Granny's Fairy Tale

         Come over here by the fire. I have a story for you child. Have I told you of the day I met a real live fairy?


         ‘Not again,’ thought Jon. ‘Every time I see Grandma Melissa she tells me the same old story. I guess there isn’t any way around it, I’d better sit down and humor her.’


         Melissa sat in her oak rocker by the hearth, a knitting project sat in her lap, which she would pick up and work on from time to time as she spoke. She was settled in for the long version of the story this time.


         “As I remember I was pulled from my sleep by a racket outside. Drowsily I reached to wake your Grandpa Will, rest his soul, before remembering he was in Roseburg for the night. It was chilly for early autumn that night even under the quilts. I really didn’t want to, but the sound of my chickens squawking and raising a ruckus prompted me to get up. I jumped into my heaviest robe and my good winter boots.


         Then I pulled up my hair quickly and grabbed a lantern as I left the house. Outside I didn’t see anything awry in the barnyard or nearest fields. The moon in a clear sky gave light to areas well beyond the lantern’s reach. The chickens, still cackling an alarm, led me out to the milk barn where their roost was.


         "What am I doing?" I asked myself. "It's cold out here and I'm running into a dark barn, in the middle of the night, to investigate a strange noise. I am such an idiot." Other thoughts flashed through my head too, thoughts of a warm bed and wishing your grandpa were there to deal with stuff. I also thought that I was probably going to flush a fox out of the barn and that would be that. There had been a few recent thefts in the area however, and I wasn’t about to risk losing the milk cow or any of the chickens.


         I entered the barn, careful to keep the heavy door from slamming open behind me. Then I stood quietly, watching my breath accumulate in a mist before me; my heart beat the only sound I could hear at first. Then I heard it, a low growl that set my teeth on edge and made the hairs on my neck stand up. "Something really is out here" I thought to myself as I laid down the lantern to grab up an old pitchfork.


         I looked around the barn and noticed one of the bale stacks and some tack that had been neatly stacked were in disarray all over the floor now. Gertrude Thunderbunns shifted nervously in her stall and the noise startled me. I was so tense by then. Some chicken feathers came drifting down from the loft and I looked up into the rafters. There they were, two unnaturally bright yellow eyes falling toward me fast. I had just enough time to raise the pitchfork and catch the large dark owner of those horrible eyes on the tines; it bowled me over with its weight. I managed to roll to my feet and give a push with all of my strength on the handle of the pitchfork.


         An ear-shattering howl issued from the unknown beast. I stared at the ugly thing as it began to tremble, near death. It was so horrifying and ugly and those eyes... I scrambled up away from it totally repulsed, and started to leave it there, then I had a thought that froze me in my tracks. The children, I can't take a chance that it could be a threat to the children, I have to make sure this thing dies. So I went back and stabbed it repeatedly with the pitchfork until its eyes glazed over in death and it stopped breathing. It was horrible, still makes my skin crawl to think about it.


         I went back for the lantern and examined the creature more carefully. It was smaller than I had thought at first, about the size of a lynx, but heavily muscled and covered with short sparse dark hair through which oily, scaly skin could be seen. I had been lucky the handle on the pitchfork was long enough to keep me out of reach of all of those needle sharp teeth and claws. I didn't know what it was, but it sure wasn't anything I had ever seen before.
I found out later that it was a creature called a kobold, but I’m getting ahead of myself.


         I heard another noise behind me, it made my heart leap up into my throat; I spun around pitchfork at the ready, but it was just the cow trying to get an extra helping of hay from one of the bales that had landed near her stall. After a quick check on Gertrude I was about to head for the neighbors house to see if they had any idea what it was I had just tangled with, when a fluttering from behind one of the toppled milk buckets caught my eye.


         Nervously I knocked the bucket aside with the pitchfork, revealing a small luminous shape very much like a tiny child with insect wings. The fairy, for it couldn't be anything else, screamed and fainted dead away at the sight of me leaning over it. I have to admit she intrigued me. I set aside the pitchfork to look at the fairy more closely. She seemed to have been injured, one of her wings crumpled and an arm bent at an unusual angle.



         I was pretty sure that I'd do more harm than good if I tried to tend to the injuries on such a small body. Equally I couldn't just leave such a frail looking creature to its fate. Sighing to myself, because I knew this would be trouble, I quickly improvised a hammock to carry her in, tying the ends of an empty feed sack together on the handle of my now trusty pitchfork. Then grabbing the lantern in my free hand I headed out into the barnyard.



