Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Sleepy Stories. I'm your host, Lucy,
and my friends and I will be reading you a
sleepy bedtime story every week to relax you and to
help you to drift off into a RESTful sleep. From
time to time, we will also read you a relaxing,
peaceful meditation that will take you somewhere beautiful and calming.
Once we have read the stories, we will then read
them a second time, but this time they will be
ready even slower. This will help you to relax even more.
Before we begin, I would like you to close your
eyes and breathe in and out nice and deeply. Take
a few seconds to inhale, and then hold your breath
for a few seconds more, and then release and breathe out.
Do this a few times if you need to. While
you listen to the music and you listen to my voice,
give yourself time to let your body relax and your
mind settle. It's important that we allow time for us
to feel safe, cozy, and completely at ease. And now
it's time for this week's story.
Speaker 2: The Legend of the Wooden Shoe. In years long gone
too many for the almanac to tell of, or for
clocks and watches to measure. Millions of good fairies came
down from the sun and went into the earth. There
they changed themselves into roots and leaves and became trees.
There were many kinds of these as they covered the earth,
but the pine and birch, and ash and oak were
the chief ones that made holland. The fairies that lived
in the trees bore the name of moss maidens or
tree trenches, which is the Dutch pet name for Kate
or Catherine. The oak was the favorite tree for people
lived then on acorns, which they ate, roasted, boiled, or mashed,
or made into meal, from which something like bread was
kneaded and baked with oak bark. Men tanned hides and
made leather, and from its timber boats and houses. Under
its branches. Near the trunk, people laid their sick, hoping
for help from the gods. Beneath the oak boughs. Also,
warriors took oaths to be faithful to their lords. Women
made promises or wives joined hand in hand around its girth,
hoping to have beautiful children. Up among its leafy branches,
the new babies lay before they were found in the
cradle by the other children to make a young child
grow up to be strong and healthy. Mothers drew them
through a split sapling or young tree. Even more wonderful
as medicine for the country itself, the oak had power
to heal the new land sometimes suffered from disease called
the vow or fall. When sick with the vow, the
ground sunk. Then people, houses, churches, barns, and cattle all
went down out of sight and were lost forever in
a flood of water. But the oak, with its mighty
roots held the soil firm. Stories of dead cities that
had tumbled beneath the waves, and of the famous forest
of reeds covering a hundred villages which disappeared in one night,
were known only too well. Under the birch tree, lovers
met to plight their vows, and on its smooth bark
was often cut the figure of two hearts joined in one.
In summer, the forest furnace shade, and in winter warmth
from the fire. In the springtime, the new leaves were
a wonder and in autumn the pigs grew fat on
the mast or the acorns that had dropped on the ground.
So for thousands of years, when men made their home
in the forest and wanted nothing else. The trees were sacred.
But by and by, when cows came into the land
and sheep and horses multiplied, more open ground was needed
for pasture, grain fields and meadows. Fruit trees bearing apples
and pears, peaches and cherries were planted, and grass, wheat, rye,
and barley were grown. Then, instead of dark woods, men
liked to have their gardens and orchards open to the sunlight.
Still the people were very rude, and all they had
on their bare feet were rough bits of hard leather
tied on through their toes, though most of them went barefooted.
The forests had to be cut down. Men were so
busy with the axe that in a few years the
woodland was gone. Then the new Holland, with its people
and red roofed houses, with its chimneys and windmills and
dykes and storks, took the place of the old olt
land of many trees. Now there was a good man,
a carpenter and very skillful way his tools, who so
loved the oak that he gave himself and his children
after him the name of Ak, which is pronounced Ike
and is Dutch for oak. When before his neighbors and friends.
