I do still blog, though. I just hang out at clishmaclavering.wordpress.com instead these days.

Anyway. I don’t know if I’ll come back to Scandaroona. I’d like to. I don’t really have the sense that it’s completed yet. And I do have two other fairy tales in the works — maybe someday I’ll finish and post them.

We’ll just have to see what happens.

***

Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here, Part 4 can be found here, and Part 5 can be found here.

***

The next morning was a difficult one for the tallest man. It was all he could do simply to rouse himself: the heavy layer of melancholy he had been living in seemed to have thickened overnight, leaving a leaden weight somewhere inside his chest. Nevertheless, he got up and had breakfast, loitering in his bedroom for a few minutes in hopes of figuring out a plan.

His wife surprised him by sitting up in bed.

“Where were you last night?” she asked.

The tallest man had barely spoken to her for weeks, and he was no longer used to it. He looked down and said nothing.

(Continued after the jump.)

“Were you with another woman last night?” she said. “Or a man?”

He still said nothing.

“Is that the cure for your unhappiness?” she said, growing quieter. “An affair? After spending days in this room, too absorbed in your feelings to speak to me even once?”

“It might have been,” said the tallest man, “if I had thought it would help.” He looked at her face and remembered how much he had loved it, and still did, past the leaden weight in his chest. “No. No, it wasn’t.”

“Tell me, then,” said his wife. “Tell me where you were.”

And he did, although words were still hard to form, and they came out jagged and awkward. He told her of meeting the spirit at the spring, and the inkling that his friends were unhappier than they appeared, and his total lack of feeling for the luxury they were living in. She nodded and listened in all the right places, and when he was done, clapped her hands and said, “Well, we must make this right.”

“They despise me,” said the tallest man. “We can never make it right.”

“Nonsense,” said his wife. “We will go to the baker and the miller’s daughter and ask their opinions. For they love the shortest man and the middle-sized man too, and might be of some help.”

They dressed, with the gold key to the tallest man’s safe stored securely in his shirt pocket, and set out towards the village bakery.

As it had been on the first morning of the wish, the baker and the miller’s daughter were the only people inside. They did not look as miserable as they had on that day – the tallest man supposed they had grown used to their dejectedness in a way he himself had never managed to do – but they also didn’t seem happy, and looked at him with a firm question in their eyes as he approached.

He whispered to his wife that she should tell them the story, but she stopped him.

“It did you good to tell me,” she said. “Already you have more energy than you did before. Perhaps it will help you to tell them, too.”

So the tallest man sat down at a table and once again told the tale of the two previous nights. This time he added the meeting at the stream at which his friends had failed to turn up, and his descent into melancholy afterwards. His wife held his hand and listened again, and the baker and the miller’s daughter looked thoughtful when he had finished.

“We shall have to think of something,” said the miller’s daughter.

“Most definitely,” agreed the baker.

The tallest man’s wife was right: he did feel lighter.

They spent the rest of the day thinking up the most persuasive arguments for giving up wishes they could. While not an easy task, it seemed easier with four people at the job, and as dusk began to fall, they worked out a plan for midnight.

“When we see that the magic has begun, we will link hands, so that we are assured of staying together,” said the miller’s daughter. “And when we reach the stream and see our friends, we will put our arguments to work and see what fruit they bear.”

They returned to the tallest man’s home in time for a delicious supper made by the servants, despite the fact that they were all too nervous to eat very much. They spent the rest of the evening swapping tales of trials they had struggled against and overcome, in hopes that this one would prove no different.

Finally, the clock struck midnight.

“Take my hand,” whispered the tallest man, and it was a good thing he did, for no sooner had he done so than his body turned completely invisible. Listening to the cries of those who had seen him disappear, he understood how he had managed to get to the stream unseen by men or animals.

His knees twitched, and their chain of four moved out of the house and down the path.

From a distance, the tallest man saw the silhouettes of the shortest and middle-sized men. He knew that they, too, would be invisible to their guests, though he himself could see them, as he had the night before. The shortest man was fingering his moustache. The middle-sized man had his hand over his heart.

“We have arrived,” said the tallest man, and their feet touched the shore.

For the third night in a row, he watched the gleaming light of the water spirit blossom above the stream. He climbed onto his usual rock and gazed out at them.

“Ah,” he said, “you have brought friends.”

The shortest man and the middle-sized man twisted around to look at the tallest man’s company, then turned back again as though they hadn’t seen them at all. If the tallest man hadn’t noticed the very slight quivering of their shoulders, he might have believed they were unperturbed, but he knew they weren’t, and it gave him hope.

“Welcome, guests,” said the spirit of the stream. “You cannot see me, but you can hear me, and you will be involved in everything that happens here tonight. For it is your presence that makes this evening’s meeting different from yesterday’s – and that is in itself an enormous responsibility. Do you understand?”

The miller’s daughter, the baker, and the tallest man’s wife thanked the spirit and said that they did.

“You may now speak among themselves,” said the spirit of the stream. “I will give you one hour to reach a decision. I would use words wisely, if I were you.”

And he stretched out on the rock and closed his eyes.

The tallest man and his friends turned to the shortest and middle-sized men, their heads full of the arguments they had prepared. They had agreed that the tallest man was to deliver them, and he did, stumbling over his words as he tried to sound confident.

“Wishes such as ours go against the natural order of things,” he said, his voice growing stronger. “I do not know if there is a God or not, but if there is, I am sure He would not want us to influence our lives by magic. Anyway, our wishes were just a silly attempt to get away from the monotony of our lives. It is time to grow up and return to the real world. It is time to take responsibility for the things we have been shirking all these years…”

There was a moment of silence.

“Those are the worst arguments I have ever heard,” said the middle-sized man coldly. “I do not imagine for a second that you even believe them yourself. Your arguments must match your cause, and yours do not. We will be keeping our wishes, thank you very much.”

“Yes,” said the shortest man. “We are happy in our new lives, and it does not matter to us that you are not. It matters little what we were before.”

The tallest man looked at the miller’s daughter. Her face had turned very pale.

“After all,” continued the shortest man, “nobody cared for me when I looked like this.”

At that, the miller’s daughter’s face hardened. She leapt out of her place beside the baker, ran blindly to the place where she had heard his voice, and lifted a hesitant hand to what she seemed to hope was his cheek. Her fingers brushed his chin, and the tallest man saw astonishment cross the shortest man’s face.

