Posted 1:02 PM by laura r.
Some Times You Get The Bear….

By Nora Rónai

In the forest there was a little rhinoceros who was very sad, because no one liked him. No one liked him because in addition to being sad, he was crabby and aggressive. He was crabby and aggressive because he couldn’t see an inch beyond the end of his nose. Practically blind, the poor thing could only see vague outlines of things, and couldn’t tell for certain whether the outline he saw was animal, vegetable or mineral. Just to be sure, he was always trying to gore anything that came in front of him if he thought he might be under attack. While running through the forest he saw a shadow (a tree) coming towards him:
“Oh, that thing has it in for me!” he thought, lowered his heard, and bam, he went after it with his horn. His horn got stuck in the tree, and he only got it loose after a lot of work.
Mrs. Hippotamus was always complaining to Mrs. Rhinoceros: “Your son is impossible! He fights with everyone, attacks everyone, and won’t let the other children alone. You really ought to discipline that boy.”
“My little Oceros?”, mother Rhinoceros replied. “My dear little Oceros is a lovely boy and has a heart of gold. And besides, I think you need to bring up your Potamus properly, he’s not so innocent himself!” and the two parted, each one more irritated than the other.
One day Oceros (you must already have figured out that such was his name) met Potamus. “Do you want to play with me?” he asked.
But the little hippotamus was so scared, after all the stories that he had heard about Oceros, that he started running away, and Oceros followed him, calling out “stop, I just want to play with you.” But the little hippopotamus wasn’t about to stop and talk. He didn’t stop until he reached his mother, an enormous creature, who gave poor Oceros a good scolding: “Aren’t you ashamed of frightening my little boy like that?”
“But I just wanted to play with him!”
“Then don’t be so mean, if you want to play! Haven’t you noticed that nobody wants to play with you?” And she told him to let the other children alone (and especially her son), and went on, and on, and on, and on.
Oceros was crushed. He was so annoyed that he charged the next thing that he saw. And it turned out to be a very prickly hedge. He had more thorns in him than a porcupine has quills. In spite of his rough skin the thorns were very uncomfortable. And so he started to roll on the ground to relieve the itching, but then the thorns went in even deeper, and were even more uncomfortable.
A little bird was watching, and felt sorry for him. He shook his head and said:
“Look here, friend, you are never going to get rid of the scratching like that. If you will allow me to make a suggestion, I would say that you need to pull out those thorns one by one. It’s a slow and tedious process, but if you want, and if you will promise to hold still, I will be happy to do it for you.”
And of course Oceros accepted, with thanks. Nobody had ever called him “friend”. The little bird pulled the thorns out with admirable skill. It didn’t really take so long, and he removed them all from the patient. But the scratches continued to itch a little. Then the little bird told him to go roll in the black mud that was nearby, and said:
“That mud is a sovereign remedy; it’s medicinal, and besides that once it dries it will protect you against insect bites.”
“What does “medicinal” mean?” asked Oceros.
“It’s any thing that heals wounds or diseases. This mud heals wounds and cures any muscle pain,” the little bird informed him.
“How wise you are!” Oceros marveled, already rolling in the mud. “You’re right, I am already feeling better; this is very pleasant.” And he added “What’s your name?”
“Irdie!” came the reply, followed by a similar question.
“Oceros!” our friend introduced himself.
“Let’s play house…” the little bird proposed. “We’ll take some bamboo. You stick them in the ground, and there you go, we’ll have a nice little house, hiding place or fort. What ever we want. You will be the owner, and I will be your pet bird.”
“You really are my pet bird!” said Oceros, who was moved. “I will always be your friend, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
And the two started to play. In a little while they were settled in a nice bamboo house, which looked more like a thicket, but inside there was enough room for two or more Oceroses. And the bamboo leaves made a nice roof which sheltered them from the damp night-air, or even from the rain, as long it wasn’t raining too hard.
It happened that Potamus came passing by. He saw that beautiful house, and asked if he could play with them. Oceros began by saying no:
“The other day you didn’t want to play with me, and so today the one who’s going to be snooty is me.”
But Irdie, who was always in a good mood, managed to get the two to make up, so that the three of them ended up playing together. And the three of them were playing and having a good time, when they heard a tremendous racket: motors, shout, drumbeats, ratting cans; all sorts of things. A horror!
“What can that be?” they said as they pricked up their ears. “I am going to take a look!” said Irdie, and flew off.
He went up to the top of the highest tree, and returned in a hurry, rather apprehensive.
“It’s a group of hunters,” he said, “that has some people beating on things. They are making noise to scare us….”
“Us who? Birds or Mammals?” the two pachyderms asked at the same time.
“Any one of us who lives in the forest. It could be you, Oceros, or you, Potamos, or even me…Who ever gets frightened and tries to run they will kill with their shotguns. Running is no use: we have to stay real quiet and out of sight…”
By this point the hunters had gotten quite close. And that was when a terrible thing happened: Ella, the gazelle, Potamus’s friend, started to run, frightened, from who knows which thicket, became an easy target, and took a shot in her leg, and fell. One of the hunters wanted to grab her, but the boss said:
“Leave her there. We don’t want to waste time now! In a little while, once we have pitched camp for the night, or early tomorrow, we’ll collect them all at once.”
Oceros, as usual, became a real beast. He wanted to charge the men, and there was scarcely time for Potamus to hold him back, while Irdie whispered:
“Are you crazy? Crazy? Or what? Do you want to die and betray us as well?
“I’ll kill them!” Oceros was struggling while Potamus was holding him down (Potamus was much heavier, and wasn’t afraid of him any more… “Let me go! I’ll rip them to shreds! I’ll make mincemeat out of them! I’ll flatten them like I do to snakes! I’ll…..”

to be continued.....

Posted 5:23 AM by laura r.

