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It takes insight to understand the suffering of wild or strange creatures.

The hero of this tale is a boy who takes pity on a Wild Man kept in a cage in the courtyard of a castle. He risks his life to set him free, only to meet him later on, alone, in the woods.

This story has been told many times, in slightly different ways. The Brothers Grimm called their version “Iron Hans” and and Andrew Lang called his “The Hairy Man”. This is Bertie’s version, which follows the original plot, but which puts a little more emphasis on the themes – such as the indignity of the captive Wild Man, and the boys initial panic at the moment of success.

Read by Elizabeth. Version by Bertie. Duration 18.43.

There are many curious things in nature, and outside it. Take for example the Wild Man of this story – the scientists said he was a relic of a past age, the soothsayers that he was the creation of an evil wizard, but the peasants saw him simply as a devil. He was kept in the courtyard of the Prince’s castle. The people from the towns and villages around about came to see him. Some bad boys prodded him through the bars of his cage with sticks, but the wild man was no longer ferocious. He sat in a daze, with his back straight, and his great hairy arms hanging by his side. He did not even snarl, as he used to, he merely grunted when he was particularly bothered by flies or fleas, or the poking of sticks. One or two ladies of the court remarked how strange it was that his dark, deep-set eyes seemed almost thoughtful at times.

He had not always been held captive in a cage. He had lived in the forest, where even the wolves were wary of him. He ate berries and fish, and never harmed a human being, except when he accidentally scared the wits out of a poacher, or when he was attacked. His harmlessness did not stop the rumours about him. The villagers claimed he stole their goats and hens, and even that he took babies from their cribs. At first the Prince dismissed these reports for what they were – the superstitions of the simple-minded. But then one day a royal huntsman cornered the wild man in a cave. Instead of killing his quarry, the hunter received a terrible mauling with tooth and claw. He barely made it back to the castle alive. After that, the Prince had to believe in the Wild Man.

The Prince offered a fair reward to anyone who might capture the creature, dead or alive. Many tried to trap, shoot, or spear him, but for a long time no one met with success. Eventually, one night, the ferocious fugitive fell by chance into a bear pit. It had been dug a long time before by a circus performer, who had hoped to capture a cub and train it for his act. The wild man hurt his ankle in the fall, was caught up in the net at the bottom of the pit, and struggled in vain to climb up its steep walls. He remained there several days, while he grew weak and weary. Eventually he was found by an old peasant, who immediately called his four sons. They hurled rocks at the Wild Man to make sure that he behaved, and then they hauled him up in the net, before binding him further with rope. That was how this curious captive came to be caged in the courtyard of the prince. The old man’s family received a rich reward, though it brought them no happiness, as they quarrelled violently over how to divide it amongst themselves.

Few took pity on the Wild Man. Why should they? Most found their own lives to be hard enough, without worrying about a devil in a cage. Besides, it is not natural to pity what you fear. But a boy who worked in the palace kitchens looked into the eyes of the beast and saw sadness there. He could not read, and therefore did not understand the sign that warned “Keep back or be bitten.” He reached through the bars of the cage and held out a piece of sweet meat. The Wild Man, who had seemed almost asleep, immediately seized the l boy’s hand, and yanked his arm until his shoulder was hard up against the bars. But his grip, although firm, did not crush the boy’s bones as it could have done. And his claws did not break his fair skin. His powerful jaw swiveled, his thick black lips curled, and the boy saw his yellow teach and fat red tongue far closer than he might have wished.

And then, the Wild Man said, in a low rough voice:

“You are the only one with a heart. You are my only hope. Bring me the key to this cage.”

The boy could do barely more than nod, and was immensely relieved to receive his hand back. He ran off, not knowing what he intended to do. He had heard it said that the key to the cage was kept under the pillow of the princess. He could not imagine an opportunity to steal it from such a place, until a few days later, he was sent on an errand to the private quarters of the castle, and as he passed the royal bedroom, he decided to sneak inside. If by chance he was caught, he would say that he had a message for the chamber maid. He was in luck. Nobody was in the room. He slid his grubby hand beneath the silken pillow, and felt the key.

This is how the boy freed the captive: He walked by the cage in the courtyard with his hands behind his back tightly holding the key, and, making sure that nobody was looking, he turned round and dropped it through the bars onto the straw. In the morning, the Wild Man was gone.

The boy had not anticipated the scandal and the furore that the Wild Man’s escape would unleash. Everyone in the castle was gossiping about who might have been the thief and the traitor who had stolen the key from under the pillow of the princess. The prince announced that each and everyone of the servants would be questioned by the soothsayers, and if their magic suspected a lie, there would be a further test by torture. The boy grew greatly afraid for his life, and at the first opportunity, he ran away to the forest.

But the dark forest was hardly a less threatening place than castle. If the wolves did not make short work of the boy, then the cold and the rain would surely do for him before too long. He crawled into a hole between some boulders for shelter, and in the morning he awoke to find that entrance to his cave was being watched over and guarded by none other than the Wild Man himself.

“Friend,” said the beast, “You have helped me, and now I shall help you. I have a store of secret treasures, and I shall give freely from them. But first you must pass a test to prove that you are pure of heart.”

He led the boy to a spring, and told him that he must spend the day sitting by it. On no account, no matter how hot or thirsty he became, should he touch the water in the spring. Anything that came into contact with the liquid would turn instantly into gold. And when he had given these instructions, the Wild Man left him.

For most of the day, the boy did exactly as he was told. But towards evening, as he placed a berry in his mouth, a wasp stung him on his finger. The bite burned like fire, and the boy instinctively dipped it into the cooling water. That instant, his finger became gilded with gold. In panic, he ran his hand through his long hair, and some drops sprinkled it, and that too turned to gold.

When the beast returned, he saw instantly that the boy had broken his word.

“I am disappointed,” he said. “You must go out in the world by yourself. But if after a year has passed, you are in need of my help, you may call for me.”

The following morning, the Wild Man escorted the boy to the edge of the forest and set him on his way along the road. The boy tramped on wearily but safely until he reached another castle. There he applied for work and was granted a job in the garden.

The boy always wore a bandage on his hand, and a scarf around his head to cover his gilded affliction. One day, the daughter of the prince of this castle was passing through the garden, and said to him.

“Do you not know that you should take your hat off in my presence?’

The boy bowed and apologised to the princess, saying that he could not bear his head because it was scabbed terribly.

“Never mind,” said the Princess. “Bring me flowers to my room every morning.”

And so every day, the boy chose the most beautiful flowers from the garden and delivered them to the room of the princess. He had special dispensation not to remove his head-gear as he entered her room.

A year went by, and the princess viewed the boy with great favour, and thought it a pity that his head and hand were so afflicted that he did not dare show them to the world. And the boy with the golden hair beneath his scarf began to regret that he was too lowly to befriend this beautiful young woman.

At that time, a war broke out with the neighbouring princedom, which happened to be where the boy had come from originally. Now he saw his chance to distinguish himself, and to advance his position. One day, at sunrise, as he stood alone in the garden, he called out:

“Wild Man, if you can hear me now , help me as I once helped you.”

And in an instant the boy saw that a dark horse was champing the grass on the lawn. As he lifted his foot to walk towards it, his leg felt stiff and heavy, and he realised that he was wearing a suit of black armor.

In this guise, the boy fought with the prince’s army, and distinguished himself in battle for his conspicuous valour. When the fighting was over, the prince commanded the mysterious black knight to come forward and to receive a great reward. He had in mind the hand of his daughter, the princess, in marriage. But when the opportunity for honour arose, the boy felt shy and afraid. He could not believe that such good luck should happen to him. He felt a terrible foreboding that he would be exposed as a lowly gardener and punished, and with sudden panic in his heart, he dug his spurs into the side of his charger and rode off. He returned to his station in the garden. Only the princess noticed that he had ever been away.

The prince celebrated his victory with a great banquet for the knights who had fought for him. At the height of the feasting, he called all to order. He announced that he was about to throw a golden arrow up into the air, and any bachelor who caught it would win the the hand of his daughter. It so happened that the boy was helping the servants at the table, for they were especially busy that evening. When the prince threw the arrow, it flew over the heads of all the knights, and straight towards the boy. He caught it. He only intended to be helpful, but in doing so, he committed a grave offense. The prince bellowed:

“How dare such scum lay claim to the hand of my daughter,” and the guards came forth to seize him.

The boy called out, “Oh Wild Man, help me now as I once helped you,” and that instant he was again clothed in the black armor of the knight who had won the battle. His horse came into the the banqueting hall, and the boy climbed up onto the table, and mounted his charger. He took up the reigns and was about to clatter out of the castle and to make his escape, when the prince called out:

“Wondrous and mysterious knight, do not leave, stay and marry my daughter.”

And this time the boy did not run away from good fortune. The guards helped him down from his charger, and he knelt before the Prince and his daughter, removed his helmet, and his long, glittering hair fell down over his shoulders. The wedding was announced for the following day. But the boy did not forget his wild and strange helper. He called out to him:

“Wild Man. Come now and be a guest at my wedding, for it is to you that I owe all my happiness.”

And an hour before the wedding, a strange, hairy, and ferocious beast turned up at the gates of the castle. The boy gave orders that he was to be treated as his best man and guest of honour. And for the rest of his life, good fortune smiled upon the boy, who later became the Prince of that land, and who lived and reigned in great happiness along side his wise and fair princess.

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The Michaelmas (Christmas) term at Waverley College has come to an end. Sally is about to go back to her family, but her neighbour, the mysterious Princess Talia, has no home to go to. At the last moment, Sally calls her mum and asks if she can bring her friend home for Christmas.

Talia proves to be an illusive guest, who comes and goes without warning, causing worry and annoyance in the O’Brien family. As ever, the explanation for Talia’s behaviour is somewhat strange and possibly supernatural.

Read by Elizabeth. Text by Bertie. Duration 20 minutes. Sponsored by CGMS

The Christmas Beauty

Hello, This is Elizabeth, and I’m here with the last installment of our Awaking Beauty series. If you have heard the earlier episodes, you will know that Sally is in her first year at Westerly College, and that she has made a strange and mysterious friend called Princess Talia. And although I’m recording this episode in the middle of August, it is in fact set, at Christmas, so I hope you don’t mind slipping through time, just a few months.

Sally’s first term at Westerly college had come to an end. As she stuffed the last few books into her bags, she listened to the sound of harp music filtering though the wall of her room. The clear notes rang out with a lonely and melancholy quality.

“Ugg… I can’t leave Talia here alone all Christmas like a lost puppy,” said Sally to herself.

She picked up her phone and pressed the speed dial that was labelled “Mum”.

“I’m just setting off now, darling,” said a familiar parental voice.

“Mum, I know this is a bit last minute, but can I bring a friend home for Christmas?’

“Oh, how exciting darling. You kept that quiet, what’s his name?”

“Her name, is Talia, Princess Talia. “

As soon as Sally had uttered the word “princess” she knew she had made a mistake. Her mother would go into paroxysms of anxiety about the house being far too humble to receive such an elevated person.

“Why, hasn’t she got a palace of her own to go to?” she wanted to know. And Sally had to explain at length that she was an orphan all alone in the world. Mum, as mums do, caved into her daughter’s wishes with an air of weary resignation.

Sally sprang round to her friend’s door with the invitation. The princess who opened the door had a look of innocent astonishment on her face, as if she had just woken up and seen the world for the first time. She quite often looked like that. That was when she was at her most charming. At other times she looked at you quite blankly, as if she saw you, but her mind was completely elsewhere.

“Our house isn’t exactly a palace, “ said Sally warmly, “But Christmas at home is always kind of special, and you’d be really really welcome.”

Talia reached out and hugged her friend. This was highly unusual, as she hardly ever even touched another person. Sally was almost surprised to feel that her body was warm and human. She seemed like such a ghost at times.

“Oh Sally, I’m so terribly moved by your kindness, but I couldn’t possibly impose on your family.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you must come,” assured Sally, patting her friend on the back, and then wondering if that was just a bit too familiar with a princess. Talia stepped back, and looked brighter.

“Well… it would be nice… I’ll have to make arrangements….. perhaps I’ll come in a few days time.”

Sally felt slightly disappointed that her friend wasn’t driving back home with her. For far too much of the journey home, her mother grumbled about not knowing whether to make a bed ready for her princess friend or not. Sally felt like it was she who was being ticked off, not the absent Talia. And all the feeling of grown up independence and confidence that she had acquired over the ten weeks away from her parents was left behind in Oxford.

When they arrived home, in a suburb of South East Liverpool, her front door looked eerily familiar, as if she had remembered it from a vivid dream. She hauled her suitcase up the stairs to her room. Her bed, which was only just long enough to fit her feet in, looked ludicrously childish. Her mother had placed a much loved, worn and chewed cuddly toy on the pillow. She quickly stuffed Aliosha the Bear into a cupboard. One wall was still adorned with a poster of a boy band that she had pinned up when she was twelve. While she had been at home, the poster had somehow become part of the wall. She had stopped noticing the dreamy faces, slick hair and designer stubble of the teenage idols. Now she thought: “What would Talia say if she saw the The Backstreet Boys hanging above my bed ?” and a minute later the poster lay scrunched up in her litter bin.

She heard her little brother come into the house with her Dad. They had been to Saturday football. She came down to greet them. The sight of the fourteen year old Tim reminded her how recently she had been a child. But her father’s familiar “hello love” and warm hug soon cheered her up. He whispered,

“Your mother’s not stopped fussing about you catching your death of something since you’ve been gone”.

Almost two week’, Sally’s mum answered a ring at the door. A tall, broad shouldered man in a sharp suit asked her if this was the O’ Brien residence. Instead of answering his question, she said:

“We haven’t done anything wrong have we?” The man coughed.

“No Madame. Princess Talia is in the car. She asks, is it convenient for her to come in?’

“Well, er no, I mean, yes, ah, …. Sally ! Come and look who’s here!”

Mrs. O’ Brien checked her hair in the hall mirror while the be-suited attendant returned to a long black limousine that was parked across the close. He opened a rear door of the vehicle. The elegant figure of a princess swiveled herself out, in the manner that a debutante learns to leave a car at a Swiss Finishing School. She wore a long satin dress and her shoulders were wrapped in an ermine tripped jacket. As Sally came downstairs and saw her friend’s arrival, she could feel at least a dozen pairs of eyes peeping out of windows up and down the close.

On the doorstep, Talia addressed Sally’s mum: “You must be Mrs. O’ Brien. It was so kind of you to invite me to your home for Christmas,”

Sally’s mum was so flustered that all she could say was, “Come in and have a cup of tea, dear, er, your highness.”

Princess Talia drank chamomile tea at the breakfast bar in the kitchen while her attendant carried her many suitcases up the narrow staircase. Mrs O Brien was horrified that her daughter was serving tea in the kitchen, instead of the living room, and in her embarrassment, she hovered around gesturing to Sally to use the best china.

“We thought you’d never come,” said Sally to her friend.

“I said I would come, and I am a woman of my word.” replied Talia.

“Well I hope you don’t mind the humble surroundings. The spare room is quite small, I’m afraid.”

“Your parents’ house is quite charming, Sally.”

It was difficult to see what was so charming about the perfectly ordinary kitchen from the Swedish furniture shop, Ikea, but Mrs. O’ Brien, who was now busy wiping surfaces, was pleased by the remark, until Talia added thoughtfully:

“ To speak plainly Sally, it’s a relief for me to see you so comfortably housed. Where I come from, the common people live in far humbler circumstances.”

Mrs O’Brien couldn’t suppress a gasp of astonishment, and Sally couldn’t quite hide a slight smile. She was used to Talia now, you see, and was more amused than shocked by her odd remarks.

When Talia went upstairs to her room, Mrs. O’Brien said in a low voice:

“Well we do move in elevated circles now, don’t we? Soon your parents wont’ be good enough for you.”

“Oh Mum! I wish you could see my other friends. They’re all perfectly normal. Don’t mind Talia. She’s a one -off.”

“Well what country is she’s princess of, for goodness sake?”

“She’s never quite said.” Sally knew that this sounded a bit feeble, but she really did believe that her friend was a true princess. She had learned not to mistake Talia’s mysteriousness for insincerity. Her mother said:

“It’s probably some phony continental title. They’re six a penny over there.”

It was shepherd’s pie for dinner. Talia tasted it, praised, her hostess’s cooking lavishly, and didn’t eat any more. Mrs Brien asked the Talia what her family ate for their Christmas meal at home, and the princess slipped into her astonished and just-woken up look. She spoke dreamily of oysters, and cockle st. Jacques, of smoked salmon pancakes and goblets of champagne, of partridge, cuts of venison, wild boar sausages, roast chestnuts and parsnips, followed by 13 sweet deserts to represent Christ and all the apostles.

Given that Talia was so thin, and rarely more than picked at her food, it was surprising to hear her describe a banquet with the relish of a confirmed glutton, but Sally realised that her thoughts were travelling back with nostalgia to Christmases past with her own family, in her own home.

Mrs. O’ Brien asked meekly if they ever ate turkey for Christmas. in her own country Talia was puzzled by the question. She didn’t seem to know what a turkey was, and Mrs. O’Brien seemed almost offended by her ignorance of turkeys.

Fortunately, the Princess got on with Sally’s father just fine. His hobby was Medieval history, and that was something the princess was well versed in. He lent her two of his books, and she showed him her necklace which she said was Anglo Saxon gold. He was perfectly purring with admiration, and Sally noted that the princess had made a conquest.

At 9 o’clock, the family sat on the flowery three piece suit in the immaculately tidy living room and watched a television programme in which a modern English poet retraced the haunts of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It ended amid the mist-entwined ruins of Glastonbury Abbey where the semi-mythical king is said to be buried with Queen Guinevere.

After it was over, Talia sighed and said: “Uncle Arthur was such a dear,” and Sally could see that her father wasn’t quite sure if he had misheard the remark, or if she was referring to some other Arthur who happened to share the king’s name.

The next morning was Christmas Eve. It was almost lunch-time, and Mrs O’ Brien noted, “Evidently, princesses aren’t early-risers” – for nobody had seen Talia yet. Sally went up to knock lightly on the guest room door. There was no reply. She knocked a second time, and gently pushed it open: She saw an empty bed – and as the door opened wider – an empty room. Even the suitcases had gone.

For the rest of the day, Sally felt quite disjointed. This wasn’t at all what she had been expecting. If somebody just ups and goes without saying goodbye, it leaves you with a feeling of incompleteness. That parting well-wish, which literally means “May God go With you”, is a sacred ritual, and it’s a sacrilege not go through it, far worse than not saying “thank you”.

Besides, she had to put up with the inevitable barrage of remarks from her mother.
that the royal guest did not consider that the food, the house, or the company, was good enough for her, and that she might be a princess, but she had no manners. The commentary became so intense that Sally had to get away. She took a bus into the centre of Liverpool and walked through the crowds of last minute Christmas shoppers, but she couldn’t help wondering all the time if her friend would suddenly turn up again while she was out.

The absent Talia even cast a shadow over lunch the next day. Sally’s mother twittered on rather too much about how there was nothing like turkey and Brussels sprouts for Christmas, and when they all put paper crowns from the crackers on their heads, Sally thought how embarrassing it would have been to have done this in front of Talia.

At three o’clock, the family settled down in front of the television to watch the Queen’s Christmas speech. Sally felt crushingly bored, but unable to go and do anything else without offending her mother. Just as the National Anthem was playing, the door bell rang. Her brother sprung up and went to answer it. A minute later, Talia stepped into the living room holding a basket of beautifully wrapped presents.

“Happy Christmas ! “ she en-toned, and started distributing the gifts almost like Santa-Clause. Dad reached for the remote control and turned the Queens’ volume down. Mum moved her chair closer to the screen, straining to hear the monarch’s commentary on the year gone by.

“May we open them now?” asked Sally.

“Oh pray do, I insist,” said Talia.

The gifts were as exquisite as they were lavish – pearls for Sally, an emerald broach for Mrs. O’Brien, a golden goblet for Mr. O’Brien, and a jewel encrusted dagger for Tim. All Sally had bought for Talia was a book with Latin inscriptions from around Oxford.

But Sally had never seen Talia smile so broadly, or so beaming with obvious delight. “Oh do let’s put some music on,” she said, “Tim show me how to operate this thing I’m no good with modern technology” – she meant the CD player – and she chose a disk at random. It was the The Searchers :

“Sweets for my sweet, sugar for my honey
Your first Sweet Kiss, thrilled me so”

They were 1960s band from Liverpool, and Sally’s Dad rather liked them. Tallia took him by the hands and pulled him up to dance. This was not at all the Princess that Sally thought she knew.

“May I ask my driver in, he’s a bit lonely out in the car?” Talia asked when the track came to an end. Soon the driver was playing a video game with Tim, and Mr. O’Brien brought him a beer. Mrs O’Brien spoke to the princess

‘We’ve been so worried about you Love. You shouldn’t have gone off so abruptly without warning us.”

“I was called away rather suddenly,” she replied abruptly.

