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| Fairystories and Poems |
| Five Gifts - A Fairytale |
  | Lonia was born when wolves were mighty in the forest.
The tale of how she saved Pintak the elf were written down on parchment, found by a renown archaeologist, deciphered by a great scholar and then hidden by a great hoarder for centuries.
People argue a great deal over Lonia's battle with Rifintel the Vile.
Some say it is the first story ever to be written down
others that it is the second.
I do not know who is right but it all
started when she was thirteen. Â
There was a part of the forest set in a valley in which only the children were ever allowed. There lived the elves in their special trees. At thirteen Lonia was sad because she would soon be married and have to stay away from her favourite places.
She hated the very idea
She loved the centre of the children's glade for there it
was always
quiet especially beneath the ancient pear tree on which
Pintak
would sit and talk to her.
She never tired in the summer of seeing him stand beside
a pear-fruit and test it for ripeness before picking it
and throwing it down to her.
No pears ever tasted as delicious as these.
She learnt to be friends with the animals and tell by the crack
of a twig if it had been broken by a careless badger,
a running fox
or the foot of one of the children from the village.
Seeing elves was an everyday occurrence to her.
Seeing a magician would have been odd.
 (Which shows you how much things have changed
 for today magicians are everywhere
 and you cannot find an elf for love-nor-money.)
"You look worried," observed Pintak on her thirteenth birthday.
"I am. If I am married I won't be able to come to the children's glade any more."
"I've heard of this custom."
"Do elves ever marry?"
"We have a long tradition of staying single."
"I don't want to get married"
"That's unfortunate if your parents insist upon it."
"I'd be alright if you helped me run away."
"I don't know. I mean I'd have to run away too and I've nothing to run away from. That makes it difficult. I could introduce you to one or two of my friends maybe they would help you."
"Never mind. It's my problem. I'll see you tomorrow."
But the next day when Lonia visited Pintak was gone.
She grew worried. She had never known a time when he did not come out to say hello almost before she had arrived.
She looked around and up the pear tree and found nothing. She sat down and wondered what had happened.
"You've noticed," said a red voice above her.
"Hello squirrel," she greeted him, "Do you know what has happened to Pintak?"
"Pintak's an elf. If an elf goes missing there is only one place to look."
"Where?"
"In a wizard's lair. It's well known that only wizards kidnap elves.
They experiment on them for their spells."
"But... that's awful."
"If you think that's bad think how Pintak feels."
"I must try to save him."
"A noble but foolish thought."
"Why foolish?"
"What do you know about wizards?"
"Nothing."
"That's how foolish. Believe you me you don't want to go arguing
with a wizard before you learn what he can do to you."
The squirrel lay back on its tail for a second looking at her sad eyes welling with tears at the thought of how Pintak might be suffering. He hopped down the bough,
"See here this might help you."
He licked her forehead. "Now when you wish to seek for anything just imagine it in your head and you will know in which direction to go."
"Thank you." She knew what a useful gift she had been given.
"Well I'm blowed," noticed the squirrel, "The tree wishes you to have a gift as well."
Sure enough the pear tree had been listening
and unlike the squirrel it knew which wizard
it was that had kidnapped Pintak.
One of its branches came down and the
young twig at the end slowly burst into leaf in front of them.
Then it broke from the twig and fell into Lonia's hand.
It was exactly like a time-lapse film played back at normal speed.
The leaf felt softer than silk and smelled of pears and sugar.
She carefully put it against her skin under
her clothes to keep it from tearing.
"What will it do?"
"I haven't a clue," said a squirrel, "but it will be useful. No tree gives a gift that isn't useful. Good luck."
Lonia set out immediately and after three hours she met a brown deer with white tufts of fur on its eyes who had heard she was on her way to fight a wizard. (News travels amongst animals - even faster than e-mails.) She came up to Lonia and asked her to help her break the hard ground so she could eat.
"Why is the ground so hard in spring?" Lonia asked as she dug into it with a sharp stone.
"Because the wizard Rifintel the Vile stepped upon it with his careless feet." After a little while the ground softened and the deer was able to browse from the grass Lonia had dug up. Then the deer licked her forehead with its thick, soft tongue and spoke,
"Now, even before you hear it, you will know when danger is near.
