Tag: fairytales

Human Tales

“Tell us a story, Grandma,” the oldest fairy child, Aurora, said. “A human tale. Those are the best.”

“No, I want to hear about the dwarf colonies on the moon.” The middle fairy child, Miles, stomped his foot. “Grandma is always telling human tales.”

“That’s ’cause that’s what Grandma tells best. I want a human tale, too.” The youngest, Autumn, nodded at Aurora, who smiled smugly. Miles scowled, knowing he was outnumbered.

“A human tale it is,” the old fairy said with a nod. “I know just the one.”

Once, there was a little fairy living in a big tree in the woods, just like this one. But the tree was knocked down by a storm, and the little fairy was separated from her family. When the storm stopped, her wings were wet and she was lost in a part of the woods she didn’t recognize.

“Oh, that’s awful!” Autumn interrupted. “Didn’t her mama and daddy go look for her?”

“Of course they did,” Grandma said. “They just hadn’t found her yet. They got tossed around in the storm, too. It was a terrible storm.”

Autumn frowned. “But they aren’t dead, right? If they’re dead I don’t want to hear this story.”

Miles clapped his hands. “Great! I want a dwarf story.”

Grandma shook her head. “They aren’t dead. Let me continue the story.”

She climbed up on a big rock, waiting for the sun to dry out her wings so she could fly up and look for landmarks. Unfortunately, her wings weren’t quite dry when a large animal came sniffing around the rock. It wasn’t wild, and didn’t know fairies. It was a dog. It picked up the little fairy in its mouth and carried her away to a human house.

“Did it eat her?” Miles asked. “Is the story over now? There’s still time for the dwarf story.”

The little fairy did not get eaten. Instead, she was carried inside the human house.

Aurora leaned toward Miles. “See. Grandma already said that. Now be quiet. I want to hear about the house.”

He scowled back at her. “It wasn’t me interrupting this time.”

Inside the human house, there lived a whole family of humans who were not at home when the fairy came to visit. The dog left the little fairy in a bowl of water by the door and wandered off to lay on a soft floor covering. The little fairy’s wings were wet again, and she was in a human house shut away from the sun and wind.

The little fairy tried to leave through the little door the dog climbed through, but it was too high for the little fairy to reach, and the big door around it was too smooth to climb. If her wings were dry, she could fly through the little door, but they were not dry. The little fairy needed to find a safe patch of sunlight.

“This wouldn’t have happened if she visited the dwarves instead of sitting on a rock,” Miles politely pointed out.

There weren’t any patches of sunlight. The fairy didn’t know what to do. “I wish there was some way to dry my wings,” she said. Just then, there was a wooshing sound nearby, and warm air blew up from small holes in the floor.

“The human house granted her wish? I didn’t know human houses did that.” Autumn bounced on her feet.

Miles rolled his eyes. “She should have wished to be home. She’s not very smart, is she?”

The fairy dried her wings in the warm air. Just as they were almost dry enough, the dog stood up again and looked around. The little fairy could hear the pounding of giant feet outside the door. The fairy squeezed herself against the wall by the big door and waited. The door opened, but she picked the wrong side of the door. Instead of being safely hidden behind the open door, she was clearly visible to the humans coming inside.

“There must have been a better hiding place than next to the door,” Miles said. “She’ll be lucky if they don’t step on her. Humans don’t look down.”

Startled, the little fairy flew into the air. Her wings were dry! The humans screeched and waved their arms around as they stumbled backwards. The little fairy flew past them and flew up and up until she could see the far away mountain and the edges of the forest. It took the rest of the day, but she found her home, and her family. They moved in with the little fairy’s grandparents until they could find a new tree home. And they all lived happily ever after.

“That was lovely,” Autumn said. “I’m glad they lived happily ever after.”

“They always do,” Miles grumbled. “It’s a human tale.”

“I liked the magic house that granted wishes. I would have wished the house was a field of bluebells.” Aurora patted her little bluebell hat. “I love bluebells.”

“Humans don’t really have magic wishing houses, right Grandma?” Miles asked.

Grandma smiled. “I think they do. I was that little fairy.”

The children gasped.

“Well, if it was a true story, and there really are magic wishing houses, then maybe this human tale was as good as a dwarf story,” Miles said at last.

Grandma smiled. “Thank you, Miles.”

“I still say you should have wished to be home, though.”

Grandma laughed. “I’ll remember that next time.”

