The Blue Mountains? No, I don’t know where they are. I can’t find them in any of my history books. If there is such a thing as the Blue Mountains, the birds will know it.

I need only blow my whistle and they will come to me. Since you have traveled so far, and I have not seen a single man for three hundred years, I will call them. You will see how well the birds know the earth.

Master of the Birds in The Blue Mountains, Yellow Fairy Book. Illustration by Kay Nielsen.