Your ears will tingle. The beware and be careful."
"Thank you," said Lonia grateful for the gift of the deer.
 Lonia went on walking knowing where to go because
she kept a picture of Pintak in her head and the gift of the
squirrel showed her feet the way.
When it was near dusk she smelled a fire and seeing
the glint of flames she ran up and saw an ant hill being engulfed
in flames.
All the ants were running hither-and-thither
trying to save their eggs and some where being badly burned.
Lonia began to damp down the fire and with her feet
kicking soil onto the flames and soon the fire was out.
She was breathless and sat down to recover.
The ants thanked her.
"You have been touched by the squirrel and the deer," they observed, "you must be on an important journey."
"I am. Rifintel the Vile has kidnapped my eleven friend Pintak and I am going to try to rescue him."
"In that case, we will help you as you helped us."
Several ants crawled up to her face and licked her forehead together saying,
"Now we give you the gift of the strength of ants. You will be able to lift heavy objects that will astound those who see you for never would a young girl have been so strong. Like us you will be able to carry seven times your own weight and even more!"
"Thank you," she said to them feeling rested.
Spring continued on its way as she walked that night without resting and near dawn she heard a loud moaning and squawking.
When she was closer she found herself by a beech tree beneath which a fledgling Jackdaw had fallen.
Large birds were landing around it intending to peck it to death and eat it before its parents flew back from catching it breakfast.
She ran up making a loud noise and waving her arms and they flew away in fright.
Then she sat with the fledgling who had fallen whilst trying to test its wings.
She kept it company until its parents came down. It told them what she had done and Lonia felt sad she could not understand what it was saying.
"I have seen you on my flights," the father told Lonia, "I have heard of your journey."
"But we never expected to meet you," said the mother bird.
"I never expected to meet you," Lonia assured them.
"Do you think you could save our daughter's life and not be thanked?" said the father bird.
"I would have done it anyway without needing thanks. If I had not she might have been killed."
"Your heart is great, Lonia, and for this we will give you a gift to help you on your journey."
Jackdaws, like most large birds, do have tongues but never before nor since has anyone been licked by one, but Lonia's forehead was licked by the mother bird and the father bird said to her,
"We give you the gift of putting your head on one side and being able to understand any language and anything said to you. No one will ever be able to lie to you for you will know the language of their hearts as well as of their tongues"
"Thank you."
"A pleasure," they both cawed.
Lonia had never been sure of what she was doing until now. Surely with this last gift she would be a match for Rifintel? Confidently she marched onward knowing she was near his lair. So it was that Lonia came to the domain of Rifintel the Vile. Here she received her first shock.
It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen.
Every flower was in the right place, every tree tall and filled with birds, the river bubbled happily and by a small cottage a man sat smoking a cigar. Nothing told her there was danger except the gift of the deer. She froze and looked about her with wide eyes. Then she heard music and tilting her head on one side she understood it was enticing her to enter the garden but she refused to move. The music sounded pleasant and the garden looked beautiful but it hid a sinister secret.
"Who are you, who?" demanded the man without taking the cigar out of his mouth.
"Lonia."
"Lonia? A girl, Lonia."
"A friend of the elf Pintak."
"Elf Pintak? I have heard of him, elf." Lonia wondered why the man repeated the first word he spoke at the end of every sentence.
"Are you Rifintel the Vile."
"I am. They call me vile now do they, I."
"You kidnapped Pintak."
"Strange accusation. You have proof of course, strange."
"You were seen."
"Seeing is not proof. The sight may have been a dream, seeing."
"Then deny it."
"Deny what I have not done? Why, deny."
"Stop being foolish and tell me where Pintak is."
"Where indeed! You accuse me of being foolish, me Rifintel, where. Before you were born I was powerful, you with no magic, before. You call me foolish but you come here with no magic to accuse me, you. Me! Look around you, look. Each flower and shrub in my garden was a person who came here trying to trouble me, each. Go away and stay away, go. If you do not we shall come to blows and I will win, if."
Lonia had not dreamt she would have to fight Rifintel. In fact she had not thought about it at all. She had only thought about finding Pintak and taking him home and she knew he was here.
"What do you wizards do with elves anyway?"
