Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
Once upon a time they were well off. They had enough to eat every day; they lived in a comfortable house, surrounded by a nice garden, and with plenty of kind neighbours around them. Then came a change. Their father lost his money and was forced to leave this pleasant home, and to earn bread for his family by becoming a charcoal-burner. Everything now became different.
When the brave charcoal-burner, Georg Schmidt, was brought before the Elector and his court, the Electress asked him how he had dared to fight the robber-knight with no weapon but his pole. 'Madam, he replied, 'I gave him a sound "drilling" with my pole.
A serpentine path winds down the slippery sides of the mountains into the village below, but few people ever use it, save an occasional charcoal-burner or wood-cutter. "Alas, Stevey!" cried Simplex, shuddering at the sight of this perilous descent, "we shall never get off with a whole skin that way.
The road now led down towards the valley, and, after a short walk, the charcoal-burner said: "We shall find shelter below with Jorg, and a warm fire too, you poor women." These were cheering words, and came just at the right time, for large snow-flakes began to fill the air, and a light breeze drove them into the travellers' faces.
Marx alone walked quietly and undisturbed beside his little horse's thick head; he was familiar with all the voices of the forest. It grew colder towards morning. Ruth woke and cried, and her father, panting for breath, asked: "When shall we rest?" "Behind the height; ten arrow-shots farther," replied the charcoal-burner. "Courage," whispered the smith. "Get on the sledge, doctor; we'll push."
The charcoal-burner, however, knew the wild forest well, and especially this part of it lying between the city and his home. It was the favorite haunt of the ferocious beast Choggenmugger, dreaded by every dweller in the Island of Regos.
When they again stopped, this time on the crest of the ridge, Ulrich noticed that the charcoal-burner was sniffing the air like a hound, and asked: "What is it, Marxle?" The poacher grinned, as he answered: "It's going to snow; I smell it."
So long as the moon shone, flickering rays danced and sparkled on the ice and snow, but afterwards only the tedious glimmer of the universal snow-pall lighted the traveller's way. "If it would only snow!" repeated the charcoal-burner. The higher they went, the deeper grew the snow, the more wearisome the wading and climbing.
At midnight he heard noises in the house, and looking through a crack in the flooring he saw the charcoal-burner asleep, his wife almost in a faint, and by the side of the newly-born babe three old women dressed in white, each holding a lighted taper in her hand, and all talking together. Now these were the three Soudiché or Fates, you must know.
The tarantass encountered neither pedestrians nor horsemen, nor a vehicle of any description, in the narrow defiles of the Ural, on this threatening night. Not even the fire of a charcoal-burner was visible in the woods, not an encampment of miners near the mines, not a hut among the brushwood.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking