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| When Queen Ulrica was dead, her corpse was placed in the usual way in an open coffin, in a room hung with black and lighted with numerous wax candles; a company of the king's guards did duty in the ante-room. One afternoon, the carriage of... Read more of Queen Ulrica And The Countess Steenbock at Scary Stories.ca | Informational.ca Privacy |
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Famous StoriesPocahontasThere was once a very brave man whose name was John Smith. ... Whittington And His Cat The City There was once a little boy whose name was Rich... Grace Darling It was a dark Sep-tem-ber morning. There was a storm at sea... Alexander And Bucephalus One day King Philip bought a fine horse called Bu-ceph'a-lu... Other Wise Men Of Gotham One day, news was brought to Gotham that the king was comin... Julius Caesar Nearly two thousand years ago there lived in Rome a man who... Bruce And The Spider There was once a king of Scot-land whose name was Robert Br... The Miller Of The Dee Once upon a time there lived on the banks of the River Dee ... Picciola Many years ago there was a poor gentleman shut up in one of... The Blind Men And The Elephant There were once six blind men who stood by the road-side ev... George Washington And His Hatchet When George Wash-ing-ton was quite a little boy, his father... The Sword Of Damocles There was once a king whose name was Di-o-nys'i-us. He was ... King Canute On The Seashore A hundred years or more after the time of Alfred the Great ... Diogenes The Wise Man At Cor-inth, in Greece, there lived a very wise man whose n... Casabianca There was a great battle at sea. One could hear nothing but... Androclus And The Lion In Rome there was once a poor slave whose name was An'dro-c... King John And The Abbot The 3 Questions. There was once a king of England whose... Sir Philip Sidney A cruel battle was being fought. The ground was covered wit... The White Ship King Henry, the Handsome Scholar, had one son, named Willia... The Story Of Cincinnatus There was a man named Cin-cin-na'tus who lived on a little ... |
THE ENDLESS TALEIn the Far East there was a great king who had no work to do. Every day, and all day long, he sat on soft cush-ions and lis-tened to stories. And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long. "There is only one fault that I find with your story," he often said: "it is too short." All the story-tellers in the world were in-vit-ed to his palace; and some of them told tales that were very long indeed. But the king was always sad when a story was ended. At last he sent word into every city and town and country place, offering a prize to any one who should tell him an endless tale. He said,-- "To the man that will tell me a story which shall last forever, I will give my fairest daugh-ter for his wife; and I will make him my heir, and he shall be king after me." But this was not all. He added a very hard con-di-tion. "If any man shall try to tell such a story and then fail, he shall have his head cut off." The king's daughter was very pretty, and there were many young men in that country who were willing to do anything to win her. But none of them wanted to lose their heads, and so only a few tried for the prize. One young man invented a story that lasted three months; but at the end of that time, he could think of nothing more. His fate was a warning to others, and it was a long time before another story-teller was so rash as to try the king's patience. But one day a stran-ger from the South came into the palace. "Great king," he said, "is it true that you offer a prize to the man who can tell a story that has no end?" "It is true," said the king. "And shall this man have your fairest daughter for his wife, and shall he be your heir?" "Yes, if he suc-ceeds," said the king. "But if he fails, he shall lose his head." "Very well, then," said the stran-ger. "I have a pleasant story about locusts which I would like to relate." "Tell it," said the king. "I will listen to you." The story-teller began his tale. "Once upon a time a certain king seized upon all the corn in his country, and stored it away in a strong gran-a-ry. But a swarm of locusts came over the land and saw where the grain had been put. After search-ing for many days they found on the east side of the gran-a-ry a crev-ice that was just large enough for one locust to pass through at a time. So one locust went in and carried away a grain of corn; then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn; then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn." Day after day, week after week, the man kept on saying, "Then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn." A month passed; a year passed. At the end of two years, the king said,-- "How much longer will the locusts be going in and carrying away corn?" "O king!" said the story-teller, "they have as yet cleared only one cubit; and there are many thousand cubits in the granary." "Man, man!" cried the king, "you will drive me mad. I can listen to it no longer. Take my daughter; be my heir; rule my kingdom. But do not let me hear another word about those horrible locusts!" And so the strange story-teller married the king's daughter. And he lived happily in the land for many years. But his father-in-law, the king, did not care to listen to any more stories. Next: THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT Previous: THE BARMECIDE FEAST
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