Eddie

from the Portuguese of Dona Nora


“Eddie! Pfoeey! What kind of name is that for a sprite?”
“That’s how it is with today’s young people, my friend…the mistake was in allowing him to be called Edward in the first place. From Edward to Ed, and then Eddie…it happened just like that.”
“You are all quite right: a sprite’s name should be sonorous, like Archiboldus, Euphrasius, or Ludovicus…”
“Or even Commodore, who knows.”
“Wait just a minute! What do you have against my name?”
“Nothing, nothing, Commodore. Just joking…but Eddie is really too much! You see what it’s led to!”
“Well, nomen est omen, as they say in Latin, or to put it plainly, you might have expected it with that kind of name.”
That’s how the conversation was going – everyone being snippy about young Eddie, at a meeting of sprites in the clearing of the Forest of the Enchanted Lake. Their concern with Eddie even made a certain amount of sense, since he had apparently been behaving in a not very “spritely” way, if I can put it like that. You know that the sprites are very helpful little men, always ready to help people in distress. Well, Eddie didn’t seem to be like that at all. Everytime that they called him to help someone, he found some kind of excuse and didn’t go. Sometimes he even promised to help out, but when it was time to be there he didn’t show up, and would always come up with some patched-together excuse.
For example, there was the time when the King’s tailor got sick…the poor man needed to have a royal mantle ready for the following day, for the opening of Parliament. He was quite feverish, fell asleep next to his sewing machine…and the sprites decided to finish the job for him. They called on Eddie….
“Sewing is women’s work! I won’t do that!” he answered.
Another time a boy fell behind with his homework, and went to sleep thinking that he would finish it the next day, before going to school. But he was so tired that he overslept. When the sprites saw that they decided to give him a hand. They called on Eddie: “The boy is really lazy…if I help out he will just get worse. He didn’t do the work? Let him get a bad mark in schooll! That’s what he deserves!”
And another time a secretary took an urgent task home with her. She had about twenty letters to be typed before the following day. She had just finished typing the twelfth letter when her baby woke up crying. He wasn’t feeling well and the poor girl had to look after him, give him medicine, rock him on her lap, call the doctor…the sprites thought that she deserved some help and called on Eddie:
“Not letters! Anything but that! You know that I don’t know how to write letters! I don’t write to anybody! I hate writing!” he answered.
What he liked was to go for a walk, especially at night. He would go into the city, go into the bars, listen to the conversations on the corners, amble through the shopping centers and look at the girls that were shopping there. Quite innocently of course! First, because he was so tiny that no one would notice him; and secondly because he already had a girlfriend, whom he liked a lot. Her name was Eunice (everyone called her Nini – o, those young people!), a little nymph just as tiny as he was, and very pretty.
During his walks, Eddie liked to go where they were playing pinball. First, just to look; and then later, he began to whisper advice to the people that were playing. It was instantaneous advice. He would stay behind their ears and suggest what they should do, and so quickly that it seemed as if they had thought of it themselves. And the scores were record-setting.
“Wow, what luck!” they said, and walked out holding their heads up high…
As time went by Eddie discovered video games, which were even better, in houses where there were children. He would go into the houses and join in, like he had done in the pinball arcades. And then there were computer games. They were the best! He would hang around and kibitz while people were playing.
The computers had a strange power over him which he couldn’t shake. He would wait for the players to go to bed, and then he would begin to peruse the manuals, read about the programs, and even poke around inside the machines themselves. The sprites were still trying to get him to help out now and then.
“Eddie, there’s a crippled carpenter who needs to finish six cane-bottom chairs. His helper disappeared and…”
“Yeah? So what?” Eddie answered, in a rather disrespectful way.
“He must have fallen into some bad habits. If it keeps up like this we’ll have to have a fairy, or maybe even a wizard for help” the sprites sadly decided, and ran off to help the carpenter.
In a short time Eddie knew everything – absolutely everything – about computers. He was getting less interested in games and more interested in serious programs; and even more interested in fixing computers with problems. When he saw one with a bunch of people standing around it, trying to figure out what the problem might be, he got really excited: he would hover behind the ear of the most competent one and whisper advice. If they managed to figure out the problem, fine…if not, he would wait for them to go on their way, and then he would really get to work. He wouldn’t rest until it was up and running again.
And that’s why people think that computers are “temperamental”. “Just imagine, yesterday I couldn’t get it to work at all. And today I turned it on and it’s working fine! I can’t get it at all.”
And that was Eddie’s secret life, but nobody knew anything about it in the forest, except for Nini.
Well, one day Commodore appeared, breathless, riding on the back of his friend Ulla, the owl, who always gave him a lift when he was in a hurry.
“Folks, we need to help out, and in a hurry. The central computer at Dr. Svanson’s hospital crashed. No one knows why, but it needs to be fixed right away, because it has all the medical information for the patient, and it controls the monitors in the ICU!”
“The what?”
“The ICU – the Intensive Care Unit, where the serious cases are taken.”
“Oh, then it’s really urgent!” said the sprites. And they looked at each other, not knowing what to do.
“Do you know anything about computers?”
“Not me!”
“And you?”
“Me neither.”
“And you?”
And the third sprite got a little irritated: “What a ridiculous question? Come on! Nobody knows about computers here in the Forest of the Enchanted Lake. We don’t have computers. In fact, I barely know what one is!”
“Excuse me, but there is somebody! Somebody who really knows a lot about computers!”
It was Nini.
“Who? Who?”. Everyone was talking at once.
“Eddie!” she answered proudly.
“Hee, hee, hee! Ha, ha! Ho, ho. Ho!” echoed the sprites laughter. “Eddie! That’s really something! That lazy good-for-nothing is barely even a sprite. We can’t believe that Eddie knows a lot about anything!”
“Well, you’re just a bunch of unfair stick-in-the-muds! You don’t know how valuable he really is!”
“Well…” said Commodore. “Does anyone have a better suggestion?”
And of course nobody did. And so they asked Nini to find her boyfriend right away. It didn’t take more than two minutes (nymphs and sprites are very quick) and there was Eddie, ready to get to work:
“Where’s the computer?”
“Let’s go!” said Commodore. “Saddle up on my friend here, who will take us right to the hospital.”
I don’t need to tell you that Eddie fixed the computer in just a few minutes, and even gave them some tips on how to make better use of it. Every one was dumbfounded. The Queen of the Fairies (Dr. Svanson’s wife) took the little sprite in the palm of her hand and gave him a kiss right on his nose.
“You sprites from the Forest of the Enchanted Lake are just amazing!” she said. “You never let me down. You are just brimming with good will, competence and dedication.”
“Thank you, your Majesty!” said Commodore and Eddie at the same time, bowing deeply.
On the way home Commodore, a little embarrassed, asked his young companion to forgive him.
“We misjudged you. But in the end your basic spriteliness came through! You just needed to find your vocation. Can you forgive us?”
“Of course, old chap! Of course! No problem!”
Eddie was welcomed back to the forest with parties and ceremonies. The sprites lined up to say that they were sorry they had misjudged him, and shook his hand.
“It’s OK, it’s OK, folks! Thanks, but now I have to get back to work.”
And with that Eddie flew off to the city to poke around some more computers.

Posted 3:06 PM by laura r.

Archiboldus and Hermengarda

If you haven’t seen the Forest of the Enchanted Lake, you’ve really been missing something; you don’t know what really big, beautiful virgin forest is like. The forest floor is the softest moss. If it weren’t for the dry leaves, which could be hiding a little snake, you could walk around it as much as you like, barefoot. The trees are enormous, and centuries old, and most of them are hardwoods: jacarandá, pequiás, ipês, pepper trees, and many more that even I don’t know the names of. Their trunks are full of bromeliads and orchids. Among the branches live thousands of little birds, squirrels and monkey. There are butterflies and dragonflies…and even some mosquitos when it has been rainy. But seeing such a beautiful place is worth a mosquito bite or two.

