Tell Me A Story
adapted by Amy Friedman and illustrated by Jillian GillilandFAIRIES AND THISTLES (a tale from Russia)
Once upon a time there lived a wealthy merchant and his wife. They owned every
belonging they could ever wish to own, but they had no children. Sometimes
they would ride their carriage into the village, and there they would
see poor people working hard to earn their daily bread. But the merchant
and his wife envied these people because they all had children.
One day the merchant decided that it was time he and his wife had a child of their own, and so he visited one of the poorest peasants.
"I will pay you a good day's wages every day, but you don't have to work," the merchant told the peasant.
The peasant could not believe his ears. "But for what?" he asked.
"For your daughter, there," said the merchant, pointing at a golden-haired girl with bright eyes and a beautiful smile. She sat in the corner playing with her older brothers and sisters.
"Oh no," the peasant shook his head. "You cannot have our Irina. She is the light of our life."
"Then I will make your life a misery," the merchant threatened.
The peasant simply closed the door in the merchant's face, but within days rumors had spread through the town about the peasant and his wife. No one in the village would give them work or speak to them, and the schoolteachers were cruel to the children and refused to teach them.
The merchant visited the peasant again. "Now I will poison your well," he said to the peasant, "and no one in your family will survive."
"Father," Irina cried, "let me go with him. I don't want you all to suffer." And so, with heavy hearts, the peasant and his wife sent their child to live with the merchant.
The merchant and his wife showered Irina with gifts, but she was always sad. She missed her mother and father, and she cried herself to sleep each night. The merchant's wife bribed her with beautiful dresses and silk bows for her hair, and the merchant took her traveling and bought her a lively mare of her own to ride through the fields surrounding their grand home.
"Be happy, child," the merchant's wife whispered to Irina whenever she lay down to sleep. Still, tears streamed down the girl's face.
"I cannot be happy," Irina said. "I wish I could play with my brothers and sisters, and I miss my mother's stew and the smell of the smoke from our woodstove, and my father's hugs."
"But child," the merchant's wife said, "here you have the finest toys and quilts to keep you warm and perfumes and a wonderful cook."
"I love other things," Irina sniffled.
The merchant and his wife were certain that over time they would win Irina's love, and so they continued to shower her with gifts.
A few years passed, but Irina's sorrow did not. She was happy only when she was outside among the animals and trees and flowers. When Irina passed through the woods, the animals ran toward her and not away. The squirrels fed out of her hands, the deer walked by her side, and every tree seemed to bow as she passed beneath it.
One afternoon, on the anniversary of the day she was taken from her family's home, Irina walked through a field of flowers -- daisies and buttercups, poppies and sunflowers. Suddenly a figure leaped out of one of the flower cups and began to dance in the air in front of her.
"A fairy," Irina gasped, and then a dozen more fairies leaped from among the flowers. They reached for Irina's hand.
"Dance with us," the fairies sang, "and we'll bring you happiness." So Irina danced all afternoon and until long after the moon had risen. She was, for the first time in years, happy again.
The next morning she awoke smiling, but she was very tired after all the hours of dancing. Still, that evening, she slipped away to dance again with the flower fairies, and the next morning she was more tired still.
After a while the merchant said, "You look so tired, child. What is wrong?"
"Nothing," Irina lied, for she meant to keep these friends to herself, but that afternoon the merchant hid in the bushes and watched Irina's window. When he saw her run into the field, he secretly followed.
He hid behind a bush and watched as Irina danced with the fairies, and when he saw this amazing sight, he had a brilliant idea. "I'll capture these fairies and sell them for a pretty price," he said, and he sprang out from behind the bush. "Irina," he cried.
Irina shrieked. "Help me, fairies! I want to return to my real home," but the fairies leaped back inside their flowers.
"Go to your home, then," said the merchant, for he no longer cared about her. Now he saw a way to make a fortune. He could buy another daughter even better than Irina, if only he could capture and sell these fairies. And so he reached into a flower, prepared to snatch a fairy, but when he did, the flower turned into a prickly thistle and ripped at his skin. "Ouch!" he cried, and he turned to another, and this one too turned into a prickly thistle. Soon he was surrounded by thistles, and they tore and scratched and scraped at his skin.
Irina, seeing this, began to run, and when she turned back to look, she saw that the air was full of thistle down, falling like snow, covering the cruel and greedy merchant, who was weeping bitter tears and crying, "Please forgive me." But by then Irina had reached her real home.
"The fairy flowers saved me," she explained to her parents. And she hoped that wherever a lonely child lived, the fairy flowers would appear to dance the child to happiness.
