A Tale of Monsters

The monsters of fairy tales can be large fearsome beasts, but sometimes they are grownups. In fact, once upon a time, a party who called themselves 'gentlemen'—they weren't—were especially cruel monsters. For they took it upon themselves to tell a little boy that magic wasn't real. 

    Of course, they were wrong.

    All the same, they laughed at the little boy who told them it was so.

    You see, said the little boy, magic must be real. How else did the wind play? Or the thunder break in giant cracks? Or his heart light up with the glow of all the stars when he saw his father?

    It was these things that caused the men to laugh.

    But it was their folly, for they were being watched by an old woman. Perhaps it is needless to say with whom the old woman sided, for in an instant she cursed the men. Suddenly they were as tiny as ants—as small as their hearts—so that they could not do the little boy more harm.

    'They'll get big again,' she said, 'when they believe in the deepest magic.'

    'What,' asked the little boy, 'is the deepest magic?'

    'Why, it is what is in your heart of hearts. It is love,' the old woman replied.

    The little boy smiled, and wished there were a thousand like her, for then, he was very sure, the world would be a better place.

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