Fairy Stories & Other Tales

            It was yesterday, or it might have been a year, or maybe a hundred more, ago.   But it happened one day that a woman, upon seeing a wealth of perfect pinecones arrayed about strewn leaves, stopped to pick them up.   Arms filled to the brim, she made her way home, delighted with her find.   For on her mantle and her shelves, her cupboards and her counters lay green boughs in abundance.   It was the start of Christmas, and all through her house, the smell of pine wafted about, though not until yet had there been cones.   And there is no lovelier sight, the woman and I both agree, than pinecones amongst green-needled branches at Christmas.             Why this is so is no mystery.   The cedar boughs bring to mind the hay that lay in the trough at Christ’s birth and bid the Child welcome.   And no fragrance is so sweet as the smell of pine branches with needles gently crushed releasing the pungent aroma of joy.   Add to those boughs the fruits of their year’s standing labor

A dragon spoke to me one day And told me of his hoard Of precious stones and dazzling gems Over which he was lord Of stacks of meat and silky furs And capes of velvet and jewels Of sliver shining like moonlight And weapons seized from fools Bags of bronze and beaded lace And threads laced through with gold Wood carvings made by finest hands Much valued from of old Clothes of many colors Of bold and richest hue In bolts and hand-tailored garments Taken from a wayward pirate’s crew But the strangest that he did possess Was wealth of another sort At least, of riches they seemed to be For they came from a fine Queen’s court Each had a stitch-bound cover Of the softest leather hide Embossed with curious markings In some order side by side But whose to say, the dragon said What such things may mean For I cannot understand them Though I’ve stared until I’m green I’ll teach you to understand them, I said, with a sudden b

            A little girl watched from across the road as a tall man in a dark suit passed by the grubby old fellow who sat begging in a corner.             ‘Spare some change, sir?’ the old man had asked.             But the man in the suit kept on walking.             The same thing happened some minutes later, but this time the passerby was an elderly lady, whose cane tapped a strong tattoo as she made her way past the old man.   A sound came from her mouth that may have been a *tsk,* although she could have just been breathing.             But the little girl held no judgment.   She understood.   The suit gentleman and the elderly lady had been feeling exactly as she felt: nervous.   And they had not offered any change, for how were they to know if their offering would be accepted?   The very thought that her meager quarters would be acceptable to the bedraggled gentleman left the girl questioning whether or not she should just turn tail and run home.             What i

              In a room with no windows sat a bear, forlorn and hunched, for he had been a prisoner a very long time.   When the door’s latch lifted, as it did once a day, he raised his head slightly, as he always did, and when a bowl of thin soup was pushed into the room, he waited until the steps faded, as he always did.   Then, he ambled, more slowly each day and with less hulking mass, and sipped slowly from the lip of the bowl.             It had been a long time since the soup had ceased to taste repulsive.   In fact, it had ceased to have any taste at all.   And it was not the only thing that had ceased.   Long had quelled the rage within, the vengeance designed to torment his captors if he had his chance at freedom.   His spirits had sunk from fury to fallow, as his strength melted from around his very bones.             And so he was found one day, a sunken mess of fur, head bent in the resigned sorrow his circumstance allowed.   But perhaps not exactly found, as it were