Deep in the forest there is a mirror of greenish blue water. That is the enchanted lake. Its waters are as pure as can be. By the shore the sandy bottom, bright and clean, is visible through the crystalline water. But out in the middle the bottom can no longer be seen. People say that it is a bottomless lake that goes all the way to the center of the earth, but that’s not true, of course. It must be only about one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet deep. The waters of the lake come from the Golden River, which enters at the upper shore, and leaves by the lower shore, in search of the sea. There are many beavers which live by the shores of the Golden River.

The beaver likes to make its home in the water. Do you know how? He gnaws his way around the trunk, until it falls. And then he cuts the branches and the trunk into convenient pieces and carries them into the water. With wood, stones, and mud he builds dams, and each dam creates little pools in the water. In each pool a beaver and his family make their home. The door is under the water, and inside there is vestibule where the beaver dries himself before he goes into the house. And in the pool he also hides his larder, with food for the winter.

How does he manage to get into his house under water? It’s easy! That is…it’s easy for the beaver, who can stay under water for up to fifteen minutes, and is a heck of a good swimmer. He swims with his paws, which look like fins, and he uses his tail as a rudder. If I were a beaver I would already have an Olympic medal for swimming!

Near the lake there is a cavern: the Blue Cavern, full of crystals that glow with a bluish light every time that a stray sunbeam manages to get in through a crack.

And in this cavern lived and worked Archiboldus, the sprite. He was quite old, and had a looooong white beard, which was so long that he stumbled over it every now and then.

Archiboldus was a master of fine woodworking and five hundred years ago he was already the most respected maker of magic wands that you could find. From the various hardwoods of the forest he chose the most beautiful and long-lasting ones. He took the straightest branches, and always with the appropriate dimensions: big branches for extra-large wands for the wizards; somewhat smaller branches for the fairies; and very delicate ones for the little wands for the tiny fairies. He kept the branches in a storeroom in his cavern, for year and years, so that they would age properly. Only then would the sprite clean them, sand them down, bathe them in various aromatic natural resins to strengthen them, and finally cover then with a number of coats of varnish, sanding them nicely between one coat and the next. For the most discriminating fairies he even decorated the wands with intricate designs.

But don’t think that the wands were ready just yet. They needed to be energized by a gathering of fairies and wizards. It went like this: the Queen of the fairies would order a certain quantity of wands. Then she would bring together some of the most powerful fairies from her court, and some wizards that she could trust. They would put the wands on a big gold tray, beneath a little skylight, through which the sun’s rays only would enter at noon, and they would concentrate on the tray. At the exact moment on which the sun’s rays illuminated the tray, the fairies and wizards would point their own super-powerful wands at the new wands, and would utter together the words of the magic spell.

As the years went by, Archiboldus began to feel tired. He was getting distracted and sleepy. He was always cutting his hand with the saw or the XXXformaoXXX, and he couldn’t keep up the same work schedule as he always had. That was when the disaster happened! One day he went to take a nap. Sprites don’t sleep as a general rule. They stay awake for months in a row, but then they may sleep for an entire week. Well, our friend was so exhausted that he didn’t even wake up when his cavern was invaded by a gang of beavers. “These would marvelous for building a nice dam!” the head beaver exclaimed when he saw Archiboldus’s stock of magic wands. And so they took his merchandise with them to the river, where they used them in several construction projects. Luckily they didn’t discover his supply of wood being aged for wands, at the back of the cavern….

When he woke up Archiboldus was in a panic. If he had had a hard time keeping up with demand before the theft, what was he going to do now? He decided to look for an apprentice. He put an announcement in the Sprite’s Daily Register: “Master Archiboldus seeks young and talented apprentice for fine woodworking. Please come to the Blue Cavern, near the Golden River.”

The witch Hermengarda was rolling on the floor laughing when she read the advertisement. She was very nosy, and always managed to get a copy of that newspaper, which she would read from cover to cover, in order to stay informed. “Oh, you old fool! Thanks to you I will be able to annoy that boring Queen of the fairies and her whole court of useless toadies”, she said, rubbing her hands together in gleeful anticipation.

And that very moment she began to make a potion that would transform her into a sprite. That was child’s play for a such an experience witch. Once she had turned into a sprite, she left in a rush for the Blue Cavern, so that she would get there before any real sprites arrived.

She introduced herself to Archiboldus as Ling-Kung-Kio, inventing a story - that she came from far away, from Indo-China - so that the nice old sprite would not be surprised that he had not met her before.

“Look, I make magic wands. Do you know how you make a magic wand?” asked Archiboldus. “Of course I know! It’s what I do best!” answered Hermengarda, and added “It just so happens that that was my job there in Indo-China.” “Then make me one, so I can see your work”, the sprite requested, handing the witch a nice dry wand from his supply. “A nice ebony branch!” Hermengarda commented, showing that she knew about woods. And, in fact, she produced a magic wand that no one could have found fault with. Nicely sanded, nicely bathed in various aromatic resins, and nicely varnished.

Archiboldus was quite satisfied! “This boy is heaven-sent!” he thought to himself. He showed the fake Ling-Kung-Kio his supply of material and went peacefully to sleep.

That was what the witch was waiting for. She went out into the forest looking for branches from the most ordinary trees that she could find: low-quality pine, all full of knots;
paineira; cypress; and so on…Then she sanded them so that you couldn’t tell just by looking at them that they were ordinary wood. If they didn’t have too many knots, she would saw them in half and disguise the cut with wax. Afterwards she varnished the wands with the cheapest varnish, but well-sanded and varnished, and imitating as well as she could the real magic wands.

When the Queen of the fairies sent through a new order, the fake sprite delivered those
inferior wands. After being energized as usual, they were passed out to the novice fairies and to those who for some reason wanted to exchange their old magic wands.

You can’t imagine the chaos that ensued…When a fairy godmother wanted to transform Cinderella into a Princess, she would say the magic words, and wave her wand, but it would break in half, and Cinderella would end up a Princess from the waist up, and Cinderella from the waist down, or vice-versa.. If a fairy tried to put the people in Sleeping Beauty’s castle to sleep, half would fall into a deep slumber under a starry sky, while the other half would stay wide-awake under a brilliant blue sky with a noon-day sun! And it was funny to see the Prince who the fairy had tried to change into a Beast: one leg human, the other beast; a human nose, and a beastly ear…a horror! And the Queen and her assistant had to run all over to put things right again.

Exhausted by all the confusion, the Queen asked Commodore to take a look at Archiboldus’s shop, to find out what was going on. The owl, an old friend, brought the sprite, in the still of the night, to the Blue Cavern. Commodore settled down nearby, at the top of a tree. He saw right away that Archiboldus was sleeping. His apprentice was hard at work in the cavern…but our friend couldn’t see what the apprentice was up to. At that moment a witch appeared beneath the tree.