According to the beautiful Dutch custom, he called his youngest
born child to lay the cornerstone of his new house,
and bestowed upon her before them all the name of
Nelgy of Neljay or Nellie van Ike. The carpenter Daddy
continued to mourn over the loss of the forests. He
even shed tears, fearing lest by and by there should
not one oak tree be left in the country. Moreover,
he was frightened at the thought that the new land
made by pushing back the ocean and building dikes might
sink down again and go back to the fishes. In
such a case, all the people, the babies and their mothers, men, women,
horses and cattle would be drowned. The Dutch folks were
a little too fast, he thought, in winning their acres
from the sea. One day, while sitting on his doorstep
brooding sorrowfully, a moss maiden and a tree elf appeared,
skipping a long hand in hand. They came up to
him and told him that his ancestral oak had a
message for him. Then they laughed and ran away. Van Eyke,
which was now the man's full family name, went into
the forest and stood under the grand oak tree, which
his father's loved, and which he would allow none to
cut down. Looking up, the leaves of the tree rustled,
and one big branch seemed to sweep near him. Then
it whispered in his ear. Do not mourn, for your descendants,
even many generations hence shall see greater things than you
have witnessed. I and my fellow oak trees shall pass away,
but the sunshine shall be spread over the land and
make it dry. Then, instead of its falling down like
acorns from the trees, more and better food shall come
up from out of the earth where green fields now spread,
and the cities grow where the forests were. We shall
come to life again, but in another form, when most needed,
we shall furnish you and your children and children's children
with warmth, comfort, fire, light, and wealth. Nor need you
fear for the land that it will fall, For even
while living, we and all the oak trees that are left,
and all the birch, beech and pine trees, shall stand
on our heads for you. We shall hold up your
houses lest they fall into the ooze, And you shall
walk and run over our heads as truly as when,
as truly as when rooted in the soil. We will
do this. Believe what we tell you, and be happy.
We shall turn ourselves upside down for you. I cannot
see how all these things can be, says van Eyke,
said van Iyke, fear not. My promise will endure. The
leaves of the branch rustled for another moment. Then all
was still, until the moss maiden and Trenchy the tree elf,
again hand in hand, as they tripped along merrily, appeared
to him. We shall help you and get our friends
the elves to do the same. Now, do you take
some oak wood and saw off two pieces, each a
foot long, see that they are well dried, then set
them on the kitchen table to night when you go
to bed. After saying this, and looking at each other
and laughing just as girls do, they disappeared. Pondering on
what all this might mean, van Ike went to his
wood shed and sawed off the oak timber. At night,
after his wife had cleared the supper table, he laid
the foot long pieces in their place. When van Iyke
woke up in the morning, he recalled his dream, and
before he was dressed, hurried to the kitchen. There on
the table lay a pair of neatly made wooden shoes.
Not a sign of tools or shavings could be seen,
but the clean wood and pleasant odor made him glad.
When he glanced again at the wooden shoes, he found
them perfectly smooth, both inside and out. They had heels
at the bottom and were nicely pointed at the toes,
and altogether they were very inviting to the foot. He
tried them on and found that they fitted him exactly.
He tried to walk on the kitchen floor, which his
wife kept scrubbed and polished, and then sprinkled with white
clean and then sprinkled with clean white sand with broomstick
ripples scored in the layers. But for van Eyke it
was like walking on ice. After slipping and balancing himself
as if on a tight rope, and nearly breaking his
nose against the wall, he took off the wooden shoes
and kept them off while inside the house. However, when
he went out doors, he found his new shoes very light,
pleasant to the feet, and easy to walk in. It
was not so much like trying to skate as it
had been in the kitchen. At night, in his dreams,
he saw two elves come through the window into the kitchen.
One a kabuoter, dark and ugly, had a box of tools.
The other, a light faced elf, seemed to be the guide.
The kabuter at once got out his sawtchet augur, long
chosl like knife and smoothing plane. At first the two
elves seemed to be quarreling as to who should be boss.
Then they settled down quietly to work. The kabooter took
the wood and shaped it on the outside. Then he
hollowed out from inside of it a pair of shoes,
which the elf smoothed and polished. Then one elf put
his little feet in them and tried to dance, but
he only slipped on the smooth floor and flattened his nose.
