Tag: fairytales

The Three Little Pigs Go to Grandma’s House

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Once upon a time there were three little piglets who often got into trouble because they didn’t do what they were told. They liked to play tricks on the other animals, and so their mom dressed them in bright red cloaks to warn others they were coming. There were many of their neighbors who appreciated the warning.

One day, they were racing around the house climbing on furniture and yelling loudly. Their mother, tired of scolding them, called them into the kitchen. She gave them each a treat and handed them a basket to take to their grandmother’s house on the other side of the forest. “Make sure she reads the note inside,” she added.

“What does it say?” the oldest pig asked.

“It says that you are allowed to spend the night, and there are cookies for you all to share for after dinner. Leave them be, and don’t talk to strangers.”

The little pigs, thrilled with the idea of an adventure, easily agreed. They put on their bright red cloaks and made the youngest pig carry the heavy basket. They set out, too excited about the road ahead to even remember to look back and wave goodbye to their mother.

She was not surprised, but waved goodbye until they were out of sight anyway.

The youngest piglet was soon complaining about the weight of the basket. “Why do I have to carry it?” he asked. “You are both older and stronger. I shouldn’t have to carry it at all.”

“We’re older, so we’re in charge,” said the oldest piglet. “Besides, I need to have my hands free to fight off pirates. See, I’ve already found a good stick to use as a sword.”

“Maybe we could take turns,” the middle piglet said. “I’ll carry it on the way home.”

“But it will be empty then. That’s not fair!” The youngest piglet began to squeal in anger, but then he paused. “It would be lighter if we ate some of the cookies now.”

“There isn’t much difference between eating them now or later,” the oldest pig agreed.

“They’re our cookies, and we can eat them when we want to. They’ll be better now when we’re hungry than after dinner when we’re full,” the middle pig said.

The three little pigs opened the basket and ate every cookie, leaving none for their grandmother. At the bottom of the box there was a note. The oldest pig read it out loud to his brothers:

“Here are some cookies for after dinner. Thank you for agreeing to keep the boys for the night.”

The oldest pig let pulled a pen from the pocket of his cloak. “I’ll just cross out ‘here are’ and write ‘we need’, and we’ll have cookies for the walk home tomorrow.” The younger piglets cheered. Feeling full of goodwill, he passed the empty basket to the middle pig to carry, and they continued on their way.

Further on the path, they met a wolf. He smiled sharply and complimented their cloaks. Figuring that meant he was a good guy and not a pirate, they stopped to talk. “Where are you going?” the wolf asked.

“To grandma’s house,” the youngest pig said.

“Where does she live?”

“Three miles south in a large cave,” the middle pig said. This was not true, but the little pigs liked to play tricks on people.

While the others were describing the imaginary cave, the oldest pig pulled a small bottle of dye from a pocket in his cloak and poured it all over the wolf’s bushy tail. The wolf didn’t notice, and soon darted off into the underbrush.

The three little pigs laughed and continued their journey to their grandmother’s house. The squirrels and rabbits darted away at their approach, and so they didn’t get another chance to play any tricks or talk to strangers. They smacked the underbrush with their stick-swords and pretended to see pirates instead. It took them quite a while to arrive at the little brick cottage on the other side of the forest.

The youngest pig, once again holding the basket, handed it to his grandmother without any explanation. She brushed crumbs off the note and read it with a sigh. “You ate the cookies on the way here, didn’t you?”

The oldest pig frowned. “Didn’t you read the note? Mom said to make sure you read it.”

His grandmother raised an eyebrow and looked at him and then his brothers. The youngest hunched his shoulders. “They were for us anyway. We were hungry. It was a long walk, and they made me carry the basket almost the whole way,” he whined. The older piglets scowled at him, but it was too late.

“I think you don’t need anymore sweets tonight then,” their grandmother said. She sent them to go play while she finished bringing in the laundry. When she found them less than an hour later, they were cutting up her wool caps to make pirate beards and scrawling funny faces on the mirrors with marker. She wasn’t sure where they’d found the scissors or the markers.

She gave them rags to wash the mirrors and went to start dinner. When she opened the cupboards to make dinner and had a bowl of flour fall on her head, she called the little pigs in and scolded them. She fed them oatmeal for dinner and sent them to bed early for breaking so many rules. Consequently, they missed all the excitement that happened next.

Over a breakfast of leftover oatmeal, their grandmother told them a strange story of a wolf who visited late in the evening, demanding to be let in or he’d blow the house down.

“With dynamite?” the middle pig asked, looking interested.

“No, by breathing on it,” his grandmother said.

The older two piglets laughed. The youngest looked confused. “But this is a brick house. That wouldn’t work.”

“Of course not,” the oldest piglet said. “He didn’t know anything about anything.”

The youngest pig shrugged and turned back to their grandmother. “What did you do?”

“A local woodsman passed by and chased him away. He said the wolf had an oddly colored tail so he’d recognize it if he saw it again, and he’d keep an eye out for it.”

The three little piglets looked at each other and didn’t say anything.