And then she took her friend on one side and held her by both hands. “Sally, I’m so excited. I was in Glastonbury for Midnight mass. Afterwards, as I was walking among the ruins of the Abbey, I met my uncle and Aunt…. I haven’t seen them for simply an age, I mean to say,” and she whispered the last words “Arthur and Guinevere.”

And that was the story, of the Christmas Beauty .

I do hope that you are enjoying our Awaking Beauty series. You can always let us know what you think by leaving a message on the story’s page at Storynory.com.

I’ll be back with some more stories soon. For now, from me, Elizabeth, Bye Bye !

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The story begins with a fairytale wedding. Waiting in the wings of the celebrations, is the “Remarkable Rocket” who is making ready to go out with a spectacular display. We soon learn that he is a most egotistical firework, who loves to talk about his own superiority – much to the annoyance of the other fireworks in the box.

This children’s story by Oscar Wilde is full of sparkling dialogue, rather like his stage plays, and not quite so much like his other more spiritual fairy tales. You can enjoy some of the master’s salty whit for which he was famous, such as :

“Indeed, I have always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”

It’s a lengthy story sustained by the many voices of Elizabeth.

Ready by Elizabeth. Duration 35.55. By Oscar Wilde.

The King’s son was going to be married, so there were general
rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last
she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all
the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge
was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan’s wings
lay the little Princess herself. Her long ermine-cloak reached
right down to her feet, on her head was a tiny cap of silver
tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she had
always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the
streets all the people wondered. “She is like a white rose!” they
cried, and they threw down flowers on her from the balconies.

At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her.
He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When
he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand.

“Your picture was beautiful,” he murmured, “but you are more
beautiful than your picture”; and the little Princess blushed.

“She was like a white rose before,” said a young Page to his
neighbour, “but she is like a red rose now”; and the whole Court
was delighted.

For the next three days everybody went about saying, “White rose,
Red rose, Red rose, White rose”; and the King gave orders that the
Page’s salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all
this was not of much use to him, but it was considered a great
honour, and was duly published in the Court Gazette.

When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was
a magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in
hand under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little
pearls. Then there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five
hours. The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall
and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could
drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey
and dull and cloudy.

“It’s quite clear that they love each other,” said the little Page,
“as clear as crystal!” and the King doubled his salary a second
time. “What an honour!” cried all the courtiers.

After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom
were to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to
play the flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to
tell him so, because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two
airs, and was never quite certain which one he was playing; but it
made no matter, for, whatever he did, everybody cried out,
“Charming! charming!”

The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to
be let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen
a firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal
Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage.

“What are fireworks like?” she had asked the Prince, one morning,
as she was walking on the terrace.

“They are like the Aurora Borealis,” said the King, who always
answered questions that were addressed to other people, “only much
more natural. I prefer them to stars myself, as you always know
when they are going to appear, and they are as delightful as my own
flute-playing. You must certainly see them.”

So at the end of the King’s garden a great stand had been set up,
and as soon as the Royal Pyrotechnist had put everything in its
proper place, the fireworks began to talk to each other.

“The world is certainly very beautiful,” cried a little Squib.
“Just look at those yellow tulips. Why! if they were real crackers
they could not be lovelier. I am very glad I have travelled.
Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s
prejudices.”

“The King’s garden is not the world, you foolish squib,” said a big
Roman Candle; “the world is an enormous place, and it would take
you three days to see it thoroughly.”

“Any place you love is the world to you,” exclaimed a pensive
Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early
life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not
fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much
about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True
love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once–But it is no
matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.”

“Nonsense!” said the Roman Candle, “Romance never dies. It is like
the moon, and lives for ever. The bride and bridegroom, for
instance, love each other very dearly. I heard all about them this
morning from a brown-paper cartridge, who happened to be staying in
the same drawer as myself, and knew the latest Court news.”

But the Catherine Wheel shook her head. “Romance is dead, Romance
is dead, Romance is dead,” she murmured. She was one of those
people who think that, if you say the same thing over and over a
great many times, it becomes true in the end.

Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round.

It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to
the end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any
observation, so as to attract attention.

“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor
Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring,
“Romance is dead.”

“Order! order!” cried out a Cracker. He was something of a
politician, and had always taken a prominent part in the local
elections, so he knew the proper Parliamentary expressions to use.

“Quite dead,” whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to
sleep.

As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third
time and began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if
he was dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder
of the person to whom he was talking. In fact, he had a most
distinguished manner.

“How fortunate it is for the King’s son,” he remarked, “that he is
to be married on the very day on which I am to be let off. Really,
if it had been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out
better for him; but, Princes are always lucky.”

“Dear me!” said the little Squib, “I thought it was quite the other
way, and that we were to be let off in the Prince’s honour.”

“It may be so with you,” he answered; “indeed, I have no doubt that
it is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket,
and come of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated
Catherine Wheel of her day, and was renowned for her graceful
dancing. When she made her great public appearance she spun round
nineteen times before she went out, and each time that she did so
she threw into the air seven pink stars. She was three feet and a
half in diameter, and made of the very best gunpowder. My father
was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction. He flew so
high that the people were afraid that he would never come down
again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly disposition, and he
made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain. The
newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering terms.
Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic art.”

“Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean,” said a Bengal Light; “I know
it is Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister.”

“Well, I said Pylotechnic,” answered the Rocket, in a severe tone
of voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at
once to bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still
a person of some importance.

“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying–What was I
saying?”

“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle.

“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I
was so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of
every kind, for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole
world is so sensitive as I am, I am quite sure of that.”

“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle.

“A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other
people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the
Cracker nearly exploded with laughter.

“Pray, what are you laughing at?” inquired the Rocket; “I am not
laughing.”

“I am laughing because I am happy,” replied the Cracker.

“That is a very selfish reason,” said the Rocket angrily. “What
right have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others.
In fact, you should be thinking about me. I am always thinking
about myself, and I expect everybody else to do the same. That is
what is called sympathy. It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess
it in a high degree. Suppose, for instance, anything happened to
me to-night, what a misfortune that would be for every one! The
Prince and Princess would never be happy again, their whole married
life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I know he would not get
over it. Really, when I begin to reflect on the importance of my
position, I am almost moved to tears.”

“If you want to give pleasure to others,” cried the Roman Candle,
“you had better keep yourself dry.”

“Certainly,” exclaimed the Bengal Light, who was now in better
spirits; “that is only common sense.”

“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget
that I am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can
have common sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I
have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I
always think of them as being quite different. As for keeping
myself dry, there is evidently no one here who can at all
appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for myself, I don’t
care. The only thing that sustains one through life is the
consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and
this is a feeling that I have always cultivated. But none of you
have any hearts. Here you are laughing and making merry just as if
the Prince and Princess had not just been married.”

“Well, really,” exclaimed a small Fire-balloon, “why not? It is a
most joyful occasion, and when I soar up into the air I intend to
tell the stars all about it. You will see them twinkle when I talk
to them about the pretty bride.”

“Ah! what a trivial view of life!” said the Rocket; “but it is only
what I expected. There is nothing in you; you are hollow and
empty. Why, perhaps the Prince and Princess may go to live in a
country where there is a deep river, and perhaps they may have one
only son, a little fair-haired boy with violet eyes like the Prince
himself; and perhaps some day he may go out to walk with his nurse;
and perhaps the nurse may go to sleep under a great elder-tree; and
perhaps the little boy may fall into the deep river and be drowned.
What a terrible misfortune! Poor people, to lose their only son!
It is really too dreadful! I shall never get over it.”

“But they have not lost their only son,” said the Roman Candle; “no
misfortune has happened to them at all.”

“I never said that they had,” replied the Rocket; “I said that they
might. If they had lost their only son there would be no use in
saying anything more about the matter. I hate people who cry over
spilt milk. But when I think that they might lose their only son,
I certainly am very much affected.”

“You certainly are!” cried the Bengal Light. “In fact, you are the
most affected person I ever met.”

“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you
cannot understand my friendship for the Prince.”

“Why, you don’t even know him,” growled the Roman Candle.

“I never said I knew him,” answered the Rocket. “I dare say that
if I knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very
dangerous thing to know one’s friends.”

“You had really better keep yourself dry,” said the Fire-balloon.
“That is the important thing.”

“Very important for you, I have no doubt,” answered the Rocket,
“but I shall weep if I choose”; and he actually burst into real
tears, which flowed down his stick like rain-drops, and nearly
drowned two little beetles, who were just thinking of setting up
house together, and were looking for a nice dry spot to live in.

“He must have a truly romantic nature,” said the Catherine Wheel,
“for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about”; and she
heaved a deep sigh, and thought about the deal box.

But the Roman Candle and the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and
kept saying, “Humbug! humbug!” at the top of their voices. They
were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything
they called it humbug.

Then the moon rose like a wonderful silver shield; and the stars
began to shine, and a sound of music came from the palace.

The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so
beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and
watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat
time.

Then ten o’clock struck, and then eleven, and then twelve, and at
the last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and
the King sent for the Royal Pyrotechnist.

“Let the fireworks begin,” said the King; and the Royal
Pyrotechnist made a low bow, and marched down to the end of the
garden. He had six attendants with him, each of whom carried a
lighted torch at the end of a long pole.

It was certainly a magnificent display.

Whizz! Whizz! went the Catherine Wheel, as she spun round and
round. Boom! Boom! went the Roman Candle. Then the Squibs danced
all over the place, and the Bengal Lights made everything look
scarlet. “Good-bye,” cried the Fire-balloon, as he soared away,
dropping tiny blue sparks. Bang! Bang! answered the Crackers, who
were enjoying themselves immensely. Every one was a great success
except the Remarkable Rocket. He was so damp with crying that he
could not go off at all. The best thing in him was the gunpowder,
and that was so wet with tears that it was of no use. All his poor
relations, to whom he would never speak, except with a sneer, shot
up into the sky like wonderful golden flowers with blossoms of
fire. Huzza! Huzza! cried the Court; and the little Princess
laughed with pleasure.

“I suppose they are reserving me for some grand occasion,” said the
Rocket; “no doubt that is what it means,” and he looked more
supercilious than ever.

The next day the workmen came to put everything tidy. “This is
evidently a deputation,” said the Rocket; “I will receive them with
becoming dignity” so he put his nose in the air, and began to frown
severely as if he were thinking about some very important subject.
But they took no notice of him at all till they were just going
away. Then one of them caught sight of him. “Hallo!” he cried,
“what a bad rocket!” and he threw him over the wall into the ditch.

“BAD Rocket? BAD Rocket?” he said, as he whirled through the air;
“impossible! GRAND Rocket, that is what the man said. BAD and
GRAND sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same”;
and he fell into the mud.