But the other fellow pulled the nose straight again, so
it was all right. They waltzed together upon the wooden shoes,
then took them off, jumped out the window, and ran away.
When Vanyke put the wooden shoes on, he found that
out in the fields, in the mud and on the
soft soil and in sloppy places, this sort of foot
gear was just the thing. They did not sink in
the mud, and the man's feet were comfortable even after
hours of labor. They did not draw his feet, and
they kept out the water far better than leather possibly could.
When the van eyke Frow and the children saw how
happy Daddy was, they each wanted a pair. Then they
asked him what he called them. Clumpin', said he in
good Dutch, and clompin' or clumps they are to this day.
I'll make a fortune out of this, said Vanyke. I'll
set up a clump winkle shop for wooden shoes at once. So,
going out to the blacksmith shop in the village, he
had the man who pounded iron fashioned for him on
his anvil a set of tools exactly like those used
by the Kabuter and the Elf which he had seen
in his dream. Then he hung out a sign marked
wooden blocks for shoes. He made clumps for the little
folks just out of the nursery, for boys and girls,
for grown men and women, and for all who walked
out of doors in the street or in the fields.
Soon clumps came to be the fashion in all the
country places. It was good manners when you went into
a house to take off your wooden shoes and leave
them at the door, Even in the towns and cities.
Ladies wore wooden slippers, especially when walking or working in
the garden. Clumps also set the fashion for soft, warm
socks and stockings made from sheep's wool. Soon a thousand
needles were clicking to put a soft cushion between one's
soles and toes, and the wood women knitted even while
they walked to the market or gossiped on the streets.
The clump winkles or shops of the shoe carpenters were
seen in every village. When rich beyond his day dreams,
Van Nike had another joyful night vision. The next day.
He wore a smiling countenance. Everybody who met him him
on the street saluted him and asked, in a neighborly way,
good morning mine year bloy mdigg, mister cheerful, how do
you sail today? That's the way the Dutch talk, not
how do you do? But in their watery country it
is this, how do you sail? Or else? Ho get
how ho got het? Huel? How goes it with you? Already?
Then van Eyke told his dream it was this the
moss maiden and Trenchey, the wood elf came to him
again at night and danced. They were lively and happy.
What now, asked the dreamer, smilingly of his two visitors.
The kabooter took the wood and shaped it on the
air inside. He had hardly got the question out of
his mouth when in walked a kabuter, all smutty with
blacksmith work. In one hand he grasped his toolbox. In
the other he held a curious looking machine. It was
a big lump of iron set in a frame with
ropes to pull it up and let it fall down
with a thump. What is it, asked van Eyke. It's
a hay or pile driver, said the Kabuter, showing him
how to use it. When men say to you on
the street tomorrow, how do you sail? Laugh at them,
said the moss maiden herself, laughing yes. And now you
can tell the people how to build cities with mighty
churches and lofty towers, and high with and with high
houses like those in other lands. Take the trees, trim
the branches off, sharpen the tops, turned them upside down,
and pound them deep in the ground. Did not the
ancient oak promise that the trees would be turned upside
down for you. Did they not say you could walk
on top of them? By this time van Eyke had
asked so many questions and kept the elves so long
that the moss maiden peeped anxiously through the window, seeing
the day breaking. She and Trenchy and the kibuter flew
away so as not to be petrified by the sunrise.
I'll make another fortune out of this, also said the
happy man, who next morning was saluted as mineheer blid shop,
mister joyful. At once van Eyke set up a factory
for making pile drivers, sending men into the woods who
chose the tall, straight trees. He had their branches cut off.
Then he sharpened the trunks at one end, and these
were driven by the pile driver down far and deep
into the ground. So a foundation as good as stone
was made in the soft and spongy soil, and well
built houses up rose by the thousands. Even the lofty
walls of churches stood firm, the spires unshaken in the storm.
