Faery Tales

by Carol Ann Duffy

  Curled in the attic, the largest space in the house, the Little Girl heard the fierce squeaks of her family’s voices far below. She lifted her arms above her head, carefully raised the red-tiled roof of the Doll’s House and climbed outside.

  Now that she could stand at her full height, the Little Girl saw that she was as tall as the Doll’s House. The chimneys looked like boxes of matches; the front door like a cigarette packet. The windows seemed no bigger than playing cards. She put her eye to the glass of her grandmother’s room. Little Grandma sat in her chair staring out through her window, still and unblinking. She looked, the Little Girl thought, just like a wax doll.

  She knelt down and peered in through the drawing-room window. Little Grandad was asleep in his rocking chair in front of the orange and crimson fire, which never burned down.

  Her sister, Little Twin, was reading the same page of a wee book over and over again.

  The Little Girl’s eyes filled with tears, which fell and splashed against the window like rain.

  She stretched out and leaned on her elbow to peep through the kitchen window where Little Mother stood at the table ready to tidy away the breakfast things. More than anything, the Little Girl wished that for once her mother would put on the teeny hat and weeny coat that hung from the hook on the kitchen door, walk out of the kitchen, along the hall and out through the front door.

  All day, she stared and peeped and squinted through the windows of the Doll’s House, noticing the bath the size of a soap dish, the piano the size of a mouth organ, the fridge the size of a choc ice. That night, the Little Girl lay down on the floor outside the Doll’s House. She could see the tiny lights go out inside the house as she drifted away into sleep.

  When she awoke, she was even bigger than before. There was a big comfy-looking bed with plump pillows in the room she was in, a large wooden wardrobe full of clothes, which fitted her perfectly, and several pairs of shoes that were just the right size for her feet. She chose a lovely red dress and a pink pair of soft leather boots.

  Delicious cooking smells were coming from below. Her Tall Mother smiled at her as she entered the kitchen and said that they’d be having breakfast in the garden. The kitchen window was open and the whole wide wonderful world stretched endlessly away in the morning sunlight.

  So the girl grew and grew and the Doll’s House stayed in the corner of her bedroom. She peeped in through its windows at first, but soon she forgot to do this, for she had her own big windows now and she could see the stars.

  She went outside whenever she wished and travelled far and wide under the sun and under the moon. In time, she went to live in another house and the Doll’s House was packed away and forgotten. She became a woman and had her own family and, though she had her troubles from time to time as everyone does, she was very happy for many years.

  One day, the woman looked in the mirror and saw that she had become old. There were silver threads in her hair and fine lines on her face. Her own daughter had grown now and had long since moved away and her son was a man who lived in a distant country.

  One day, she went up to the attic to store some apples that needed ripening and saw, tucked away in a corner, the old Doll’s House.

  She knelt before it and peered in through one of the upstairs windows. Little Grandma was sitting in her chair, staring sightlessly out. The woman’s heart gave a horrible lurch and her breath came out in a gasp, covering the window with a fine mist. She rubbed at the glass with a corner of her sleeve and Little Grandma stared right through her just as before.

  Then the old woman looked into the window of her old bedroom and saw that both the little bunk beds were empty, so she crouched lower and peeped into the drawing-room window.

  Little Twin sat quietly, reading a wee book, and Little Grandad was asleep in the rocking chair in front of the orange and crimson fire.

  The woman tapped on the pane with her fingernail but Little Twin didn’t look up from her wee book and Little Grandad slept on.

  The woman felt herself shrinking with longing and regret.

  She moved her head till it was level with the kitchen window. Little Mother stood at the table as she always had. The woman’s heart brimmed with love, like a glass filling with the finest wine, and without thinking she banged hard on the glass with her fists.

  Then Little Mother was waving and smiling at her and had run down the hall to fling open the front door and she felt her Little Twin’s tiny hand in hers, pulling her inside, and heard the small excited clucks of Little Grandma and Little Grandad as they walked towards her. The door closed behind her with a small click.

  That night the Little Girl stood at her bedroom window as her little family slept. Outside the Doll’s House, planets glowed and shone like giant apples far out in the endless universe.

  The Maiden with No Hands

  A King once became a widower and had no wife by his side. He fretted and sulked about this until the Devil put it into his head that he should marry his own sister. Her name was Penta. The selfish, spoilt King sent for Penta one day and said, ‘Sister, a man of good judgement never allows anything valuable to leave his house. Plus, you never know what might occur if a stranger were to show up. I know you very well, your character and so on, and I value you, of course, so I have decided you shall be my next wife and must settle down to the business of being a useful partner to me. There! Just what the doctor ordered.’

  When Penta heard these outrageous words she was shocked to the core and thought her brother must be mad. She went red in the face and exclaimed, ‘Are you out of your tiny mind? I can’t believe what you’ve just suggested. If it’s meant to be funny, it’s foolhardy! If it’s meant to be serious, it’s stupid! If it’s meant to be practical, it’s pathetic! We are brother and sister, you cuckoo! Pay attention! If my virtuous ears ever hear such words again from your slimy tongue, I’ll do something to surprise you! If you do not treat me like a sister, then I shall not treat you as a brother!’