Charlie’s Room: Lost Socks

One night, Isaac woke up from an odd dream where he could fly underwater, feeling suddenly very thirsty. So he slid his feet into his slippers and softly walked down the hallway to the kitchen. He didn’t need to turn on the light, because the full moon filled the room with a bluish light that made everything seem unfamiliar.

Isaac filled his glass at the tap and looked around the kitchen as he sipped the lukewarm water. It was one of those strange nights where fairy tales begin. On a night like this, little elves made shoes and Cinderella lost her slipper and Rumplestiltskin danced around a fire.

But nothing had happened by the time he finished drinking his first glass. So, he turned to the sink and filled it again. This time, he saw something moving at the other end of the kitchen.

Setting his glass on the counter, he quietly walked through the shadows. He stopped and crouched to peek around the edge of the table and saw a line of oddly-shaped beings of different shapes and sizes, none taller than a foot. They were traveling from the laundry room across the kitchen to the sliding glass door.

The first creature reached the door and didn’t pause. It hopped up and through the door as though the glass wasn’t there. The next followed.

Isaac squinted and leaned forward. Were those all socks? In the moonlight, they seemed monochromatic, but as far as he could tell, there wasn’t a match among them. This then wasn’t some sort of Noah’s Ark story where the socks were being saved two by two. That was probably a good thing, because any disaster that would destroy socks wasn’t likely to be good for people.

Isaac wanted to crawl forward and see where the socks were going, but he didn’t want to interrupt the socks. The stories mostly agreed that interrupting a fairy tale in progress didn’t go well for the interrupter. So he waited and watched.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the line of socks to come to an end. Isaac waited a few minutes after the last of the socks hopped through the glass door. Then, sticking to the shadows as best as he could, he circled around to peer around the edge of the door.

In the light of the full moon, the mismatched socks were dancing around the dandelions in the lawn. There weren’t many, because Marianne tried to dig them up when she saw them. She said that dandelions were not allowed that close to the garden, because they spread so quickly once they went to seed.

Isaac liked dandelions. The lawn in the park was all dandelions this time of year, and the sight made Isaac smile when he passed by on his walks. It was like concentrated cheerfulness to have so many dandelions together, like sunshine in a flower form.

Isaac did not dig up dandelions when he saw them.

The socks seemed to agree with Isaac. They continued to dance around the dandelions, twisting and leaping faster and faster. The groups scattered and reformed in different combinations. Isaac quietly tapped the rhythm of the dance on his knee.

Were they dancing to music? Could socks hear music? Before this night, Isaac didn’t know socks could dance. Was there a way to open the door or a window to check and see?

And yet, he didn’t want to risk interrupting. Curiosity wasn’t a good character trait in fairy tales. Maybe he could open the front door? It was on the other side of the house, away from the dancing socks. But what if the socks were dancing there, too?

He could check out the front window first. He backed up slowly until he could stand up out of sight of the glass door and walk to the living room. He peeked around the edge of the front window. No socks.

He opened the front door slowly, quietly, carefully. No music. He quietly closed the door and went back to the kitchen. He carefully looked out the glass door again.

The socks were gone.

Was it because he opened the front door? Was their dance done? Did they return to where they came from? Did they go somewhere else? Where would a group of mismatched socks go? Perhaps all the neighborhood socks met in the park for a community dance.

Isaac finished drinking his water and left the glass in the sink. He went back to bed. Even though he thought he’d be up for hours thinking about dancing socks, he fell asleep quickly.

He woke up early, when dawn shone through the windows leaving orange patches of light on the wall. Slippers on, he hurried to the kitchen to look out the window. The dandelions had all gone to seed in the night, and were now white puffs floating above the lawn on their stems like clouds in a green sky.

Marianne came into the kitchen behind him. “What are you looking at?” She leaned in to look over his shoulder. “Are those dandelions? Oh no!”

She rushed off, probably to change and go dig up all the dandelions she could find before breakfast. Isaac shook his head and started measuring water for oatmeal.

Story Prompts

Are you sitting in front of a blank page, trying to decide what to write about?

Here are three fairy tale based story ideas that you can try:

  • Think of a fairy tale. Turn it inside out. What are the main points? What would the opposite be? If there’s a tower, turn it into a cellar. If there’s a forest, could it be a city instead? Could bears instead be children and children become bears? Which things you decide to change and what you change them into is up to you. Now think about how the changes you made will change the story. This can be surprising.
  • Take two fairy tales. Pick a character from each. What if they were the same character? Could the wicked witch also be the gingerbread boy? Which story came first? Or did they happen at the same time? How does that change the stories or your perspective of the stories?
  • Pick a fairy tale. Imagine it happening recently without any magic. Or with less magic. How could the basic plot translate to modern life and still be somewhat recognizable? What if rival kingdoms were rival grocery stores instead? What if it took place in the future?

