mothers Posts

16Sep
0

The Baby or the Otter

Once upon a time, a mother wondered what to do about her baby.

You see, he’d started out the normal way, but one morning, she had picked him up only to come to the conclusion that he had turned into an otter.  He was all gray and shiny, with long whiskers, and a laugh that sounded, well, like an otter’s.

However, she couldn’t really be sure. He acted, for the most part, like a regular baby, what with the eating and sleeping and throwing things on the floor so she would have to pick them up. So, not knowing what else to do, she took him to see the wise old woman who lived up the hill and ate shoes (or so people said).

The smell of burning rubber and shoelaces was only faint when she arrived. The old woman took one look at the baby.

“Looks like the otters got to him,” she said.

“That’s what I thought!” the woman replied.

But to be sure the otters had taken her own dear baby away and left her one of their own, the wise woman said, there were very specific actions she would need to perform. The wise woman wrote them out for her, then demanded her left shoe in return.

Back at home, the mother got to work on the instructions. She boiled a pot of water. She built a little ship out of paper. And into the ship, she placed the magical ingredients the wise woman had told her about.

If she had done it right, the paper ship would float along, and not disintegrate.
If she had done it right, the otter-baby would get so excited about the boat that he would jump up and shout out in the language of the otters, and betray himself.

The boat floated, and the baby cooed. The boat floated, and the baby gurgled. The boat floated, and the baby went back to sleep.

What a relief! It seemed he wasn’t an otter after all.

The End

Source: A Brewery of Eggshells, Irish folktale

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

How Seven Little Kids Owned the Wolf

Once upon a time there was a goat who had seven kids. She loved them very much, even though they spent a lot of time crying and arguing and eating more food than she could afford.

Now, she tried not to leave them alone too often, because she knew there was a wolf lurking about who had quite a taste for kids. However, she did have to buy food at least once every week, and after her kids were kicked out of the grocery store for the 7th time, she resolved to go do the shopping by herself.

Before she left, with her metal cart and shopping list, she warned her kids that there was a wolf around, who would do anything to get into the house and gobble them up. She feared they hadn’t really listened, and locked the door double tight when she left.

Of course, the wolf, who had been waiting for ages for this opportunity, sprang upon the house as soon as the goat was well away. He hoisted himself up to look in the window at the delicious kids inside, and rang the doorbell.

“It’s your mother, children,” he called. “Let me in.”

Immediately, the kids saw the wolf in the window and remembered their mother’s warning.

“You’re not our mother,” the bravest among them said. “Our mother does not have the face of a wolf.”

So the wolf, grumbling to himself, climbed down from the window and went on his way.

What he needed was a way to make his own face look like that of a goat. So, he went to the baker and through a combination of persuasive arguments and threats, convinced the baker to cover his face with flour. Once it was perfect, he went back towards the house, past the goat supplies store, the costume shop, the robe maker, and the grocery store.

Unfortunately, it began to rain as he was traveling, and the flour all slowly tripped down his face. He had just started his trip back when he heard a voice call:

“Goat masks! Get your goat masks here!”

He ran in the direction of the voice, and sure enough, the costume-maker was peddling goat masks just outside his shop. The wolf couldn’t believe his luck!

He walked back to the little house confidently, holding the new goat mask up to his face. When he rang the bell this time, the kids let him right in, all talking very fast.

“Mom, did you get cookies?”

Mom, where are the bags?”

Mom, did you get hot dogs?”

“Mon, why would you get hot dogs?”

“Mom, we’re out of peanuts.”

“Mom, I’m allergic to peanuts, and she IS TRYING TO MAKE ME EAT THEM!”

The voices all got faster and more high pitched as the wolf made his way into the house. He tried to examine each kid to determine which he should eat first, but his eyes kept focusing on spilled milk here, a pile of unwashed laundry here, and the wide open window someone could clearly fall out of.

“MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM!”

The voices rose around him until the wolf simply lost the ability to think and fainted dead away.

When the mother goat came home soon after, she was surprised to find the wolf passed out on the ground with a goat mask barely hanging from his face. But before she could even register what happened,

“Mom, the wolf came!”

“Mom, they let him in, it wasn’t me!”

“Mom, the wolf had a mask!”

“Mom, did you get cookies?”

The End.

Source: The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, German Fairy Tale

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

Jack and the Giant Ninja

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack who lived with his mom. Now, things were getting tight, finance-wise, in Jack’s mom’s household, and one day, she finally admitted defeat.

“Well, Jack,” she said. “I think we’re going to have to sell it.”

By “it”, she was referring to her collection. You see, Jack’s mom owned the kingdom’s largest collection of novelty lunchboxes. She was very proud of it, but Jack couldn’t say he was sad to see it go. The collection did, after all, have a bigger room than he did.

By “we’re going to have to sell it”, she meant that Jack would have to load it up, take it into town, and find a buyer. She instructed him to get what it was worth after consulting an authoritative collectibles guide, and reminded him to buy some groceries on his way back home.

It turned out, however, that not very many people had the funds or inclination to purchase collectible lunchboxes. By the end of the night, Jack had sold only one, and was getting really tired of dragging it all around. It wasn’t really surprising, then, that he agreed to the very first trade offer made to him.

“But what will we do with a giant ladder?” Jack’s mom was not best pleased with him. Even after he tried to explain that it was a ladder to the heavens, she went to bed without speaking to him.

Although he meant to wait until the next morning, Jack found himself getting out of bed in the middle of the night and examining the ladder. If he could figure out exactly how it was useful, he figured, he could explain to his mom in the morning, and then she’d start speaking to him again. So he set up the ladder and started to climb.

After what seemed like a very long time, Jack was surprised to find himself in Outer Space. A little further in the distance, he spotted what looked like a nest. Maybe there was something of worth in there.

But when Jack finally reached the nest, inside all he found were ninjas. There were sleeping ninjas all over the place, curled up in corners or hanging from the ceiling. Jack hardly had time to examine the large pile of shiny weapons in the corner before one of the ninjas’ eye opened, and a ninja star narrowly missed his head. Jack took the hint and scrambled down the ladder.

His mom didn’t believe the story the next day, as he’d hoped. So that night he snuck up again and managed a closer look at the weapons before one of the ninjas woke up and let out a whistle. He heard the sounds of blades opening as he hurried down the ladder.

She still did not believe him.

So he went again, earlier this time, and managed to stuff several shiny sharp ninja weapons into his backpack before he heard a terrifying sound behind him. This time, it wasn’t only one ninja who had awoken. This time, every ninja was awake, weapons ready.

Jack hurried down the ladder again, hoping all his practice would allow him to get down faster than the ninjas. He tried not to watch the dark shapes descending on him, but he couldn’t help but stop and stare when the shapes came together and formed one giant ninja with one very scary weapon, who was advancing down the ladder very quickly.

But Jack made it down first, and shoved the ladder over with all of his might.

He sold the weapons, bought groceries and other stuff, and his mom started speaking to him again.

Although he never saw the giant ninja again, or the many smaller ninjas it was comprised of, he was suspected it was out there somewhere.

And he was right….

The End.

For Now.

Source: Jack and the Beanstalk, Collected by Joseph Jacobs and Benjamin Tabart, not at the same time.

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