  Penta fled to her room, locked and bolted the door behind her, and did not see her brother for a whole month. The wretched King was left to skulk around as though his face had been walloped by a sledgehammer. He was as furtive as a boy who has smashed a window and as confused as a cook who has seen the dog run off with the sausages. Nevertheless, when Penta eventually appeared, he was at it again, trying to persuade her to go into partnership as a wife because he was a lonely widower.

  ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ said Penta. ‘I’m your sister! What is it about me that could possibly make you think I could be your wife?’

  ‘Penta,’ replied the King, ‘it is your hands! Like forks they draw out the core of my heart from my chest. Like hooks they lift the bucket of my soul from the well of my being. Like pincers they grip my spirit tightly while love smooths it like a file. Oh, hands! Beautiful hands! They are ladles spooning out sweetness! They are pliers extracting promises! They are shovels digging in my consciousness!’

  Hearing this claptrap, Penta told him to be quiet, even though he wanted to say more. ‘I’ve heard enough,’ she said. ‘Stay there and don’t go away. I’ll be right back.’

  She went to her room, called a servant who was as daft as a banana, gave him a knife and some gold, and said to him, ‘Boy, cut my hands off. I want to give them a special manicure.’

  The servant thought he was doing her a favour and cut her hands off – chop! chop! – with two clean blows. Penta had them put in a bowl and covered with a cloth, then sent to her brother with a message telling him to enjoy the hands that he admired so much and wishing him a good life. The King was livid. He had a trunk built and smeared with tar. Then he ordered his sister to be pushed inside and thrown into the sea.

  The trunk was tossed about by the waves, then landed on a beach where some fishermen sorting their nets discovered it. They were amazed to find the beautiful Penta inside. One of the men was also the chief of the island and he took her home and told his wife to be kind to her. But the fishwife was jealous
of Penta’s beauty and bundled her back into the trunk and launched it into the sea.

  The trunk was swallowed up by the waves and battered about back and forth until it was spotted by a ship in which a foreign King was sailing. He had a boat lowered into the water to fetch the trunk and bring it on board. When it was opened and the kind King saw such a living beauty in that coffin of death he swore he had found great treasure, even if it was a casket of jewels without handles. He took Penta to his kingdom and gave her as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Penta served her as well as she could with her feet, even cooking for her, threading needles, ironing her dresses, and combing her hair. The Queen grew as fond of Penta as though she were her own daughter.

  But sadly, after a while the Queen grew ill and knew she had to die. She was resigned to this and told her husband that if he loved her and wanted her to be happy in death, he must promise her to marry Penta after the Queen closed her eyes and turned to dust.

  The King said, ‘I hope you live another hundred years, my darling. However if you must go to that other world and leave me in darkness, I swear to you that I will take Penta for my wife. I don’t care that she has no hands so long as I give you a sign of how much I love you in death.’ And after the Queen had extinguished the candle of her days, he kept his promise and Penta was soon expecting a child.

  The King had to undertake another journey by sea and he said goodbye to Penta and set sail. Nine months later, Penta gave birth to a dazzling boy and the whole kingdom was lit up. The King’s advisers sent him a letter bearing this wonderful news, but the ship carrying the letter was caught up in a storm and washed up on the beach where the fishermen had first found Penta in the trunk. The wife who had betrayed Penta was walking there and asked the ship’s captain where he was headed. The captain told her everything about the King marrying Penta the Handless and that he must deliver a letter containing great news concerning Penta to the King. Hearing this, the treacherous fishwife invited the captain for a drink and deliberately set out to get him drunk. As soon as he passed out, she found the letter in his pocket. When she read about the baby, she was consumed with envy. She forged another letter saying that Penta had given birth to a little dog, and that the King’s advisers were awaiting the King’s orders. She swapped the letters and put the false one back in the captain’s pocket.

  When he awoke – with an awful hangover – and saw the weather had improved, he set sail again to deliver the letter to the King. The King replied at once, instructing his advisers to cheer up the Queen and tell her that these things happened. She was not to have a moment’s regret because such matters were ordained by heaven and no human being could influence the stars!

  He sent the captain on his way and the gullible captain decided to drop anchor at the beach and visit the fishwife for another drink. Once more she filled him with booze so that he passed out. She read the King’s letter and replaced it with a false one which ordered the royal advisers to burn the mother and son as soon as they read it.

  But when the forgery reached them, the King’s advisers, those wise old men, discussed it for a long time, murmuring and pondering. They concluded that the King was either crazy or bewitched, because he had a pearl of a wife and a diamond of a son and could not possibly be allowed to drop such jewels into the empty hand of death. It seemed better to them to choose a middle way, so they gave the Queen a handful of coins to support herself and her child and sent them away never to return.

  Poor Penta took her son in her stunted arms and set off, weeping and wandering. She arrived in a place which was ruled by a magician. When he saw the beautiful maimed maiden who maimed everyone’s heart, he wanted to hear the whole story of her misfortunes, right from the beginning when her brother had so appallingly mistreated her. After he had heard everything, the magician could not stop crying. But he gave her a spendid set of rooms in his palace and ordered that she was to be treated as his daughter. Then he issued a proclamation that whoever came to his court and told the most impressive tale of great misfortune would receive a golden crown and sceptre that were worth more than the whole country!