“But I did!” she said, her face filled with yearning. “You were kinder than any in the village I knew, and you helped my father carry his grain on days when his back was bad. You smiled whenever you saw me, and I always smiled back. I knew you were too shy to speak to me, so I tried to speak to you, but we never managed to speak to each other. I hoped that, one day, you would forget your self-consciousness, and we would talk until the sun came up.”

The shortest man seemed unable to speak. If he’d been given a few more seconds, he might have tried, but he only had time to entwine his invisible fingers with the miller’s daughter’s before the baker rushed out, too.

“I feel the same!” he said, running to the place he thought the middle-sized man might be. “Did you really not miss me at all? Was I truly worth throwing away for a hastily-made wish?”

He put a hand on the middle-sized man’s invisible shoulder, a touch that first made the middle-sized man recoil. Then he relaxed, and the same look of astonishment crossed his face.

“I have loved you for so many years,” said the baker, sitting down beside him. “Every afternoon you came to visit me, and I knew I could love no other. We spoke of sharing a home someday, and I always believed that we would. I knew you worried about village gossip, so I tried to put your mind at ease, but nothing I said seemed enough. I hoped that, one day, you would lose your shame and we could spend the rest of our lives together.”

Quietly, and as though it cost him a great effort, the middle-sized man slipped his hand into the baker’s. Side-by-side, the shortest man and the middle-sized man gazed at the tallest man, looking shocked, defeated and weary.

“Is this reason enough to reverse your wish?” asked the tallest man’s wife. “Might you be happier, possibly, with the people who have loved you all along?”

The shortest and middle-sized men glanced at each other, legs shaking.

“Might you consider the things we have said?” said the baker.

“Do your wishes truly, truly make you happy?” sighed the miller’s daughter.

The two men spoke at the same time.

“No.”

“But we do not think we can return to the way we were,” said the middle-sized man.

“At least we have fooled ourselves into believing we are happy – and after some time, that began to feel like happiness itself,” said the shortest man. “And we have what we once lacked, even if that means we must lose other things in the bargain.”

“There is only so much misery one can bear,” said the middle-sized man, bowing his head.

“We would like to go back,” said the shortest man, “but we cannot.”

The tallest man looked at the miller’s daughter and the baker, trying to identify the expressions on their faces. He could only imagine what it felt like, to hear these disembodied voices bleeding out of the dark, detached from their owners, saying things that were sure to make the deepest parts of their friends’ chests ache. As it was, the tallest man’s heart seemed to be caught somewhere inside his throat.

“You say you have what you once lacked,” he found himself saying. “What was it that you lacked?”

Neither man answered, and the tallest man knew this was because they thought the answers were obvious. To the tallest man, however, they were not obvious at all.

“I lacked happiness,” said the tallest man, “and I lack it even more now. What I did not lack in the old days was love. I am lucky to have the love of my wife, and the baker and the miller’s daughter, but the lack of our friendship –” And he found he could not go on.

But two people stepped forward.

And from his place on the rock, the spirit of the stream seemed to stretch slightly in his sleep.

“The lack of our friendship,” said the tallest man, shakily reclaiming his voice, “made me more miserable than I could ever have imagined.”

He could see, within the shortest man’s and the middle-sized man’s faces, that they understood what he meant. Something he had said had loosened a knot inside them, a knot that had begun to be untied with the presence of the baker and the miller’s daughter. And somewhere inside the tallest man himself, he felt the same knot begin to come blessedly undone.

“Yes,” said the shortest man.
“I know,” said his middle-sized friend.

And the leaden weight inside the tallest man’s chest started to lessen.

“Abandoning our friendship was the thread that undid us,” said the shortest man. “We could have made better wishes; cleverer wishes, if we had not been so selfish.”

“Your wish only made you worse,” said the middle-sized man, beckoning to the tallest man. “And ours made us far worse than that. I do not truly love the shepherdesses, you see. They are beautiful, to be sure, but not beautiful enough. I was a fool.”

“The milkmaids do not truly love me,” said the shortest man. “They care only for flattering remarks and a fine chin. I was also a fool.”

And again, the spirit stirred.

“Will you go back, then?” said the tallest man’s wife. “Will you take back your wish?”

“Please,” said the miller’s daughter to the shortest man.

“Please,” said the baker to the middle-sized man.

“Please,” said the tallest man, pleadingly, to both.

“Yes,” they said at last, and found the thing they had been lacking all along.

They never did see the spirit get up, but when they saw him poised on the rock, skin radiating with a gleam that would have challenged a hundred full moons, not one of them was surprised.

“The entire stream is pulsing with magic tonight,” he said. “One sip will be enough for each of you. You will become visible again, and you will have to make the journey back from the stream yourself.”

They agreed, and began to approach the stream.

“Will we be happy, Spirit?” said the shortest man, trying not to hesitate.

“I have told you before that happiness is something I have never quite understood,” the spirit answered. “That still stands true. But you will not be as you once were. I could not make it so if I tried, and I would not want to. You have changed, and so you will be different. How, I could not say.”

And so the three men stepped forward, bent down towards the glassy swirl of the stream, and cupped the water in their hands. Smiling at the people waiting for them on the bank, they drank slowly and thirstily.

“I require a token,” said the spirit in the tallest man’s ear.

He slipped the small golden key from his pocket, held it out, and turned back towards land.

*

© 2012

Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 can be found here, Part 3 can be found here and Part 4 can be found here.

***

The next morning, the tallest man’s wife was shocked to see her husband climbing out of bed, and more shocked still to see him wolfing down breakfast as though he hadn’t eaten in days (which, unfortunately, was close to the truth.) She started to ask him what had caused such a sudden change in his spirits, but he had dressed, washed and raced out the door before she could finish her sentence.

The baker and the miller’s daughter had kept the tallest man up-to-date as to his friends’ whereabouts, and so he knew where he could expect to find them. He decided to seek the shortest man first, and headed for the town square, where he saw him almost at once.

The shortest man was stretched out on a smooth stone bench, surrounded by giggling milkmaids. He seemed to be telling some grand, heroic story, and as the tallest man grew closer, he realized it was about the shortest man himself, and also that it was not true. A milkmaid with a dimple in her chin sat in his lap, while a milkmaid with a rounder shape and corkscrew curls wound her fingers through his hair. He did not shift his gaze as the tallest man approached.

