50 Fairy Stories Read online

  The man of peace, however, would not take any hints as to undoing his work of his own accord. All he said was:

  “If ye wish it away, so it’ll be. But then ye’ll only have one wish left.”

  “To leave the steading in such a spot is no to be thought on,” sighed the laird, as he spent his second wish in undoing his first. But he cannily added the provision:

  “And ye may take me with it.”

  The words were no sooner spoken than the homestead was back in its place, and Brockburn himself was lying in his own bed, Jock, his favourite collie, barking and licking his face by turns for joy.

  “Whisht, whisht, Jock!” said the laird. “Ye would not bark when I begged, so ye may hand your peace now.”

  And pushing the collie from him, he sat up in bed and looked anxiously but vainly round the chamber for the man of peace.

  “Lie down, lie down,” cried his good wife from beside him. “Ye’re surely out of your wits. Would ye go wandering about the country again tonight?”

  “Where is he?” cried the laird.

  “There’s not a soul here but your lawful wife and your own dear doggie. Was there anybody that ye expected?” asked his wife.

  “The man o’ peace, woman!” cried Brockburn. “I’ve one of my wishes to get yet, and I must have it.”

  “The man’s mad!” was his good wife’s comment. “Ye’ve surely forgotten yourself. Ye never believed in the Daoiné Shi before.”

  “Seeing’s believing,” said the laird. “I forgathered with a man of peace tonight on the hill, and I wish I just saw him again.”

  As the laird spoke the window of the chamber was lit up from without, and the man of peace appeared sitting on the window ledge in his daisy-lined cloak, his feet hanging down into the room, the silver shoes glittering as they dangled.

  “I’m here, Brockburn!” he cried. “But eh, man! Ye’ve had your last wish.”

  And even as the stupefied laird gazed, the light slowly died away, and the man of peace vanished also.

  On the following morning the laird was roused from sleep by loud cries of surprise and admiration.

  His wife had been stirring for some hours, and in emptying the pockets of her good man’s coat she had found huge cairngorms of exquisite tint and lustre. Brockburn thus discovered the value of the gifts he had thrown away.

  But no subsequent visits to the hillside led to their recovery. Many a time did the laird bring home a heavy pocketful of stones, at his thrifty wife’s bidding, but they only proved to be the common stones of the mountainside. The tower could never be distinguished from any other crag, and the Daoiné Shi were visible no more.

  Yet it is said that the Laird of Brockburn prospered and throve thereafter, in acre, stall, and steading, as those seldom prosper who have not the good word of the people of peace.

  Peter’s Two Wishes

  From Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J M Barrie

  READING TIME: 15 MINUTES

  Peter Pan is a human boy who was left behind in a London park called Kensington Gardens by mistake. He has lived there ever since, a friend of the fairies.

  It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fairies wherever there are children.

  I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretended to be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to be flowers, because there are so many flowers there, so a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dress exactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue for bluebells, and so on. They like crocus and hyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except white ones, which are the fairy cradles) they consider garish, and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch them.

  When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, but if you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quite still, pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without knowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers they have had such an adventure.

  There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Once, twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls’ school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinth gowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then they all stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths. Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming to plant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a handcart with flowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed occupied.

  “Pity to lift them hyacinths,” said the one man.

  “Duke’s orders,” replied the other, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding school and put the poor, terrified things in it in five rows. Of course, neither the governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fairies, so they were carted far away to a potting shed, out of which they escaped in the night without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the parents, and the school was ruined.

  As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they are the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you can’t see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but you can’t see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I never heard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does not mean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ours with light behind them. Their palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and is the loveliest of all royal residences, but the queen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to see what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hard against the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly snubby.

  One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that they never do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy, you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest is always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess.

  The fairies are exquisite dancers, and hold their great balls in the open air, in what is called a fairy ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates.

  If on such a night we could remain behind in the gardens, we might see delicious sights, hundreds of lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing their wedding rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holding up the ladies’ trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter cherries, which are the fairy lanterns, the supper table, with Queen Mab at the head of it, and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion on which he blows when her majesty wants to know the time.

  The tablecloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made of chestnut blossom. The way the fairy servants make them is this. Scores of the men climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the blossom falls like snow. Then the lad
y servants sweep it together by whisking their skirts until it is exactly like a tablecloth, and that is how they get their tablecloth.

  You know, without my telling you, that Peter Pan is the fairies’ orchestra. He sits in the middle of the ring, and they would never dream of having a dance nowadays without him. They are grateful little people, too, and at the coming-of-age ball of the princess (they come of age on their second birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish of his heart.

  The way it was done was this. The queen ordered him to kneel, and then said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it was himself.

  “If I chose to go back to mother,” he asked at last, “could you give me that wish?”

  Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they should lose his music, so the queen tilted her nose contemptuously and said, “Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that.”

  “Is that quite a little wish?” he inquired.

  “As little as this,” the queen answered, putting her hands near each other.

  “What size is a big wish?” he asked.

  She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.

  Then Peter reflected and said, “Well, then, I think I shall have two little wishes instead of one big one.”

  Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother, but with the right to return to the gardens if he found her disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve until he thought of something really worth wishing for. They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.

  “I can give you the power to fly to her house,” the queen said, “but I can’t open the door for you.”

  “The window I flew out at will be open,” Peter said confidently. “Mother always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.”

  “How do you know?” they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter could not explain how he knew.

  “I just know,” he said.

  So as he persisted in his wish, they had no choice but to grant it, and the way they gave him power to fly was this. The fairies tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he felt a funny twitching in that part. Then up he rose, higher and higher till he flew away out of the gardens and over the house tops.

  It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home he skimmed away over St Paul’s to the Crystal Palace and back by the river and Regent’s Park, and by the time he reached his mother’s window he had quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.

  The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep. Peter alighted on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He was very glad she was a pretty mother. But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted to go round.

  “Oh, mother,” said Peter to himself, “if you just knew who is sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed.”

  Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say ‘Mother, ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if it is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry and squeeze him tight.

  But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his mother that he has come back?

  I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the gardens! Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The socks – were they worn on the hands or feet? He was about to try one on his hand, when he had a great adventure. His mother woke up, for he heard her say “Peter,” as if it was the most lovely word in the language. He held his breath, wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said ‘Peter, again, he meant to cry ‘Mother, and run to her. But she spoke no more, and when next he peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears on her face.

  It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first thing he did? Sitting on the windowsill, he played a beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself out of the way she said ‘Peter’, and he never stopped playing until she looked happy.

  He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening her to hear her say, ‘Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play., However, as she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had quite decided to be his mother’s boy, but hesitated about beginning tonight. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might go bad.

  And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, and then he flew back to the gardens. Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for his second wish, and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long. One reason was that he had so many goodbyes to say, not only to his particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had his last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on.

  But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother, he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution with the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick him into making such a remark as ‘I wish the grass was not so wet,, and some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, ‘I do wish you would keep time!, Then they would have said that this was his second wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he began, “I wish,” he always stopped in time. So when at last he said to them bravely, “I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,” they had to tickle his shoulders and let him go.

  He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother was crying, and he knew the great thing she cried for, and that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be left open for him.

  About the artists

  Zdenko Basic Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Zdenko graduated from the School of Applied Art and Design, and later the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts. He uses a mixture of photography and illustration in his artwork, and also works in costume and set design, puppetry and animation. He has won several awards for his artwork, most recently the Grigor Vitez Award (2008) for Best Illustration in Children’s Books.

  Billy Beg, Tom Beg, and the Fairies * Fairy Ointment A Boy That Visited Fairyland * Iktomi and the Ducks Connla and the Fairy Maiden * The Phantom Vessel Iktomi and the Muskrat * The Smith and the Fairies The Laird and the Man of Peace

  Jasmine Foster As a child, Jasmine was drawn to illustrations with a dreamlike quality, and now strives to capture that same sense of imagination in her own work. She enjoys reading myths and folk stories and loves having the opportunity to explore weird and wonderful characters through her illustrations.

  A French Puck * The Fairy Wife * Rosanella * Murdoch’s Rath * The Prince with the Nose * Sweet-One-Darling and the Dream-Fairies * Under the Sun * Paddy Cor
coran’s Wife * Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid and Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby

  Patricia Moffett After 15 years of working as a designer and art buyer, Patricia decided to re-kindle her desire to be an illustrator. She found the developments in image-making software exciting and liberating, and loves the fact that she can paint in virtual watercolour and then send her pictures off across the world through the ether.

  Eva’s Visit to Fairyland * Graciosa and Percinet The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese * Peter’s Two Wishes Christmas Every Day * The Fairy Blackstick The Fairies and the Envious Neighbour

  Christine Pym Since studying illustration for children’s publishing in Wales, Christine has illustrated two children’s books and several greetings cards, all in watercolour and pencil crayon, which is her preferred choice of media. When she is not illustrating, Christine helps to run a small post office and general store in Derbyshire with her partner, and lives with a Yorkshire terrier called Cindy and two goldfish called Athos and Aramis.

  Beautiful as the Day * Betty and the Wood Maiden Drak, the Fairy * The Fiddler in the Fairy Ring Melisande * Master and Man * The Touch of Iron

  Elena Selivanova A graduate of Moscow State University of Printing Arts, Elena has been working as an illustrator with major publishing houses for more than 20 years. Her style and technique have changed over this time, but her desire to make her illustrations for each new book moving and amusing is unchangeable.

  The Fairy Fluffikins * Farmer Mybrow and the Fairies The Hillman and the Housewife * The Fairy Cure The Man Who Would Not Scold * Puck of Pook’s Hill The Treasure Stone of the Fairies

  Katy Wright Growing up on a farm and then studying illustration at University College Falmouth inCornwall, UK, gave Katy a background rich in nature and mythology that has provided her with inspiration for her work as an illustrator. After graduating, Katy packed up her belongings and moved to France, where she can now be found sketching in her little studio in the heart of the beautiful city of Bordeaux.