Old Holland had not fertile soil like France, or vast
flocks of sheep producing wool like England, or armies of
weavers as in the Belgic lands. Yet soon there rose
large cities with splendid mansions and town halls as high
toward heaven as the cathedrals and towers in other lands,
which had rock for foundation. Her brick churches rose in
the air on top of the forest. Trees driven deep
into the sand and clay. Dams and dikes were built
that kept out the ocean. So instead of the old
two thousand square miles, there were in the realm, in
the course of years twelve thousand, rich in green fields
and cattle. Then for all the boys and girls that
travel in this land of quaint customs, Holland was a delight.
The legend of the wooden shoe, in years long gone
too many for the almanac to tell of, wore for
clocks and watches to measure. Millions of good fairies came
down from the sun and went into the earth. There
they changed themselves into roots and leaves, and became trees.
There were many kinds of these as they covered the earth,
But the pine and birch, and ash and oak were
the chief ones that made Holland. The fairies that lived
in the trees bore the name of moss maidens or
tree trenches, which is the Dutch pet name for Kate
or Catherine. The oak was the favorite tree for people
lived then on acorns, which they ate, roasted, boiled, or mashed,
or made into meal, from which something like bread was
kneaded and baked with oak bark. Men tanned hides and
made leather, and from its timber boats and houses Under
its branches. Near the true people laid their sick, hoping
for help from the gods. Beneath the oak boughs. Also,
warriors took oaths to be faithful to their lords. Women
made promises, or wives joined hand in hand around its girth,
hoping to have beautiful children. Up among its leafy branches,
the new babies lay before they were found in the
cradle by the other children. To make a young child
grow up to be strong and healthy, mothers drew them
through a split sapling or young tree. Even more wonderful
as medicine for the country itself, the oak had power
to heal the new land sometimes suffered from disease called
the vow or fall. When sick with the vow, the
ground sunk. Then people, houses, churches, barns, and cattle all
went down out of sight. And were lost forever in
a flood of water. But the oak, with its mighty
roots held the soil firm. Stories of dead cities that
had tumbled beneath the waves, and of the famous forest
of reeds covering a hundred villages which disappeared in one night,
were known only too well. Under the birch tree, lovers
met to plight their vows, and on its smooth bark
was often cut the figure of two hearts joined in one.
In summer the forest furnace shade, and in winter warmth
from the fire. In the springtime, the new leaves were
a wonder and in autumn the pigs grew fat on
the mast or the acorns that had dropped on the ground.
So for thousands of years, when men made their home
in the forest and wanted nothing else, the trees were sacred.
But by and by, when cows came into the land
and sheep and horses multiplied, more open ground was needed
for pasture, grain fields and meadows. Fruit trees bearing apples
and pears, peaches and cherries were planted, and grass, wheat, rye,
and barley were grown. Then, instead of dark woods, men
liked to have their gardens and orchards open to the sunlight. Still,
the people were very rude, and all they had on
their bare feet were rough bits of hard leather tied
on through their toes, though most of them went barefooted.
