Story of the Foreign Fairy Chapter 64

Not far from the Goodnow River, in the Silkeborg Forest, there is a mound protruding from the ground, like a ball. People call it "the spine". There is a small farmhouse facing west under this highland. It is surrounded by barren land; among the sparse oats and wheat, there is a faint appearance of sand.

①The Gudena River is the longest river in Denmark, with a total length of more than 300 miles.

Many years have passed now. The people who lived here cultivated their little land and also raised three sheep, a pig, and two oxen. Simply put, as long as they are content with what they have, they have enough food. True, they could save some money and buy two horses; but, like other farmers in the neighborhood, they said, "the horses eat themselves up." They ate as much as they could produce.

Jebulim plowed his little land in the summer. In the winter he became an able clog-maker. He also had an assistant, a young man, who knew how to make wooden shoes strong, light and beautiful. They carved wooden shoes and ladles, which made money. Therefore, people cannot call the Jebuyans family poor.

Little Ibu is a seven-year-old boy and the only son of the family. He often sat nearby and watched others whittling wood and whittling his own wood. But one day he carved two pieces of wood to look like a pair of small wooden shoes. He said he would give them to little Christine. She is a boatman's little daughter. She is very delicate and delicate, like a gentleman's child. If her clothes matched her appearance, no one would think that she was a child in a hut on the wasteland of Secherde. Her father lives there. His wife is dead. He earned his living by transporting firewood in his large ship from the forest to the eel weir at Silkeborg, and sometimes from here to the distant Randers. There was no one to look after Christine, who was only a year younger than Ib, so the child was always playing with him in the boat, on the moors, or in the barberry bushes. When he had to go as far away as Randers, little Christine went to the house of Jebsen.