“I have a message for you,” said the tallest man, feeling his knees quake from beneath him. He could see nothing of his old friend in the man that sat before him now, and he did not know how he would respond.

The shortest man tore his gaze from the milkmaids and stopped smiling abruptly.

“It is a message from the spirit of the stream,” continued the tallest man. “He asks that we meet him by the water this evening. He will transport us to the stream at the stroke of midnight, for he wants to ask us a question.”

(Continued after the jump.)

“What could the spirit possibly want to ask us?” said the shortest man, in a voice that suggested the tallest man had come there to annoy him. “I have everything I have ever wanted. I certainly hope he does not want to take our gifts away.”
“I feel the same,” said the tallest man, feeling it was best to lie in this situation. “But tell me, are you truly happy? Would you say you were happier than you were before? Do you ever wish that you – well, that you had not wished?”

The milkmaids snorted and tittered rudely. The shortest man made no effort to hush them.

“Never,” he said. “Wealth must have dulled your intelligence, to ask such a stupid question.”

The tallest man sighed and decided he would try again at midnight.

Trying to feel hopeful, he left the village and approached the hills, lost in thought until the rising wispy green flattened out into the shepherdesses’ pastures. Perhaps, he thought, the middle-sized man would be more sympathetic to his cause. Perhaps he would be glad of an offer to take his gift away.

He looked out across the fields and spotted the middle-sized man beneath a willow tree, surrounded by a group of idle, jostling shepherdesses. One shepherdess was lying across the middle-sized man’s knees, while another had her head on his shoulder, her eyelashes brushing his cheek. As the tallest man drew nearer, the middle-sized man looked between the two women and smirked, giving not so much as a greeting to his friend.

“I have a message for you,” said the tallest man, feeling his mouth go dry. He could see nothing of his old friend in the man who sat before him now, and he did not know how he would respond.

The middle-sized man held the shepherdesses’ hands tightly and gave the tallest man a cool, terse glance.

“It is a message from the spirit of the stream,” the tallest man went on. “He asks that we meet him by the water this evening. He will transport us to the stream on the stroke of midnight, for he wants to ask us a question.”

“What could the spirit possibly want to ask us?” he said, in a voice that suggested the tallest man was quite ridiculous for mentioning it. “I have everything I have ever wanted. I certainly hope he does not want to take our gifts away.”

“I feel the same,” lied the tallest man. “But tell me, are you truly happy? Would you say you are happier than you were before? Do you ever wish that you – well, that you had not wished?”

The shepherdesses crowed and cackled rudely. The middle-sized man made no effort to quiet them; on the contrary, he joined in.

“Never,” he laughed. “Wealth must have dulled your intelligence, to ask such a stupid question.”

The tallest man’s heart grew very heavy after that, and he returned to his bed to await the toll of midnight.

***

Like the previous night, the tallest man awoke to find his legs beckoning him outside, striding with swift, sure movements as he left his suddenly duller and dirtier house. This time, however, his feet did not lead him to the spring. Instead he trod softly down the village paths in his dressing-gown. He knew, somehow, that he would meet no others on his journey there, nor would any animals try to harm him.

He reached the stream and scanned the water for signs of the spirit. Movements on both sides of him told him that the shortest and middle-sized men had arrived too, but when he turned to look at them, they glared, and then avoided his eyes. A light glinted, and the spirit rose up out of the water, clambering onto a rock.

“Spirit,” said the shortest man angrily, “you have taken my gift away. I caught a glance at myself in the mirror as I left, and I daresay I am even uglier than I was before. I demand that you return my good looks immediately.”

“Yes,” snapped the middle-sized man, with equal vehemence. “I found myself thinking of the baker as I walked out the door. Please put a stop to it at once.”

“As I told your friend, it is only temporary,” said the spirit, looking irritated. “Three nights a year, we spirits celebrate the elements and the changing of seasons, and on those nights, every spell must break. Your gifts will be restored in the morning.”

The shortest and middle-sized men looked murderous at this, and the tallest man felt his heart sinking. He realized that the time had come to speak up again.

“Are you absolutely certain you want to keep the spirit’s gift?” he tried. “Try to remember how you felt on that day at the stream, when we met the spirit for the first time. Do you not feel that you have lost something of yourself since you made your wishes? Do you not feel wearier, perhaps, or more foolish? Are you only trying to convince yourself that you are happy?”

They arched their shoulders and turned away.

“Are you sure?” cried the tallest man, heaving with desperation and disappointment. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“My life is better than it ever was,” growled the shortest man, still facing the village paths. “I will not hear another word about it.”

“The spirit put an end to years of unhappiness,” said the middle-sized man. “Why on earth should we be dragged down by your misery?”

“They have spoken,” said the spirit of the stream, now facing the tallest man alone. “Your task has failed tonight. I will bring you here again tomorrow, but know that if you fail then, you have failed forever. You will keep your wealth, and your former friends will keep their gifts, and such will be your life. You may grow more or less miserable than you are now; only time can tell that. But there will be no more chances.”

“You require a trinket,” said the tallest man, and he gritted his teeth as he spoke, so as to keep his voice from cracking. “I brought a gold coin.”

“Sufficient for tonight,” said the spirit, grasping for its weight. “But tomorrow it must be still more valuable.”

“Good-bye,” said the tallest man as his legs began to carry him down the slender village lanes once more. Although it was dark, he did not miss the looks of loathing his former friends sent him before they too were moved by magic into civilization.

*

© 2012

Ultimately, I think that’s okay. Because I’m a college student, and I just had fondue with friends at my favorite coffee-shop and worked on Fairy Tale #2 (no, I’m not telling), and before that I was in New York City listening to my favorite author speak*, and before that I was studying for a rather ugly History of Ancient Israel test, and before that I was dancing around the house with my sister, and all of those things add up to something like a life outside the Blog, and I don’t think it’s terrible that I’ve been living it. But I enjoy my Blog-world enough that I don’t want to lose it just yet. I’m just… going to be posting less often.

So here’s what (I think) is going to happen.

(Continued after the jump.)

Fairy Tale #1 ain’t the problem. That thing’s been finished since early August — all that’s needed are a few poor Libby-illustrations and the last two sections are set to go. But Scandareviews? I love them dearly, but they take absolute ages. I don’t know when I’ll have time to do another one, let alone doing the weekly reviews I’d hoped I could write. I’ve got the whole Grimm’s book with me in my dorm, but reading them and analyzing them and doing the required research is another thing altogether.