“Hermengaaaarda! Hermengaaaarda!” she started calling. And the fake sprite came running, holding her finger to her mouth: “Shh, be quiet, Cunigunda…you’ll wake up my boss!” “Your boss, that’s a good one! You really snookered the old guy, didn’t you? You’re the best! That’s why I am your friend…I was really worried when you didn’t show up at our weekly witch meeting. I had to use my auto-locator to find where you had gotten to!” said Cunigunda, with a sincere tone of admiration in her high-pitched voice. “Shh, shut up and get out of here” whispered the other witch energetically. “Otherwise you’ll spoil everything.” They said goodbye, and each one disappeared into the darkness: one towards the cavern, and the other into the forest. “So that’s what’s up!” said Commodore to the owl. “Take me home, quick.”

Once home, he opened a chest, where he kept various mysterious objects. He took out a net made with of delicate magnetized steel links. That’s the only kind of net that you can use to catch a witch.

The poor owl almost dropped dead from so much exercise, because he had to take Commodore and his net back to the tree by the Blue Cavern. But finally they managed to land safe and sound, with the net and everything.

Then, imitating Cunigunda’s voice (something that he was very good at), he began to call: “Hermengaaarda! Oh, Hermengaaarda!” She came out of the cave XXXuma araraXXX:
“Shut up, you idiot! Are you nuts? Didn’t I tell you to get out of here?” “Hermengaaarda!” Commodore called once more. Hearing that the voice had come from the tree the witch came over and looked around. And with that Commodore threw the net over her, and quickly pulled tight the ribbon of steel that closed the mouth of the net.
The false sprite began to struggle and shout, but it was all in vain. She couldn’t manage to get free! In the meantime, the owl flew rapidly to the castle, to tell the Queen what had happened. “We must bring her here” ruled the Queen. “Not me, Majesty”, complained the owl, huffing and puffing. “Just carrying Commodore and the net was almost enough to do me in…” “Amanda!” the two exclaimed together. They had both remembered the eagle at the same time. “Go quickly to call her!” ordered the Queen.

Amanda, as she usually did, was rude to her colleague when she arrived, and rather irritated “…always me; only me; I don’t know why I continue to put up with you!” “Because the Queen pays you extremely well”, the owl retorted.

But when she learned what the job was, she brightened up. “Ah, if it’s a matter of bringing that rascally Hermengarda I’d even do it for free. That wretch is always after the poisonous plants that I use to make my nest, so she can make her potions. If you want I will give her a good pecking; I’ll put out her eyes; I’ll pull off her noses; I’ll…” “No, that’s not necessary. We just have to hurry, before the other witches come to rescue her”, interrupted the owl. “Let’s go!” said Amanda, and flew off so quickly that the owl was completely out of breath when she caught up.

The fake sprite had turned back into a witch, and her red eyes burning and her mouth foaming with rage, was biting the net and shouting “You are going to regret this; I am going to turn you all into green frogs!” Then she tried to bribe them: “If you’ll let me go, I will give each one a mountain of gold!” And finally, seeing that it was no good, she started to shout “Help….Cunigunda…Help..!” But by this point she was shouting into the air, because Amanda had picked up the net in her powerful talons with the witch inside, and was already delivering it, by air mail, to the castle, while Commodore followed behind on the owl.

They deposited their strange package in the middle of the courtyard of the castle, where it was soon surrounded by curious people: fairies, elves, sprites, etc. The Queen and her court began to deliberate on what was to be done with the witch. They couldn’t kill her, since fairies – by definition – must be good and not do that sort of thing. And for the same reason they couldn’t beat her either. On the other hand, if they let her go, she would go back to her witchery. Keep her prisoner? Very dangerous! Casting a spell to make her good might work for awhile, but later, since she was a witch, she would return to her naturally cruel state…

“Wait a minute”, Doctor Bjorn Svanson, the Queen’s husband, intervened. “Recently I have been studying fairies’ brains, and I discovered that in the frontal lobe, there is a little dial which goes from “super good” through “good”, “regular”, “bearable”, all the way to “the worst” and “unbearably wicked”, which is on the side exactly opposite “super good”. The pointer, in the case of fairies, is always pointing to “super good”. If there is a similar dial in witches, we could theoretically change the position of the pointer in Hermengarda’s head, and she would be good forever. It would be a relatively simple operation…”

“Let’s try”, said the Queen! And with a wave of her wand, she put the witch right to sleep. Doctor Svanson, quicker than quick, made a little incision in Hermengarda’s head, and with a special apparatus, looked inside. XXX Nao deu outra! XXX There was the dial, with the pointer pointing to “unbearably wicked”. The Doctor ably moved the pointer 180 degrees, and replaced the piece of bone that he had removed. With another wave of her wand, the Queen healed the incision.

When she woke up Hermengard had no problem getting out of the net because, since she was no longer a witch, it had no power over her. Rubbing her eyes, she asked “What’s going on? How did I end up here? I should be in the Blue Cavern, helping my poor Master Archiboldus!” And as she spoke she was turning into a sprite, but this time she was one for real! Still a little dizzy, she asked to be excused and went out running in the direction of the Enchanted Lake, and the Blue Cavern, where, as soon as she arrived, she set about meticulously making impeccable magic wands.

When Archiboldus woke up and saw his apprentice working so hard, sighed once more “He is really heaven sent!”

Posted 2:54 PM by laura r.

