From Barbara Leonie Picard’s The Faun and the Woodcutter’s Daughter.

Riding through his lands the morning of midsummer’s day, young Count Alaric came upon a dazed young lady wandering in the early-morning dew.

He was more distressed than she at her lack of memory, and took her home. While he could not discover who she was, he found her lovely, and she was willing, so they married and were happy together.

The Lady had no skills, neither for entertainment, nor of industry, but as she was the wife of a count, with servants to care for her, and seemed to need no amusing, it made no difference.

Count Alaric loved her greatly, but while she seemed fond of him, part of her mind always seemed to be somewhere else, and once Count Alaric observed her dancing strangely to music only she could hear.

Count Alaric took her hands in his, “Tell me, Catherine,” he said, “tell me the truth, are you happy with me?”

She smiled and laughed and kissed him. “Of course I am happy with you,” she said.

But his heart was heavy, even as he took her in his arms, for he saw still the look in her eyes, as though she thought of something else.

~

Later, near again to Midsummer’s Day and returning early from a three-day trip, Count Alaric hurried, desiring to see her on the anniversary of their first meeting.

Approaching a great meadow near his castle, his horse’s hooves making no noise in the thick grass, he saw a group of 20 or 30 figures dancing in the moonlight and realized it was the fairies celebrating Midsummer’s Eve.*

Then he realized that one of the figures was not dancing in green but in crimson and gold, and he recognized his Lady Catherine.

Afraid the fairy folk had bewitched her and would carry her off with them, he drove his horse toward them at a gallop, but their nearness suddenly spooked the animal and it bolted from the clearing and back the way it had come.

It was three miles before Count Alaric regained control and forced its head toward home.

The Lady Catherine was in her bed when he went to find her, and she was happy we was home early. But she was also tired, though she denied having been anywhere in the night.

She was in earnest and guileless, and Count Alaric already believed her, full of relief, when he turned and saw the crimson gown draped over a chair.

Its skirt was heavy with dew.

I hope to finish this tale tonight or tomorrow morning.

*There are several different images of the fairies. I hope you understand by now that the fairies of this story were not the “little people” of pixie dust and wings, but the haunting type, barely distinguishable from humans.

I found this story in Raouf Mama’s book, Why Goats Smell Bad, and Other Stories from Benin.

A great king had many wives, but only one of the children they bore him survived infancy.Two months before this child was born, the king and his seer went into the jungle and determined they must choose for the coming child a secret name, that not even the boy would know.

They named him Denangan, which means “One of Them Shall Live.”

He was indeed the perfect prince. Not only was he handsome and talented, he was beloved by all his father’s subjects because of his wisdom and kindness.

When he grew to be a man and there came upon him the desire for a wife, the king let it be known that whoever could guess the prince’s name would claim him for her husband.

There was among his subjects a beautiful orphan girl named Hobami, “Woe is Me.”

The lowliest girl ever to fall in love with a prince.

Hobami was forced to work like a slave in the home of a woman with three daughters of her own.

These daughters, too, hoped to win the prince, and their mother bought for them rich dresses and bangles and jewels. She also planned to pay a powerful diviner to magically learn the prince’s true name.

The sisters told one another stories about dazzling the prince with their beauty, and tricking him into revealing his name so they could all marry him.

Their mother also gave Hobami new clothing, saying the king required all maidens to attend. But it was only rags.

The three sisters promised to leave a palm branch to mark the correct train to the palace, since Hobami had to finish her chores and could not accompany them.

Of course, they marked the wrong trail intending to lead her away from the contest.

Continue reading »

On a morning of bitter cold a man was out walking, huddled warm in his jacket, when he noticed a rattlesnake lying stretched out and nearly frozen along the side of the road.

He would have walked by, grateful for one-less rattlesnake in the world, except the snake spoke, and begged for help, saying he was sure to die without it.

“Oh, no, I won’t,” the man said, stopping but steeling his heart. You would bite me, and then all would see the foolishness of a man who listened to a snake.”

“But I would never bite you!” wailed the snake. “Not after you saved my life. You would have my eternal gratitude. Save my life, I beg you!”

So the man picked it up and wrapped it under his shirt, against his own skin.

The snake murmured his gratitude, and the man continued on his journey.

Some time later, feeling warm and revived, the snake turned within the man’s coat and drove his poison teeth into the man’s bare chest.

Collapsing in shock and gasping from the pain, the man called, incredulous, to the rattlesnake as it slithered away,

“How could you do that to me? I saved your life!”

And the snake replied without looking back, “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

For the first time in the short history of TT, I am including a literary tale in its entirety (first read in English 211x, collected from here). It was short and meaningful enough to be free of any need for improvement.

 

By Spencer Holst

Once upon a time there was a Siamese cat who pretended to be a lion and spoke inappropriate Zebraic.

That language is whinnied by the race of striped horses in Africa.

Here now: An innocent zebra is walking in a jungle, and approaching from another direction is the little cat; they meet.

“Hello there!” says the Siamese cat in perfectly pronounced Zebraic. “It certainly is a pleasant day, isn’t it? The sun is shining, the birds are singing, isn’t the world a lovely place to live today!”

The zebra is so astonished at hearing a Siamese cat speaking like a zebra, why, he’s just fit to be tied.

So the little cat quickly ties him up, kills him, and drags the better parts of the carcass back to his den.

The cat successfully hunted zebras many months in this manner, dining on filet mignon of zebra every night, and from the better hides he made bow neckties and wide belts after the fashion of the decadent princes of the Old Siamese court.

He began boasting to his friends he was a lion, and he gave them as proof the fact that he hunted zebras.

The delicate noses of the zebras told them there was really no lion in the neighborhood. The zebra deaths caused many to avoid the region. Superstitious, they decided the woods were haunted by the ghost of a lion.

One day the storyteller of the zebras was ambling, and through his mind ran plots for stories to amuse the other zebras, when suddenly his eyes brightened, and he said, “That’s it! I’ll tell a story about a Siamese cat who learns to speak our language! What an idea! That’ll make ’em laugh!”

Just then the Siamese cat appeared before him, and said, “Hello there! Pleasant day today, isn’t it!”

The zebra storyteller wasn’t fit to be tied at hearing a cat speaking his language, because he’d been thinking about that very thing.

He took a good look at the cat, and he didn’t know why, but there was something about his looks he didn’t like, so he kicked him with a hoof and killed him.

That is the function of the storyteller.

From THE ZEBRA STORYTELLER, Station Hill Press (914-758-5840)