So the next set of posts are probably going to be a wrap-up of “The Three Men and the Stream”. But I don’t believe Scandareviews are dead just yet — they’re much too much fun for that — so do expect something at some point. I just don’t know when.

As for Fairy Tale #2, I can’t give a precise date when that one will be done, either. #1 took me about six months to write, but I wasn’t working on it on its own — I did some other stuff during that time and didn’t make it a priority until somewhere around mid-June. Time aside, though, my biggest challenge with it is definitely plot structure.

Some wise author somewhere — I think it might have been Patricia C. Wrede — once said that writers are normally good at plot, characters, or settings — just one out of the three — and so there‘s always something that can be worked on. And I have to say that plot doesn’t come naturally to me. My instinct is to turn everything into a mystery and to leave off understanding what the mystery is until halfway through, after which the story is often too mixed-up to salvage.

As I’ve gotten older I’m taming the Plot Beast slightly better, but it frustrates me ridiculously that there don’t seem to be many resources as to HOW TO LEARN IT. Why is that? Why do writing classes talk about prose and technique and character and so often ignore plot completely?

I know people go on about outlining, but I’m still trying to find a way to outline that works for me. I can’t just write something out in the beginning; things become stagnant and boring if I do that, and the plot always veers off-course anyway. But if I don’t outline somewhere around the beginning-middle, the story falls apart at the point just before the climax, and I’m sick of that happening. So I’m trying to find a happy medium, and when you’re writing something as structure-dependent as a fairy tale, all of this becomes even more important than it normally would be.

This story doesn’t involve wishes in the same way that Fairy Tale #1 does — I don’t have natural consequences to go off of in this case, at least not yet. So I need to analyze what the characters want and how they’re going to get it and where the tension will lie, and do all of this in a way that’s simple and not overblown, because that’s what fairy tales require. It’s difficult. I’m nineteen years old; I don’t have the kind of experience that a lot of writers have. I put a stupid amount of pressure on myself and get frustrated when it doesn’t work.

But hey; there’s also a lot of fun to be had in the trying. And that’s what’s important, isn’t it? I’m running around campus and eating fondue and trying to corral the Evil Plot Beast in my spare time. And at least for the sake of now, I’m pretty content doing it.**

*I don’t want to talk about that on the Blog because I’m not sure I can express the gravity of it to the Internet at large. But it was wonderful and it happened two days ago and I’m still working out what to do with the fact that it happened. There; that’s as much as I’m going to say! (Although if you actually know me, you’ve probably heard a lot more than that about it. If you’re one of those people, I’m sorry. ;))

**I’m also doing this other thing with some supremely talented people from my college. If you’re interested, you can check out Whence & Whither by clicking here — I’m really, really proud of everyone involved; I think it’s going to be awesome.

Part 2 can be found here.

Part 3 can be found here.

(Today’s drawing was produced by my brilliant artist friend Dana. Isn’t it wonderful?! I hope to enlist her again.)

***

When the tallest man reached the stream and saw that neither the shortest nor the middle-sized man was there, he thought at first that they must be late. He took off his boots and slid his feet into the warm, dark water, darting glances behind him every few seconds. After a while he shifted his gaze to the bottom of the stream. A small, bright light winked at him from beside a rock, and after a moment it rose up and turned into the water spirit.

“I’m afraid that they will not be coming,” he said. “I knew from the very beginning that they would not. This often happens with wishes. I tried to warn you, but you did not listen. Those men are shadows of who they once were. Your friendship no longer matters to them.”

“I’m sure I could speak to them,” said the tallest man, whose heart was beating painfully in his chest. “Perhaps they will meet me here tomorrow.”

“They will not,” said the spirit of the stream. “They are no longer the men that you knew. Go home, enjoy your wealth, and try to forget.”

(Continued after the jump.)

As the tallest man made his way up the shore in what seemed a deep, dense fog, the spirit stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“The next time you speak to me, I shall require a token to take back to the water,” he said. “And I will warn you now that the more we talk, the more precious my token must become. I will let you off today, for you did not know you would find me here, but next time you must remember these terms.”

The tallest man promised that he would, although he privately felt that he would never seek out the spirit again. Then the spirit slipped back into the stream, and the tallest man left for home.

What followed was a period of terrible blackness for the tallest man and all who knew him. The loss of his two friends hurt him deeper than he could ever have imagined, adding to the peculiar unhappiness even the spirit had not been able to solve. Robbed of his two kindred souls, the tallest man ate little, spoke less, and began to spend his days lying blankly in his bedroom, staring at the opulently-decorated ceiling.

At first his wife tried to help him, as she had tried since his melancholy days had begun, but when he stopped responding to her attempts and gazed more at the walls than at her, she became sad in her own way and began to spend most of her time away from the house. The baker and the miller’s daughter made occasional visits, but the tallest man did not so much as greet them. Despite all this, it might be said that the presence of his wife and his newfound friends helped the tallest man all the same. For if he had lacked them, he might have done something very dire indeed.

One night, long after the day he had caught the spirit of the stream, the tallest man was jolted awake by a feeling he did not recognize. Although he had spent most of the previous day in bed, he was seized with the conviction that he must leave it, and soon found himself wandering dazedly into the hall.

His legs seemed to be leading him outside, to a tiny spring that lay at the edge of his wife’s garden, so he struck a candle to better find his way. The flickering candlelight illuminated the space in front of the tallest man, and for a moment he merely blinked, wondering if he was dreaming. The upstairs hall was no longer golden and airy; his red embroidered curtains no longer fringed the windows; and the walls were no longer etched with lustrous, elaborate designs. It had returned to its former dusty narrowness, and the tallest man could not believe his eyes.

The strange feeling took hold of him again and he stumbled out of the house, his heartbeat fluttering. He gazed up at the place where he had once lived, noting places he ought to have repainted and the odd look the front door had of having been bashed in. Then he made his way to the spring.

He had hardly been there a minute when a bright light appeared in the water, casting a faint glow across the stretch where flowers would grow in the summer. The glow began to spread, and suddenly the tallest man’s candle began to smoke, as though he had snuffed it out. The light twisted and changed, and finally scuttled out onto dry land, watching the tallest man warily.

