Fairy Tales

by Terry Jones

  Then the farmer opened the last of the three doors, that was made of stone. And there lay the witch’s treasure. The poor man had never seen so many precious stones and so much gold and silver.

  ‘It would be a crime,’ he said to himself, ‘to throw all that into the ocean but, if that’s the only way to save Tim O’Leary, that’s what I must do.’

  So he put it all into a great sack and carried it down to the river and put it into a boat and set off for the sea.

  Well, he hadn’t gone very far before he heard singing coming from the back of the boat, and there he found the goblin sitting trailing a toe in the water. In this way, they sailed out into the wide open ocean, until the goblin suddenly said: ‘Here we are!’

  And the farmer picked up the sack of treasure, and he took one last look at it and said: ‘I shall never see such wealth again. But if this is the only way to turn you back into Tim O’Leary, away it goes!’ And he emptied all the precious jewels and silver and gold into the sea.

  ‘Ah ha!’ cried the goblin. ‘Thank you very much! I was never Tim O’Leary and he was never me!’ And with that he jumped into the waves and disappeared with the treasure.

  Well, the farmer went home, and he found Tim O’Leary sitting on a wall.

  ‘Oh,’ said the farmer, ‘because of you, I’ve lost the richest treasure I’ve ever seen,’ and he told him the whole story. And Tim O’Leary put his arm round the farmer and said: ‘Leave the treasure to the goblins. You’ve proved yourself a true friend to me and a true friend I’ll be to you, and that’s worth more than all the gold and silver and precious jewels in the world.’

  THE WITCH AND THE RAINBOW CAT

  A SMALL GIRL WAS WALKING along the banks of a river on a hot summer’s day when, quite by chance, she came across a little house. It had a front door and windows and a chimney and a little garden that ran down to the river, but it was very, very small. The girl could touch the roof if she reached up, and she had to bend her head to look in at the windows.

  ‘I wonder if anyone’s at home?’ she said to herself. So she knocked on the door and waited, but there was no answer. So she tried the door and it opened easily.

  ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is there anyone at home?’ But there was no answer. Now the little girl knew that she shouldn’t go into a strange house without being invited, but it was all so curious and so small that she just had to look inside. So she bent her head, and stepped into the house.

  Everything in the house was perfect, but half the size of normal things. She didn’t have to stand on tip-toe to look onto the tables. She didn’t have to stand on a chair to reach the kitchen sink or look out of the windows, and the door handles were all just the right height. There was a sitting-room with a fireplace and a mirror over the mantelpiece, and she could see into the mirror perfectly well, just like her mother could at home, without having to climb on anything. But she noticed one very curious thing: the reflection of herself that she saw in the mirror was quite grown-up.

  At first she thought it was a trick of the light, and she looked around the room at the other things, but when she turned back to the mirror, sure enough – instead of a little girl, there was a fully grown-up woman looking back at her. She blinked and stared again. It was definitely her reflection: the dress it was wearing was exactly the same as the dress she was wearing, and when she touched her nose the reflection touched its nose, and when she touched her ear, the reflection touched its ear … and suddenly she realized she was looking at herself as a grown-up woman.

  How long she stood there, staring into that mirror, I don’t know, but suddenly she heard the latch on the front door open, and she heard some footsteps coming slowly into the house tip … tap … tip … tap … and all at once she remembered that she shouldn’t be there, so she quickly hid herself behind a little cupboard, feeling very frightened.

  She heard the footsteps go into the kitchen … tip … tap … tip … tap … and then go out of the kitchen and slowly start to come towards the sitting-room … tip … tap … tip … tap. Nearer and nearer they came and the little girl’s heart beat faster and faster, until suddenly the footsteps stopped and turned and went upstairs. The little girl took her chance and ran for the front door, but it was locked. She ran to the back door, but that too was locked, and there was no key. She tried the windows but they were all tight shut, and she couldn’t open any of them. And so she ran back and hid behind the cupboard in the sitting-room.

