Week 12: The Fairy and the Woodsman (Storytelling)

I walked through the woods with an ax swung over my shoulder. The air was warm with a light breeze but the clouds hid the sun. It kept the heat bearable in my thick clothes. Overall, it was a very nice day for work.

"Redwood Forest" by Michael Schweppe. Wikimedia

I looked around for the best possible tree. I was commissioned to make a table for a wealthy lord in our village. It had to be a huge tree to make the planks long and thick enough. Finally, I found a suitable tree, Red Oak that was at least double my width and stretched far into the sky. This would definitely take all day to chop down, but I think it will be perfect for the lord’s table.

I circle the tree a few times. There are some strange markings in various spots around the trunk, but they are gibberish to me, unlike any language, I’d ever seen and written tiny. From my bag, I took out a piece of paper and charcoal and made a rubbing of all the markings. It was habit. Just in case someone could read it, I was curious about what it meant.

After I had finished I put the paper back in my bag and hoisted my ax, ready to begin the chopping of this huge, fine tree. I took a deep breath, before bringing the tree around quickly. Suddenly, a streak of blue came down from the tree.

“Wait! Don’t!” called a small voice from the blue light. Just before my ax hit the tree, I had a second to redirect its direction, burying it in the dirt instead.

I looked up to the blue light, a small, pretty fairy floated there in front of the tree. Her eyes were wide in fear and she was breathing heavily from her flight to the base. She must have been high up in the tree.

As she caught her breath, she murmured “Oh, thank you. I thought I might have been too late.” I stared at her, trying to figure out what was going on. She seemed to notice my confusion and continued, “Please, don’t cut this tree down. It’s important to my people. We live up there. It’s the oldest tree in the forest. You can have any others, but this one is ours.”

She watched me wearily, probably wondering if I was going to argue with her. But I wasn't. “Okay,” I said. At first, she looked suspicious but I began gathering my things and she seemed to relax a little. “I won’t mess with your tree. Sorry to bother you. If I had known you lived up there I wouldn't have even considered it.”

She looked fully at ease now and smiled at me. “Thank you! You wouldn't believe how many woodsmen come through and still try to cut down our tree after we talk to them. You saved yourself and us a lot of trouble by not pushing it. Since you were so kind and understanding, I’ll grant you your next three wishes… no matter what they are.”

Before I could say anything, she was gone. Were fairies like genies? I didn't know they could grant wishes. I mean, I’d heard a story about a man who makes wooden toys. They say he wished on a blue star, which was actually a fairy and he got a wooden doll turned into a boy. But honestly, I’d always thought that was like, a psychotic, drug induced dream or something. Especially when he started going on about being swallowed by a whale.

Whatever. I’ll think a while and make three really good wishes in a couple days… Just in case. I continued my day like normal. I found another tree, although not as grand as the first. Still, it was suitable. I finally got home, to the smell of my wife cooking stew.

“How close is dinner, honey?” I asked, putting away my tools and changing out of my work clothes.

“It’s running late. Probably about an hour.”

I groaned. “I’m starving. I wish I had a big bowl of pudding in front of me right now.” There was clanking and suddenly, pudding was in front of me.

I stared silently at it while my wife came in to see what the ruckus had been. “Where did you get that?” she asked, looking suspiciously between me and the huge bowl of pudding.

 I recounted my run in with the fairy and she stared at me in disbelief. “You mean you received three, unlimited wishes… and you just used one for a bowl of pudding?” I nodded, realizing that I had just messed up. “How could you not think of that!?” she shrieked. “If I had a wish I would wish for that pudding would stick to your face for your forgetfulness!”

Before I could reply, the pudding jumped out of the bowl, sticking to my face. Now my wife was really shrieking, not knowing what to do. Through the pudding I mumbled, “I wish this pudding would stop sticking to my face.” Just as suddenly as it had stuck, the pudding sloshed back into the bowl. Both of us stared at it wide-eyed.

“I’m so sorry,” my wife whispered. “I didn't think the wish would count if I said it.”

I nodded. “I know. It’s okay. I messed it up first by forgetting to not say ‘I wish’ to anything…” We continued to stare at the bowl.

“Did we just use three magical fairy wishes on one bowl of pudding?” She stared at the pudding in continued shock.

“Yep,” I said. “I think we did.” I picked up a spoon and took a bite. “It’s really good, though.”

My wife sighed and picked up the other spoon. I could swear I heard tiny giggling coming from the window. 

"Fairy with wand" Source

Author's Note: The original story was from the second English Fairy Tales unit, called Three Wishes. Most of the plot points and characters all the same between my story and the original. I added more details and explanations in the story and made the dialogue much more modern. Still, even with the more modern dialogue, I kept the story set in an enchanted forest and small English village close by. I added more detail about the tree and the fairy, but a lot of what I added was at the end of the story. The original pretty much just says that the couple ate the pudding and that was it, but I wanted to show how they felt at their accidental wasting of three wishes on pudding.