“Your friends sleep on,” said the spirit of the stream. “They believe they are happy.” His eyes dropped. “My gift has not been enough for you. I suspected it would not.”

“You suspected it?” cried the tallest man, and was surprised at how hoarse his voice came out; he had not used it in days. “Why did you not tell me? I could have wished for something else, something that would have made me happy at last! Now you have taken even my wealth away, and I am left as I once was, but a hundred times more miserable.”

“It is not a permanent change,” said the spirit, “and I warned each of you in turn. To you I explained that I cannot grant happiness; I can only help people on their quest to find it. If such a quest fails, that is no fault of mine.”

“Why has my wish stopped working tonight?” asked the tallest man, half-wishing some night creature would appear and eat the spirit up. “When will my wealth return? If my wife awakens and it is gone, I do not know how I will explain it to her.”

“All will be restored in the morning,” said the spirit. “Feel in your pocket: the gold key to your safe is still there. Beginning tonight, it is a time of great celebration for us river folk. The moon is bright, and all enchantments must break while the festivities last. Your wealth will return with the dawn.”

The tallest man’s heart sank further. He realized, a little shamefully, that part of him had hoped the spirit would say something else.

“My friends,” he said. “You say they are happy. This is true?”

“I said that they believe they are happy,” said the spirit. “That is something entirely different. It has happened before that beliefs like theirs have turned out not to be true, and I have seen signs… but it is not my place to say. They must live out their own lives. As you must live out yours.”

“But I am not living it,” said the tallest man. “And neither are they, if they are unhappy.” He hesitated. “Are they truly unhappy? Are you sure?”

There came a tiny twitch of the water spirit’s shoulder, but the tallest man knew what it meant. For the first time in months, he smiled.

“Is there anything that can be done?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” answered the spirit, curling his fingers into the airy wisp of his beard. “But they must want it too, you know. Simply being unhappy does not mean one believes it is so.”

“What must I do?” said the tallest man.

“That is up to you,” said the spirit of the stream. “But know that tomorrow at midnight, I will transport you and your fellow wish-makers to the stream. Our festivities are three days long, and this is the first night. You will have two chances to convince them. After that, no more can be done.”

The tallest man thanked him gratefully, and the spirit bowed low and turned back to the water.

“As I told you the last time we met, I require a token to take back with me,” he said, poised on the edge of the spring. “As this is only the second time we have spoken, any trinket will do. But you must give it.”

The tallest man remembered this condition and snapped a button off the cuff of his dressing-gown.

“Thank you,” said the spirit, enclosing it in his tiny, veined hand. He slid back into the water and left the tallest man alone to stumble back to bed in the dark.

*

© 2012

That might mean a hiatus after mid-October, so I have more time to finish my second fairy tale; it might mean four posts a month rather than six; it might mean frequent delays in Scandareviews; or it might mean none of the above. I need time to think about it. But I’ve missed it here, and am seriously excited to talk about today’s fairy tale.

I read most of it during an awkward college symphony I went to with my friend Dana — awkward because almost everyone else there was over the age of sixty, and awkward because we’d brought a picnic blanket and most people were sitting primly in their seats. But it was also fun — they played the Star Wars theme, for heavens’ sake! — and I can’t say that Oscar Wilde coupled with a little John Williams was bad.

Oscar Wilde isn’t an author I’ve read all too widely, to be honest. I did the obligatory The Picture of Dorian Gray reading my senior year of high school, thought it was a bit weird, and didn’t think much more about it after that. Then last year I read “The Importance of Being Ernest” and laughed until I cried, and then I left for Ireland and was greeted by his picture nearly everywhere I went (they are very proud of his Irish roots), and looked up more information online and found hundreds of beautifully witty aphorisms, and then I started to understand just how Oscar Wilde-y Oscar Wilde is, which is a wonderful thing to discover. When I realized I had a book of fairy tales by him, the obvious thing to do was to use it for Scandaroona.

Oscar’s on the left. The guy whose lap I’m sitting in is Eduard Vilde, who he never actually met.

Oscar’s fame precedes him enough that I don’t think I need to provide a biography or nickname him Ozzie in order to make him interesting. He’s already one of the most famous writers of the twentieth century, and his life is interesting enough that a brief discussion here simply wouldn’t do him justice.

I do think it’s interesting, though, that he wrote fairy tales in addition to his plays and novels. According to the back pages of the edition I have, he created them as bedtime stories for his sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. (Must say I’ve been wondering what went through his head when he named Son #2.) That’s impressive to me already — he made them up while he was telling them, and then he wrote them down? Absolutely feckin’ brilliant, as the Irish would say. I’ve tried doing that sort of thing and I can never remember quite what I said; the written-down version always lacks some quality that I remember the out-loud story as having had. But my point is, although Oscar had written any number of things for adults, he didn’t oversimplify or dumb-down his fairy tales just because he was writing for children. He allowed them to be intelligent. The stories are pristine and startlingly mature.

A Japanese version, it seems.

I chose “The Fisherman and His Soul” completely at random — it was the last story featured in the book, and had a whimsical enough title that I just assumed it would be good. It’s also quite long, and so I won’t do a rundown of the plot the way I have in most of my other Scandareviews — like the author himself, a quick summary just won’t do it justice. But I will link you to it, so you can read it yourself — you can find it here, or  elsewhere, too, if you use a search engine.

If you want a very general description of the events that take place, the best I can tell you is that it’s about love and it’s about evil and it’s about what it is to be human, and it spoon-feeds you no answers. You have to figure out what you think for yourself (and honestly, I’m still thinking.) If it weren’t for the slight sickly-sweet tone that sometimes crops up in Wilde and his occasional religious biases (I think they take away from the true sentiment of the story, but you’re free to disagree with me), I think it would be pretty darn perfect.

As I’ve failed to provide a summary for this week, here are a few wonderful shreds and images from the story.

“Vermilion-finned and with eyes of bossy gold…”

“…like lines of blue enamel round a vase of bronze, the long veins rose up on his arms.”

“Heaven… and Hell, and that dim twilight house that lies between.”

Yet another version.

Highlights:

– Just the writing. The writing itself. It’s so beautiful I caught myself staring at phrases here and there, just trying to make sense in my head of how he manages to say things so simply and yet so perfectly. The images catch in your head and you can see them; it’s some of the most gorgeous prose I have ever seen. *Sigh.* Can’t praise the writing enough.