The forests had to be cut down. Men were so
busy with the axe that in a few years the
woodland was gone. Then the new Holland, with its people
and red roofed houses, with its chimneys and windmills and
dykes and storks, took the place of the old old
land of many trees. Now there was a good man,
a carpenter and very skillful with his tools, who so
loved the oak that he gave himself and his children
after him the name of Ak, which is pronounced Ike
and is Dutch for oak. When before his neighbors and friends,
according to the beautiful Dutch custom, he called his youngest
born child to lay the cornerstone of his new house,
and bestowed upon her before them all the name of
Nelchy of Neltjay or Nellie van Ike. The carpenter Daddy
continued to mourn over the loss of the forests. He
even shed tears, fearing lest by and by there should
not one oak tree be left in the country. Moreover,
he was frightened at the thought that the new land
made by pushing back the ocean and building dikes might
sink down again and go back to the fishes. In
such a case, all the people, the babies and their mothers, men, women,
horses and cattle would be drowned. The Dutch folks were
a little too fast, he thought, in winning their acres
from the sea. One day, while sitting on his doorstep
brooding sorrowfully, a moss maiden and a tree elf appeared,
skipping a long hand in hand. They came up to
him and told him that his ancestral oak had a
message for him. Then they laughed and ran away. Van Iyke,
which was now the man's full family name, went into
the forest and stood under the grand oak tree, which
his father's loved, and which he would allow none to
cut down. Looking up, the leaves of the tree rustled,
and one big branch seemed to sweep near him. Then
it whispered in his ear, do not mourn, for your descendants,
even many generations hence shall see greater things than you
have witnessed. I and my fellow oak trees shall pass away,
But the sunshine shall be spread over the land and
make it dry. Then, instead of its falling down like
acorns from the trees, more and better food shall come
up from out of the earth where green fields now spread,
and the cities grow where the forests were. We shall
come to life again, but in another form. When most needed,
we shall furnish you and your children and children's children
with warmth, comfort, fire, light, and wealth. Nor need you
fear for the land that it will fall, for even
while living, we and all the oak trees that are left,
and all the birch, beech and pine trees, shall stand
on our heads for you. We shall hold up your
houses lest they fall into the ooze, and you shall
walk and run over our heads as truly as when,
as truly as when rooted in the soil. We will
do this. Believe what we tell you, and be happy.
We shall turn ourselves upside down for you. I cannot
see how all these things can be, says van Eyke,
said van Eyke, fear not. My promise will endure. The
leaves of the branch rustled for another moment. Then all
was still, until the moss maiden and trenchy the tree
elf again hand in hand as they tripped along merrily
appeared to him. We shall help you and get our
friends the elves to do the same. Now, do you
take some oak wood and saw off two pieces, each
a foot long, See that they are well dried, then
set them on the kitchen table tonight when you go
to bed. After saying this and looking at each other
and laughing just as girls do, they disappeared. Pondering on
what all this might mean, van Ike went to his
woodshed and sawed off the oak timber. At night, after
his wife had cleared the supper table, he laid the
foot long pieces in their place. When van Ike woke
up in the morning, he recalled his dream, and before
he was dressed, hurried to the kitchen. There on the
table lay a pair of neatly made wooden shoes. Not
a sign of tools or shavings could be seen, but
the clean wood and pleasant odor made him glad. When
he glanced again at the wooden shoes, he found them
perfectly smooth both inside and out. They had heels at
the bottom and were nicely pointed at the toes, and
all together they were very inviting to the foot. He
tried them on and found that they fitted him exactly.
He tried to walk on the kitchen floor, which his
wife kept scrubbed and polished, and then sprinkled with white
clean and then sprinkled with clean white sand with broomstick
ripples scored in the layers. But for van Eyke it
was like walking on ice. After slipping and balancing himself
as if on a tight rope, and nearly breaking his
nose against the wall, he took off the wooden shoes
and kept them off while inside the house. However, when
he went outdoors he found his new shoes very light,
pleasant to the feet, and easy to walk in. It
was not so much like trying to skate as it
had been in the kitchen. At night, in his dreams,
he saw two elves come through the window into the kitchen.
One a kabuter, dark and ugly, had a box of tools.
The other, a light faced elf, seemed to be the guide.
The kabuter at once got out his saw hatchet, augur,
long chosl like knife and smoothing plane. At first, the
two elves seemed to be quarreling as to who should
be boss. Then they settled down quietly to work. The
kabooter took the wood and shaped it on the outside.
Then he hollowed out from inside of it a pair
of shoes, which the elf smoothed and polished. Then one
elf put his little feet in them and tried to dance,
But he only slipped on the smooth floor and flattened
his nose. But the other fellow pulled the nose straight again,
so it was all right. They waltzed together upon the
wooden shoes, then took them off, jumped out the window,
and ran away. When Vanyke put the wooden shoes on,
he found that out in the fields, in the mud,
and on the soft soil, and in sloppy places, this
sort of foot gear was just the thing. They did
not sink in the mud, and the man's feet were comfortable,
even after hours of labor. They did not draw his feet,
and they kept out the water far better than leather
possibly could. When the van Eyke frow and the children
saw how happy daddy was, they each wanted a pair.
