J. F. Campbell Collection > Household stories

THE TAiE OF SCHLAURAFFENLAND.
479
At the same moment he awoke. "Things are cei'tainly somewhat
different in heaven to what they are on earth," he said to himself, " and
much may therefore be excused ; but who could patiently see two horses
harnessed behind a waggon and two before ? Certainly they had wings,
but I did not observe that at first. However, it is a great absurdity
that a horse with four good legs must have wings too ! But I must get
up, or else they will make further mistakes about that house. Still,
after all, it is a very lucky thing that I am not dead ! "
THE TALE OF SCHLAURAFFENLAND.
I WAS once in Schlauraffenland, which some folks call " Fools' Paradise,"
and there saw I Rome and the Lateran hanging by a silken thread, a
footless man who outran a quick horse, and a sword sharp as a razor
which formed a bridge. There I saw, too, a young ass with a silver
nose, which was coursing two hares, and a lime-tree full of foliage,
whereon grew hot pancakes. There, too, I saw a clumsy old goat,
which carried on its back a hundred cartloads of grease and sixty cart-
loads of salt. Ls not that enough ?
There, also, I saw a plough going without horse or wheels, and a
one-year-old child threw four mill-stones from Ratisbon to Treves, and
from Treves away to Strasburg, and a hawk swam over the Rhine
without difficulty! There, too, I heard fishes caught with one another's
cries, and sweet honey flowed like water out of a deep valley up a high
mountain !
There were also two crows which mowed a meadow, and I saw two
flies building a bridge, and two doves tearing a wolf; two children who
threw down two kids, and two frogs threshing corn with might and
main !