– The scene where the Devil smoothly watches the fisherman during the witches’ dance. The description of the Devil is so human, really — his sad eyes, and his plumed hat and his riding gloves. All while the fisherman struggles with his own humanity. It’s the kind of perfect parallel I adore reading, as well as being spine-tinglingly creepy and setting the stage for what the soul does after the fisherman goes to seek the dancer. (And that, for me, was the really terrifying part of the story. The fisherman being unable to rid himself of his vengeful soul… I couldn’t stop shuddering.)

– The slow realization of what the soul is doing — the way it quietly dawns on you that he isn’t up to anything good, when the story is initially set up to make you believe that the soul will save the fisherman from himself. It’s so sneaky, and makes such a jolt when the realization comes.And then you’re forced to answer certain questions that are a little bit uncomfortable — because love is better than wisdom, riches, and girls with dancing feet, isn’t it? But the fisherman was wrong to send away his soul, wasn’t he? So how on earth can both of those things be true? Are both the soul and the fisherman right on a certain level? Or are they both wrong? There’s so much to think about.

– The fisherman’s end. Whether or not you are a crier at books, it’s one of the saddest scenes I have ever read, especially in light of all the doubts and questions that arose in my head. Absolutely heart-breaking, and perfectly done.

Part 2 can be found here.

***

The tallest man awoke the morning after the meeting with the water spirit feeling excited and hopeful. Wealth, he knew, could take many forms, and he was eager to see which ones the water spirit had chosen for him. When he opened his eyes to an ornate ceiling, covered in gold-plated curlicues beset with silver, he leapt out of bed and shook his wife awake.

Although he had told her all about the events of the previous day, she was just as surprised as he was when she saw how their bedroom had changed. Overnight, it had tripled in size, and a velvet canopy had appeared on the bed, which was now much bigger and softer than it had been. Looking down at himself, he saw that his nightclothes had been changed into silk, and a satin dressing gown had been hung up on the shining gold curtain rod. Two servants waited at the door, carrying an enormous silver platter, on which a steaming, mouth-watering breakfast was laden.

After the tallest and his wife had finished eating, two servants entered the room and helped their new master dress. The tallest man’s usual clothes had been replaced by countless sets of stiff-looking suits, with a row of smart-looking ties folded neatly inside the wardrobe. Two more servants entered the room and polished the tallest man’s shoes until they gleamed. Then the servant to his left slipped a tiny gold key into his pocket.

(Continued after the jump.)

“What’s this?” said the tallest man, taking it out and looking at it.

“The key to your safe, master,” said the servant, and bowed.

It occurred to the tallest man that the water spirit had given him every form of wealth it was possible to have.

After a while, he decided to go into the village and take a walk. He stood agog for several minutes when he saw what the house looked like from the outside – it was even more impressive than the changes that had been made to his bedroom, and he could scarcely believe it was his. His neighbors gawked as they passed him on their way to work, and inclined their heads respectfully when they caught his eye.

Eventually he made his way to the town square. As he did so, he caught sight of the shortest man, who looked so different from his former self that it took the tallest man several minutes to be sure it was him. The shortest man seemed deep in conversation with two milkmaids, and the tallest man didn’t want to disturb him, so he simply waved instead of shouting out a greeting. But although the shortest man was looking in the tallest man’s direction, he gave no sign that he had seen his friend. The tallest man sighed and walked on, feeling a little worse than before.

A few minutes later, he spotted the middle-sized man, who was moving toward the fields, a purposeful look on his face. Encouraged, the tallest man ran toward him and waved as he had done with his other friend. But although the middle-sized man should have seen the tallest man, he showed no hint of recognition, and continued his steady progress up the hill. The tallest man sighed heavily and walked on, feeling worse than he had before he had seen either of his friends.

Finally he arrived at the village bakery, where he liked to take a cup of coffee before starting the day’s work. He knew that the gold key in his pocket meant the end of his labors for the rest of his life, but after seeing his friends, he wanted the comfort of something familiar, and so he went inside.

Including the baker, there was only one other person there when the tallest man opened the door. The miller’s daughter was sitting alone at a table, eating a frosted bun while tears glistened in her eyes. The tallest man thought that the baker also looked rather dejected, for he hid his face until the tallest man walked up to the counter.

Instantly, both the baker and the miller’s daughter jumped up and swept him a low bow. When the baker asked the tallest man what he would like to have, his face took on an expression that looked almost frightened. And when the tallest man gave him his order, the miller’s daughter ran from her place at the table and helped the baker pour him his drink.

“What’s all this?” said the tallest man, frowning at such strange behavior.

“We heard about your wish, sir,” said the miller’s daughter. “And you cannot deny that wealth demands respect. We were talking about it just before you came in.”

The tallest man thought about this for a moment. “Please treat me as you always have,” he said. “I made the best wish I could, but I fear it was not enough, and special treatment will not help.”

And although neither the baker nor the miller’s daughter understood what he meant, they agreed to behave as though the tallest man had never received the tiny gold key in his pocket.

The tallest man then took note of their tear-stained faces. “What has happened to make you so miserable?” he asked. “Tell me, and I promise to do what I can.”

The miller’s daughter and the baker looked at each other, then nodded.

“You may not understand, being so fortunate a man,” said the baker, “but we will do our best to explain. Each of us has loved and lost, and we may never recover our happiness.”

“I have loved your shortest friend for many months,” began the miller’s daughter, her eyes beset by shadows. “He was kinder than any in the village I know, and helped my father carry sacks of grain on days when his back was bad. He smiled whenever he saw me, and I always smiled back. I knew he was too shy to speak to me, so I tried to speak to him, but we never managed to speak to each other. I always hoped that, one day, he would forget his self-consciousness, and we would talk until the sun came up.”

“Has he truly been taken from you?” said the tallest man. “Certainly his appearance has changed, but perhaps things between you will be as they always were.”

“No,” said the miller’s daughter, shaking her head. “He cares more for his pride than for me now. Although he once worried what the village thought of him, I did not mind, for everyone worries what people will think. Now he cares only about himself and the ways he can be flattered, and though I cannot help but love him still, I will have no part in it.”

She wept a little, and the tallest man found he was disappointed in his friend.