Do you have any other story ideas to share? Have you ever had a hard time thinking of what to write? What do you do?

Substitute Thieves

“…And there she is!” Baby bear threw the covers back triumphantly. He jumped back as flames shot past his left ear, singeing the ends of his fur. There was a dragon in the bed.

The dragon stopped breathing fire and sat up. “Sorry about that,” he said, looking embarrassed. “You surprised me.”

“But who are you?” Baby bear narrowed his eyes. “And where is Goldilocks? Did you eat her?”

The dragon looked offended. “Of course not. She isn’t at all royal. I only eat princesses. Unless they get rescued, of course. Unfortunately, they always do. Mostly I just eat peanut butter sandwiches.” The dragon looked at the taller bears. “Who made the porridge? It was excellent. The serving in the little bowl was just right. Do you make granola? I would buy it by the barrel!”

“I hadn’t thought of granola,” Papa bear said. “Goldilocks likes porridge so much that I never make anything else.”

“I like granola too,” Mama bear said. “Maybe we could make some after the dragon leaves.”

“I’ll give you my number. Call me if you need a taste tester,” the dragon said, pulling a business card from his pocket and handing it to Papa bear.

“Guys, stop talking about granola. We need to find out what happened to Goldilocks!” Baby bear stomped his feet.

“Oh. Right.” The dragon got up and stretched. “Goldilocks ate some really old pease porridge and got sick. So, she called in some substitutes. She’ll be gone all week.”

Mama bear started making the bed. “Oh, the poor child. She never could resist good porridge. How old was it?”

“Nine days old. Can you believe it? I’m not sure how it lasted that long without being eaten.” The dragon smiled a wide, toothy smile. “Well, it was nice to meet you all, but I have an appointment with a princess.”

“Bye!” Mama and Papa bears waved happily at the departing dragon as he leaped from the window and flew away.

“Wasn’t he nice?” Mama bear said. “I wonder who will come tomorrow?”

“Let’s make some granola. Do you think we should add coconut?” Papa bear rubbed his paws together as he followed Mama bear down the stairs. “This will be fun.”

Baby bear rolled his eyes and followed them downstairs. “Let’s fix my chair first, or it will be broken tomorrow when the substitute comes, and then what will they do?”

The next morning, after the usual walk and subsequent discovery of missing granola and broken furniture, Baby bear threw the covers on his bed back a little more cautiously than usual. “…And there…is a goat?”

The goat stood up on the bed and tossed back his horns. “That’s right, it is I, the littlest billy goat Gruff!”

“Nice to meet you,” Mama bear said. “But please don’t stand on the furniture.”

“Sorry about that,” the goat said, hopping off the bed. “I guess I was more nervous than I thought. Do you have any trolls you need me to toss around?”

“Nope,” Papa bear said. “But we have a barrel of granola in the kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t mind more. The granola in the littlest bowl was just right. It would only be better if I had an apple to eat with it.”

Baby bear pointed out the window. “That’s an apple tree right there. Have as many apples as you’d like.”

“Really? I’ll take a few with me, then. I’m meeting my brothers at a bridge on the other side of the valley. The grass is greener there, you know.” The goat jumped from the window into the tree and stuffed his pockets full of apples before jumping down and trit-trotting away.

The rest of the week was just as strange. There was a princess who pricked her finger on a fork and fell asleep at the table. She didn’t wake up until they put a pea under the chair cushion. She left complaining about bruises.

Then there were the seven grumpy little men who were crowded on the little bed when the bears got home. They were still hungry after splitting the three bowls of granola. “We were promised breakfast, and we won’t leave until we get some so bring it right here,” one of them said. When they finally left, Baby bear’s bed was full of crumbs.

On Friday, there was no one in the bed, but there was a mermaid in the bathtub. “I ran out of magic potion,” she told them. “Do you have any?” The bears did not have any magic potion, but the witch next door had some so the mermaid was able to leave. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to break the chair or sleep in your bed,” she told Baby bear.

“That’s okay,” Baby bear said. “Some days are like that.”

On Monday, Baby bear threw the covers back. “…And there she is! Hey, it really is her.” Goldilocks was back.