Then they asked him what he called them. Clompin', said
he in good Dutch, and clompin' or clumps they are
to this day. I'll make a fortune out of this,
said van Eyke. I'll set up a clump winkle shop
for wooden shoes at once. So, going out to the
blacksmith shop in the village, he had the man who
pounded iron fashioned for him on his anvil a set
of tools exactly like those used by the Kabuter and
the elf which he had seen in his dream. Then
he hung out a sign marked wooden blocks for shoes.
He made clumps for the little folks just out of
the nursery, for boys and girls, for grown men and women,
and for all who walked out of doors in the
street or in the fields. Soon clumps came to be
the fashion in all the country places. It was good
manners when you went into a house to take take
off your wooden shoes and leave them at the door.
Even in the towns and cities, ladies wore wooden slippers,
especially when walking or working in the garden. Clumps also
set the fashion for soft, warm socks and stockings made
from sheep's wool. Soon a thousand needles were clicking to
put a soft cushion between one's soles and toes, and
the wood women knitted even while they walked to the
market or gossiped on the streets. The clump winkles or
shops of the shoe carpenters were seen in every village.
When rich beyond his day dreams, van Eyke had another
joyful night vision. The next day. He wore a smiling countenance.
Everybody who met him on the street saluted him and asked,
in a neighborly way, good morning mine, ear bloy m' digg,
mister cheerful, how do you sail to day? That's the
way the Dutch talk, not how do you do? But
in their watery country it is this, how do you sail?
Or else? Ho get hew ho got het huel? How
goes it with you? Already? Then Vanyke told his dream
it was this. The moss maiden and Trenchey, the wood
elf came to him again at night and danced. They
were lively and happy. What now, asked the dreamer, smilingly,
of his two visitors. The kabooter took the wood and
shaped it on the inside. He had hardly got the
question out of his mouth when in walked a kabuter,
all smutty with blacksmith work. In one hand, he grasped
his tool box. In the other, he held a curious
looking machine it was a big lump of iron set
in a frame with ropes to pull it up and
let it fall down with a thump. What is it,
asked van Eyke. It's a hay or pile driver, said
the Kabuter, showing him how to use it. When men
say to you on the street tomorrow, how do you sail?
Laugh at them, said the moss maiden herself, laughing yes,
and now you can tell the people how to build
cities with mighty churches and lofty towers, and high with
and with high houses like those in other lands. Take
the trees, trim the branches off, sharpen the tops, turned
them upside down, and pound them deep in the ground.
Did not the ancient oak promise that the trees would
be turned upside down for you? Did they not say
you could walk on top of them? By this time
van Eyke had asked so many questions and kept the
elves so long that the moss Maiden peeped anxiously through
the window, seeing the day breaking, She and Trenchy and
the Kabooter flew away so as not to be petrified
by the sunrise. I'll make another fortune out of this, also,
said the happy man, who next morning was saluted as
mineheer blid shop mister joyful. At once van Eyke set
up a factory for making pile drivers, sending men into
the woods who chose the tall, straight trees. He had
their branches cut off, then he sharpened the trunks at
one end, and these were driven by the pile driver
down far and deep into the ground. So a foundation
as good as stone was made in the soft and
spongy soil, and well built houses up rose by the thousands.
Even the lofty walls of churches stood firm. The spires
were unshaken in the storm. Old Holland had not fertile
soil like France, or vast flocks of sheep producing wool
like England, or armies of weavers as in the Belgic lands.
Yet soon there rose large cities with splendid mansions and
town halls as high toward heaven as the cathedrals and
towers in other lands which had rock for foundation. Her
Brick churches rose in the air on top of the
forest trees driven deep into the sand and clay. Dams
and dikes were built that kept out the ocean, so
instead of the old two thousand square miles there were
in the realm in the course of years twelve thousand,
rich in green fields and cattle. Then, for all the
boys and girls that travel in this land of quaint customs,
Holland was a delight