Crystal

from the Portuguese of Dona Nora

In the garden of the Queen of the Fairies, there were many trees and flowers; many little birds, the kind that sing beautifully; and there were fireflies, dragonflies and butterflies as well. All in order to spread music and sweet smells through the air, and to adorn the garden, which was supposed to be the prettiest garden in the whole world.
Among the butterflies, there was one, the Queen’s favorite, who, if you looked at her closely, was not really a butterfly, but a tiny little fairy with big bright colorful wings. Her body was just the size of Manoela’s little finger, and just perfect. She looked like a little Barbie.
The little fairy, whose name was Crystal, was happy, good, and obedient, just like every fairy ought to be, but she had to be even more obedient than the others, because she was so small that she had to be careful all the time.
Why? Because, for example, she could be devoured by some insect or creature that was bigger than she. Or she could be suddenly carried away by any gusty breeze. And her magic wand, which was tiny and rather weak as well, would be of no use if something really dangerous happened.
And so the Queen and the other fairies were always a little concerned, and kept an eye on Cyrstal, so that they could see where was going and what she was doing.
She was not supposed to leave the garden, where all the insects and creatures were tame and her friends. And every time that they called her she was supposed to go running (that is, flying) back to the castle.
But every now and then she ventured as far as the fence. And what did she see on one of those occasions? A bee, caught in a spider’s web, on the other side of the fence.
She didn’t hesitate: she jumped over, and patiently, being careful not to get caught herself, she began to untangle the bee, and said: “keep still, or else you will just get even more tangled.” She also had to watch out for the furious spider, who began to attack her. But every time that the spider came closer, our little friend, who was much more nimble, jumped up and looped a strand of the web around her, until she was completely immobilized. And then the bee, who was already free, flew to the next leaf and waited there for Crystal to free the spider, because since she was a good fairy, she didn’t want to leave her there all tied-up and defenseless.
They went back to the garden together and the bee said “Look, Crystal, I am eternally grateful to you. If you should need me, all you need to do is call, and I will come right away, ok? My name is Zzzzzzeferina.” She said goodbye, and returned to her beehive, which is where bees live.
Crystal didn’t get into trouble, but only because the fairies could see that she had misbehaved for a good reason.
Another time she was kneeling on an ipê leaf, and licking the honey from an ipê flower, just as if we were to lick a great big delicious lollipop.
Suddenly, in a corner of the sky, a black cloud appeared, and it was getting bigger and darker by the moment. The fairies were worried, and shouted to Crystal to come in right away. But just as they were shouting it thundered so loudly that the little fairy – poor thing – didn’t hear them at all. She had already been thinking about going back to the castle…she just wanted to lick up the last little drops of honey from the leaf.
“Crystal, come in right away!” the fairies shouted again. But then there was such a strong wind that Crystal couldn’t fly, but had to hold on to the leaf with all her strength.
The wind redoubled its fury, and ripped the leaf from the tree, with the poor fairy holding on to it for dear life with both arms and both legs.
The fairies ran out to the garden, but the leaf had already gone far away, and nobody knew where it had gone, since it had begun to rain so hard that you couldn’t even see the end of your own nose.
Frightened, they went back to the castle. The Queen declared a state of emergency and ordered them to call Comodoro, who as you know, is the sprite in charge of helping children in distress.
While the Council was deliberating, the gale was carrying the ipê leaf with Crystal on board ever farther and farther away, until finally, in a rage, it threw it into a puddle. Luckily the leaf fell with the side where our little friend was clinging upwards.
The leaf, which had now become a boat, began to slowly slide down a little stream of water out of the puddle, into a larger channel. From there it went into what seemed to be a dark tunnel but was really a drain pipe for rain water. Crystal almost drowned in the pipe, but at the last instant the pipe emptied into a brook. After a while the brook reached a river, which in its turn flowed out into the sea.
The whole time Crystal couldn’t do anything, because her wings were soaking wet and stuck to her, and she had to cling tightly to the leaf, since the tempest was still blowing ferociously. And, what was even worse, a grain of sand blown by the wind struck her left shoulder so hard that it gave her a very painfully wound. She couldn’t even manage to get her wings unstuck.
But she tried to shout. She shouted as loud as she could “Zzzzzzeferina! Zzzzzzeferina!”She also tried to call for Comodoro, her old friend. But it was all in vain: her little voice was just a whisper compared with the howling of the wind, the thunder from the lightning bolts, and the pounding of the rain.
In the sea there were enormous waves that tossed Crystal’s leaf back and forth, until a current carried her to a beach on an island where the tempest had already subsided.
Crystal, all filthy and muddy, washed herself in the clean water of the sea, stayed a while drying herself in the remaining breezes from the storm, and in the sun which timidly began to show its face through the clouds.
She looked distractedly toward the sea, and saw a lot of dolphins, who were jumpingly nervously, and whistling, all at the same time.That’s the way they talk, by whistling. In the middle of the group there was one dolphin who looked especially upset, who seemed to be crying and thrashing around, disconsolate.
Crystal, whose wings were already dry, flew there, and hovering over the water, asked them what was happening. They explained that the gale had blown an enormous cinder into the dolphin’s eye when he had playfully jumped out of the water. Now he couldn’t seem to get it unstuck, no matter how much he dived…and his companions didn’t know how they could help, since there was no way to get it out of his eye with their flippers. “I’m going to try!” said Crystal. But would the dolphin let her get close enough to help?
It was then that the little fairy remembered her magic wand. It’s true that it wasn’t very powerful, but maybe it would be able to help with a cinder. She asked the dolphin to open his eye, just for a moment. She didn’t get too close, so she wouldn’t frighten the patient. When he opened his eye, Crystal pulled out her wand, gestured, and zip-zap, abracadabra! “Bad cinder, I hereby order and command you, get out of that eye right now!” And do you know? It worked. The dolphin was all better.
They were all happy and very grateful, and they became Crystal’s friends. They wanted to know that they could do for her. The little fairy explained that she needed to go home to the castle of the Queen of the Fairies, and so she needed to cross the sea. She could try to fly, but she was scared: a new gale could knock her down into the water, or a seagull, thinking she was an insect, could swallow her up. And if it started to rain again, her wings would get wet, and then she would be done for.
“No problem!” said the dolphins. “We can swim with our heads out of the water. Sit on one of our backs. When he gets tired, you can change to another one, until we bring you safe and sound to the beach on the other side of the sea.”
In the meantime, there in the castle, the Commodore decided to ask Zzzzzzeferina for help, who was famous for her sense of smell and sense of direction. As soon as the tempest had weakened a little, the Commodore called for the bee, and they went to look for the little lost fairy.
Zzzzzzeferina flew a little, and stopped to sniff. She flew a little more, and stopped again to sniff. They followed Crystal’s trail to the beach by the sea, where they stopped, disconcerted.
“We have to call the fairy Cecilia, who can see the best of all of us”, said the Commodore. When she gets here she will be able to pick out where, in this great sea, our little friend is.” “Well then!” replied Zzzzzzeferina, while she was sniffing the air. “It’s just that I am starting to smell Crystal’s scent coming more and more strongly from the direction of that island.” “Then she must be close by” the Commodore reasoned. “And getting closer by the minute” Zzzzzzeferin corrected him.
Scarcely had she said that when the dolphins swam up in a bunch, and there sitting on one of their backs, as cheerful as she could be, was the little fairy, Crystal.
Everybody was happy. There were thanks, hugs, and farewells. Then the dolphins disappeared into the sea, and the three returned to the castle, where Cecilia, who had seen everything, had already spread the good news.
A wonderful party was waiting for them to celebrate the almost miraculous rescue of the little fairy.
There was everything at the party: brigadiers, ice cream, cakes, pies, hard candy, every kind of fruit juice, soda-pop, cola, ambrosia and nectar. It was the biggest party that had ever been seen in those parts…except, of course, for the party at the Queen’s wedding. But that is another story…

Posted 2:49 PM by laura r.