  Well, of course, once the proclamation began to spread, more people than there were beetles and caterpillars began to arrive at the magician’s palace. One man told how he had worked all his life at a court and had been given only a lump of cheese for his pension. Another man had been kicked in the arse every day for five years by his employer and could do nothing about it. There was a chap who sobbed aloud as he told how his wife was allergic to him and sneezed without stopping if he came near her, so they had no children. Then there was a woman whose nose was so long that dogs chased after her in the street, barking with delight.

  Meanwhile, the King had returned home and discovered that everything was heartbreak and bitterness. He was about to have his advisers flogged and skinned when they showed him the letter. When he saw that it was forged, he sent for the captain and heard all about the fisherman’s wife on the beach. Realising that she had done all this, he set sail at once and found her himself.

  This time, the wife was plied with fine wine by the King and he got the whole story from her, beginning to end. When he learned what she had done to Penta, simply out of jealousy, he ordered that she be made into a candle. So she was waxed and greased and stuck on top of a huge pile of dry wood. The King himself lit the match and when he saw her dance a horrible tango with the hot red fire, he got up and sailed away.

  Out on the high seas, he passed another ship carrying the King who was Penta’s brother, who told him about the magician’s proclamation. The weak brother reckoned that nobody in the world had suffered the misery and bad luck that he had, and was on his way to try for the reward.

  ‘If that’s the way of it,’ said the King, ‘I can beat you with my hands tied behind my back. In fact, I can beat anyone, my agony and misfortune have been so relentlessly awful. Let’s agree to compete like gentlemen and whoever wins will share with the other.’

  So they shook on it to seal the deal and eventually landed close to the magician’s palace. He received them with the honour due to kings. Then he sat them down under a canopy and asked to hear of all their woes.

  The brother began by telling how disgracefully he had treated his own sister and how honourably she had behaved in cutting off her hands. He had acted like a dog, locking her in a chest and throwing her to the waves. His conscience was a purgatory of remorse and shame. Even worse, he was grief-stricken by the loss of his good and brave sister. If all the sorrows of the souls in hell were weighed against his, his suffering would be greatest.

  When the brother fell silent, the King said, ‘Pah! Your pain is nothing compared to my torture. I found a handless maiden in a trunk and she became my beloved wife. She bore me a gorgeous son, but I had them nearly burned alive because of the trickery of an evil fishwife. They were both exiled from my kingdom and now I can have no peace, day or night, and my blood is like knives is my veins.’

  After the magician had listened to the two kings, he realised that one was the brother and the other the husband of Penta. So he called for Penta’s son and said, ‘Kiss the feet of your father.’

  The boy obeyed the magician, and the King his father, seeing how gentle and lovely he was, placed a golden chain around his neck.

  Then the magician said, ‘Kiss the hand of your uncle.’

  The boy did as he was asked, swiftly and gracefully, and the uncle, impressed by the boy’s manners, gave him a precious ruby and asked the magician if he was his son.

  ‘Ask the mother,’ replied the magician.

  Penta, who had been concealed behind a curtain, came out in a state of rapture. She ran back and forth between her brother and her husband, feeling the love of family on the one hand and the love of passion on the other. They made a triangle of joy, talking excitedly and laughing, making a kind of human music. Then they pulled the boy into the magic circle and the father and uncle took turns in throwing him in the air with delight. At the end of all th
is pure joy, the magician spoke:

  ‘Only heaven will know how happy I am to see Queen Penta comforted at last, because she deserves to be cherished for her wonderful qualities. That is why I started this competition in the hope of bringing her husband and her brother here. I will keep the word of my proclamation and I have decided that the Queen’s husband has suffered most. He will receive not only the golden crown and sceptre but also my kingdom here. With your agreement, I would like to be a father and grandfather to you all, and you will be as precious to me as my eyes.’

  And since he wanted nothing more than to make Penta happy, the magician told her to put her stumps beneath her apron and to keep them there till he asked her to bring them out, when she would have two warm and living hands.

  Penta did as he said and it was true and she held her child’s face in her hands, which were even more beautiful than before.

  Then they were all unbelievably happy for ever, because until you’ve tasted bitterness, you do not know what sweetness is.

  Tattercoats

  A very wealthy old Lord lived in a great palace by the sea. His wife and children were no longer living, but he had one little granddaughter whom he had never set eyes on since the day she was born. He hated her bitterly because his favourite daughter had died giving birth to her. When the nurse brought him the newborn baby, he raged that he would never look at its face as long as it lived and swore that it could live or die as it liked!

  He turned his back and sat by his window staring at the ocean and weeping for his lost daughter and would not move. His white hair and beard grew like sorrow over his shoulders, down his back, twining round his chair and creeping across the floor. His great tears dropped onto the windowsill, and wore away the stone, till they ran away, a salty river of grief, into the sea.