  Well, she crouched there for quite a long time, wondering what on earth she was going to do, when she heard the footsteps coming downstairs again … tip … tap … tip … tap. This time they turned towards the sitting-room and kept on coming, closer and closer, until they walked right in. The little girl peered out from behind the cupboard, and do you know what she saw? She saw a little old witch in a green hat and a green cloak, and on her shoulder was a cat that was all the colours of the rainbow.

  The little girl didn’t know what to do, so she just kept quiet. And the little old witch stopped and looked about her, and said: ‘Who’s been looking in my mirror? I can see a child there!’

  The poor girl trembled with fright and kept just as quiet as she could, but she heard the little old witch coming towards the cupboard, and suddenly there she was, looking down at her with piercing green eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the old witch. ‘What are you doing in my house?’

  ‘Please,’ said the little girl, ‘my name is Rose and I didn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Didn’t mean any harm?’ screamed the old witch. ‘Didn’t mean any harm? You’ve looked in my mirror!’

  ‘Please,’ said Rose, ‘shouldn’t I have?’

  ‘Of course you shouldn’t have!’ screamed the witch. ‘Now I’ll have to keep you here for ever!’

  ‘Oh please, let me go home,’ cried Rose, ‘and I’ll never come and bother you again.’

  ‘No! You’ve looked in my mirror!’ cried the witch. ‘You can’t go back now! You’ll stay here and be my servant!’

  Well, poor Rose wept and pleaded with the little green witch, but there was nothing she could do. The witch took her up to the attic at the top of the little house and locked her in. The attic had no windows and was bare and dark and full of cobwebs. Poor Rose sat down on the dusty floor and cried, for she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  Suddenly she felt something soft brushing up against her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. But when she looked down she found it was just the rainbow-coloured cat, rubbing itself up against her legs.

  ‘Hello,’ said the rainbow cat. ‘You can ask me three questions.’

  Rose was so astonished to hear the cat talk that, without stopping to think, she exclaimed: ‘But how is it you can talk?’

  The rainbow cat yawned and replied: ‘I would have thought that was obvious – the witch put a spell on me. Two questions left. If I were you, I’d think more carefully about the next.’

  Rose thought carefully about the next question, and then asked: ‘Why doesn’t the witch like me looking in her mirror?’

  ‘A better question,’ replied the cat, stretching itself. ‘She doesn’t like you looking in the mirror because she is the Witch of the Future, and in that mirror she sees the things that are to come. She is the only person that can know those things, and once you know them she’ll never let you go. One question left.’

  Rose thought very carefully about what was the best question to ask the rainbow cat next, but try as she might she could not decide. She thought: ‘If I ask him how to escape rom here, that wouldn’t stop the old witch catching me again. If I ask him how I can get home, that wouldn’t stop the old witch from finding me there …’

  At length the rainbow cat asked: ‘Well? Have you thought of your last question?’

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Rose.

  ‘Very well,’ said the cat, ‘I’ll wait.’

  Just then the door flew open and in burst the witch. She thrust a bundle of old clothes towards
Rose and said: ‘Here is a servant’s uniform. You must put it on, or I’ll turn you into a mad dog.’

  Poor Rose trembled with fright, but she took off her own clothes and put the uniform on. It was grey and drab, and it made her feel miserable.

  ‘Now,’ said the witch, ‘you must start to work for me.’ And she made poor Rose scrub the floors from morning till evening, all that day and all the next day. And when Rose begged to be allowed to do some other work, the Witch of the Future shook her head and said: ‘No! You must keep your eyes on the floor so that you don’t go looking in my mirror again.’

  Poor Rose had to scrub the witch’s floors day in, day out, and at night she was so exhausted that she would go to bed without once raising her eyes from the floor. Day after day, week after week, the witch kept her at it, until poor Rose’s back was bent and her hands were sore, and she never raised her eyes from the floor ever. And she worked so hard that she forgot about everything else until, one day, when the witch was out in the forest collecting toads, Rose suddenly felt the rainbow cat rubbing itself up against her leg.

  ‘Rainbow cat! I’d forgotten about you!’ she cried.

  ‘Well,’ said the cat, ‘have you thought of your last question yet?’

