Fairy Stories & Other Tales

In a time when gardens were carefully crafted, and people thought highly of their care, there was a tree that stood atop a tall hill. It had been planted long ago by the droppings of a wren, and as it grew, it came to take great solace in the knowledge that it was so high, so lofty, so wide-scoped in all that it could see. In fact, this was the tree’s only solace, and so prevalent were its thoughts, that it believed everything that was beneath it in fact was beneath it in all other ways, too. For there could be nothing so great, nothing so marvelous, then standing firm above all the rest of everything.      The tree itself grew to be a fine shape, perfectly contoured in the essence of tree-ness. So lovely, in fact, that when a man came upon it, he felt it would be the perfect tree to make a present for his wife and her garden. And so, the man sought to unburden the tree’s roots by means of a spade.      The tree, oblivious to the man’s intentions, assum...

 Once upon a time a wind sung.       It sung through the branches of trees and the shafts of grasses, the ripples of rivers and the lips of hills.       It sung through a wide expanse of world.       And when its song was finally done, it sighed and died away.     For it had stirred the world; and that was quite enough for one lifetime.

Once upon a time there was a tree who stood beside a river bank and cried tears of amber. So beautiful were these tears that jewelers would come from far off lands to pluck one or two for the crowns of kings. When the jewelers would return to their lands, the kings would ask why it was that they had not gathered more of such wondrous resin. The jewelers all replied in the same way: because there had been no more to gather.             A prince of one of the far lands did not believe the words of the jeweler who spoke to his father, and desiring amber for himself, he followed the path of the jewelers and found the amber tree. But to his dismay, there was not a single tear of golden hue to be found.             ‘Tree, why have you no more tears?’ the prince asked.             ‘I have more tears to weep prince,’ said the ...

There was once a little girl named Esme who lived very happily with her father. Her father, however, grew very ill on a particularly cold and bitter winter’s night, and he died. Having no other relations, Esme was sent to live with an old woman whom she called Aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth spent her days telling Esme to stand up straight, to hold her knives and forks properly, and to dust and sweep and scrub all aspects of their dark home. This would not have been so terrible, save that Aunt Ruth never said one gentle word nor offered Esme any mark of kindness. By the time Esme had lived with her aunt for an entire year, there was only one place that she could go and feel as though the joy of life had not completely run dry.      The foliage outside Aunt Ruth’s home was carefully orchestrated, a calculated affair that contained sharp spirals of small shrubs and geometrically trimmed trees. But beyond the harsh lines and stunted pruning there lay a wild garden. It was as different ...