2632. The invisible cloak

Well! What a successful night Percy the Goblin had. He was returning home after scaring the living daylights out of most of the villagers. His invisible cloak – or rather the cloak he wore to make himself invisible – had been the best thing he had ever bought. When he had tried the cloak on at the stall in the town marketplace, the Witch running the stall said, “It’s you! It’s definitely you! It’s got your name written all over it!”

Who could resist such encouragement? He purchased it instantly. Of course he probably paid too much for it, but he asked for a written receipt so that he could manually change the purchase price and then his wife would say, “Goodness! You got that for a song!”

He had wandered around the village all night. When he saw a possible victim he would pick up something handy and wave it in the air. It looked like the thing was boogying in the air. He would do a little dance with it and the victims would rush off screaming in fright.

The biggest fright he had given anyone all night was a little old lady with a miniature poodle. Percy grabbed the poodle and waved it about. The old lady screamed and stood motionless. She couldn’t move. She was transfixed. Honestly it was the funniest thing he had ever done in his life.

When he got home he couldn’t wait to tell of his adventures, especially the episode with the little old lady and the poodle.

“Show me!” said his wife. “Pretend I’m the little old lady!”

Percy put on his cloak. He picked up a pot off the kitchen table. “Pretend this pot is a poodle!” He waved the pot in the air. He jived frenetically. He even did the splits (as only goblins can).

His wife screamed with laughter. She was helpless. “It doesn’t make you invisible at all dear. It simply makes the viewer see through all your clothes!”

2627. Witch Woke

When Witch Woke caught Hansel and Gretel pinching bits of confectionary off her candy house she grabbed hold of them and dragged them kicking and screaming inside.

Tying them down at the kitchen table she proceeded to tell them that Santa Claus wasn’t true, and the Tooth Fairy wasn’t true, and the Stork didn’t bring babies, and there were never Three Little Pigs, and the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood was about rape, and so on and so forth. She spelt out that their propensity to nick candy off her house was a direct result of the misinformation that had been thrust down their throats throughout their innocent lives. Lies breed venality and sleaze.

When she had ended correcting all the falsehoods they had been fed, as the story itself should have gone, she ate them for dinner.

2618. A fairy story

When Cinderella’s Wicked Stepmother at the ball managed to stuff several classified documents from the palace into Cinderella’s right-footed glass slipper she was confident the documents would arrive safely at her own home. It was customary for her family to use the garage door at night, and having lived in Polynesia for a time they had developed the habit of leaving their footwear at the door. The garage would be quite safe. It was locked at night along with her Volkswagen.

The Wicked Stepmother’s plan had worked. She had pilfered the documents at the palace, and when Cinderella complained that her shoes were a little big, the kind Stepmother stuffed the papers in as padding.

And in the morning, there was the right-footed footwear! The Wicked Stepmother gathered the glass slipper’s contents, made copies, and sent the copies off to the Emperor of China. The threat that had hung over the Wicked Stepmother was mollified – at least for a while. The Emperor knew the secret and had threatened to expose it. He alone knew that the Wicked Stepmother and the Fairy Godmother were one and the same.

2476. Hospital emergency

Doctor: Hold still. I’ve got some of it out with the tweezers.

Cynthia: Ouch, doctor. It hurts.

Doctor: There! That’s quite a big piece. Have you just been to a fancy dress party?

Cynthia: No. I am a real princess. Be more careful. Don’t forget that I’m a princess.

Doctor: You and your parents might think so, but in truth you’re a spoiled little brat. Now hold still. This would be a lot easier if there wasn’t blood all over the place.

Cynthia: But I am a real princess.

Doctor: Yeah right. Anyway, so how did you get all these shards of glass embedded in your right foot?

2474. Life is not always a bed of roses

Apparently beyond all this overgrown scrub and wasteland lies a house with a veranda. On that veranda sleeps a princess on a bed of roses. According to what I read, one kiss and the princess shall awake and the princess and the kisser shall live happily ever after.

That is why I have always brought my machete with me on every foray into the forest. One day, in hunting for the wild boar of the forest, I may come across impenetrable undergrowth. And here now seems to be such a thing. I have been hacking away at the prolific forestation for a good half hour.

There! I can see the house with a veranda. Another five minutes and I should be able to climb the steps to the bed of roses.

And here it is; the most beautiful princess asleep on a bed of roses! I bend down with puckered lips. I kiss. She wakes! She sits up! WOW! I have never seen anyone so beautiful. I am in love! I am bewitched!

Oh! But now I see the kiss has turned me into a frog. Truth is stranger than fiction. Life is never straightforward.

2470. Full moon

It was a full moon. Quite frankly, Charlie was sick to death of turning into a werewolf every full moon. Why can’t he live a normal live like everyone else? This month the full moon clashed with the date of the annual school dance. He rather fancied Betsy-Anne and had already invited her before he realized the clash of dates.

I mean, he couldn’t help it. The sun would go down; the moon would rise; Charlie would turn into a werewolf and pad off into the night.

“Blow it,” he thought. “I’m going to the dance with Betsy-Anne. I’ll tell her beforehand what will happen and she can dump me if she likes.”