  Rose stopped her scrubbing for a moment, and then said: ‘I’ll ask you my last question tomorrow.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the cat, ‘I’ll wait.’

  All that night, although she was exhausted from her scrubbing, Rose couldn’t sleep. She was too busy trying to work out the best question to ask the rainbow cat, but she still couldn’t decide.

  The next morning she could hardly get up to scrub the floors, and she kept yawning and feeling faint.

  ‘Now then!’ screamed the Witch of the Future. ‘What are you doing? Get on with your scrubbing, girl, or I’ll turn you into a cabbage and make you into cabbage soup!’

  Then the witch went out to the forest to catch some bats. Rose was scrubbing the doorstep, watching the witch go, when she noticed a small bird in the garden, with its leg caught in one of the witch’s traps. Although Rose knew that the witch would be very angry, she couldn’t bear to see the bird in such pain, and so she put down her scrubbing brush and went and released it, and then went back to her scrubbing.

  The next moment, she felt something rub against her leg and there was the rainbow cat again.

  ‘Well,’ said the rainbow cat, ‘have you thought of your last question?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Rose.

  ‘I can’t wait any longer,’ replied the rainbow cat.

  Just then, the bird flew down and landed on Rose’s shoulder, and said: ‘I can tell you what to ask.’ And it whispered in Rose’s ear, and then flew off again.

  ‘Well,’ said the rainbow cat, ‘what is your question?’

  Rose looked at the cat and took a deep breath and then said as the bird had told her: ‘Tell me, rainbow cat, why can’t I choose my own future?’

  At these words, the rainbow cat looked up and smiled, and his colours all started changing and glowing and spinning round and round. ‘But you can!’ he cried. ‘The Witch of the Future has no power without her mirror – break that and you are free.’

  Just then, Rose looked up and saw the witch coming out of the wood towards her. Without another word, Rose turned and ran back into the little house, and took the mirror off the wall and hurled it to the ground so that it smashed into smithereens. Everything went still. Then there was a dreadful scream, and there glaring at her in the doorway stood the Witch of the Future, only she looked a thousand years older. Rose summoned up all her courage but, before she could speak, the witch stumbled and fell to the floor. At that moment Rose heard a creak, and saw the wall of the house start to crumble. So she ran, and she didn’t stop running until she reached the gate at the bottom of the garden. There she turned, in time to see the little house collapse in a cloud of dust, and an ordinary black cat walked out and rubbed up against her legs.

  ‘Is that you, rainbow cat?’ asked Rose. But the cat didn’t reply. It simply strolled off into the wood. And Rose changed back into her own clothes, and ran home as fast as she possibly could.

  THE MONSTER TREE

  THERE WAS ONCE A TREE THAT GREW in a wood not far from here. It was a very special tree. Its leaves were red and its trunk was green and on it grew apples that were bright blue. And nobody ever ate the bright blue apples that hung from the tree, because they knew that if they did they would meet a monster before the day was out.

  One day a boy was walking with his mother in the wood, and they passed the Monster Tree. ‘Oh, can I have one of those bright blue apples?’ said the boy.

  ‘No,’ said his mother, ‘you know you mustn’t, because anyone who eats one will meet a monster before the day is out.’

  The little boy didn’t say anything, but he thought to himself: ‘Piffle!’ and he resolved there and then that he would try one of those bright blue apples for himself.

  So that night, when his mother and father were safely tucked up in bed, he took his satchel and stole out of the house and down the garden and through the village. The moon made everything blue and silver, and the houses looked dark and sinister, and he began to feel a little bit frightened at being all on his own.

  Soon he came to the end of the village, and he looked along the lonely path that led to the wood where the Monster Tree grew, and he felt even more frightened. ‘But I don’t believe in monsters,’ he said to himself, and he set off along the path.

  Before long he came to the edge of a wood. The trees stretched up high above him, and the wood was dark and full of strange noises, and he didn’t like it at all. But he said to himself: ‘I’m not scared of monsters.’ Then he summoned up all his courage, and stepped into the dark wood.