The Train

from the Portuguese of Dona Nora

It was a summer afternoon, one of those really hot and stuffy ones, in the switching yard for a train station at the end of one of the suburban lines. A few sleepy mutts were lying in the shade on the train platform, and from the empty lots nearby came the strident song of the cicadas.
On one of the tracks, one of the more distant ones, an old train, abandoned and half falling to pieces, was dozing. “It’s so hot!” sighed one of the cars, “it’s like that time when we were crossing the desert.” “Not quite!” said the other. “Then we were moving at ninety miles an hour, and there was a nice cool breeze!” “You’re right”, agreed a third car. “Those were the good old days…” The first car retorted “It wasn’t ninety miles an hour, it was a lot less…” And the second: “And even so, the desert was really hot. The first kept on reminiscing. “Do you remember how well we were treated back in those days? We were swept out and clean all day long. Every week they used to wax our wooden benches. What luxury! Now just look how pitiful and dried-out they look, the poor things!” “You know how things are”, sighed one of the benches. “And you know we’re nothing to sneeze at! Our mother was a hundred-year old European walnut tree, from a very old family….” “Will you look at the snob putting on airs!” interrupted one of the cars. “But it’s the very truth, I swear!” the bench replied. “Very well, very well” said the second car, trying to calm things down.
“You know, I really miss those days. Not when we were only doing this wretched suburban line…I’m talking about when we used to travel all over the world: through the deserts, the cities, the plains, the mountains, sometimes covered with snow…did you notice that snow has its own particular smell?”
“It sure does!” answered several of them at the same time. “What I really liked was the smell of the jungle and the damp earth, when we used to go through the forests…”said the third car. “Oh, no!” said
the fifth one. “I loved it when we used to stop in a really big city, a metropolis! All those people that were walking and running back and forth in the station. There were all sorts: hurried passengers, railroad officials, peddlars hawking their wares, swindlers and their marks, hee-hee…Do you remember? They used to sell everything in those stations: food, drinks, tourist souvenirs…
“What? Souvenirs! Souvenir means “memento”. People used to sell mementos of the place, for the tourists that were arriving, or the ones that were leaving. Usually the souvenirs were horrible, but everyone bought them anyway…and there were preachers that wanted to convert everyone to their religion, and a ton of beggars…Now what I really liked was those groups of children who were going away to summer camp. Every summer they would get on the train, happy, mischievous, noisy, and boisterous, and the ladies that were looking after them would just go crazy, hee-hee-hee…Do you remember?”
“Enough of that!” the fourth car broke in. “It’s making me too sad to want to remember any more. Just look what we’ve been reduced to: we’ve gotten old, and this is how they treat us. I’ve already got a bunch of rusty spots. It won’t take long before I’m full of holes.” “Me too! Me too!” the others exclaimed, except for the last one, who was distracted, because he was looking at some people that were approaching the train. “Who can they be?” he asked. “What do they want with us?” “You’re right” the others said suspiciously.
And with that the men came up to the train. They looked at it, banged on its metalwork, counted the number of cars, did some calculations…Finally one of them said: “OK! You’ve got a deal! We’ll begin tomorrow.” And they went away again. “Uh-oh, I don’t like the look of this at all” the fourth car started in again. He was the most pessimistic, that is, he always thought that bad things were about to happen. But no one answered. It kept on being punishingly hot as the night came on, and the cars ended up falling asleep one by one; even the fifth one, who was a real chatter-box, had almost begun to snore, and in his almost-slumber he was still chuckling to himself, hee-hee-hee…
They all woke up to the shouts, orders, and din of the tolls of a big battalion of workers, wearing blue coveralls and yellow helmets, who had arrived in a truck. Then they heard the roaring and grinding of tractors, whiches, generators, compressors and even more machines that the poor frightened cars had never seen before.
Without even a “by-your-leave” the workers attacked and began to dismantle them, showing no mercy. “Help, help! They are sawing my back!” shouted one of the cars. “Farewell, friends!” another, who was almost dismantled, said in a weak voice. “Bye, little bench!” the first one waved, his supports wavering, to the wooden benches that were being torn off of him. “Didn’t I tell you?” the fourth wagon said. “Didn’t I tell you that this was going to end badly?”
It didn’t take long until the poor things were completely dismantled, with their larger parts cut into sections, and all the pieces loaded into various trucks that got under way without delay. “Is this any way for a self-respecting train to travel?” the pieces of the fourth car muttered. “Well, at least we’re on the road again, right?” said the pieces of the fifth car, who always liked to look on the sunny side of things.
The pieces of the second car took advantage of the situation to prove the point he had been making the previous afternoon. “Don’t you see that the breeze reduces the heat when we’re moving? And look, these trucks are not even going half as fast as we used to go.” “Oh, lay off it!” grumbled the pieces of the first car. “How can you still be arguing about that now, in a situation like this!” “Really!” said the others, realizing the danger that they were in. And then they all stopped talking for a long time….
At night they arrived in a big yard where they were unloaded next to other pieces like them that had come from boilers, automobiles, machines and so forth. In the middle of the commotion they discovered some tracks that were old friends.
The next day they picked them up with a magnetic hoist. Nothing like that had ever happened to them before. They wanted to stay on the ground! They did their best to stay there, but it was as if that strange and powerful monster was sucking them upward. Then he turned and moved and zap! He let them fall into a blazing-hot furnace. “Oh, how horrible!” they all shouted at the same time. “I am melting!!!” And they melted. And when they went out of the furnace they went through some rollers, just like rolling pins for pastry.”
“Oh, what brutality! They are crushing me!” they shouted, and they came out the other side as steel plates, very well-molded and just exactly alike. The pieces of the fifth car didn’t shout. They were thinking. “Strange, it must be a new type of massage, after that sauna….” And they came out equally handsome, and in regular sizes.
Finally they ended up all together once again, piled up in a shed. “Didn’t I say that this would end badly?” said the plates from the fourth car. “Here we are in the dark, and we can’t even see the sky, which was so blue in the daytime, and so starry at night. We can’t feel the sunbeams any more, or hear the little birds…” “And we can’t rot and rust in the rain anymore!” said the pieces of the fifth car.
For quite some time they stayed in the shed, forgotten. Even the pieces of the fifth car were beginning to lose hope. That was when they were picked up by a winch once again and put on a train. “Wow, on the road again, like in the old days…” they said happily to each other, except the plates from the fourth car. The plates from the fourth car thought that things could only get worse, and that one should be suspicious of anything new. “When a panhandler gets a big handout, he’s suspicious” they said.
They finally arrived in a big yard by the sea, where they were unloaded. They had never seen anything like it, and couldn’t guess what would happen to them. They were rather nervous, and the plates from the fourth car kept on saying “Didn’t I tell you? We’re all going to rust in a week here by the sea!”
The next day another gang of workers came, wearing gray overalls and orange helmets. They took the plates and began to cut them (“Ow, they are cutting me again. It’s all starting over!), to rivet them (Ow, I am full of holes!”, and sometimes, to polish them (“Ooh, that tickles!”)
Gradually they began to take shape. What were they being turned into? A ship! A magnificent transatlantic liner! And so they were properly painted. “They are smearing us with white! We hate white!” the plates from the fourth car complained, while the plates from thefifth car couldn’t believe their luck “Wonderful! Now we won’t rust anymore! And even better, we’re white! It’s so stylish and cool. We’ll never get so hot again!”
The day came when the ship was launched. There were flags, a band, and speeches. At the end of the ceremony a beautiful girl broke a bottle of champagne on the bow of the ship. On one side the plates of the fourth car were complaining, while on the other, the plates from the fifth car were licking their lips and saying “Yum! Champagne! Veuve Clicquot, and a nice vintage! How posh!”
From listening to the captain and his first mate they learned that the ship was soon going to weigh anchor for a cruise around the world. Then not even the plates from the fourth car could be sad. Everyone was rejoicing. “Finally! We’re going to travel once more…we’re going to see the open water, the sea-gulls, the clouds….the tempests” the plates from the fourth car tried to but in. “A tempest is nice too!” the plates from the fourth retorted, supported by all the rest. “Sky, beaches, and all the great ports in the world! Can you ask for more than that?” they said to each other, congratulating themselves endlessly.
On the day they were to leave port, there were the most elegant people going on board. A band was playing on the quay for their departure, while an entire orchestra was embarking to entertain the passengers during the trip. Then, suddenly, the plates from the first car became sad. “What is it?” the others wanted to know. “We remembered the benches, poor things.They loved to travel too, and were such good company…” “Yes, you’re right…” the others sighed, who were saddened as well.
“Psst!” They heard some voices coming from the corner where they had piled up the cases for the instruments of the orchestra. “Who is it? Who said that?” “It’s us, your companions.” “But how did you end up here?” asked the plates, happy and excited.
One of the violins answered: “As soon as you were taken away (he meant the cars), we stayed heaped up under the awning on the platform. Then a young man came along who said that he was the owner of a shop where they made string instruments, a factory where they make violins like me, or violas, cellos, basses, mandolins, guitars…well, the young man bought us and turned us into instruments. And now you can see that I wasn’t exaggerating when I said we were nothing to sneeze at!”
There’s no way to describe how happy they all were to see each other again. From that day on they would continue to be together, good as new, and well-treated. They would travel all over, which they all loved to do more than anything else in the world. They laughed and talked until late, with the instruments playing happily, while the ship, brilliant illuminated, was weighing anchor and making its way majestically into the sea.

