bears Posts

09Sep
0

Polar Bears, Penguins, and a Dance Off

Once upon a time, a man tried to fix his window while his three very cold daughters waited inside. Unfortunately, this particular man had never been good at fixing certain things, and the window turned out to be one of those things.

The situation became so desperate that the man resorted to asking anyone who walked by to help him out with the window. The first passer by to agree was a tall, broad shouldered polar bear, who happened to be very good indeed at fixing windows.

“Thank you, kind bear!” the man said when he was done. “Is there anything I can do for you in return?”

Yes, there was, the bear answered. And then he demanded the man’s youngest daughter for his wife.

When she was informed, tearfully, by her father about the arrangement, she just shrugged and agreed to go.

At this point, the narrator feels obligated to share with you certain information: the two elder daughters were dancers, famous throughout their town for their skill. And their younger sister, the one who agreed to go with the polar bear, was always their choreographer.

This is important because as soon as the girl reached her new home, she found a large crowd of bears waiting to be instructed in dancing. You see, the polar bears had long been at war with the penguins, and it had been decided centuries ago that the only way to resolve the conflict would be through a dance off.

The time for the dance off was drawing near, and the bears had no dance.

And so, the girl thought up a dance, and spent her days and some of her nights teaching it to the bears and having them run through the routine again and again. After some time, she discovered that she was actually quite happy living among the bears.

However, she still longed to see her family. When she thought to discuss her wishes with the bear, he agreed, but gave her one stipulation: she was not to tell her mother about the dance off, or the penguins.

And so the girl went home, and was received with much happiness and many hugs. She stayed up long into the night with her family, and before the sun came up, she told her mother about the dance off. And the penguins.

“That’s silly,” her mother said. “Polar bears live at the North Pole, and penguins at the South Pole. How can they dance against each other?”

The bear was cross indeed when he heard that the girl had told her mother, and what her mother had said.

“Now that that’s been pointed out to us, we will have to travel east of the sun and west of the moon, to where the penguins live.”

It was a very long journey, and the girl became worried that not all of the bears would make it. Every single one was vital for the routine.

Luckily, every bear survived the trip, and they danced their hardest and their fastest, and their routine looked even better than the choreographer could have imagined.

However, they did lose to the penguins. Penguins are fantastic dancers.

The End

Source: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Asbjornsen and Moe

Posted by Beatrix Cottonpants in Fairy Tales and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
08Jul
0

Ashley Guppie, Part Two

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ashley Guppie who was really rather anxious. You see, she’d recently discovered that one of her neighbors was, in fact, a bear, and when she had attempted to thwart his attempts to devour herself and her sisters,  the trick had not worked, the devouring had been abandoned, and worse yet, Ashley was sure the bear knew she was on to him.

And now, she was just waiting for him to make a move to keep her quiet.

The whole thing made her very very nervous.

What made her especially nervous was that her two younger sisters had remained friends with the bear’s little girls and still often visited them at home, no matter how Ashley tried to persuade them to stay home.

Ashley finally admitted she needed some help, and joined a support group for victims of magical anomalies. At first she had trouble fitting in, but soon met a young king who was also experiencing anxiety stemming from a walking talking bear. After many conversations, Ashley and the king realized that they were in fact discussing the same bear.

“Ill need to be sure”, he told her one day. “Can you find out what color his purse is?”

“His purse?”

“His purse.”

So Ashley asked her sisters, and they reported back that the purse was dark green.

“That’s the one!” he said. “But I still need to be sure. Can you tell me what weapon hangs over the mantle?”

So Ashley asked her sisters, and they reported back that a crossbow hung over the mantle.

“That’s the one!” he said. “But I still need to be sure. The bear I know had a fine gold ring. Can you tell me which paw he wears it on?”

So Ashley asked her sisters, and they reported back that he wore it on his left paw.

“Oh,” said the king. He sounded disappointed. “The bear I know wore it on his right paw. They must not have been the same bear after all.”

With that, he walked away, and Ashley found herself less anxious, and more angry.

The End.

Source: Molly Whuppie

Posted by Beatrix Cottonpants in Fairy Tales and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
24Jun
0

Ashley Guppie

Once upon a time, there were three sisters: Ashley, Eshley, and Ishley . Now, Ashley was the oldest sister, as well as the cleverest, so she made it her business to make sure her younger sisters were staying out of trouble and not eating poisonous mushrooms and things like that. Usually, she did a pretty good job of it.