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THE CRANE WIFE (a tale from Japan)
Once
upon a time, there lived a sailmaker. Yasuko, for that was his name, lived
high above the sea, and all his life he had looked out upon a marsh below
where hundreds of cranes gathered each summer and fall. He loved the sight
of these stately white creatures. They reminded him of sails, and when
he worked at his loom, weaving his fabric, he imagined he was weaving
crane feathers -- sleek and strong and beautiful.
One evening, during the season of storms, Yasuko heard something crash against his door. When he opened it, he was startled to see a crane lying upon his doorstep, stunned and near death.
He carried the poor creature inside, lay it by the fire, and carefully spread its crumpled wings out to dry. He tended to his wounded crane for many days, and when at last the bird's strength returned, he took it outside and set it free. It quickly flew away.
Yasuko was surprised by how lonely he felt when the crane was gone. It was then he realized that he wished for a wife, and now, when he looked out at the cranes gathered together, he envied them for their companionship. He began to dream of a day when he too would have a companion.
Time passed, and then one night a beautiful young woman appeared at his door. She stood shivering in the evening wind, for her clothes were made of the thinnest material -- material like the fabric Yasuko worked at his loom. "Could you let me inside," the woman begged. "It's growing cold out here."
Yasuko warmly welcomed her inside and offered her a bowl of soup and the warmth of his fire. They sat together all evening, talking.
Her name, she said, was Naoko. Yasuko was entranced by her sweet voice, and her gentleness and beauty soon won his heart. "Please stay here with me," he asked.
She looked up at him with glistening eyes and said, "I will."
"Would you be my wife?" he asked shyly. "I will care for you, though I am only a poor sailmaker."
"Yes," she said softly, "and Yasuko, I can help you."
"No, no, you need not help me," he said, but Naoko was insistent. "A wife must help her husband as she can," she said, and though he claimed that all was well, after a while she saw how very poor he was.
"Let me weave a magic sail for you," she said one night.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Ask me no questions, dear husband. Leave me with your loom tonight, but promise me one thing. You will never look at me while I am at work. Will you promise?"
"I will," Yasuko said, and he swore never to break this promise.
That night he went to sleep to the sound of the shuttles' click and the slide of the loom. When he woke, Naoko stood beside him holding a sail that weighed no more than a single feather yet had the strength of a sail 50 times its weight. And when Yasuko lifted it, he heard the wind in the folds.
"Naoko, you have woven the wind into this sail," he said.
She smiled, and he could see that she was tired, so he put her to sleep while he ran to the harbor to sell the sail. He earned more gold than he had ever earned, and he ran home to celebrate with his beloved.
Time passed, and the cranes returned to the marsh. One night Yasuko spied his wife staring longingly down at them. "They are lovely creatures, aren't they?" he whispered, but Naoko seemed transfixed and did not speak.
One day, not long afterward, a man knocked at their door. When Yasuko saw him, he recognized him as a famous sea captain, and he was amazed to see such an important man at his door. "Yasuko," said the captain, "I have seen the magic sail you made. I need to have one just like that. Make me such a sail, and I will give you enough gold to last you a lifetime. Never again will you be poor."
Yasuko ran at once to Naoko, but when he told her the news, she bowed her head. "My husband, do not ask this of me," she asked in a low voice. "The sail took everything from me last time. I fear what might happen to me if I make another."
"But my wife," Yasuko begged, "we would have a lifetime's gold. We will never want for anything." He pleaded for so long that Naoko at last slipped behind the shoji screen and set to work. "Remember, you must not look," she called to him.
While she worked, he paced restlessly on the deck, looking down at the ship in the harbor.
One whole day passed, and finally Yasuko asked, "Naoko, are you finished yet?" When she did not answer, he continued to pace through the night. At dawn he asked again, and again she did not answer. In this way three days passed.
"Naoko, what are you doing?" Yasuko called on the third day. "Do you need something?" he asked, but when he heard no answer, he could not bear the suspense any longer. Besides, he thought, if he could learn his wife's magic trick, he would not have to ask her to work. He too could weave the magic sails.
He quietly tiptoed up to the screen and peered between the sliding doors. When he saw what was there, he gasped in horror.
A long beak, dark black eyes -- this was the face that turned to him. There stood the crane he had saved in the storm. "Naoko, stop," he cried when he saw that she was weaving her own feathers into the sail.
But the black eyes filled with tears, and without a word, she raised her tattered wings. Lifting herself with difficulty, she flew out the window, disappearing into the clouds.
Yasuko never saw her again. And through the long years after, he wove his sails and watched the cranes below, always waiting and hoping to hear his wife's voice once more.
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