Read more

The following is an original fairy story from my recently released fairy stories book called “Songs from the Golden Bird”. If you’d like to purchase a copy of the book, the link is here.

Once upon a time  there was a King and Queen who desperately wanted a baby. One day, the King, unable to see his wife sad for another day, decided to take her to the dark forest, the dominion of the Fairy Queen. They would ask the Fairy Queen to grant their wish. 

The fairies watched the King and Queen with great suspicion. Fairies are capable of seeing the hearts of human beings. They can see if someone glows with a pure heart, or if it is corrupted with avarice or pride. 

The forest normally causes human beings to become lost and walk around in circles forever. However, the fairies could see that the human Queen had a pure heart, and so brought the couple to meet their Fairy Queen. The King believed the fairies had granted them special passage because he was the King and a very important person. 

The Fairy Queen sat on her fairy throne with all her nymphs and fairy subjects floating or seated around her.

“Hello King Aureus, Queen Selene” she said in an ethereal voice. 

“Dear Fairy Queen, my wife desperately wants a baby, won’t you grant her wish?” said the King.

The Fairy Queen had already known what the King would ask. She gestured to a fairy attendant dressed in clothes made of light and silk to bring a beautiful bejewelled box.

“Feed your wife tea from this flower, which grows only where fairies have stepped, and blooms only on the full moon”

The Queen took the bejewelled box from the attendant who offered it to her. She held up the midnight blue flower that had, at the centre of it, a perfect, milk coloured pearl.

The Fairy Queen continued, “When the baby is born, she can wear this pearl. It is a gift from me to the new Princess. So long as she wears the pearl, she will grow more intelligent year after year, she will be beautiful beyond compare and her everywhere she steps, gold coins will drop from her feet.”

The King’s eyes widened as he imagined how rich his daughter was going to make him.

“But so long as she wears it, her heart will be numbed from her,” warned the Fairy Queen.

One year later, when the baby girl was born in the palace, they named her Cordelia. The King had the pearl set into a beautiful golden necklace for his new daughter. When he was putting the necklace on the Princess, the Queen protested.

“I do not want our daughter’s heart to be numbed” she said.

“My dear, if she wears this, our daughter will be the most beautiful, intelligent and wealthy girl to ever live! It is impolite to refuse a gift from the Fairy Queen”

The Queen obeyed the King, and let her daughter wear the necklace.

Read more

She stitched by feeling the fabric and the stitches with her fingers. So excellent was she at her job that people from far and wide knew of her talents and asked her to sew dresses and embroider cloaks. She stitched beautiful patterns she had seen only in her dreams. She only wished she had more money to take better care of the poor children in her village.

One day there was a knock at her door. 

“Who is it?” She asked. 

“I would like to hire you to sew something for me,” said the visitor in a woman’s voice. 

“Of course I would, but I just have too many orders right now. Perhaps you can come back in the summertime?”

“No, it must be done in three days…I can pay you more than all your orders put together, right now.”

The woman’s voice quivered with anger or worry, it was difficult to tell. She was a dainty woman by the weight of her footsteps. She handed Neeve a bag of coins. When Neeve touched the hand, it was covered in rings! The skin was soft as silk. This was no village woman. 

“This is 1000 gold coins, enough for you to eat richly for a year.” Neeve considered her leaky roof and the poor villagers she could feed with this.  It was just three days of extra work.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” she said. 

“I have brought this special fabric. You must sew a tunic from it with these measurements exactly. My aid will bring you to my…house, to deliver it in three days.”

Neeve chuckled, “Dear Lady, I cannot read. Here is a matchstick, trace the measurements on the palm of my hand and I will remember them.”

~

Neeve got to work, but after a few hours, she felt the fabric stinging her hands. She tried to ignore it but they turned red and throbbed with pain. The lady returned the next day to check on her progress.

“My lady, I cannot finish this tunic. There is something wrong with the fabric, although it feels finer than the finest silk. Perhaps I can use some of my own fabric and sew something better—

“Ah, that is impossible” the lady responded.

“Then, you may have your money back, and hire someone else,” Neeve responded.

“If you do not complete this tunic, I will send someone to cut off your hands,” said the lady in a honey voice.

“You cannot do that!” Neeve’s useless eyes stung with tears as the lady got in her carriage and rode away.

Neeve’s friends and the families from the village all stayed with her that night. They cooked her dinner and all consoled her. If that lady showed up again, they would see her right away and kick her out. No one could touch Neeve while they were watching over her.

While she slept, Neeve had disturbing and vivid dreams of the lady. She saw what she looked like. She was a woman more beautiful than Neeve could have imagined. She had hair silver as moonlight, and wore a golden diadem on her head. It was the Queen! 

“Listen,” sang the Queen, “You must complete the tunic, or I will send my guards to burn down your little village…It would be so tragic if you caused that. Look how dearly they love you” the dream showed the crying faces of the villagers she loved. 

“Don’t let them down Neeve, dear,” the Queen said in her sing song voice. 

In the dead of the night, Neeve awoke from the dream. She knew the dream was not her imagination. The Queen was a witch. She got to work right away. In two days time, a royal messenger arrived to collect Neeve and the tunic. Neeve held the package, neatly wrapped in her red and burning hands. She was numb, she was blind. She pulled her sleeves as far as they would go to cover her gnarled fingers.

Read more