One day, she and her sisters came upon a little house some distance away from their own. They hadn’t had neighbors for some time, (not since the incident), so they were overtaken with curiosity and knocked on the door. Inside were three little girls about their same age, and their mother. The girls were very nice, and they played games for the rest of the day, until the girls’ father came home, and hinted to them that maybe they should get home before dinner.

Later that night, Ashley found herself lying awake. There was something off about that father, she thought, but she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

So the next day she took her sisters and went off to play with the other three girls again. She stalled their games just long enough that she was still there when their father arrived home.

This time, she could see it clearly: he was a bear. Sure, he was walking on two legs, wore thick glasses and a tie, and carried a newspaper under one arm, but it was clear to Ashley now that he was covered in brown fur, had a long nose and rows of sharp teeth, and sort of cute rounded ears.

There was no way, she figured, that it was okay for a bear to live in the neighborhood. But how could she get rid of him? She knew she would need more time.

Luckily, her sisters had grown quite fond of the three girls, who, interestingly enough, didn’t look anything like bears themselves. So they spent a lot more time at the house, and one night, the little girls invited them to sleep over.

Ashley made sure to keep her eyes on the bear the whole night, and just before bed, he called all the girls over and said he had a present to give them. He then took out three necklaces covered in pieces of raw meat, and slipped them over the heads of Ashley and her sisters.

Now this was very suspicious indeed.

Ashley waited until the other girls had fallen asleep, then took off the necklaces (which, frankly, were beginning to smell), and put them over the heads of the other little girls. Sometime during the night, she heard a horrible chewing, smacking, gnashing noise, and when it was over, she allowed herself to peek over the edge of the bed. There was a pile of bones there.

Suddenly, Ashley began to feel very guilty. What had she done?

The next morning, she awoke early, and hurried her sisters past the bones, and through the doors. On her way out, however, she noticed something strange: all three girls were sitting at the table, with the meat necklaces on. Their father was there, reading the newspaper. At one point, he looked up over it at Ashley, and his expression was not friendly at all.

The End. For now…

Source: Molly Whuppie

Posted by Beatrix Cottonpants in Fairy Tales and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,
15Jun
0

The Two Bears and Stuart

Once upon a time, a family of two nice bears lived in a house in the woods. It was quite a nice house, with bay windows and a foyer and well suited furniture, and the bears were quite pleased with it. They were pleased with their lives on the whole: they loved to drink tea and go for long walks, and they finally had a pet of their own: a lovely duck billed platypus named Stuart.

One day, they had taken Stuart on one of their lovely walks when something unusual happened. In an uncharacteristic bout of carelessness, the bears had left their front door unlocked, and an uninvited girl wandered in.

The girl had no idea that she was in a house that belonged to two bears. She only knew she was hungry and sort of sleepy.

So, first, she went to the refrigerator. In it, she found two servings of pot roast and mashed potatoes. She sampled the first, but it was too tough. She sampled the second, but it was too soft. On the bottom shelf, she found a casserole made of shrimp, crayfish, worms, and what appeared to be small frogs. She had a taste, and was surprised to find that it was exactly what she wanted.

She ate the whole dish.

Even more tired now, she walked into the living room, where two chairs sat in front of the hunter-skin rug. But the first was too high. The second sunk too low. Desperate for some rest, she sat down on the small cushion at the end of the rug, and found it just right.

Soon, though, the open mouthed face of the hunter staring at her began to make her uneasy, and she decided to move on. On her way out, though, she spotted the bedroom, and figured she could stay a few more minutes. She was still quite tired, after all.

But the first bed was too firm.

And the second too soft.

Finally, she climbed into the burrow carved into the side of the wall. Although at first she found it hard, she realized that with the cushion from the living room, it could be made into quite the excellent napping space. And curled up there, she did indeed fall asleep.

She woke later to the sound of growling, or maybe clucking. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes, something with a furry head and the bill of a duck.

“That’s Stuart’s bed,” someone said.

“And his cushion.” someone else said.

“And his food is gone. Did you eat our pet’s food?”

The girl looked from one bear to the another, and finally, to their duck billed platypus, Stuart.

She was very, very confused.

The End.

Source: The Three Bears, Fairy Tale.  First appeared in print by Robert Southey, 1837.

Posted by Beatrix Cottonpants in Fairy Tales and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,