Posted 10:11 AM by laura r.

The Wedding of the Queen of the Fairies

by Nora Rónai; translated by Tom Moore

There was no one in the court of the Queen of the Fairies who could see as well and as far as the fairy Cecilia. Her talents were such that the Queen could dispense with any other source of information. For even among the fairies, who by their nature know more and see better than anyone, the fairy Cecilia was a marvel. If anyone or anything went missing, all you needed to you was call the fairy Cecilia, and she would take care of the problem in an instant: she would say where it was, with whom, since when, and everything else that you might want to know.
She could see thoughts inside brains, like we see television; she could see through walls - all she had to do was turn on her x-ray vision; and she could see all the stars and planets in the Milky Way, by turning on her telescopic vision.
Now imagine the commotion on the hill where the Queen’s castle was when, suddenly, the fairy Cecilia began to slip up: her vision didn’t always get it right and she herself was complaining that her eyes were tired. It was because, even for a fairy (and you know fairies live for a very, very long time) she was getting a little on in years.
“What’s going to happen now?” the Queen worried. “There’s no one in my kingdom who can remotely compare to her. Even hobbling she still sees better than all of us. But if things go on like this, she’s going to end up losing her marvelous, super-duper vision, and then we will be up a stream without a paddle.”
Using magic to improve her vision wouldn’t help, since spells lose their power after a while. They do, you know. After all, Cinderella’s spell only lasted until midnight. They had to find a more lasting solution.
The Queen called Commodore. “Look, friend, we have to take Cecilia to an ophthalmologist, the kind of doctor that looks after humans’ eyes. We don’t have any doctors, because we never get sick. But this doctor can’t be just anyone! He has to be the best ophthalmologist in the world! And so I would like you and the other sprites to a quick, broad and confidential survery of opinion among doctors to find out who they think is best. Can you help me with this?” “Of course, your Majesty! Your Majesty will hear from us shortly.” As soon as he had finished speaking, Commodore was already running off to his friend the owl, to ask her for a ride.
Flying on her back, in a few minutes he reached the forest of the talking mosses, where most of the sprites lived, and in a short time, he managed to round a group of the most expert among them.
A sprite is a very tiny being, and almost always invisible. And so a sprite can’t turn itself into a person and go out asking each doctor “Who do you think is the best ophthalmologist in the world?” But he can insinuate himself into the various offices, clinics and medical congresses and listen to the chatter that goes on there. If he wants to speed up matters, he can buzz his question into people’s ears, and they will end up thinking that they had a sudden curiosity on the subject. They have no idea that the idea was suggested by a sprite. This technique is called subliminal spritely persuasion.
And so the group traveled all over the world, collecting masses of opinions and data. Finally they reached their conclusion: there were two doctors equal in reputation, but one of them was only interested in fame and fortune. That one would be dangerous: imagine if he were to call the newspapers and television to announce that he was treating a fairy…The other, a Swede named Bjorn Svanson, besides being competent, was very nice. His office was in a tranquil, tree-line street in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
“Commodore, you are perfect. Thank you very much. We will consult Dr. Svanson,” said the Queen, and she had already sent for the fairy Cecilia. “Cecilia, my dear, you can’t go one with your eyes in that condition. We have to do something.” “But what?” her friend asked. “It’s simple; we will consult an excellent Swedish ophthalmologist.” “Ha, ha, that’s funny; I would like to see his face when he finds two fairies in his office.” “No, silly,” laughed the sovereign. “We will go transformed into regular people.” “Perfect! Then my eyes will also be regular eyes.” “Today you are really not very perspicacious!” said the Queen, impatiently. “We will go as regular people, but we will leave your eyes out of the spell. They will continue to be fairy eyes. Get it?” “Yes….maybe it will work,” admitted the fairy Cecilia. Having gotten her friend to agree, albeit somewhat reluctantly, the Queen had a consultation arranged for Dona Cecilia dos Anzois Caracol, as soon as possible.
On the day and at the time appointed they arrived at the doctor’s office: Dona Cecilia, a nice old lady with white hair, accompanied by an absolutely stunning young woman.
Doctor Svanson was a little off-balance. He wasn’t really the romancing type, but this young woman was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen - and he had seen a lot! And for quite a while he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Until, suddenly, he “snapped out of it”, and, a little embarrassed, rushed to point out two chairs: “Sit down, please. I suppose that you are Dona Cecilia,” he said, turning to the fairy Cecilia. She nodded yes. “And what is your complaint?”
Then the two explained that Cecilia was having difficulties with her vision: sometimes everything looked all jumbled, out-of-focus… “Well, we’ll check that right away.” The doctro asked “Dona Cecilia” to read letters from an illuminated screen. First with the right eye, then with the left. First some enormous letters, then medium-size ones, and so on until they were really tiny. And the fairy Cecilia could read all that with an arm tied behind her back. She read them absolutely correctly, as easily as could be.
And then Doctor Svanson was really intrigued. How could that little old lady see so well? And in fact, what was she complaining about? Anyone that can see as well as that should give thanks to God, and have a place in the medical books as an example of visual acuity. And that was more or less what he said to the two ladies, and concluded: “I never saw such phenomenal vision in my whole life. Not even in young people, let alone someone in middle age..speaking of which, how old are you really? “Nine hundred,” the fairy Cecilia answered candidly. “Ah, I understand, after forty it’s better not to say anything, isn’t it? But I still don’t understand: what exactly is your problem?” “Of course I can see well up close! But I am beginning to have problems with distance!” the fairy said. “At what distance?” the doctor asked, while he was gazing, entranced, at the Queen of the Fairies. “I’m beginning to have some difficulty even at about fifty kilometers,” she answered.