“My story is much the same,” said the baker, looking at his hands. “I loved your next-to-tallest friend very dearly. Every afternoon he came to visit me, and I knew I could love no other. We spoke of sharing a home someday, and I always believed that we would. I knew he worried about village gossip, so I tried to put his mind at ease, but nothing I said seemed enough. I hoped that, one day, he would lose his shame and we could spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Has he truly been taken from you?” said the tallest man. “Certainly his affections have changed, but perhaps he will still come to see you.”

“No,” said the baker, swallowing hard. “Mere friendship would not be enough. Although he once worried what the village thought of him, I did not mind, for everyone worries what people will think. Now he cares only about himself and the ways he can avoid being vulnerable, and I will have no part in it.”

He cried a little, and the tallest man found he was disappointed in the middle-sized man, too.

They were silent for a few moments, and the tallest man thought about all he had seen and heard that morning. Hesitantly he examined his mind, and was not surprised to find that the questions that had plagued him for so long, and the dark feelings he had described to the spirit, were as present as ever.

“I myself am not as happy as you suspect,” he said at last. “Despite my new wealth, my unhappiness has remained. It is a different breed from yours – mine seems without a cause, and nevertheless clings to me all my waking hours – but perhaps our troubles can form a bond between us.”

The miller’s daughter and the baker agreed, and they spoke for several hours more, until the tallest man realized the time had come to meet his friends at the stream. He pulled on his coat, bade his farewells, and set out.

*

© 2012

See you tomorrow!

-Libby

I love doing Scandareviews. I really enjoy them, even though I’ve only done four so far — but a nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me last week that my Blondine review was too long, and I’m afraid it was right. I’m not sure it’s too long for readers — I’m definitely not an expert at figuring out what readers like and don’t like, and this blog is really for me — but I think I’d majorly underestimated the amount of work involved in the reviews I’ve published so far.

I don’t want the quality of them to lessen, and I definitely don’t want to drop the project, so my decision for now is to try to make Scandareviews more concise. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do that, but with the added load of schoolwork and the coming semester, I’m just going to have to find a way to cross that bridge. We’ll see how things go!

Anyway, today’s story comes from my beloved Bulfinch’s Mythology, which contains some of the best rainy-day reading in the world.

I was surprised to discover “Erisichthon” when I read it my sophomore year in high school, because until then, my main source for Greek and Roman mythology had been the D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, which it’s conspicuously absent from. It’s a dark, cold-winds-in-December kind of story, and not many people seem to have heard it before.

(Continued after the jump.)

Unlike most Scandaroona stories, it’s actually reasonably short, and can be found here. I think it would have been an especially thought-provoking story if I lived in a time when society believed in the Roman gods and goddesses, because the “morals” that stand out can be interpreted in a religious way — problems created by ignoring the gods, disrespect of sacred places, the way Poseidon helps Erisichthon’s daughter because she is faithful to him, even the concept of being a child of God (or gods!), which I had no idea existed outside of single-god faiths.

But “Erisichthon” can also be read in a more universal way — what it means to behave selfishly, respecting people different from yourself, the fact that women can be strong in painful situations, the morality of torture, even (maybe at a stretch) the importance of protecting the environment. That, coupled with its scariness and the fact that it’s so little-known (I’m becoming a fairy tale hipster!) makes it one of the most intriguing fairy tales I’ve read.

E-thon has supper. Thanks to the Etyman Language Blog for the picture.

Short Skipping-Around Summary: Erisichthon, “a profane person and despiser of the gods”, desecrates a grove belonging to Ceres (or Demeter, the goddess of the harvest), by chopping down a lovely old oak, killing one of Ceres’ favorite nymphs. As Roman gods tend to be vengeful, she sends a messenger in a dragon-drawn carriage to get Famine, a gaunt, shroud-like being, who possesses Erisichthon and makes it impossible for him ever to feel full again. He’s so hungry that he eats or sells everything he owns, including his own daughter, Mestra. But Neptune/Poseidon is on her side, and changes her into an impressive selection of people and animals in order to avoid slavery.

Unfortunately, even the money Erisichthon makes from trying to sell Mestra isn’t enough to feed him. “By this base method”, says Bulfinch’s, “the starving father procured food; but not enough for his wants, and at last hunger compelled him to devour his limbs, and he strove to nourish his body by eating his body, till death relieved him from the vengeance of Ceres.”

Shivers and horror and shivers.

From the play Metamorphoses, in a performance by Mendocino College. Our man serving up his foot.

Highlights:

• The extent of Erisichthon’s incredible cruelty. To me, the power of the story is that I sympathize with this disgusting guy, in spite of the fact that he has no moral compass and is probably a complete psychopath. But honestly, counting his crimes: he knows the tree he’s chopping is Ceres’ favorite, and he knows it’s important to the Dryads, and he knows a tree nymph lives inside it, and he still doesn’t care. He tries to make his hesitating servants do it, and when they won’t, he takes an ax himself, starts cutting, kills a man who tries to stop him, and continues to ignore all other people even when the tree starts bleeding. Ugh. Horrible man!

And still, I feel sorry for him.

• Mestra’s girl power. I guess she doesn’t do too much herself — merely prays to Neptune, who sorts her problems out for her — but still, she refuses to let her dysfunctional family situation get to her. She goes on with life and does what she has to do. It’s always nice to see strong female characters in stories that were written so long ago.

Poseidon: promoting girl power since 3000 BC.

• And then there’s the writing. I always come back to this beautiful but incredibly frightening description of what Ceres wants her messenger (a being called an Oread, which I am just finding out is a kind of mountain nymph) to do:

“There is a place in the farthest part of ice-clad Scythia, a sad and sterile region without trees and without crops. Cold dwells there, and Fear and Shuddering, and Famine. Go and tell the last to take possession of the bowels of Erisichthon. Let not abundance subdue her, nor the power of my gifts drive her away.”

Then, a few sentences on, you have the terrifying image of Famine herself:

“…she stopped the dragons and found Famine in a stony field, pulling up with her teeth and claws the scanty herbage. Her hair was rough, her eyes sunk, her face pale, her lips blanched, her jaws covered with dust, and her skin drawn tight, so as to show all her bones.”

The use of language is incredible. And it makes me think so hard about so many things — what’s the Roman goddess form of Fear like, and who is Shuddering, who to me sounds the scariest of all? Why is Famine so willing to do as Ceres asks? And why is Ceres so harsh?

If there was ever a rehashed, novel-length version of this myth (as seems so popular nowadays), I’d snatch it up in a second. There’d be so much to work with and talk about — I’d love to get some of these questions answered.