The grandmother set the piglets to clearing the table and washing and drying the dishes. She gave them each a treat, and then she insisted they put on their red cloaks. She handed the basket to the oldest piglet. “You will take turns holding the basket, and you will not look inside until you get home. Make sure your mom reads the note, and do not talk to strangers.”

When they got home, the youngest piglet handed their mom a basket empty except for a note covered in crumbs. She read the note and sighed. Then she asked them about their visit to see their grandmother. They talked about oatmeal and early bedtimes and didn’t mention the cookies or the wolf or pirate beards or markers or flour at all.

Their mother somehow knew about it anyway. She scolded them for breaking rules, hugged them, and after an evening of their pranks she gave them cabbage soup for dinner and an early bedtime. The next morning they woke up early, well-rested and ready for a new adventure. Their mother made sure they wore their red cloaks to give the neighbors plenty of warning. The little piglets made sure to fill the pockets with useful things.

They lived happily ever after.

Flashback Video: Sir Cinders

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This story was originally posted on September 12, 2018. I think the details of happily ever after are different for everybody. The trick is figuring out what it looks like for you. Don’t give up if it seems impossible for now. Help might be waiting just around the corner.

The Golden-Haired Pirate

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Greta Goldenlocks was a fearsome and mighty pirate. No pirate or soldier alive could defeat her in battle. She could defeat ten men as large as grizzly bears with one hand tied behind her back and the wind blowing her hair into her face. She could surround and defeat an armada of ships with three rowboats and a crossbow.

And as for treasure, Greta had a nose for it. No one could hide their valuables from Greta’s sticky fingers. If it was golden false teeth, they’d be gone and in her loot bag while you were in the middle of eating dinner with them. You wouldn’t notice they were gone until you tried to eat the mashed potatoes.

One day, after getting up early to explore the surrounding seas, Greta sailed up to a castle. She rowed to shore and jumped from the rowboat, eager to explore. She approached warily, but no guards or lookouts stood outside the gates.

The front door was unlocked. It was a little unnerving. Greta thought of all the ghost stories she heard on quiet nights. Yet, she never once saw a ghost, after all.

She couldn’t walk away from this. A castle? With the front door unlocked? She wouldn’t be a pirate if she didn’t walk right inside. So, she did.

The front hall was empty. Following her nose for treasure, she turned into the first room. It was a banquet hall with a lavish feast served but untouched. Greta sampled the dishes.

No poison.

After sampling the last serving, she finished the meal. Why leave good food to go to waste? She considered finding the kitchens later and bringing some extra provisions to her crew.

But first, she needed to look for treasure. She went into the next room. It was a throne room, and the chairs looked like solid gold.

However, Greta was an expert treasure hunter, unwilling to be fooled by imitations. She checked first one chair, then another. She hacked the last chair apart with her sword. It wasn’t gold, just painted wood.

Disgusted, she moved along. She found a bed chamber. The expensive linens would fetch a pretty penny if sold to the right buyers. Yet, linens would be a poor treasure to take back to her crew from the castle. Even if she added the provisions.

Surely there must be something better. Letting her mind go blank, Greta tuned in to possible treasure. But all her senses told her that the treasure in this castle was the beds.

She looked under the beds. She scratched the paint of the headboards to see if they were made of gold. She checked under the mattresses. She checked the seams of the bedding.

Maybe they were enchanted beds? Greta didn’t really believe in magic, but she was willing to keep an open mind. She crawled into each of the beds, with her boots on, to see if anything felt different.

Nothing did. Maybe she needed to fall asleep first. And so, in the last bed, she fell fast asleep. The bed was marvelously comfortable, and she slept well. Unfortunately, she didn’t sleep long.

Greta started awake with the feeling of someone watching her. Opening her eyes, she was shocked to see three large bears. Actual bears. Yet they wore clothes and stood on their hind legs like people.

Was that what the enchanted beds did? Did they turn people into bears? Or was it the food that changed them?

In alarm, Greta looked down at her hands. They were still normal hands. She cautiously put her hands up to check her face. No fur.

She remembered her treasure-seeking instincts telling her the beds were important. It must be the beds. Luckily, she hadn’t slept there long. She needed to get out of here before anything happened.

The bears were still staring at her in shock. Greta jumped from the bed, and in two steps she was out the window. She landed gracefully on the lawn and waved at the bears watching her from the window.

Her crew sailed away from the enchanted castle as quickly as possible. The ship’s doctor said her voice sounded a bit hoarse, but it was probably just a cold. He told her it just wasn’t possible for people to turn into bears. But Greta and the crew knew better. She’d had a narrow escape.

Greta is still just as good in battle. She can still find any treasure no matter where it’s hidden. But she might wait a moment or two before taking it now. She checks to see if the owner looks cursed. Greta Goldenlocks is a wise and mighty pirate.

Flashback Video: Insomniac Beauty

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This story was originally posted on April 17, 2019. I think we all do great and terrible things now and then. And sometimes, the bad choices we make can cause us big problems down the road. In fairy tales, the effects are magnified, of course. I think that’s what makes them so much fun to read.