         The walk from the barn door to the house had never seemed so long. Once I juggled lantern and bundle around enough to get inside, I placed the light on the dinner table and gently laid the injured fairy down near the hearth where the banked embers made a little warmth.

          I am not sure why I decided to take off in the night like I did, and leave the kids home alone. Maybe the fairy magic had hold of me already at that point….” She trailed off in thought, but waved her hand in front of her face as if brushing away cobwebs after a moment and continued. “After all they were safe enough inside the house. I didn’t plan on being gone too long, and Will would be home before lunchtime at any rate. I found myself stoking the fire in the front hearth and making sure all the shutters were closed securely anyway.


         After hastily dressing I made the fairy a bed of soft wool in my knitting basket and tried not to cause any further injury by gently transferring feed-sack and all into it. A faint moan from the tiny creature assured me she was still alive.


         Now that I could hold the basket handle on my arm I had a free hand. Hooking the handle of the lantern over a tine of the pitchfork gave me a light and a walking stick.

         Since early childhood I had heard tales of people taken to the fairy world because they had stumbled into a fairy ring at night. Generally, I discounted the tales as a way for a stray husband to explain returning home after a night on the town, but there were some local legends about the ruins on top of citadel hill.


         The place was once a large fortress atop a natural plateau. The walls had long since fell down but there was a palpable sense of power about the place. Most people just didn't go there, there was no reason to. A few locals had camped the night on the hill in years past, and come back with the wildest stories of fairy creatures, weird magic and such. By then I wished I had paid more attention to them.



         A few hours later I knew I was on the right track when a will-o-the-wisp began buzzing around my face and darting off in the direction of the ruins.


         "Follow me; follow me," its almost inaudible cry kept saying.


         The sound both terrible and beautiful made my heart ache indescribably. I knew by then that I was being enchanted by fairy magic, but couldn't ignore the call anymore than I could ignore the need to breathe. I couldn't take my eyes from the swirling beauty of my guide for more than a few moments. At one point I found myself following a small deer trail far off the road. Through the brush we went, over bare roots and under overhanging branches as agile as a deer or a forest cat. Dawn was just breaking when I came upon a well in the shadow of the ruins.


         " Here, bring her, here, here, here." The will-o-the-wisp cried.

         I found myself compelled to tie the basket to the rope and lower it into the well. Slowly the basket disappeared into the gloom, then a faint swirl of light appeared and strains of music could be heard deep within the well. With a brilliant flash of light the fairy ball vanished, just as the sun crested the plateau above me.


         No longer under the enchantment I stood there blinking for a few moments, sorting through the hazy memories of the past few hours. I went to the well and hauled up the rope, my basket was still tied on the end of it, but instead of a fairy laying upon the feed sack as I had feared, there was now a small pile of coins and a delicately filigreed silver ring in the basket. I hadn't expected a reward for the kindness. I had feared that I was too late to help her. I still have no Idea of why, but on an impulse I decided to take one of the coins and toss it back into the well for luck. I was surprised to hear a plunk as the coin hit water below.


         I quickly bundled the treasure into the feed sack and stuffed it into my skirt pocket. Then tried to find my way back to the main road. After a couple of wrong turns I finally made it.


         As I started to trudge home Levi Wheatley, one of the neighbors, rolled up in his cart and offered a ride to town. It was obvious to him I was going there to sell the basket of wool. I would much rather have gone straight home to the children, but I accepted the offer instead of trying to explain why I was out on the road alone so early.

         In the marketplace I decided to go ahead and sell the wool anyway. Using the proceeds and one of the fairy coins, I bought some cotton cloth to make summer shirts for the family. By then it was well past breakfast time and I went looking for my husband. “He’s never going to believe this.” I thought to myself.”

         “The dead kobold in the barn did a lot to prove my story to him though. So did this,” She said holding up a delicately filigreed silver ring.
“That’s a great story Grandma,” Said Jon as he quickly darted for the door having done his duty as a grandson and listened to yet another rendition of Grandma’s fairy tale. “I’m going out to see what Ken is up to.” He added as the solid wooden door swung shut behind him.



         Melissa shook her head and sighed. “See ya ‘round, kid.”


         A small figure flitted out from behind the hearth. “Maybe next time he will stay long enough for the full formal introduction. He made it longer this time than ever before.”


         “I don’t know Megwyn” said Melissa with a sigh, “Are you sure your mother can’t bend the rules a bit on this? I am beginning to doubt I will live long enough to describe the entire circumstances behind our first meeting to him.”