“It’s me,” she said. “But where was the porridge? I don’t really like granola, you know.”

“Sorry,” Papa bear said. “We made more than expected. But, I know someone who might like it. We’ll be back to porridge tomorrow.”

“Good. Well, time to go,” Goldilocks said. She jumped out the window and ran away.

“It was fun meeting new people, but it’s nice to have her back,” Mama bear said fondly as she made the bed.

“I’ll go call the dragon about the barrel of granola,” Papa bear said, heading towards the stairs.

Baby bear hurried after him. “Wait, you need to fix my chair first!”

And they lived happily every day after.

Dragon in Little Bear's bed.

Insomniac Beauty

Once upon a time, a king and queen were thrilled when they had a tiny new daughter. They invited the kingdom to celebrate, and gave special invitations to the resident fairies. The fairies made it a habit of attending baby blessings and using their magic powers to grant special powers and gifts to special babies.

Of course, a baby princess is a special baby indeed, and the fairies were delighted to come. All but one. Somehow, her invitation had been lost in the mail, and she felt snubbed.

“How dare they not invite me?” the fairy asked. “Inviting everyone except me is a deliberate insult.”

“I’m sure they meant to invite you,” the other fairies said. “Come anyway. I’m sure they’ll have great flower nectar and that spicy cracker mix you like.”

“Oh, I’ll come,” the fairy said. “I’ll give the baby a blessing they’ll never forget.”

“That’s the spirit,” the other fairies said, ignoring her dark tone.

And the day for the baby blessing came. The fairies hovered around the baby, giving her gifts of wisdom and beauty and other princessy things. The last fairy hovered over the princess and smiled much too widely.

“I bless you with the ability to go without sleep. In fact, you won’t ever sleep at all.” And then she swooped away cackling.

The crowd was confused. “Was that a good thing or a bad thing?” the queen asked her husband.

It didn’t take long for the answer to be clear. A baby that never sleeps at all is a very bad thing. Even with a rotating watch over her, the princess soon exhausted all her caregivers. She had so much extra time to figure out how to get into everything. She was always alert, never tired, and once she was a toddler she could soon outrun even the fastest runners in the kingdom.

“She will do great or terrible things,” the king said sadly one day, as he untied the laces of the shoes that had all been strung from the banisters of the spiral staircase.

“That’s fifty-fifty odds, right?” the queen said. She was still hunting for her shoes. “That’s not so bad.”

But the princess grew up to do both great and terrible things, as we all do. She just managed to do them on a bigger scale. She was, after all, a princess who never had to sleep. She had more time and resources than most.

By the time she was seventeen, her father sent her out on daily quests just to keep her out of trouble. She rescued kittens from trees and babies from dragons and ladies from lakes. She painted fences and helped build cathedrals. Her father started running out of quests.

And then he had the best idea yet. He sent her to go help out the fairy that had given her such a unique gift. The princess rode off on her horse and the kingdom breathed a sigh of relief for another day.

The fairy, on the other hand, found that her woes were just beginning. The princess had decided to build a gazebo in her yard at midnight. The fairy woke up to a terrible racket, and try as she might, none of her hexes could hit the princess. They just bounced off her polished shield like those fuzzy yellow balls bounce off tennis rackets.

The princess remodeled her kitchen and she couldn’t find anything. She dug up her potion ingredients and planted a bed of thorny roses. Then, when the fairy was hiding in the library, the princess came in and started indexing the books by the authors’ first names.

Enough was enough. The fairy stood and aimed her wand at the princess’s back. “You will be an ordinary princess who sleeps just as much as an ordinary princess does.”

The princess kept sorting books. “I am an ordinary princess,” she called over her shoulder. “I sleep an ordinary amount, for me.” And that night, she dug a wishing well that only worked if you threw in polished diamonds.

The fairy strode out, dark circles under her eyes. She pointed her wand at the princess. “I take it back. Whatever I said that made it so that you are here keeping me up at night, I take it back.”

The princess looked confused for a moment. “I think that maybe I’m sleepy?” And then she curled up next to the well and fell asleep for the first time in her life.

She rode home the next day, after the fairy urged her to go home and tell her parents the good news. Her parents were thrilled.

Of course, bad habits aren’t easily unlearned, and the princess never did sleep as much as everyone else. But, she did get into a little less trouble. And the entire kingdom rested easier.

The Gingerbread Tower

Once upon a time, the three bears sat down to eat breakfast.  Unfortunately, their porridge was too hot.  So, they went for a walk in the woods while they waited for it to cool.  While they were walking, they wandered into an area of the woods that they’d never visited before.