  “Well, he hadn’t gone very far before he heard a hideous noise, and he saw a horrible pair of yellow eyes peering out at him from the darkness, and a terrible voice said: ‘You’ll make a tasty meal for the monsters in the wood.’

  He was so frightened that his knees knocked together, but he kept on walking. And he hadn’t gone much farther when there was an awful screech, and something flew out of a tree and pulled his hair and screamed: ‘The monsters are hungry tonight! The monsters are hungry tonight!’

  Now he was so scared that his teeth started chattering, but he kept on walking towards the Monster Tree.

  And just as he was passing an old hollow oak, a terrible creature leapt out in front of him, with great long nails and burning eyes and fire coming out of its ears and it screamed: ‘They’ll break your bones! They’ll drink your blood! Go back at once!’

  And the boy was so frightened that his hair stood on end, and he nearly turned right round and ran home to his bed. But he didn’t. And the creature gave a terrible shriek and rushed at him. The boy jumped up and grabbed a branch, and then leapt over the creature’s head, and ran as fast as he could until he reached the Monster Tree. He pulled off as many of the bright blue apples as he could carry in his satchel, and ran home as fast as his legs could take him. And when he got home, he jumped into bed, hid under the blankets and ate one of the bright blue apples from the Monster Tree all alone in the dark, and then he fell asleep.

  In his dreams that night he met more monsters than you could ever imagine in a whole year. And when he wroke up the next morning, he told his mother all about the Monster Tree and his terrible journey in the night. His mother was very cross, and she took his satchel and opened it up to throw those apples from the Monster Tree on the fire. But when she looked into the satchel she couldn’t see any bright blue apples – they were just ordinary apples. And that morning, the villagers went into the wood to cut that Monster Tree down, but do you know what? They couldn’t find it. And to this day it has never been seen again.

  THE SNUFF-BOX

  THERE WAS ONCE A DARK CASTLE that stood on the edge of a black and bottomless lake. People said that once the castle had been full of light and laughter, but now it stood empt
y because no one dared live in it, for they said that something horrible lay in the black lake.

  One day, however, a wicked witch came to the dark castle, and gazed down into the dark, deep waters of the bottomless lake. She picked up a toad that was sitting on the bank, and put a spell on it.

  ‘Now then toad,’ she said, ‘I want you to swim down to the bottom of the lake, and bring me what you find there.’

  So the toad disappeared under the water, and was gone for a whole day. At length, however, its head bobbed up to the surface again, and it said: ‘Witch! I swam down, and I swam down, deeper and deeper, where there is no sound, and there is no light, but I could not find any bottom to the lake.’

  ‘There must be a bottom, toad!’ cried the witch. ‘Try again!’

  This time the toad disappeared into the dark, deep waters, and was gone for two whole days. When it came up to the surface again it said: ‘Witch! I swam down and I swam down, deeper and deeper, where there is no sound and no light, and at last I did indeed reach the bottom, but I could not see anything, and I could not stay there, for it is as black and cold as the grave.’

  The witch cried: ‘You lazy toad! Here is a lantern – go down and look again!’ So the toad took the lantern, and disappeared into the dismal waters once more. This time it was gone for three whole days. And twilight fell on the fourth, and still the old witch sat waiting by the black lake. At last the toad reappeared, and said: Witch! I swam down, and I swam down, deeper and deeper, where there is no sound and there is no light, and at last I reached the bottom where it is as black and cold as the grave, and no bird has ever sung. I searched that foul floor by the dim light of this lantern and at last I found this…’ And it opened its hand, and there lay a small snuff-box. ‘Give it to me at once!’ cried the witch. But the toad held on to it, and said: ‘What is my reward?’ ‘Give me the snuff-box,’ replied the witch, ‘and I will turn you into a prince!’ ‘Very well,’ said the toad, and it gave the witch the snuff-box. The moment it did so, the witch burst into a cackle of evil laughter. ‘Impertinent creature!’ she cried. ‘You think I’d turn you into a prince, do you? Very well! I will!’ And with that she waved her hands, and the toad did indeed turn into a prince, but into the ugliest, hunch-backed prince you ever could imagine, with one leg shorter than the other and warts on his face.