Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗
- Author: Svetlana Konnikova
Book online «Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Livin, Svetlana Konnikova [classic fiction .TXT] 📗». Author Svetlana Konnikova
224 ^ Mama’s Home Remedies
With all the tomes of literature at my fingertips, it was hard to say what I loved most, but I have to admit that my favorite books—even now—are unforgettable folktales and fairy tales from around the world. I had heard plenty of them from Grandma and I fell in love with these anthologies and will hold them dear to my heart for the rest of my life because these tales are good and wise. They reflect our real life, and they are a bright example of intelligent human thought. They became for me a window to the world and a brilliant tool with which to learn about it. After all, these beautiful stories came to me from the Fairyland, the mystical, magical land of fairies. I learned a lot from fairy tales told by Dutch storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. I read almost all of them. Sometimes I explore his storehouse even now, and I find always there a mix of fantasy and true-life experience. I am full of wonder. I have learned about destiny, and I admire the noble actions of his heroes. I find I effortlessly float into his fairy tales and transcend this real life and all at once I am a character in another realm.
Our big candle shone with a small orange fire and quietly burned down, marking time by growing smaller, dropping purple tears, sharing the lovely ambiance of which it was a part with all of us in the room, its heady fragrance of lilac intoxicating us. Very soon this flower would celebrate spring in Grandma’s Dream Garden, but winter was still upon us and so I nestled comfortably into a chair and read Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Candles,”
a beautiful fairy tale written in 1870.
There was once a big wax candle which knew
its own importance quite well. “I am born of
wax and molded in a shape,” it said. “I give better light
and burn longer than other candles. My place is in a chandelier or on a silver candlestick!”
“That must be a lovely existence!” said the tallow candle. “I am only made of tallow, but I comfort myself with the thought that it is always a little better than being a farthing dip: That is only dipped twice, and I am dipped eight times, to get my proper thickness. I am content! It is certainly finer and more fortunate to be born of wax instead of tallow, but one does not settle one’s own place in this world. You are placed in the big room in Trips to the Fairyland @ 225
the glass chandelier, I remain in the kitchen, but that is also a good place; from there the whole house gets its food.”
“But there is something which is more important than food,” said the wax-candle. “Society! To see it shine, and to shine oneself! There is a ball this evening and soon I and all my family will be fetched.”
Scarcely was the word spoken, when all the wax-candles were fetched, but the tallow candle also went with them. The lady herself took it in her dainty hand, and carried it out to the kitchen: a little boy stood there with a basket, which was filled with potatoes; two or three apples also found their way there. The good lady gave all this to the poor boy.
“There is a candle for you as well,
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