Huckleberry is one of our Favorite Fairy Tales, recommended for ages 8-12. It is about Old Riddler and Huckleberry, father and son gnomes who enjoy teaching humans through riddling, but in different ways. Their common lesson? "If a thing gives you pleasure, it's very likely that it will give somebody else pleasure."
Gnome from Norway, Glædelig Jul, 1885MORE than a hundred and sixty-eight years ago, there lived a curious personage called "Old Riddler." His real name was unknown to the people in that part of the country where he dwelt; but this made no difference, for the name given him was probably just as good as his own. Indeed, I am quite sure that it was better, for it meant something, and very few people have names that mean anything.
He was called Old Riddler for two reasons. In the first place, he was an elderly man; secondly, he was the greatest fellow to ask riddles that you ever heard of. So this name fitted him very well.
Old Riddler had some very peculiar characteristics,—among others, he was a gnome. Living underground for the greater part of his time, he had ample opportunities of working out curious and artful riddles, which he used to try on his fellow-gnomes; and if they liked them, he would go above ground and propound his conundrums to the country people, who sometimes guessed them, but not often.
The fact is, that those persons who wished to be on good terms with the old gnome never guessed his riddles. They knew that they would please him better by giving them up.
He took such a pleasure in telling the answers to his riddles that no truly kind-hearted person would deprive him of it by trying to solve them.
"You see," as Old Riddler used to say, when talked to on the subject, "if I take all the trouble to make up these riddles, it's no more than fair that I should be allowed to give the answers."
So the old gnome, who was not much higher than a two-year old child, though he had quite a venerable head and face, was very much encouraged by the way the people treated him, and when a person happened to be very kind and appreciative, and gave a good deal of attention to one of his conundrums, that person would be pretty sure, before long, to feel glad that he had met Old Riddler.
There were thousands of ways in which the gnomes could benefit the country-folks, especially those who had little farms or gardens. Sometimes Old Riddler, who was a person of great influence in his tribe, would take a company of gnomes under the garden of some one to whom he wished to do a favor, and they would put their little hands up through the earth and pull down all the weeds, root-foremost, so that when the owner went out in the morning, he would find his garden as clear of weeds as the bottom of a dinner-plate.
Of course, any one who has habits of this kind must eventually become a general favorite, and this was the case with Old Riddler.
One day he made up a splendid riddle, and, after he had told it to all the gnomes, he hurried up to propound it to some human person.
He was in such haste that he actually forgot his hat, although it was late in the fall, and he wore his cloak. He had not gone far through the fields before he met a young goose-girl, named Lois. She was a poor girl, and was barefooted; and as Old Riddler saw her in her scanty dress, standing on the cold ground, watching her geese, he thought to himself: "Now I do hope that girl has wit enough to understand my riddle, for I feel that I would like to get interested in her."
So, approaching Lois, he made a bow and politely asked her: "Can you tell me, my good little girl, why a ship full of sailors, at the bottom of the sea, is like the price of beef?"
The goose-girl began to scratch her head, through the old handkerchief she wore instead of a bonnet, and tried to think of the answer.
"Because it's 'low,'" said she, after a minute or two.
"Oh, no!" said the gnome. "That's not it. You can give it up, you know, if you can't think of the answer."
"I know!" said Lois. "Because it's sunk."
"Not at all," said Old Riddler, a little impatiently. "Now come, my good girl, you'd much better give it up. You will just hack at the answer until you make it good for nothing."