Fairy Stories & Other Tales

One fine Saturday morning, a mouse sat looking wearily over the edge of a large pit.   The pit itself was several fathoms deep and many more times wide, and the mouse, having need to cross the cavern at this very point and having already been on a very long journey that had worn him to the bone, simply stared at the pit with sad eyes.             About midday, a hedgehog scurried by.   Seeing the mouse sitting on the lip of the pit, he spoke up.   ‘A good day to you, Mr. Mouse.   And tell me, whatever are you waiting for?’             ‘I’m waiting for this pit to be filled, Mr. Hedgehog,’ the mouse replied wearily.             The hedgehog’s eyes went wide with surprised.   He then let out a little laugh.   ‘Tut, tut.   You’ll be waiting a long time,’ he said, and then went about his business.             A few hours later, evening had just arrived, and a mole was ambling by the edge of the pit.   When he saw the mouse staring forlornly at the giant chasm, he said chattily, ‘T

Once upon a time a winged woman sat inside a cave and stared into a pool of water.             She had long lived among humans, who treated her like a god for her winged state, and thus sought her often, desiring her advice on the nature of living.   Of late the world in which the humans dwelt was changing.   The changes manifest were hard and sharp, often harrowing and fraught with uncertainty.   And so, knowing the lore of the highest mountains, she flew to their tops, and found the cave that housed the Pool of Time.   For in the depths of the water she could see Time itself in all its forms; time as it is, as it was, and as it will be.   But such was the magic of the pool that she could only choose to gaze at one pattern of time.             Long she sat and struggled with which of the three forms she should look upon.   The past, she thought, could answer the many ‘whys’ that plagued her.   The present she lived in, and would be no help.   But well she knew the signs of the

In a place not so different from this one, but where magic was real, a woman was once a village healer.   She relied on her magic to create healing balms for the wounds of her neighbors, and lived a most contented life.   That was, until the day the evil witch came.             Desiring power above her own, the witch stole that of others, siphoning off what magic remained within them, and growing fat with their stolen strength.   Overtime the witch had developed a method that worked well, namely to capture those from whom she wished to steal and place them in a tower that had no doors and only a single window.   And this is what the witch did to the healer.             Now, the healer had a small daughter, and she, too, was taken by the witch—for the witch thought this gave her a stronger hold over the woman.   Convinced of the strength of the witch, the healer did little to try and escape, for fear it would put her daughter’s life at risk.   And so, drenched in fear and sorrow, th