The doctor became said: this poor old woman must be crazy, he thought, but I need to act as if she were normal… “Let’s examine your retina,” he said, while he brought the fairy Cecilia over to an apparatus for examining the interior of her eyes. And then Doctor Svanson had a real shock: those eyes were completely different from any eye, human or animal, that he had seen or studied. And he had studied a lot…He knew cat’s eyes, owl’s eyes, dog’s eyes, horse’s, zebra’s, fish, fly, rhinoceros etc. etc. But he had never seen eyes like Dona Cecilia’s.
“Well, hmm, please, would you wait for us in the waiting room, while I talk with your daughter. “No, no! I’m not her daughter,” said the Queen, smiling. “We’ve been friends for centuries,” added “Dona Cecilia”.
When she left the room, the doctor turned to the Queen of the Fairies and said, “Look, Dona…ah, what exactly is your name?” “Junia”, she answered. “Dona Junia, have you really known your friend for a long time?” “Yes, why?” “Because there’s something strange here: she is not a normal human being! She can’t be! It’s a ridiculous assertion, but I see no other possibility. Maybe she is an extraterrestrial. No creature on this planet has eyes like hers, and I confess that I am rather perplexed.” “Well, dear Doctor Svanson, I owe you a confession, but you have to promise me two things: first, you mustn’t think that I am crazy, and second, you mustn’t reveal our secret to anyone, OK?” “I promise, Dona Junia” said the Doctor, putting his hand over his heart.
And then the Queen told him the truth: that they were fairies, and moreover, she was the Queen. Cecilia could still see better than anyone, but due to her age, her vision was getting weaker. They couldn’t use magic to take care of the problem, since spells didn’t last, while fairies lived for centuries. “I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Doctor Svanson, in spite of himself. “I knew that you weren’t going to believe me…but would you, if I were to cast a spell?” the Queen asked. “It depends on the spell” the doctor replied. “Well, then. Ask me for a spell!” said the Queen. “Well, how about this: say goodbye to your friend, and have the two of us, in five seconds, dining together at the Viking restaurant.”
The Queen went to the waiting room, and asked the fairy Cecilia to go back to the hotel by herself. Upon returning to the office she took her magic wand, waved it, and abracadabra, zip-zap!, in the next moment there they were, the doctor wearing a most elegant dark-blue suite, silk shirt, and silver cravat, and she herself in a stunning long dress, lilac-colored, with a crystal necklace that sparkled in all the colors of the rainbow, seated at a table in the Viking restaurant, with menu in hand, choosing their meal.
“Oh, Majesty, forgive me for having doubted you! But it’s so unexpected to come face to face with a fairy!” exclaimed the doctor, pale with fright.” “Please don’t call me “majesty”, just call me Junia,”the Queen said, almost without thinking, surprised to hear her own voice saying the words. She had never allowed anyone to call her by name before. Not even the powerful wizard Guido de Montessanto, her best friend, who had a bit of a crush on her.
They had a wonderful time that night. The Queen discovered that Doctor Svanson, in addition to being a real hunk, was intelligent, witty, and gallant. The poor thing was completely mad about her. So that he could properly study Dona Cecilia’s problem, they decided that the two should spend a season in Stockholm, going to the office daily, unti he could discover how Dona Cecilia’s eyes worked, and what the problem might be.
“Very well, Doctor Svanson,” the Queen began. “Please, don’t call me Doctor Svanson. Just call me Bjorn,” the doctor interrupted. “Very well, Bjorn,” began the Queen again. “It’s getting very late, and we’ve already decided what we need to do. Wouldn’t you like to take me back to the hotel? On such a beautiful night, with the moon and stars out, it’s nicer than flying back by magic, don’t you think?”
Of course the doctor thought so. Very happy, he accompanied the Queen back to her hotel.
It took months for Doctor Svanson to figure out how fairy eyes worked, by examining Dona Cecilia and Junia, with whom he was getting on more than marvelously. Comparing the eyes of the two, he discovered what Dona Cecilia’s problem was. It was just one of the lenses in her telescopic system, which had gotten a little blurry and out of alignment. A little operation would put all to rights. And in fact, after the operation, the fairy Cecilia could see as well as she could before. They had to wait for another week to do a few more treatments, and make sure that the eye had healed completely.
At the end of the week both the doctor and the Queen got very sad. They knew they would have to say goodbye, and they didn’t like the idea even the tiniest little bit. Finally the doctor called on his courage and confessed to Junia that he had fallen in love with her, and wanted to marry her. The Queen was very happy, and agreed right away, but there was a problem: a fairy can’t marry a regular human being. And so she would have to change him into a wizard. The process was a little complicated. The fairies would have to take a vote, and if it were approved, they would have to gather a hundred fairies and a hundred wizards to be sure that the transformation would be properly done and long-lasting. And what’s more, it could only be done for one human every 500 years. Luckily the last time had been 700 years before.
But when all was said and done things turned out fine. The fairies approved, and the wizards agreed to help. Even Guido, though he was sad that he would not be able to marry the Queen, joined with his fellow wizards.
They combined the two cerimonies. First they changed Doctor Bjorn Svanson into a wizard, and they had the wedding celebration. Fairies, wizards, sprites and elves came from all over the world. There was food, drink and dancing for three days and three nights straight. There were spigots with all kinds of fruit juices, tea, chocolate milk, iced coffee with vanilla ice cream, milkshakes, sodas, rare wines, beer, etc. etc.
There were tables full of pastries and cakes – chocolate, walnut, lemon, almond, orange, and coffee. And throughout the castle and the garden there were huge dishes full of hard candy, chocolates, mints, and lollypops for the littler fairies.
Everyone was over joyed, and the Queen and Doctor Bjorn Svanson lived happily ever after!