You can find out a lot about a Nation by reading it's 'fairy tales'. -- Anon Guest
Civilisation tells stories. Oral history, moral fables, just-so legends, and in the case of humans, rampant fiction that builds and mutates as it goes. And every now and again, you meet the Fae Tales. Stories of otherworldly beings who have mental processes that squirm like worms, who steal children for laughs, who either prey on the mad or avoid them like the plague. There's something real about them. Something... unnerving. Even when later editors remove most of the blood and replace it with glittering tutus.
My mother said/ I never should/ play with the faeries/ in the wood...
The people who tell these stories call them, "the kind ones" and, "the fair folk" with the same optimism that a cat burglar calls a dog with orange eyebrows a, "nice doggie". And if you listen to the unedited stories, passed down from the survivors, you will learn why. Even the encounters with the good Fae can turn sour in an instant.
Your hair won't curl/ your shoes won't shine/ Oh sweet child/ you won't be mine...
Some try to be good. Most aim for wickedness. There is some debate as to whether or not they have the same standards of 'good' or 'evil' as mere mortals do. Centuries pass, and there are... encounters. By the light of the full moon. During a foggy twilight. In a confusing forest where a lone traveller got turned around. Right up to this very day, there are encounters. Which are not spoken of to outsiders. There are things that are just not done.
And if you know the old stories, and the encounters, and are rigidly polite, and as generous as you can be... you just might survive with something of a gift. Or only a mild curse. And if you are quick of thinking, and very clever, you might come away with their admiration.
Crazy old Dottie, by the byre, had only one child. She doted on it, they say. Rarely left the baby unguarded. She would not speak of its father, and some say the babe was Touched. It was a very quiet child, even before the Fair Folk took it away for a changeling.
Dottie knew the old tales, and ran the tests. Of course the changeling revealed itself, and Crazy old Dottie carried it, heavy though it was, on her back. All the way to the standing stones where the Fae were said to dance. She brought along her applejack, and a wheel of cheese, because that was all she had to offer. The Fae were waiting. They loved a good show.
"I've come for my child," she said, setting the changeling down. The identical children ran to hug and play with each other. "Share my food and drink, fair king, and we can talk. And I can catch my breath."
"We won't taunt you much," promised their current leader. "Just pick your child from their double and you can take it home with no harm done."
Changeling and child both stood perfectly still, and smiled for Crazy old Dottie.
"They are both my children," she said. "Have I not loved the changeling as powerfully as my own babe? Have I not cared as deeply? Have I not done my all for them as I have for mine?"
There was a nod, from one of the children, and the fae king smiled. "You will find life with two children twice as hard. They will need twice the clothes. Twice the food. You've no wine to offer me. Even this paltry meal is almost more than you can spare."
"I'll find a way," said crazy old Dottie. "I will find two children twice as loving. My life twice as blessed."
"Then all you have to do," said the king-under-the-hill, "is carry them home."
Just as with the journey there, a fae trick is to beg to be carried, and get progressively heavier. Until the human falters or is crushed by the weight. Some even add a penalty to that failure. The Fae consider this a fine sport. And so it was for crazy old Dottie, who used her shawl to tie two children to her back, and set off with her stick as a support, all the way home.
The stories differ, from there. Some say she bore the weight all the way home. Some say the Fair Folk tried to confound her path. Some say the children on her back begged to be let down for water and food. No matter the trials, crazy old Dottie passed them, and the instant she crossed the threshhold to her humble little hut, she had two bairns instead of one.
True to her word, she favoured neither one nor the other. She raised no hand to them. Spared them little. Loved them both for all she had and all she was worth.
And the Fae do not forget such favours. One child was always doing strange little rituals. Secretive ones that people only caught the edges of. Talking to the plants. Talking to the animals. And the little farm far from the village... prospered. Crazy old Dottie's pig had a bumper litter of piglets, and everyone swore that she had previously owned a boar. Her crops grew a-plenty. She had more apples than any other farmer, and they tasted better than any, to boot.
Her sheep never had a burr in their wool. Her cow gave the best cream. Made the best cheese. Her chickens and geese alike laid the finest eggs.
And she always took a basket of her wares to the standing stones, and thanked the Kind Ones there.
And she loved her children. Fae and Mundane alike.
Nobody knows what happened to crazy old Dottie. Some say a nobleman came and paid her gold for her farm, and the nobleman never prospered as well as Dottie did. Some say she lived to a grand old age and died a great-great grandmother. Some say she walked one day with a share of her wares to the standing stone and never came back. Some say she joined the Wild Hunt or rode off on a Pooka.
Dottie doesn't tend that farm any more.
Some say it fell to ruin. Some say it prospers still. Tended by twins who never seem to age, and have been there forever. But to be certain, the Fae won't let anyone else do the same as Dottie. Not twice. But in these parts? Folk like to carry around the best bottle of Twinnourth Cider, and claim kinship to old Dottie. The bottle is a gift for any of the Kind Ones that may cross their path, and the claim of kinship?
Well...
The Fair Folk never harm one of their own.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / philipimage]
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