discovered they were watching her, they scarcely dared to do so. At length one night they thought they had lost her altogether. It was morning before they found her. Feeble as she was, she had wandered into a thicket a long way from the glade, and there she lay-fast asleep, of course.

Although the fame of her beauty and sweetness had gone abroad, yet as everybody knew she was under a bad spell, no king in the neighborhood had any desire to have her for a daughter-in-law. There were serious objections to such a relation.

About this time in a neighboring kingdom, in consequence of the wickedness of the nobles, an insurrection took place upon the death of the old king, the greater part of the nobility was massacred, and the young prince was compelled to flee for his life, disguised like a peasant. For some time, until he got out of the country, he suffered much from hunger and fatigue; but when he got into that land ruled by the princess's father, and had no longer any fear of being recognized, he fared better, for the people were kind. He did not abandon his disguise, however.