The Art of Happily Ever After

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Once upon a time, a group of knights received a distress call. “It’s another princess in trouble,” the leader of the knights said. “Who wants to deal with this one?”

“I helped with the last one,” Sir Cadmium said. “The one who turned herself into a goldfish somehow. It took me forever to find the right fish in that fountain. It had fourteen basins, and every single one was filled with goldfish. I had to hold them up one at a time for the prince to kiss, and it made him really grumpy.”

“I helped with the princess stuck in a tree. Why on earth she wished for wings, I don’t know,” Sir Ultramarine said. “The wings were all tangled in the branches and they didn’t want me to snap a single twig of the tree because it was some rare ancient important tree. I was there for twenty hours, and she complained every minute.”

“Don’t look at me,” Sir Ochre said. “I just got back from rescuing those twin princesses last week. The ones lost in the cave looking for some sort of fairyland ball, you remember? They didn’t want to be rescued, not matter what their parents said. They kept ordering me to leave, and the king would order me right back in. In the end, they gave up, but by then my feet hurt from running back and forth and fetching them things so they wouldn’t starve to death out of stubbornness. I still have blisters on my blisters.”

The leader looked around the circle. “Sir Umber is still tracking down the princess who ran away with the unicorns, and Sir Viridian is rescuing the princess who wished to be a mermaid. That leaves you, Sir Sap.”

“Why do I have to be Sir Sap. Can’t I be Sir Thalo or Sir Payne?”

The leader shrugged. “It’s the King who knights us. He picks the names.”

“Fine.”

“You’ll take the assignment? Great. Here’s the folder.”

Sir Sap jumped out of his seat. “That’s not what I meant. I helped the princess who got turned into a baby and crawled into a cupboard and fell asleep and no one could find her and…”

It was too late. Everyone had already left. Sir Sap sighed and picked up the folder. As always, the king had written the details in an awful scrawl that was nearly impossible to read. The hand painted map was lovely, but impractical. Sir Sap sighed. Was it too late to go back to dental school?

Hours later, he was following the map, hoping to rescue a princess who was maybe stuck in a well or writing a will. It was a little confusing. The woods he was passing through were dark and scary, and there wasn’t really much of a path.

But, Sir Sap was a brave knight who wasn’t scared of the dark at all. And if he was, he wouldn’t tell anyone. He pulled out his lunch and decided to eat while he walked. He always felt braver when he was eating. It was a good thing being a knight had so many opportunities for exercise, or he’d probably weigh a thousand pounds.

Just then, he heard growling off to his left. He looked down. Perhaps eating a roast beef sandwich in a forest filled with who-knows-what was a bad idea. Something started crashing though the bushes, and it sounded like it was getting closer.

A bear crashed onto the path. Sir Sap threw his sandwich as hard as he could to the right. After the bear ran past, chasing the sandwich, Sir Sap ran to the left. He stopped to catch his breath under a tree. “Is the bear gone?” a voice asked from above.

Sir Sap looked up. A lady dressed in black was sitting up in the branches of the tree. A witch? “It’s gone,” he said. “Couldn’t you have magicked it away?”

“I’m an herbalist,” she said. She began to climb down. “I make potions. It’s a different kind of magic. It doesn’t work right away. You have to be patient. But it works better because I tailor the potions to the individual, so it’s just what you need and works just right for you.” She jumped from the lowest branches.

“It is good to meet you, Madam Herbalist. I have great respecct for your craft. Could you tell me the way out of the forest? My map isn’t very clear.”

She pointed the way, and soon Sir Sap was able to rescue the princess stuck inside a rosebush on a hill. It was a massive, enchanted rosebush, and he ended up needing to find a prince to cut the whole thing down with tiny enchanted silver scissors. Organizing the witches and wizards and silversmiths and the very confused prince to find the solution took days.

Luckily, the princess and prince fell in love over the whole ordeal, and looked like they’d probably live happily ever after. This was always the best possible scenario, because it meant one less princess getting into trouble. Sir Sap went home, happy with the knowledge that all went well, and he wouldn’t have to rescue the next princess in trouble. It was probably Sir Ultramarine’s turn.

When he reached the forest, the herbalist was out picking leaves off of some harmless looking weeds. Suddenly, Sir Sap was struck by how normal it was. Here was someone who climbed a tree when she was chased by a bear, and didn’t ask her fairy godmother to change her into a bird or a dragon or a snowman in the middle of the summer.

Sir Sap realized he was tired of being a knight. He was tired of trying to help people who kept misusing powerful magic and never learning their lesson. He was tired of princesses. “Is it hard to learn to be an herbalist?” he asked.

“Well, it takes patience. You don’t learn everything all at once. But, if you like helping people and are good at figuring things out, it might be just right for you.” She smiled and picked up her basket. “I wouldn’t mind having an apprentice to help out at the shop. I have more business than I can deal with right now.”

“I’ll return within the week. I just need to hand paint a letter of resignation,” Sir Sap said. He was already mentally composing the letter. He was thinking of using one-point perspective to draw attention to the words “I quit” in the center of the page. He would sign it John, and be Sir Sap no more. And maybe, if things worked out just right, he’d find his own happily ever after.