“It is not comfortable here,” he remarked, “but no doubt it is some
fashionable watering-place, and they have sent me away to recruit
my health. My nerves are certainly very much shattered, and I
require rest.”

Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled
coat, swam up to him.

“A new arrival, I see!” said the Frog. “Well, after all there is
nothing like mud. Give me rainy weather and a ditch, and I am
quite happy. Do you think it will be a wet afternoon? I am sure I
hope so, but the sky is quite blue and cloudless. What a pity!”

“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket, and he began to cough.

“What a delightful voice you have!” cried the Frog. “Really it is
quite like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical
sound in the world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We
sit in the old duck pond close by the farmer’s house, and as soon
as the moon rises we begin. It is so entrancing that everybody
lies awake to listen to us. In fact, it was only yesterday that I
heard the farmer’s wife say to her mother that she could not get a
wink of sleep at night on account of us. It is most gratifying to
find oneself so popular.”

“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket angrily. He was very much annoyed
that he could not get a word in.

“A delightful voice, certainly,” continued the Frog; “I hope you
will come over to the duck-pond. I am off to look for my
daughters. I have six beautiful daughters, and I am so afraid the
Pike may meet them. He is a perfect monster, and would have no
hesitation in breakfasting off them. Well, good-bye: I have
enjoyed our conversation very much, I assure you.”

“Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. “You have talked the
whole time yourself. That is not conversation.”

“Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog, “and I like to do all
the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.”

“But I like arguments,” said the Rocket.

“I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. “Arguments are extremely
vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same
opinions. Good-bye a second time; I see my daughters in the
distance and the little Frog swam away.

“You are a very irritating person,” said the Rocket, “and very ill-
bred. I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one
wants to talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call
selfishness, and selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially
to any one of my temperament, for I am well known for my
sympathetic nature. In fact, you should take example by me; you
could not possibly have a better model. Now that you have the
chance you had better avail yourself of it, for I am going back to
Court almost immediately. I am a great favourite at Court; in
fact, the Prince and Princess were married yesterday in my honour.
Of course you know nothing of these matters, for you are a
provincial.”

“There is no good talking to him,” said a Dragon-fly, who was
sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for
he has gone away.”

“Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket. “I am not
going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention.
I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I
often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever
that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am
saying.”

“Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-
fly; and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away
into the sky.

“How very silly of him not to stay here!” said the Rocket. “I am
sure that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind.
However, I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be
appreciated some day”; and he sank down a little deeper into the
mud.

After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow
legs, and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account
of her waddle.

“Quack, quack, quack,” she said. “What a curious shape you are!
May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an
accident?”

“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,”
answered the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However,
I excuse your ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people
to be as remarkable as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to
hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down in a shower of
golden rain.”

“I don’t think much of that,” said the Duck, “as I cannot see what
use it is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the
ox, or draw a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the
collie-dog, that would be something.”

“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of
voice, “I see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my
position is never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and
that is more than sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with
industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem
to recommend. Indeed, I have always been of opinion that hard work
is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”

“Well, well,” said the Duck, who was of a very peaceable
disposition, and never quarrelled with any one, “everybody has
different tastes. I hope, at any rate, that you are going to take
up your residence here.”

“Oh! dear no,” cried the Rocket. “I am merely a visitor, a
distinguished visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather
tedious. There is neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it
is essentially suburban. I shall probably go back to Court, for I
know that I am destined to make a sensation in the world.”

“I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,” remarked the
Duck; “there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I
took the chair at a meeting some time ago, and we passed
resolutions condemning everything that we did not like. However,
they did not seem to have much effect. Now I go in for
domesticity, and look after my family.”

“I am made for public life,” said the Rocket, “and so are all my
relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite
great attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I
do so it will be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages
one rapidly, and distracts one’s mind from higher things.”

“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck;
“and that reminds me how hungry I feel”: and she swam away down
the stream, saying, “Quack, quack, quack.”

“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal
to say to you”; but the Duck paid no attention to him. “I am glad
that she has gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly
middle-class mind”; and he sank a little deeper still into the mud,
and began to think about the loneliness of genius, when suddenly
two little boys in white smocks came running down the bank, with a
kettle and some faggots.

“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to
look very dignified.

“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick! I wonder
how it came here”; and he picked the rocket out of the ditch.

“OLD Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible! GOLD Stick, that is
what he said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he
mistakes me for one of the Court dignitaries!”

“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to
boil the kettle.”

So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and
lit the fire.

“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me
off in broad day-light, so that every one can see me.”

“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the
kettle will be boiled”; and they lay down on the grass, and shut
their eyes.

The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last,
however, the fire caught him.

“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and
straight. “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much
higher than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall
go so high that–”

Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air.

“Delightful!” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever. What a
success I am!”

But nobody saw him.

Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him.

“Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole
world on fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about
anything else for a whole year.” And he certainly did explode.
Bang! Bang! Bang! went the gunpowder. There was no doubt about it.

But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were
sound asleep.

Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on
the back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch.

“Good heavens!” cried the Goose. “It is going to rain sticks”; and
she rushed into the water.

“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and
he went out.

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This is the story that begins the 1001 stories of the Arabian nights. A terrible sultan marries a new bride every night, and in the morning he executes her. Only Sherehezade, the greatest story-teller the world has known, has a chance to soften the heart of the man with a tyrannical grudge against all women.

The backdrop is quite harsh, but the stories are wonderful.

Read by Elizabeth. Version by Bertie. Duration 15 minutes.

Praise be to Allah, the beneficent king, the creator of the universe, Lord of the three worlds, who set up the sky without pillars to hold it aloft, who stretched out the earth like a bed, and who filled the ocean like a bath. Lend me the art and the craft of she who outwitted a great king. Of she who for 1001 nights captivated the shah, while she threaded her plots around him, the woman whose stories held conquered the all-powerful man, and prevented him from carrying out his terrible intent. I speak of her, Sherehezade, the greatest storyteller the world has ever known.

She lived in a time of sorrow for the ruler of the land held in his heart an awful grudge against all women. This grudge had terrible consequences for every family in the land. But it was not always so. He began his reign with a kinder heart. His name was Shahryar, He was in the fullness of his youth and power, but as yet, without a wife. One evening he stood with his younger brother, prince Zaman, on the balcony of the palace, which overlooked the pleasure gardens. They watched a young serving girl as she stepped out to the fountain to fetch water.

Shahryar whispered: “See brother. Is she not as lovely as the moon and as graceful as a gazelle?”

But Zaman, replied: “Do not let your eyes deceive you. Although you are older than me, and more powerful, yet I am more experienced in the ways of women, for I already have a wife. I tell you no woman on earth has a pure and faithful heart. Each day I watch my queen. I see her give a visiting prince such a look that makes my blood turn angry. But it does not stop there. She gives the chief chamberlain a cheeky smile that is quite inappropriate. Why, the day before I left my palace to pay honour to you, I saw her whispering to the cook! She brings nothing but shame upon me.“

Shahryar laughed “ My younger brother, you have been looking pale and ill of late. Now I know the cause. Jealousy is eating you up because you have such a lovely wife ! “

At this Zaman became quite offended, but he replied in no more than a mutter: “My brother, you will learn for yourself in due time.”

Shahryar was ready to marry. It seemed that wherever he looked he saw a beautiful woman. But none so lovely as the one the two brothers encountered the very next day. They got up at dawn to go hunting. Just as the sun was spreading its gentle rays, they rode their horses side by side along the sea shore. Walking to towards them, along the deserted beach, they saw a girl whose loveliness brought to mind the words:

She rose like the morn, as she shone through the night.
When she unveiled her face, the sun grew bright.

As the brothers drew near to her, she gave them the sort of smile that gladdens a man’s heart and Shahryar said to his brother:

“I would not be ashamed to take her for my queen.”

But no sooner had he spoken, than a huge wave came curling into the shore, and standing on top of the wave as a great geni. His skin was orange and his eyes blazing red.

As the wave broke into white foam the genie leapt onto the beach, and seized the girl up in his hands. He turned his awful eyes on the brothers, and they were so full of fire that they feared his gaze might burn them up. Then he spoke. His voice was terrible, but his words showed that he intended them no harm:

“hear me now and learn from my troubles. When I took this girl for my bride, I set her inside a trunk, and I placed the trunk inside another trunk, and that trunk inside yet another trunk – seven boxes in all, each with its own lock. And then I placed the sevenfold container at the bottom of the sea, so as to keep her faithful to me. But still she managed to escape, to flirt with strange men on the beach, and to bring shame upon me. If I, a genie with all the power of magic at my disposal cannot keep discipline over my bride, what hope have you mere men of doing so?”

As soon as he had issued this warning, both the genie and the girl span round and round until they became whirl wind that sped away across the sea.

For the rest of the day Shahryar was pale and brooding. By evening he had cheered up somewhat. As the brothers stood on the balcony overlooking the gardens, once again, he said:

“The remarkable occurrence of this morning has made a great impression on me. I see now that you are right. The genie has confirmed what you say. There was never one faithful woman on this earth. But I have thought deeply about this problem all day long, and I have formed a plan.

It was not long before his brother and everyone in the land found out what the Shah had in mind.

As he sat on his throne the next day, giving orders to his ministers about this and that, he sent for his chief minister, a man who had served him for many years, and who had two lovely daughters whom in time, we shall meet, ishallah ! God Willing!

He commanded the minister to bring a bride to him that very evening, and in the morning to take her way to be executed. Each and every day he was to do the same, to bring another bride for him to marry, and in the morning to strike off her head. And so it came to pass for three years on end. There was not a family in the land that was not touched by this tragedy. The people cried out against their shah, and called on Allah to destroy him and his reign utterly. But his heart was relentless. By this terrible plan he made sure that none of his people would ever gather in a corner and gossip that his queen was faithless to him either in thought or deed.

Mothers wept or fled abroad with their daughters. At last there was hardly a woman left in the city who was of marriageable age. At last, one day, as the minster searched the city, he could not find a bride for the shah that night. He returned home in sorrow and anxiety, for he was afraid for his own life when he failed that evening to present a new bride to the Shah.