Rifintel did not like Lonia but he could not refuse to talk about his profession so he said,
"Usually? Experiments, usually. How long do they take to boil, how. How many cigars can they smoke before their eyes fall out, how. How allergic are they to my potions, how. How far can they walk on one leg, how. How long can they skip before their arms fall off, how. That kind of thing, usually, that."
"That's horrible!"
"You'll do the same one day, you."
"I will not."
"No? And if you have medicine to test you'll test it on yourself and not someone else, no?"
"I...don't know."
"I do, I."
"Are you carrying out your experiments now?"
"Yes. Several, yes. I am freezing their wings and dropping them from a great height to see if their wings warm up before they go splatt on the ground, I."
"Do they warm up?"
"Not the first nine, not."
"You've killed nine elves for the fun of it!"
"Their wings killed them, their. If they had warmed up they could have flown away, if."
"And now you have your tenth elf."
"Just got, just."
"And he's my friend."
"Elves do not have friends, elves."
"Pintak does."
"Mmmfthigs," raged Rifintel suddenly realising Lonia had tricked him into revealing he had just kidnapped an elf.
He vanished in a puff of smoke that smelled like lavender.
It was really difficult trying to believe he was evil with all this
beauty and sweet smells everywhere.
However Lonia knew he was.
Trusting to the squirrel's gift she looked around
and started to walk towards a large stone half buried in the ground.
Using the gift of the ants she lifted it slowly from one side
and rolled it over even though it weighed tonnes.
Once up it revealed a hole that must have been dark,
freezing and damp when the stone covered it.
There chained up she saw Pintak.
He tried to jump up but couldn't because his wings were like
blocks of ice.
She had arrived just in time because he was almost ready
to be dropped from a great height.
Quick as she could she scrambled down and looked around for
a key but there wasn't one.
Then she heard shrill squeak and saw a rat.
She tilted her head on one side and it repeated,
"You could use that piece of old bone to break the lock."
She picked it up and snapped the lock freeing Pintak and then she turned and thanked the rat who had spoken to her.
"That's alright. It's nice to be listened to once in a while."
Lonia and Pintak ran into the woods and vanished amongst the trees. Rifintel came back thinking the nuisance of a girl must have gone and he was furious when he found Pintak had escaped. He had not thought it possible for a girl to lift the stone or break the chains nor to know exactly where to look.
"Come to think of it, how did she find me in the first place? She must have powers. These humans are becoming a bit too clever I'll have to watch myself."
Lonia had been very tricky and he would have to be careful of her if he was going to get his own back.
He ran after them with his long half-flying strides and caught up with them. He grew to a huge size and breathed out burning gas and sulphur but Lonia put Pintak behind her and stood her ground.
"I shall kill you, I."
"No you won't," she defied him.
He darted a flame at her and it hit the pear leaf. Lonia did not know that Pintak's pear tree was the first pear tree in the world. It still had the strong, deep powers of magic within it and it would not allow her to be burnt. The fire did her no harm.
Rifintel was astonished.
He tried to turn her into an apple tree but you can't turn a pear leaf into an apple tree and it stopped him. It wouldn't be turned into an oak tree, or a rose or a bunch of daffodils or lily or an orchid.
Rifintel lessened his size with each try he made and after two days he was exhausted having tried to turn her into four thousand different plants from all over the world.
"You could have told me you were a powerful magician, you."
"But I am not."
"Nonsense. I cannot kill you or turn you into a plant, nonsense."
"That's because you are a weak wizard!"
Lonia knew exactly what to say because she had looked deep into his words and the gift of the Jackdaws showed him to be an arrogant, self-important kind of a wizard with an inflated ego. Rifintel wanted to be angry but he was afraid. She had seen right through him. But although she had won this time he was her enemy for the rest of her life and she would have to be careful of him.
But with the five gifts which were hers to keep she did not have too much to worry about.
As a gift to add to the others the elves, on Pintak's insistence, decided to allow Lonia to be the only adult permitted to enter their part of the forest which she often did.
To their dying days her parents kept on nagging her to get married but she never would.
| | Posted: 3.2.2008 at 04:13 | Read 194 times | 4 comments | Leave Comment |
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| Daniel | | 
"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel:Horace Walpole" |
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