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Betsy-Anne said she didn’t mind. And when the moon rose (to be rather ruthless about it) Betsy-Anne thought he looked rather sexy. They danced! Did they dance? They danced the night away. Midnight came sooner than they thought possible.

On the stroke of twelve Betsy-Anne leapt out of Charlie’s arms and dashed outside into her waiting coach. A glass slipper was all she left behind.

2233. The Candy House

The horrible witch pushed Hansel and Gretel into the refrigerator and the light went out when the door was shut. They had a terrible time trying to stay cool.

The witch was busy heating up the cooking range to roast Hansel and Gretel when the woodsman turned up and pushed the witch into the oven. He then went on his way.

Oven doors can be pushed open from the inside, so that is what the witch did and she stepped out back into the kitchen. Fridge doors are not like oven doors; they need the outside handle pulled to open the door. Hansel and Gretel pushed their shoulders to the door – WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! – and the refrigerator fell over on top of the witch and killed her.

Now the door of the fridge was face down on top of the witch’s corpse and there was no hope of escape. That was when the woodsman returned because he’d forgotten his axe. He saw the fridge on top of the dead witch and said “Good riddance to bad rubbish”. He pushed the fridge upright and in doing so accidentally opened the door.

Hansel and Gretel stepped out and the woodsman said “What the heck are you doing in there?” Everyone was very happy because the woodsman was Hansel and Gretel’s father.

He said to his kids, “Just leave your dead stepmother on the floor. Let’s go outside and eat some candy off a drain pipe.”

2213. Twins

(Day 6 of a week of retelling traditional folktales.)

A childless queen was told by a wise old lady that two flowers would grow from underneath her bed.

“Eat one and you shall have a child.”

The queen ate both and bore twin girls. One girl was very beautiful; the other was ugly as sin and rode a goat while waving a wooden spoon. A witch came along and cut off the head of the beautiful twin and replaced the head with a calf’s head. The twins searched the world for the beautiful head and they eventually found it. The girl put her beautiful head back on and the twins escaped to a foreign kingdom.

The king of the kingdom fell in love with the beautiful twin. But the ugly twin would not consent to the marriage unless she herself married the king’s son. The king consented. On the way to the wedding the king’s son was sullen.

The ugly twin said, “Why are you so sullen? Why don’t you ask why I ride a goat?” He asked and the goat turned into a magnificent horse.

The ugly twin asked, “Why don’t you ask why I wave a wooden spoon?” He asked and the wooden spoon turned into a silver wand.

The ugly twin asked, “Why don’t you ask why I am so ugly?” He asked and she was ugly no more. In fact she was the most beautiful princess in the whole, whole world.

(Footnote: Awww).

1978. Bedtime story

A change of tone… This is a fairy story to read to children at bedtime.

Once upon a time a man had three wives. The three wives were very jealous of one another. The first wife caught the second wife and put her through the mincer to make ground meat. She fed the ground meat to the third wife who died having the most terrible convulsions caused by the horrible meat.

The first wife was now the only wife left. When the husband found that she had brutally murdered the other two wives he cut her head off. Out popped a terrible venomous snake from her neck. The snake bit the husband and he died of snake poison.

Now there were four dead people. The snake escaped and has been seen only twice, each time under a bed.

I’ll turn the light out now. Sleep tight.

1936. A lovely award, and a story “Chop! Chop the head off!”

Herb of Prudentia Sit has given me the loveliest of awards! It is the Herb Thinks I’m Special Award. The award simply means that Herb “would like to have a cup of coffee with this blogger sometime”.

It does not require any questions to be answered or anything special to be done. It is simply an honor bestowed! Thank you, Herb. It is greatly greatly appreciated. Make sure you visit Herb’s blog. As a blogger he’s long in the tooth! I don’t mean he’s old – I simply mean he’s practised his blogging skills for many a year!

By way of thanks, I dedicate today’s story to Herb. Thanks Herb!

Battleaxe handed her stepson, Douglas, a machete and said “It’s all yours”.

“I’ve put up for long enough with your three pet turkeys,” said Battleaxe. “They make a terrible gobbling noise all the time, they poo everywhere, they eat too much, and worst of all you spend too much time with them when you should be doing extra school work – especially studying the History of Systemic Racism which you’re bad at. Chop off the turkeys’ heads.”

Douglas loved his turkeys. He had found the baby turkeys wandering around in the long grass on their own after their mother had been killed by a farmer’s dog. He took them home and cared for them. He called each one Gobble, Gobble, and Gobble because he couldn’t tell the difference one from the other.

How does a wicked stepmother expect an eight year old boy to chop off the heads of his three pet turkeys when they were his only friends? His father had died suddenly not long after he had rescued the baby turkeys and now he was looked after by his stepmother who was nasty and cruel and had featured in many a story by the Brothers Grimm.

“When you’ve chopped off their heads,” said spitefully foul stepmother Battleaxe, “you can cut up the firewood and sweep the yard. Then come back for more things to do on my list.”

Douglas went out and called the three turkeys. They recognized his voice. They came running. His stepmother appeared on the scene to make sure he did the job properly and didn’t cave in with scruples. Douglas raised the machete.

“One! Two! Three! Chop! Chop the head off!” screamed the wicked stepmother.

So he did.