Now he had two daughters, Sherehezade and Dunyazad [ending is long like a= ‘ard’’]. The eldest had read all the books, legends and stories in the library of the palace. She knew a great many poems off by heart, and had studied philosophy and the arts. She was pleasant, polite, wise and witty. She saw that her father was looking sad and she quoted some lines of a poem to him;

Tell whoso hath sorrow
Grief shall never last.
Even as joy hath no morrow
so woe shall go past

When the minister heard these words from his daughter, he told her the cause of his sorrow from first to last. When she had heard it all Sherehezade exclaimed:

“Who long shall we endue this slaughter of women? I will tell you what is on my mind. Take me to the Shah this night. Let me be his bride. Either I shall live by my whits and save the daughters of this land, or I shall join those who have perished already. “

The minister heard these words, and although he greatly respected his daughter’s wisdom, he thought these words were the greatest foolishness he had ever heard. he would not hear of his beloved daughter risking her life in this way. He went to the Shah and confessed that he was unable to bring him any more brides, for there were none left in the land. Shah Shahryar sat thoughtfully on this thrown and said:

“None, but your own two daughters. Do not hide them from me, or it will cost you your head.”

And so it was, after long deliberation, and much persuasion from Sherehezade, that he brought his own daughter to the shah as his bride.

That night, when the Sherehezade lifted the veil from her lovely face, the Shah was pleased with what he saw. But there were tears in her eyes.

“What troubles you?” asked the Shah, thinking that he knew the answer. But she replied not that she was afraid of what would happen to her in the morning, but that she was missing her sister. She begged that she could bring her to sleep with them that night, so that she would not be lonely. The shah willingly agree, and all went according to the plan that the ingenious Sherehezade had formed. Her sister Dunyazad slept on a couch at the foot of the royal bed, and towards morning, as she been told to do by her sister, she awoke and said:

“Oh Sherehezade, I cannot sleep. Will you not tell me one of your wonderful stories? For there is not a soul on this earth who can spin a tale as delightful and delectable as yours?’

And Sherehezade stirred and said: “I too cannot sleep and I will tell you a tale with joy, if this great king will permit me. “

The Shah, who was also sleepless and restless, was pleased with the prospect of hearing a tale. And so Sherehezade began to relate the first story of the 1001 and one nights.

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English fairy tales are usually gutsy and adventurous - Jack and the Beanstalk for instance. Tom Thumb is no exception. Tiny Tom has numerous death-defying escapades, which make for a very lively story.

Our thanks to our sponsor, The Center for Guided Montessori Studies

Read by Elizabeth. Duration 15.41. Lightly adapted from text by Joseph Jacobs.

In the days of the great King Arthur, a poor beggar was tramping through the countryside of England. One evening, when his feet were sore, and his bones were weary, he knocked on the door of a ploughman and begged a bite to eat.

The countryman welcomed the stranger into his humble cottage, while his wife fetched some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread and cheese on a plate. Little did this this good-hearted couple realise that their humble guest was, in fact, none other than Merlin, the greatest and most skillful wizard who ever lived.

Merlin was touched by the kindness of the ploughman and his wife, and he could not help noticing that though everything was neat and comfortable in the cottage, they seemed both to be less than perfectly happy. He asked them some subtle questions about their lives, and he soon learned that they were full of regrets because they had no children.

The poor woman said, with tears in her eyes, “I should be the happiest creature in the world if I had a son; although he was no bigger than my husband’s thumb, I would be satisfied.”
Merlin was so much amused with the idea of a boy no bigger than a man’s thumb, that he decided to grant the poor woman’s wish. The following year, the ploughman’s wife had a son, who, wonderful to relate! was not a bit bigger than his father’s thumb.

Even the queen of the fairies was bursting with curiosity to see him. She came in at the window while the mother was sitting up in the bed admiring him. The queen kissed the child, gave him the name of Tom Thumb, and sent for some of the fairies, who dressed her little godson according to her orders:

“An oak-leaf hat he had for his crown;
His shirt of web by spiders spun;
With jacket wove of thistle’s down;
His trousers were of feathers done.
His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie
With eyelash from his mother’s eye
His shoes were made of mouse’s skin,
Tann’d with the downy hair within.”

Tom never grew any larger than his father’s thumb, which was only of ordinary size; but as he got older he became very cunning and full of tricks.

In those days, children used to play at rolling cherry stones like marbles.

When Tom was old enough to play with the boys, and had lost all his own cherry-stones, he used to creep into the bags of his playfellows and fill his pockets.

One day, however, as he was coming out of a bag of cherry-stones, where he had been stealing as usual, the owner of the bag spotted him: “Ah, ah! my little Tommy,” said the boy, “so I have caught you stealing my cherry-stones at last, and you shall be rewarded for your thievish tricks.” On saying this, he gave the bag such a hearty shake, that poor little Tom became so dizzy that he could hardly stand when eventually he was let out again.

A short time afterwards his mother was making a batter-pudding, and Tom, being very anxious to see how it was made, climbed up to the edge of the bowl; but his foot slipped, and he plumped over head and ears into the batter – plop ! And his mother, who did not notice this, stirred him into the pudding-mixture.

The batter filled Tom’s mouth, and prevented him from crying; but he kicked and struggled so much in the pot, that his mother thought that the pudding was bewitched and she hurled it outside the door. A poor tinker, who was passing by, lifted up the pudding, put it into his basket, and walked off. As Tom had now got his mouth cleared of the batter, he then began to cry aloud, which so frightened the tinker that he flung down the pudding and ran away. Tom crept out of the pudding covered all over with the batter, and walked home. His mother, who was very sorry to see her darling in such a woeful state, put him into a teacup, and soon washed off the batter; Then she kissed him, and put him to bed.

Soon after the adventure of the pudding, Tom’s mother went to milk her cow in the meadow, and she took him along with her. As the wind was very high she tied him to a thistle with a piece of fine thread to stop him being blown away. The cow soon saw Tom’s oak-leaf hat, and took poor Tom and the thistle at one mouthful. While the cow was chewing the thistle Tom was afraid of her great teeth, which threatened to crush him in pieces, and he roared out as loud as he could: “Mother, mother!”

“Where are you, Tommy, my dear Tommy?” said his mother.

“Here, mother,” replied he, “in the red cow’s mouth.”

His mother began to cry and wring her hands; but the cow, surprised at the odd noise in her throat, opened her mouth and let Tom drop out. Fortunately his mother caught him in her apron as he was falling to the ground, or he would have been dreadfully hurt.

One day when he was out in the fields, being very careful to avoid the cows, a raven who was flying overhead spotted him. She swooped down, picked him up in her beak, and flew away with him. Poor terrified Tom was screaming and wriggling, but the bird only let go of her captive when she was over the sea. Down down down, he tumbled, into the water. And a moment after he was in the sea, a large fish swallowed him up.

Very soon after that, the fish was caught and bought for the table of King Arthur. When cook opened the fish, every one in the kitchen was astonished to find such a little boy, and Tom was quite delighted at being free again. They carried him to the king, who made Tom his miniature jester. Very soon, he because a great favourite at court; for by his tricks and games he not only amused the king and queen, but also all the Knights of the Round Table.

It is said that when the king rode out on horseback, he often took Tom along with him, and if a shower came on, he used to creep into his majesty’s waistcoat-pocket, where he slept till the rain was over.

King Arthur one day asked Tom about his parents, wishing to know if they were as small as he was, and whether they were well off. Tom told the king that his father and mother were as tall as anybody about the court, but rather poor. On hearing this, the king carried Tom to his treasury, and told him to take as much money as he could carry home to his parents, which made the little fellow caper with joy. Tom rushed to fetch his purse, which was made out of a water-bubble, and then returned to the treasury, where he found a silver threepenny coin to put into it.

Our little hero had some difficulty in lifting the weight of his treasure, but he at last managed to pick up the purse, and he set out on his journey. In two days and two nights he reached his father’s house in safety with a huge silver-piece on his back. He was almost tired to death, when his mother ran out to meet him, and carried him into the house. But he soon returned to Court.

As Tom’s clothes had suffered much in the batter-pudding, and the inside of the fish, his majesty ordered him a new suit of clothes, and he mounted as a knight on a mouse.

Of Butterfly’s wings his shirt was made,
His boots of chicken’s hide;
And by a nimble fairy blade,
Well learned in the tailoring trade,
His clothing was supplied.
A needle dangled by his side;
A dapper mouse he used to ride,
Thus strutted Tom in stately pride!

It was certainly very amusing to see Tom in this dress and mounted on the mouse, as he rode out a-hunting with the king and nobility, who were all ready to die with laughter at Tom and his fine prancing charger.

The king was so charmed with his tiny knight that he ordered a little chair to be made, in order that Tom might sit upon his table, and also a palace of gold, a foot high, with a door an inch wide, to live in. He also gave him a coach, drawn by six small mice.

The queen was so enraged at the honours conferred on Sir Thomas that she resolved to ruin him, and told the king that the little knight had been rude to her.

The king sent for Tom, but he was fully aware of the danger of royal anger, and he crept into an empty snail-shell, where he lay for a long time until he was almost starved with hunger. At last he ventured to peep out, and he saw a fine large butterfly on the ground; he crept close to it and jumped onto its back. The Butterfly carried him up into the air and flew with him from tree to tree and from field to field, and at last returned to the court, where the the knights and ladies all did their best to catch him in a net. At last poor Tom fell from his seat into a water-pot, where he almost drowned.

When the queen saw Tom back again, she was in a rage, and said he should be beheaded; and he was again put into a mouse trap until the time of his execution. In those days a mouse trap was like a little cage. Now the cat, when he something alive in the trap, patted it about till the wires broke, and set Thomas free.

It was only then, after his many adventures, that King Arthur’s tiniest Knight returned to his rightful place at the round table, and sat down in his little chair among the likes of Sir Gawain and Sir Lancelot.

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This picturesque Japanese tale has loads of charm, but is a little bit sad. It will take you to a beautiful underwater world, and back to the reality of mortality on dry land.

These days we adapt many of the traditional tales ourselves, but this one is taken more or less straight from the English text of B. H. Chamberlain who published a number of Japanese stories in the 1880s.

Read by Natasha. Duration 8.46.

Long, long ago there lived on the coast of the sea of Japan a young fisherman named Urashima, a kindly lad and clever with his rod and line.

Well, one day he went out in his boat to fish. But instead of catching any fish, what do you think he caught? Why! a great big tortoise, with a hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Now I must tell you something which very likely you don’t know; and that is that tortoises always live a thousand years,—at least Japanese tortoises do. So Urashima thought to himself: “A fish would do for my dinner just as well as this tortoise,—in fact better. Why should I go and kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another nine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won’t be so cruel. I am sure mother wouldn’t like me to.” And with these words, he threw the tortoise back into the sea.

The next thing that happened was that Urashima went to sleep in his boat; for it was one of those hot summer days when almost everybody enjoys a nap of an afternoon. And as he slept, there came up from beneath the waves a beautiful girl, who got into the boat and said: “I am the daughter of the Sea-God, and I live with my father in the Dragon Palace beyond the waves. It was not a tortoise that you caught just now, and so kindly threw back into the water instead of killing it. It was myself. My father the Sea-God had sent me to see whether you were good or bad.