Amazingly, it’s still in print today, although it now goes by the name of The Golden Book of Fairy Tales. It wasn’t only my favorite fairy tale book when I was eight — I inherited it from my mother, who remembers it fondly from her own childhood. By the time my cousin was settled with it on the sofa, my mother and my aunt were looking at it too, rattling off the names of their favorite stories. I actually discovered there was a story in the book I’d never read — “The Royal Ram”, because apparently little Libby believed a story about sheep could contain nothing that would interest her. (This is dreadfully ironic now, considering I spend a lot of my time at school writing in a field with about eight rams hanging out just beyond the fence. Inspiring, no?)

But I didn’t read that story today. For the first time, I decided to review a story that I’d already read — one that is known to Golden Book aficionados as “Bright, Deardeer and Kit”, but which is actually called “L’Histoire de Blondine”, or “The Story of Blondine, Bonne-Biche, and Beau-Minon”.

(Continued after the jump.)

One rather cool thing about the Golden Book is that Marie Ponsot, who is described on the title page as the book’s “translator”, actually adapted each story to be more accessible to its audience — which (if little Libby was any example) was an audience of dreamy, magic-mad children. (Not absolutely certain it was Marie Ponsot who did this, I’ll just add here. But I don’t see credit being given to anyone else for these adaptations, so I shall just make an assumption.)

The stories are shorter and clearer than their originals. Characters are given names who didn’t have names before. Sometimes scary and strange things are removed. Other times — unexpectedly — they aren’t, and that’s what makes it such a wonderful book. Adapted and changed though the stories are, they’re written clearly enough for anyone to understand, and yet they’re still capable of sending shivers down your spine.

(If anybody’s interested, and if anybody happens to have this book lying around their house, dorm room, or cardboard box, find “Queen Cat” in the table of contents. It’s almost an exact retelling of “The White Cat” from two weeks ago — but with some subtle changes.)

(Illustrated by Adrienne Segur)

Anyway, “Bright, Deardeer and Kit” is a story I remember reading a lot. I think it was the image of the forest of enchanted lilacs that got me, and the spookiness of Bright wandering through it, abandoned by her servant, Piggo, who had taken her there in a cart led by ostriches. I mean — an ostrich cart? A forest of lilacs? And then the elements of the rest of the story: a wicked but fragile stepmother, an enchanted doe and cat, a sleep that lasts seven years, a devil-like parrot, a magic rose who is Bright’s own “evil genius”, a silent journey on the back of a tortoise… it’s beautiful. And a little bit terrifying. But that’s why I wanted to know more about it.

It was first written by Madame la Comtesse de Ségur, whose real name was Countess Sofiya Feodorovna Rostopchina, or sometimes just Sophie, Countess of Ségur. She started writing old — fifty-eight years old, in fact — but that didn’t seem to have any bearing on her writing talent. She tended to go more for moral fables than tales of pure adventure (“Bright, Deardeer and Kit” is actually the first Scandareview story that has had a moral so far), but she added a fair dose of wild whimsy, too. She was an exiled Russian-Mongolian aristocrat who unfortunately seems to have had a jerk of a husband — but she hasn’t been forgotten, honored today by both the French and the Russians, along with countless fans around the world.

You go, Soph.

Sophie, via Booktopia.

I couldn’t find a legal version of “Bright, Deardeer and Kit” online (though I did find several illegal versions — Scribd’s illegal, isn’t it? ‘Twould be good to know, because if it isn’t, I could link to it.) Personally, my French is awful, but if yours isn’t, you can attempt the original version here. Otherwise, there’s a copy here that seems to be more or less a direct translation — the literary version to Golden Book’s condensed one.

The differences between the online versions and the Golden Book version are so slight that I don’t really feel it’s worth mentioning them, except for the fact that “Bright, Deardeer and Kit” is shorter. And then there are the name changes, which I’ll put here, in case you’ve clicked one of the above links and want to know who on earth Piggo is.

Blondine — Bright

King Benin — King Kind

Queen Doucette — Queen Gentle

Minister Leger — unnamed Secretary of State

King Turbulent — King Battle

Queen/Princess Fourbette — Queen/Princess Rigid

Brunette — Dark (seriously! Apparently Madame la Comtesse de Ségur had a thing against brunettes. Maybe something to do with her hubby?)

Gourmandinet — Piggo

Beau-Minon — Kit

Bonne-Biche — Deardeer

Fairy Bienfaisante — Fairy Goodness

Prince Violent — Prince Fierce

(Illustrated by Adrienne Segur)

Highlights (heavens! I have to pick just four? I’m not sure I can manage that.)

– Gourmandinet’s death in the original French version. This was one of the only things that wasn’t in the Golden Book version, and it actually shocked me. The poor man is already quaking with remorse at having followed Queen Fourbette’s orders and dumped Blondine in the lilac forest. Why does the Queen have to give him a volatile mule that throws him to the ground and kills him instantly? And then that final line, written absolutely humorlessly: “No one regretted him. No one but the poor Blondine had ever loved him.” Poor Gourmandinet!

– Bright’s/Blondine’s seven-year sleep, from the ages of seven to fourteen. “Today’s your fourteenth birthday, child,” said Deardeer. “You’ve slept a special sleep for seven years. Kit and I wanted to spare you the tiresome part of growing and learning. We’ve taught you in your sleep.” Frankly, I’d be furious about that — seven to twelve were lovely years! It’s the years from thirteen to sixteen that would have been nice to avoid — but Bright is delighted and shows off all her new skills, which include calligraphy, piano-playing, and being well-read. All right, maybe I’m a bit jealous. :)

– The utter evilness of the parrot who tricks Bright/Blondine into picking her “evil genius” rose. (The concept of the “evil genius” is also something I find fascinating — does everyone have an evil genius? Does it symbolize the evil within Bright, or is something that causes evil within Bright? And the fact that Kit and Deardeer would have been enchanted forever if she hadn’t picked it — and that they were willing to be — is also fantastically original.)

Anyway, the parrot is evil personified. Constantly squawks at poor Bright and even shouts at her when she won’t pick the rose fast enough. Used to give me shivers.

– The double wedding at the end. It’s such a twisted, spooky, fantastic story that it’s rather funny that it ends this way, especially after the extremely shocking thing that happens right before the resolution. It made me smile as a kid, and it still does.