Swallowing the Golden Stone: Stories and Essays - Hardcover

Walter Wangerin Jr.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806637102 ISBN 13: 9780806637105

Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Pub, 2001

Synopsis

A collection of stories, essays, and poems, including "Lowercase People," "Elisabeth and the Water-Troll," and "To Weave a World."

About this title

About the Author:

Walter Wangerin, Jr. has won numerous awards and honors for his books. A nationally-known speaker and master storyteller, his books include Water, Come Down!, The Bedtime Rhyme, and In the Beginning There Was No Sky.

Kevin Kimber has illustrated books for publishers in the United States and England. His favorite work is illustrating children’s stories and fairy tales.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Elisabeth and the Water Troll
Prologue: The Well, the Troll, Elisabeth

An ancient path goes north from the village of Dorf. It cuts through the fields and the woods, drops down into a valley, then winds across the valley floor till it ends at a well. The villagers know this well. They call it “Despair.”

It’s an old, old well—older than any remember; and cold because the shaft goes deep, deep into the earth; and still. Its stones are green, all covered with moss. Lizards slip between the cracks. Lizards peep out with leatherlike stares and vanish when the wind grows sharp—for the wind grows sharp indeed. It screams down the length of the valley, and Hoooo! it blows on the hole of the well. Hoooo! Hoooo!—which to the villager’s ears sounds like, You! You! I’ll swallow you! I’ll drink you like water and eat you like foooood!

Nobody comes to the well. Or nobody nearly. The women who wash with water don’t come, nor the men who drink cool water in the heat of the day, nor the children who play. Not even the dogs of the village will creep by the Well Despair, because they know. Everyone knows. For seven generations they’ve whispered the stories by firelight, shuddering, shivering, grave; and they know that deep in that well there dwells a Troll.

Ah, there it is. Now we have spoken it: the Troll! It’s the Troll that parents use to scare their children indoors at night: “Come! Come! Or the Troll will get you. He’ll drink you like water! He’ll eat you like food!”

It’s the Troll that causes the children to whimper while they are sleeping, dreaming, dreaming.

It’s because of the Troll that grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents named the well “Despair.”

And every time his story is told, the Troll grows greener and grimmer and uglier.

Yes, the Troll. But what shall we say of him? What is the truth and not a story?

Well, he isn’t a mole, because he’s too much like a man. He frowns like a man. But he can’t be a man exactly either, because he digs in the darkness and shrinks from the light. Light hurts him as bad as fire can; but his hearing is as good as miracles. His arms are long and powerful. He has claws on his fingers and fangs in his mouth and green in his eyes, which glow; his green eyes glow in the dark. He leaps as lightly as a cat from ledge to ledge inside his well. His fur is thick; his back is bunched; his whiskers are wet—and always his brow is frowning because always he’s trying to think, and thinking is hard for the Troll, who isn’t a man exactly.

Nobody comes to the well. Or nobody nearly. . . .

One day, suddenly, a small girl does appear in the terrible circle of daylight at the top of the well. She’s shaking her head. She’s sobbing: “Ow-ooo! Ow-ooooo!”

The Troll cannot look up without burning his eyes; but he listens, for the child is wailing like the wind, but she’s younger and sadder than the wind, and the Troll hears the difference.

“Oh, Mama!” she wails. Like rain her tears spill down upon the Troll, but they are warmer than the rain; they sting like sorrow, and the Troll can feel the difference.

“Mama, why did you have to die?”

To die? The Troll covers his mouth and makes no sound.

“You lied to me,” the child cries. “You said you loved me—but how can you love me and go away too?” The Troll hears little fists hitting the stones above. “You didn’t love Elisabeth. You died. You left me. Mama, Mama, you lied to me!”

Now the Troll hears the whip and crackle of the little girl’s hair as she yanks something from it. Two somethings. “What do I want with your things?” she cries. “Papa wants me to wear your combs. Papa wants me to be glad again. But I don’t want to be glad. And I don’t want your combs. No! No!”

Something lands on the Troll’s head. Two somethings—and they catch in his hair. He reaches and pulls out two tortoiseshell combs, in which he can smell love—the love of a mother, the love of a father—and the grief of a little girl, who is sobbing against the stones above, murmuring, “Gone, gone, gone, gone. No, I won’t trust anyone, since everyone lies, lies, lies.”
So speaks Elisabeth.

And now the Troll is frowning dreadfully. With green-glowing eyes, he’s staring at two combs in his claws, and his heart is beating sorrow for the child above, and his nose—yes, and all his breathing—is filled with the love of the combs, and his forehead is frowning because he is trying to think one good and helpful thought.

About this edition

• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Pub
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0806637102
• ISBN 13: 9780806637105
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176
• Illustrator: Kevin Kimber