“We now know that you are a good, kind boy who doesn’t like to do cruel things; and so I have come to fetch you. You shall marry me, if you like; and we will live happily together for a thousand years in the Dragon Palace beyond the deep blue sea.”

So Urashima took one oar, and the Sea-God’s daughter took the other; and they rowed, and they rowed, and they rowed till at last they came to the Dragon Palace where the Sea-God lived and ruled as King over all the dragons and the tortoises and the fishes.

Oh dear! what a lovely place it was! The walls of the Palace were of coral, the trees had emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries, the fishes’ scales were of silver, and the dragons’ tails of solid gold. Just think of the very most beautiful, glittering things that you have ever seen, and put them all together, and then you will know what this Palace looked like. And it all belonged to Urashima; for was he not the son-in-law of the Sea-God, the husband of the lovely Dragon Princess?

Well, they lived on happily for three years, wandering about every day among the beautiful trees with emerald leaves and ruby berries. But one morning Urashima said to his wife: “I am very happy here. Still I want to go home and see my father and mother and brothers and sisters. Just let me go for a short time, and I’ll soon be back again.” “I don’t like you to go,” said she; “I am very much afraid that something dreadful will happen. However, if you will go, there is no help for it. Only you must take this box, and be very careful not to open it. If you open it, you will never be able to come back here.”

So Urashima promised to take great care of the box, and not to open it on any account; and then, getting into his boat, he rowed off, and at last landed on the shore of his own country.

But what had happened while he had been away? Where had his father’s cottage gone to? What had become of the village where he used to live? The mountains indeed were there as before; but the trees on them had been cut down. The little brook that ran close by his father’s cottage was still running; but there were no women washing clothes in it any more. It seemed very strange that everything should have changed so much in three short years. So as two men chanced to pass along the beach, Urashima went up to them and said: “Can you tell me please where Urashima’s cottage, that used to stand here, has been moved to?”—“Urashima?” said they; “why! it was four hundred years ago that he was drowned out fishing. His parents, and his brothers, and their grandchildren are all dead long ago. It is an old, old story. How can you be so foolish as to ask after his cottage? It fell to pieces hundreds of years ago.”

Then it suddenly flashed across Urashima’s mind that the Sea-God’s Palace beyond the waves, with its coral walls and its ruby fruits and its dragons with tails of solid gold, must be part of fairy-land, and that one day there was probably as long as a year in this world, so that his three years in the Sea-God’s Palace had really been hundreds of years. Of course there was no use in staying at home, now that all his friends were dead and buried, and even the village had passed away. So Urashima was in a great hurry to get back to his wife, the Dragon Princess beyond the sea. But which was the way? He couldn’t find it with no one to show it to him. “Perhaps,” thought he, “if I open the box which she gave me, I shall be able to find the way.” So he disobeyed her orders not to open the box,—or perhaps he forgot them, foolish boy that he was. Anyhow he opened the box; and what do you think came out of it? Nothing but a white cloud which floated away over the sea. Urashima shouted to the cloud to stop, rushed about and screamed with sorrow; for he remembered now what his wife had told him, and how, after opening the box, he should never be able to go to the Sea-God’s Palace again. But soon he could neither run nor shout any more.

Suddenly his hair grew as white as snow, his face got wrinkled, and his back bent like that of a very old man. Then his breath stopped short, and he fell down dead on the beach.

Poor Urashima! He died because he had been foolish and disobedient. If only he had done as he was told, he might have lived another thousand years. Wouldn’t you like to go and see the Dragon Palace beyond the waves, where the Sea-God lives and rules as King over the Dragons and the tortoises and the fishes, where the trees have emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries, where the fishes’ tails are of silver and the dragons’ tails all of solid gold?

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This miniature fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen is so short that it’s almost an anecdote, but although it’s small, it’s perfect in it’s own way.

Three animals have pretentions to jump above their stations in life and marry a princess. They all think that they have a grand and high society manner, but only one of them really understands that a little humility can go a long way in life.

Read by Elizabeth. Duration 6.30. Story by Hans Christian Andersen.

A Flea, a Grasshopper, and a Leap-frog once wanted to see which could jump highest; and they invited the whole world, and everybody else besides to come to see the festival. Three famous jumpers were they, as everyone would say, when they all met together in the room.

“I will give my daughter to him who jumps highest,” exclaimed the King; “for a competition without a prize would not be so amusing.”

The Flea was the first to step forward. He had exquisite manners, and bowed to the company on all sides; for he had noble blood, and was, moreover, accustomed to live close to human beings; and that makes a great difference.

Then came the Grasshopper. He was considerably heavier, but he was well-mannered, and wore a green uniform, which he had by right of birth; he said, moreover, that he belonged to a very ancient Egyptian family. The fact was, he had been just brought out of the fields, and put in a cardboard box.. “I sing so well,” said he, “that sixteen native grasshoppers grew thin from sheer envy when they heard me.

And that is how the Flea and the Grasshopper introduced themselves, and thought they were quite good enough to marry a Princess.

The Leap-frog said nothing; but because he said nothing, people thought he was all the cleverer. ; and when the housedog snuffed at him with his nose, he decided the Leap-frog was of good family. The old councillor asserted that the Leap-frog was a prophet; for one could see on his back, if there would be a severe or mild winter.

“I say nothing,” exclaimed the King; “but I have my own opinion, nonetheless.”

Now the contest was to take place. The Flea jumped so high that nobody could see where he went to; so they all said he had not jumped at all; and that he had cheated.

The Grasshopper jumped only half as high; but he leaped into the King’s face, and that was ill-mannered.

The Leap-frog stood still for a long time lost in thought; People began to think that he would not jump at all.

“I only hope he is not unwell,” said the house-dog; when, pop! he made a jump into the lap of the Princess, who was sitting on a little golden stool close by.

At this, the King said, “There is nothing above my daughter; therefore nobody should jump higher than her. But for this, one must possess understanding, and the Leap-frog has shown that he has understanding. He is brave and intellectual.”

And so he won the Princess.

“It’s all the same to me,” said the Flea. “She may have the old Leap-frog, for all I care. I jumped the highest; but in this world merit seldom meets its reward. Looks is what people appreciate now-a-days.”

The Flea then went to serve abroad in the army, where, it is said, he was killed.

The Grasshopper sat on a green bank, and reflected on worldly things; and he said too, “Yes, looks are everything. A fine appearance is what people care about.” And then he began chirping his peculiar melancholy song, from which we have taken this story; and which may, very possibly, be all untrue,

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Our Awaking Beauty, Princess Talia, goes out for the evening with her fellow students at college. She becomes upset when the conversation turns to time. She tells them how she feels so lost because she has “slipped through time”. The others find it hard to understand and think that she’s stranger than ever. But then Basil has the weirdest experience that perhaps lets him know how she must feel.

Read by Elizabeth. Duration 11.48. Story by Bertie.

“Hello, My name’s Mario, and I’ll be your waiter tonight.”

Sally ordered a Margarita Pizza, Basil a Florentina, and Doug an Americana. Princess Talia studied the menu closely.

“And I’d like.. Pheasant, “ she said.

The waiter looked puzzled. Talia thought again. “Oh, I can see, you don’t have that do you?… er…Dover Sole….What, no fish?… well I’ll have steak and chips for goodness sake, oh Sally, what sort of restaurant is this?”

“It’s a Pizza restaurant, “ said Sally. “You have to have pizza”

“And what else to they have?”

“Pizza.”

Basil was trying not to smirk. Sally was getting embarrassed. The waiter was hopping from one foot to the other with impatience. After a painfully long period of thought, Princess Talia finally ordered Spaghetti Bolognese, which was actually on the menu. When the food arrived, she played with her spaghetti on her folk while the others greedily attacked their plates.

It was the final day of their first term at university. In fact, it was really the last day of their first ten weeks as adults, living independent lives, away from their parents nests.

“Isn’t it odd?” said Sally, “I feel like we have all known each other for ages and ages. “

“Time is stretchy, “ said Basil, “Sometimes the months fly by, and sometimes a few days are so packed with experience that they last for an eon.”

The waiter lit a candle on the table, and Sally noticed that Talia’s eyes, which were usually quite glacial in their pale blueness and inscrutability, had a depth that she had not noticed before. The Princess was clearly paying plenty of attention to Basil and his words of wisdom. She said:

“Yes, you are so right Basil, a thousand years can slip by just like that.” And she snapped her fingers as she said so. Basil raised one eyebrow – which usually meant he was going to say something a touch ironic, but on this occasion nothing seemed to quite occur to him. He sawed away at his pizza.

The somewhat scholarly Doug filled the gap in the conversation with: “Labuntur Anni, and all that,” which in case you don’t know, is Latin for “the years slip by”. They were classics students you see. And he mentioned that some of the old boys and girls, who had been at the college way back in the 1980s, were arriving for a gaudy that weekend. A gaudy is a reunion of former students at the college.

“It’s hard to believe , but that will be us in twenty years time,” said Sally. “We’ll be fat and wrinkly, married with kids, and dead conventional and boring, but I bet we’ll just feel the same inside. And we’ll be back here, trying to recapture our past. ”

“It’s always a mistake to go back,” said Basil. “You can only go forward in time.”

It was hard to see why anyone should get upset about anything, but Talia suddenly grew quite agitated. Her emotions came over her so suddenly, that the others didn’t see this coming:

“You don’t understand, do you? Nobody can know what I’ve experienced. I’ve fallen through time. You can’t imagine what that feels like. You will all be going to back to your parents and your cosy childhood bedrooms this Christmas, but I can’t. But I can’t go back in time. I’m stuck here in the 21st Century and I”m so alone and out of place, and you all think I’m weird. “

This outburst seemed to be directly mostly at Basil. He looked totally puzzled. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked. Talia started to get up, as if to leave:

“No, no you didn’t say anything wrong,” she said, slightly more calmly now. Sally had stood up too, and was putting her hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

“It’s just that you don’t, you can’t, nobody can understand. I”m sorry I got so upset. I don’t know what came over me. Oh dear. I’m so terribly embarrassed. I’ve made an awful fool of myself “

Sally tried to reassure her that we all get upset sometimes, but it was no good. Talia sat silently for the rest of the meal and didn’t eat single strand of spaghetti. When the bill came she paid it all. They thanked her for her generosity and Basil said:

‘Well, shall we all go back to my room for a drink?,” But the Princess excused herself and went off for a late night walk on her own .

On Sunday morning, when Basil was cleaning his teeth, he thought he must be having a hallucination. The face looking back at him from the mirror was about forty years old. “Did I have a rough night?” said Basil to himself. “I don’t remember. It was just herbal tea before bed I think.”