They paused as they heard voices up ahead.  Peering through some conveniently placed bushes, they saw a strange sight.  A woman dressed all in black was standing at the foot of a gingerbread tower.

“Rapunzel, I said to let down your hair.  I forgot something, and I’m going to be late.”  The woman stomped her foot.

A window opened at the top of the tower and a younger woman looked out.  “What did you forget? I’ll toss it down to you.”

The woman in black stomped her foot again.  “Just let down your hair.  I don’t have time to describe it to you.”

The woman at the window tossed out a very, very long, blond braid.  The woman in black used it to climb the tower.  She climbed back down a few minutes later and pointed a stick at a pumpkin in the garden next to the tower.

The pumpkin turned into a carriage.  With a few more flicks of her wand, some mice nibbling at the tower became horses.  The bears, hidden in the bushes, shuddered.  They were glad they’d decided to remain hidden.  It could have been them turned into horses!

The witch, for what else could she be, hitched the horses to the carriage and rode away.  The bears looked at each other.

“If she’s not home, it might be safe to look a little closer,” Mama bear said.

“The gingerbread smells heavenly,” Papa bear said.

“Did you forget what happened to the mice?” Baby bear said.  “They were turned into horses.  We might be turned into pigs.  Then we’ll be eaten!”

“Nonsense,” Mama bear said.  “With all this gingerbread, who would want bacon?”

Papa bear shook his head.

And so, with Baby bear trailing behind them and looking around suspiciously, they approached the tower.  Because they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, they were all quite hungry.  Soon there was a large hole eaten from the side of the tower.

“Oops,” Mama bear said. “I just meant to taste it to see if I could bake something like it at home.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Papa bear said.  “They needed a door anyway.  Now they won’t have to climb out the window.”

“I could go in and bake them a door to put in the hole,” Mama bear said. “I have a nice brownie recipe.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Baby bear whispered loudly.  “We should run away now!”

But they went inside anyway, and Baby bear followed them in.  Inside, seven very short men were busily working in a kitchen that filled the base of the tower.  One of the men looked up and scowled.

“It looks like we need a five by six patch.”

“Five by six?” The man in glasses next to him put down his mixing bowl and took out a notepad and pencil. He wrote on the pad and then tore the page out and handed it to the bears.

Papa bear took the page.  “Is this a bill?”

The man in glasses nodded. “We charge by the square foot.”

“I thought I could bake you a door,” Mama bear said.  “I make great brownies.”

“Brownies are terrible construction material.  Too soft,” the scowling man said.  “And we don’t need a door.”

“But the witch…” Mama bear began.

“She’s just overly efficient,” said a voice behind them.

The bears whirled around.  The blond woman was behind them.  Baby bear squeezed himself between his parents and tried to wish himself invisible.

“Weren’t you trapped in the tower?” Papa bear asked nervously.

“No, I just spin in there.  My hair grows unnaturally fast, so I spin it and braid it into ropes.  The witch is my product tester.  She insists on using my hair ropes to enter and leave so that product testing is built into her day.  If she was really in a hurry, she’d ride her broom.”

“So if you wanted to leave…” Mama bear began.

“There is a door on the other side of the tower.”  Rapunzel yawned.  “Wow.  Spinning sure makes me sleepy.  One of these days, I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel and prick my finger on the spindle.”

Papa bear pulled out his wallet and paid, and the bears went home.  Inside their house, they found that the porridge was eaten, a chair was broken, and a little girl was asleep in Baby bear’s bed.  Baby bear woke up the girl.

She looked at her watch and leaped out of bed.  “You’re late!” she threw on a red cloak and picked up a basket that was waiting by the bed.  “I’m going to be late getting these goodies to grandma’s house.”

“Just don’t stop to talk to strangers this time,” Baby bear said.

The little girl made a face at him, then jumped out the window and ran away.  The bears looked at each other.

“That was different,” Papa bear said.  “But it’s fun to try new things.”

“It was fun,” Mama bear said.  “We should go back to the tower again.  I want to taste a window.  Just to see if I could make one at home, of course.”

Baby bear sighed.  “That was stressful and exhausting.  I need a nap.” And hew went upstairs and went to bed.

“Should we have told him about the magic beans?” Mama bear asked.  “Maybe he needs a bit of warning.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Papa bear said.  “Just toss them out the window.  Let’s see if they grow.”