As he pulled the belt around his waist, he noticed that his tummy was soft and flabby. “This is just peculiar,” he thought.

Out on the quad, he was relieved to see that the college had not changed. It never did. Same old sandy colored stones. Same old ivy. As he walked toward the dining hall, a middle aged man was coming towards him. He just assumed that he was one of the old boys, back for the reunion, but the man called out, “Basil you old devil, you haven’t changed a bit.” Basil scratched his head. “But you don’t recognise me do you,? said the man, a little forlorn. “It’s Doug. Remember me?”

“Why yes, of course,” said Basil. It’s just that I’m not feeling quite well this morning.”

The dinning hall was full of men and women in their forties, and some of them were eerily familiar. Basil began to feel really really strange, and quite agitated. He looked at his hand as he held his spoon full of cornflakes. It was wrinkly and hairy. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round and found a smiling face waiting to be kissed on either cheek.

“Oh Basil, “ said the woman with a trace of a Liverpool accent, “It’s so lovely to see you. And where’s your gorgeous wife? I bet she doesn’t look a day older,”

“Er, she couldn’t make it,” said Basil, not knowing what else to say.

“Oh such a shame,” said the Sally-like woman, “We were all just dying to catch up with her.”

“Excuse me, I’m afraid I don’t feel well,” said Basil, and he got up and hurried back to his room. He slammed the door behind him, and wiped the sweat off his brow. Inside his pocket, his phone was ringing. He felt relieved. Perhaps it would be a call from the real world, a voice telling him that this was all some terrible prank, and the joke was on him. He fished an unfamiliar and wafer thin device from his pocket. Patterns were gently cascading over the edge-to-edge screen. It was like holding a video picture in his hand. The screen blinked and a woman’s face first appeared in two dimensions, and then morphed into 3D. She was extremely beautiful and he recognized her right away.

“Hello darling,” she said, “Have you met any of the old gang yet?” (not too Talia like, just take the edge of her posh voice to make it a little ambiguous about whether it’s her).

He threw the video-phone onto the bed and staggered into the bathroom, where he most probably fainted. In any case, he came round some time later and heaved himself to the basin to splash his face with water. For a while he did not dare look up into the mirror. When at last he did, he saw his familiar, somewhat aristocratic, and youthful reflection. The nightmare was over. Basil was back in his own time.

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Most domestic or farm animals have to earn their place by the fire. Kipling’s short story (from the Just So Stories) tells us why cats can drink milk from a bowl AND live a semi-wild life by themselves. It takes us back to the time when people lived in caves. As always with Kipling (who also wrote the Jungle Books), the language is sonorous and wonderful. Bertie thinks that Richard’s reading of this tale is a classic.

Ready by Richard Scott. Duration 29.25. By Rudyard Kipling.

EAR and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved, when the Tame animals were wild. The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Cow was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and the Pig was wild–as wild as wild could be–and they walked in the Wet Wild Woods by their wild lones. But the wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn’t even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail-down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, ‘Wipe you feet, dear, when you come in, and now we’ll keep house.’

That night, Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones, and flavoured with wild garlic and wild pepper; and wild duck stuffed with wild rice and wild fenugreek and wild coriander; and marrow-bones of wild oxen; and wild cherries, and wild grenadillas. Then the Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton–the big fat blade-bone–and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world.

Out in the Wet Wild Woods all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off, and they wondered what it meant.

THIS is the picture of the Cave where the Man and the Woman lived first of all. It was really a very nice Cave, and much warmer than it ]ooks. The Man had a canoe. It is on the edge of the river, being soaked in the water to make it swell up. The tattery-looking thing across the river is the Man’s salmon-net to catch salmon with. There are nice clean stones leading up from the river to the mouth of the Cave, so that the Man and the Woman could go down for water without getting sand between their toes. The things like black-beetles far down the beach are really trunks of dead trees that floated down the river from the Wet Wild Woods on the other bank. The Man and the Woman used to drag them out and dry them and cut them up for firewood. I haven’t drawn the horse-hide curtain at the mouth of the Cave, because the Woman has just taken it down to be cleaned. All those little smudges on the sand between the Cave and the river are the marks of the Woman’s feet and the Man’s feet.

The Man and the Woman are both inside the Cave eating their dinner. They went to another cosier Cave when the Baby came, because the Baby used to crawl down to the river and fall in, and the Dog had to pull him out.

Then Wild Horse stamped with his wild foot and said, ‘O my Friends and O my Enemies, why have the Man and the Woman made that great light in that great Cave, and what harm will it do us?’

Wild Dog lifted up his wild nose and smelled the smell of roast mutton, and said, ‘I will go up and see and look, and say; for I think it is good. Cat, come with me.’

‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’

‘Then we can never be friends again,’ said Wild Dog, and he trotted off to the Cave. But when he had gone a little way the Cat said to himself, ‘All places are alike to me. Why should I not go too and see and look and come away at my own liking.’ So he slipped after Wild Dog softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.

When Wild Dog reached the mouth of the Cave he lifted up the dried horse-skin with his nose and sniffed the beautiful smell of the roast mutton, and the Woman, looking at the blade-bone, heard him, and laughed, and said, ‘Here comes the first. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, what do you want?’

Wild Dog said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, what is this that smells so good in the Wild Woods?’

Then the Woman picked up a roasted mutton-bone and threw it to Wild Dog, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, taste and try.’ Wild Dog gnawed the bone, and it was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted, and he said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, give me another.’

The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, help my Man to hunt through the day and guard this Cave at night, and I will give you as many roast bones as you need.’

‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘This is a very wise Woman, but she is not so wise as I am.’

Wild Dog crawled into the Cave and laid his head on the Woman’s lap, and said, ‘O my Friend and Wife of my Friend, I will help Your Man to hunt through the day, and at night I will guard your Cave.’

‘Ah!’ said the Cat, listening. ‘That is a very foolish Dog.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail, and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.

When the Man waked up he said, ‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting.’

Next night the Woman cut great green armfuls of fresh grass from the water-meadows, and dried it before the fire, so that it smelt like new-mown hay, and she sat at the mouth of the Cave and plaited a halter out of horse-hide, and she looked at the shoulder of mutton-bone–at the big broad blade-bone–and she made a Magic. She made the Second Singing Magic in the world.

Out in the Wild Woods all the wild animals wondered what had happened to Wild Dog, and at last Wild Horse stamped with his foot and said, ‘I will go and see and say why Wild Dog has not returned. Cat, come with me.’

‘Nenni!’ said the Cat. ‘I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me. I will not come.’ But all the same he followed Wild Horse softly, very softly, and hid himself where he could hear everything.

When the Woman heard Wild Horse tripping and stumbling on his long mane, she laughed and said, ‘Here comes the second. Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods what do you want?’

Wild Horse said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where is Wild Dog?’

The Woman laughed, and picked up the blade-bone and looked at it, and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, you did not come here for Wild Dog, but for the sake of this good grass.’

And Wild Horse, tripping and stumbling on his long mane, said, ‘That is true; give it me to eat.’

The Woman said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, bend your wild head and wear what I give you, and you shall eat the wonderful grass three times a day.’

‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘this is a clever Woman, but she is not so clever as I am.’ Wild Horse bent his wild head, and the Woman slipped the plaited hide halter over it, and Wild Horse breathed on the Woman’s feet and said, ‘O my Mistress, and Wife of my Master, I will be your servant for the sake of the wonderful grass.’

‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘that is a very foolish Horse.’ And he went back through the Wet Wild Woods, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone. But he never told anybody.

When the Man and the Dog came back from hunting, the Man said, ‘What is Wild Horse doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Horse any more, but the First Servant, because he will carry us from place to place for always and always and always. Ride on his back when you go hunting.

Next day, holding her wild head high that her wild horns should not catch in the wild trees, Wild Cow came up to the Cave, and the Cat followed, and hid himself just the same as before; and everything happened just the same as before; and the Cat said the same things as before, and when Wild Cow had promised to give her milk to the Woman every day in exchange for the wonderful grass, the Cat went back through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone, just the same as before. But he never told anybody. And when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting and asked the same questions same as before, the Woman said, ‘Her name is not Wild Cow any more, but the Giver of Good Food. She will give us the warm white milk for always and always and always, and I will take care of her while you and the First Friend and the First Servant go hunting.

Next day the Cat waited to see if any other Wild thing would go up to the Cave, but no one moved in the Wet Wild Woods, so the Cat walked there by himself; and he saw the Woman milking the Cow, and he saw the light of the fire in the Cave, and he smelt the smell of the warm white milk.

Cat said, ‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy, where did Wild Cow go?’

The Woman laughed and said, ‘Wild Thing out of the Wild Woods, go back to the Woods again, for I have braided up my hair, and I have put away the magic blade-bone, and we have no more need of either friends or servants in our Cave.

Cat said, ‘I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your cave.’

Woman said, ‘Then why did you not come with First Friend on the first night?’

Cat grew very angry and said, ‘Has Wild Dog told tales of me?’

Then the Woman laughed and said, ‘You are the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to you. Your are neither a friend nor a servant. You have said it yourself. Go away and walk by yourself in all places alike.’

Then Cat pretended to be sorry and said, ‘Must I never come into the Cave? Must I never sit by the warm fire? Must I never drink the warm white milk? You are very wise and very beautiful. You should not be cruel even to a Cat.’

Woman said, ‘I knew I was wise, but I did not know I was beautiful. So I will make a bargain with you. If ever I say one word in your praise you may come into the Cave.’

‘And if you say two words in my praise?’ said the Cat.

‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say two words in your praise, you may sit by the fire in the Cave.’

‘And if you say three words?’ said the Cat.

‘I never shall,’ said the Woman, ‘but if I say three words in your praise, you may drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always.’

Then the Cat arched his back and said, ‘Now let the Curtain at the mouth of the Cave, and the Fire at the back of the Cave, and the Milk-pots that stand beside the Fire, remember what my Enemy and the Wife of my Enemy has said.’ And he went away through the Wet Wild Woods waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

That night when the Man and the Horse and the Dog came home from hunting, the Woman did not tell them of the bargain that she had made with the Cat, because she was afraid that they might not like it.

Cat went far and far away and hid himself in the Wet Wild Woods by his wild lone for a long time till the Woman forgot all about him. Only the Bat–the little upside-down Bat–that hung inside the Cave, knew where Cat hid; and every evening Bat would fly to Cat with news of what was happening.

One evening Bat said, ‘There is a Baby in the Cave. He is new and pink and fat and small, and the Woman is very fond of him.’

‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘but what is the Baby fond of?’

‘He is fond of things that are soft and tickle,’ said the Bat. ‘He is fond of warm things to hold in his arms when he goes to sleep. He is fond of being played with. He is fond of all those things.’

‘Ah,’ said the Cat, listening, ‘then my time has come.’

THIS is the picture of the Cat that Walked by Himself, walking by his wild lone through the Wet Wild Woods and waving his wild tail. There is nothing else in the picture except some toadstools. They had to grow there because the woods were so wet. The lumpy thing on the low branch isn’t a bird. It is moss that grew there because the Wild Woods were so wet.

Underneath the truly picture is a picture of the cozy Cave that the Man and the Woman went to after the Baby came. It was their summer Cave, and they planted wheat in front of it. The Man is riding on the Horse to find the Cow and bring her back to the Cave to be milked. He is holding up his hand to call the Dog, who has swum across to the other side of the river, looking for rabbits.

Next night Cat walked through the Wet Wild Woods and hid very near the Cave till morning-time, and Man and Dog and Horse went hunting. The Woman was busy cooking that morning, and the Baby cried and interrupted. So she carried him outside the Cave and gave him a handful of pebbles to play with. But still the Baby cried.

Then the Cat put out his paddy paw and patted the Baby on the cheek, and it cooed; and the Cat rubbed against its fat knees and tickled it under its fat chin with his tail. And the Baby laughed; and the Woman heard him and smiled.

Then the Bat–the little upside-down bat–that hung in the mouth of the Cave said, ‘O my Hostess and Wife of my Host and Mother of my Host’s Son, a Wild Thing from the Wild Woods is most beautifully playing with your Baby.’

‘A blessing on that Wild Thing whoever he may be,’ said the Woman, straightening her back, ‘for I was a busy woman this morning and he has done me a service.’

That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the dried horse-skin Curtain that was stretched tail-down at the mouth of the Cave fell down–whoosh!–because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman went to pick it up–lo and behold!–the Cat was sitting quite comfy inside the Cave.

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I: for you have spoken a word in my praise, and now I can sit within the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

The Woman was very angry, and shut her lips tight and took up her spinning-wheel and began to spin. But the Baby cried because the Cat had gone away, and the Woman could not hush it, for it struggled and kicked and grew black in the face.

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘take a strand of the wire that you are spinning and tie it to your spinning-whorl and drag it along the floor, and I will show you a magic that shall make your Baby laugh as loudly as he is now crying.’

‘I will do so,’ said the Woman, ‘because I am at my wits’ end; but I will not thank you for it.’

She tied the thread to the little clay spindle whorl and drew it across the floor, and the Cat ran after it and patted it with his paws and rolled head over heels, and tossed it backward over his shoulder and chased it between his hind-legs and pretended to lose it, and pounced down upon it again, till the Baby laughed as loudly as it had been crying, and scrambled after the Cat and frolicked all over the Cave till it grew tired and settled down to sleep with the Cat in its arms.

‘Now,’ said the Cat, ‘I will sing the Baby a song that shall keep him asleep for an hour. And he began to purr, loud and low, low and loud, till the Baby fell fast asleep. The Woman smiled as she looked down upon the two of them and said, ‘That was wonderfully done. No question but you are very clever, O Cat.’

That very minute and second, Best Beloved, the smoke of the fire at the back of the Cave came down in clouds from the roof–puff!–because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when it had cleared away–lo and behold!–the Cat was sitting quite comfy close to the fire.

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of My Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘it is I, for you have spoken a second word in my praise, and now I can sit by the warm fire at the back of the Cave for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

Then the Woman was very very angry, and let down her hair and put more wood on the fire and brought out the broad blade-bone of the shoulder of mutton and began to make a Magic that should prevent her from saying a third word in praise of the Cat. It was not a Singing Magic, Best Beloved, it was a Still Magic; and by and by the Cave grew so still that a little wee-wee mouse crept out of a corner and ran across the floor.

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy,’ said the Cat, ‘is that little mouse part of your magic?’

‘Ouh! Chee! No indeed!’ said the Woman, and she dropped the blade-bone and jumped upon the footstool in front of the fire and braided up her hair very quick for fear that the mouse should run up it.

‘Ah,’ said the Cat, watching, ‘then the mouse will do me no harm if I eat it?’

‘No,’ said the Woman, braiding up her hair, ‘eat it quickly and I will ever be grateful to you.’

Cat made one jump and caught the little mouse, and the Woman said, ‘A hundred thanks. Even the First Friend is not quick enough to catch little mice as you have done. You must be very wise.’

That very moment and second, O Best Beloved, the Milk-pot that stood by the fire cracked in two pieces–ffft–because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat, and when the Woman jumped down from the footstool–lo and behold!–the Cat was lapping up the warm white milk that lay in one of the broken pieces.

‘O my Enemy and Wife of my Enemy and Mother of my Enemy, said the Cat, ‘it is I; for you have spoken three words in my praise, and now I can drink the warm white milk three times a day for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

Then the Woman laughed and set the Cat a bowl of the warm white milk and said, ‘O Cat, you are as clever as a man, but remember that your bargain was not made with the Man or the Dog, and I do not know what they will do when they come home.’

‘What is that to me?’ said the Cat. ‘If I have my place in the Cave by the fire and my warm white milk three times a day I do not care what the Man or the Dog can do.’

That evening when the Man and the Dog came into the Cave, the Woman told them all the story of the bargain while the Cat sat by the fire and smiled. Then the Man said, ‘Yes, but he has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Men after me.’ Then he took off his two leather boots and he took up his little stone axe (that makes three) and he fetched a piece of wood and a hatchet (that is five altogether), and he set them out in a row and he said, ‘Now we will make our bargain. If you do not catch mice when you are in the Cave for always and always and always, I will throw these five things at you whenever I see you, and so shall all proper Men do after me.’

‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as my Man.’

The Cat counted the five things (and they looked very knobby) and he said, ‘I will catch mice when I am in the Cave for always and always and always; but still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

‘Not when I am near,’ said the Man. ‘If you had not said that last I would have put all these things away for always and always and always; but I am now going to throw my two boots and my little stone axe (that makes three) at you whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Men do after me!’

Then the Dog said, ‘Wait a minute. He has not made a bargain with me or with all proper Dogs after me.’ And he showed his teeth and said, ‘If you are not kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave for always and always and always, I will hunt you till I catch you, and when I catch you I will bite you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’

‘Ah,’ said the Woman, listening, ‘this is a very clever Cat, but he is not so clever as the Dog.’

Cat counted the Dog’s teeth (and they looked very pointed) and he said, ‘I will be kind to the Baby while I am in the Cave, as long as he does not pull my tail too hard, for always and always and always. But still I am the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.’

‘Not when I am near,’ said the Dog. ‘If you had not said that last I would have shut my mouth for always and always and always; but now I am going to hunt you up a tree whenever I meet you. And so shall all proper Dogs do after me.’

Then the Man threw his two boots and his little stone axe (that makes three) at the Cat, and the Cat ran out of the Cave and the Dog chased him up a tree; and from that day to this, Best Beloved, three proper Men out of five will always throw things at a Cat whenever they meet him, and all proper Dogs will chase him up a tree. But the Cat keeps his side of the bargain too. He will kill mice and he will be kind to Babies when he is in the house, just as long as they do not pull his tail too hard. But when he has done that, and between times, and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.

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One of Japan’s oldest legends tells us how the gods invented fun and music. It all began when the Sun Goddess went into an epic sulk and hid in her cave. The gods had to find a way to cheer her up and coax her out. The story of how they did so is both beautiful and amusing.

Read by Elizabeth. Duration 7.32. Text by Bertie.

At the dawn of time, Susano-o, the spirit of the sea and storms, was making ready to leave heaven and to gush down to Earth. His sister the far-shining Sun Goddess, said:

“Oh impetuous brother of mine. Before you go, let us exchange tokens of our love and affection for one another.”

Susano-o bowed to his sister, drew his sword from his side, and presented it to her. She accepted the gift, and then chewed off pieces of the metal blade in her mouth, before spitting them out.
Instantly, the fragments of the sword sprang up as three beautiful daughters. Then the sparkling Sun Goddess took jewels from her hair and gave them to her brother. He crunched them up with his teeth and spat them out. They became five strong sons.

“They are my sons,” said the goddess, “because they were born from my jewels.”

“No, they are my sons,” said the storm god, “because you gave me those jewels,”

And thus the brother and sister began to quarrel. The stormy tempered Susano-o grew so angry that he swept through his sister’s rice fields and destroyed them. He flung manure all over her garden, and frightened her maidens so that they hurt themselves on their spinning wheels.

The bright goddess was greatly offended by the evil pranks of her brother. She fell into a most dreadful sulk, and hid herself in a cave in a remote part of the earth. There was no more light, and heaven and earth were plunged into darkness.

Amid this gloom, thousands of gods and spirits gathered in a heavenly river bed to discuss what to do. One of the oldest and wisest gods proposed that they make a mirror, to tempt the goddess to come out hiding and gaze at her beauty. Another suggested that they should sew a beautiful dress as a gift to sooth her temper. And still other gods said that they must offer her jewels and even a palace. At last they decided to make all these thing gifts, and they set to work.

When they were ready, the divine ones gathered outside the cave of the Sun Goddess. They lit bonfires so that they could see in the darkness, and they called the goddess by her name, Amaterasu, but no matter how many times they called, she remaining lurking within the shadows of her hiding place.

The gods needed to do better than if they were to gain her attention. And so they began to make music. They clashed symbols and banged wooden clappers together. The plump goddess of mirth, with dimpled cheeks and eyes full of fun, lead a dance. She performed on top of a giant drum that thundered with her every step. She held a stick in her hand with bells tied to it so that they rang out as she danced. Farm-yard cockerels joined in with crowing. You can imagine what a lovely concert they made !

The dancing goddess of mirth wore a dress that was held together with vines. As she waved her arms and pranced about, the dress became looser and looser until it fell off altogether and she had not a stitch of clothing on her. The gods found this so hilarious that they all laughed until the heavens clapped with thunder.

Only then did curiosity get the better of the far shining one, and she peeped out of her cave. She saw her bright face reflected in the mirror that had been placed just in front of the opening, and she was astonished by her own beauty. But she did not have long to gaze, because a strong-handed god seized hold of her arm and dragged her out of the cave. Then all the heavens and earth were lit, the grass became green again, the flowers blazoned with a multitude of colours, and human beings looked upon one another’s faces.

And there was another benefit from this gloomy episode in the history of creation. This was the first time that music, dance, and fun were known on the face of the earth. And these divine gifts have brightened human lives ever since.