Wisdom's Kiss (77 page)
Authors: Catherine Gilbert Murdock
From
Gory Dragons Galore: A Treasury of Educative and Cautionary Tales for Unformed Youngsters and Others Yet Morally Deficient
Once upon a time there were two children who were very naughty indeed. Their poor mama pleaded with them to behave, but the stubborn youngsters defied her. Reminded yet again to scrub the front step, Liesl would only complain that the hot water hurt her hands, while Pietr, when chopping logs, invariably produced firewood that was rough and unsightly. The laggards instead begged for picture books and sweets, and never once asked
-no matter how their dear mama scolded and spanked them-how best
to relieve her of her obligations.
So it was that the two children, one day cavorting rather than working as they should, happened upon an odd cat that purred and rubbed against their legs. Of course they did not know the cat belonged to a witch and was in fact a dreaded Doppelschläferin—a double through which the witch viewed the world whilst asleep. The cat twitched its whiskers at them and at once bewitched the boy and girl, who without another thought to their duties followed the creature into the forest.
Presently they came to a cottage with a cheery fire and a rosy-cheeked old woman who offered each child a slice of cake and insisted they stay for tea, claiming she was a lonely biddy with few visitors. Well! Sugar, as every adult knows, rots the brains of little ones, and quickly this toxin poisoned Pietr and Liesl. Completely mesmerized by the witch's magic and her noxious treats, the tots uttered a most appalling falsehood: that their mama had died and they had nowhere else to go!
Cackling in delight, the woman insisted they remain with her, baiting her scheme with promises of daily cake and playtime. The siblings agreed, their wee minds utterly blighted; such was the crone's power that they promptly swept the cottage without being either asked or beaten. Building themselves little beds in the attic, they vowed to stay in the cottage all their days.
Oh, how their mama raged when they did not return, thinking the naughty things had simply run off, and she appealed to all the community to find her truant offspring. So it was that several days later a passing villager detected the two enslaved fledglings chortling and singing as they beat the rugs, their expressions dazed. The cat, spying the man, twitched its whiskers, but he withstood that powerful magic and raced away to warn his neighbors.
That night the villagers returned with torches and pitchforks, tying the witch to a stake to burn her and cheering in delight as the cat was tossed into the flames. The children wailed as the spell over them broke, though their minds were so muddled that evermore they could not speak coherently about their enchanted hardship, no matter how diligently their mother worked them, and kept them from stories and music and anything sweet.
Another upbeat story
from
Gory Dragons Galore.
Author commentary
on "Cat Whiskers"
Sottocenere
" from
The Encyclopedia of Lax
More on
Doppelschläferins
More Bonus Material
>
>A few years ago, I gave a lecture on fairy tales. I'd selected the topic because I thought it would be straightforward and easy. Ha! It turns out there are
libraries
of books written on fairy tales, whole academic subspecialties on fairy tales, graduate-school departments of fairy tales ... So I learned a lot about fairy tales ... certainly more than I ever thought I would. But that's okay, because I like them a lot, and I certainly (as
Princess Ben
and now
Wisdom's Kiss
show) like writing them and tweaking them and turning them upside down.
It turns out (so I learned) that fairy tales have a number of "rules," if you will, and one of them is that a fairy tale almost always has a moral—a life lesson—woven into the story. Sometimes, as in the work of
Charles Perrault
, this moral is explicit, but even if it's not written down, it's always there. This is one difference between fairy tales and fantasy novels, which often focus more on bopping and magic than personal betterment.
In a well-written fairy tale, the moral is inserted as neatly as a sugarcoated pill so that the reader absorbs it almost subconsciously. To use the example of "Puss in Boots," it's that hard work and good clothes take one further than inherited wealth does. But not every fairy tale is written well, and far too many authors view stories as a way to instruct and improve children, however odious the instruction might be. The Victorians were especially bad (or good, I suppose) at composing tales smothered in moralism, but presses still churn out such masterpieces as "The Homework Fairy Teaches Jack." Gack.
In "Cat Whiskers," I created as horrible a fairy tale as I could imagine. Given that the Germans fairy-tale-wise have always been depressing if not downright creepy, I used the sorts of names found in the Brothers Grimm, and a typical Grimm-ish ending. Like much bad kid lit, the story is written from the point of view of an adult—the mother, no less (How many books have you ever read where the mother is part of the adventure? Quick answer: zero)—with no sympathy for the children's perspective or needs. When I read "Cat Whiskers" aloud to my kids, they were speechless; I'm still not sure if it was the moral or the writing generally that appalled them. Frankly, I'm afraid to ask.
To anyone who takes "Cat Whiskers" seriously, let me be clear: this is a joke. I get it. If you approve of this parenting style, you're definitely doing something wrong.
Why mothers should never be in adventures>
Full text of "
Cat Whisker's
"
Full text of "
The Dolorous Draper
"
More Bonus Material>
>From
Gory Dragons Galore: A Treasury of Educative and Cautionary Tales for Unformed Youngsters and Others Yet Morally Deficient
Once upon a time a dragon lived in the mountains of Sottocenere. He lived with his mother, in a cave overlooking a tiny valley where people tended their cows and made their cheese and had sense enough to keep away from dragons.
All day long the dragon would lie on a boulder outside his cave, watching the villagers far below (he was a young dragon, and so had excellent eyesight), and when night fell, he would watch them still. Sometimes when the evenings were warm and the villagers felt safe, they left their shutters open, and the dragon could observe them eating dinner. He particularly liked to watch the burgomaster. How glorious that dinner looked! The table set with china plates and candles, the plates spread upon a pristine white tablecloth.
Oh, the dragon yearned for a tablecloth. The candles were lovely, and the china, yes, but most of all he wanted that snowy cloth. The food looked far more delicious - so much better than the cattle and stringy mountain sheep he and his mother ate off the floor of their cave, surrounded by bones and the few scraps of treasure they'd salvaged or stolen from other, wealthier dragons.
His mother, when he worked up the courage to voice this dream, scoffed at him. "A dragon doesn't need tablecloths!"she sneered. "A cloth doesn't change the taste at all. Besides, cloth isn't treasure. It isn't valuable—not like gold.
"
"
Not even silk?" he asked tentatively. "Not even damask?
"
"
Nothing like gold," she sniffed. And that was the end of that.
So the dragon returned to his boulder, still dreaming of banquets spread on damask. And there he might have remained, full of unfilled longing, were it not for the arrival in the village of a cloth merchant, or as they used to call them, a draper.
The man appeared pushing a heavy cart laden with the most beautiful fabrics: silks and woolens, fine linens and sheer voiles, cotton grown in far-off lands and damasks woven in intricate detail, some colored with borders offruit or ornaments, and others milky white.
Intently the dragon witnessed the man's approach, and at once the beast flew down to the village entrance, transforming himself into a fat matron with a purse of coins. "Have you a tablecloth?"he asked the draper, affecting disinterest and hoping the man could not hear the pounding of his black dragon heart.
"
But of course,"the man answered, displaying several so lovely that the dragon nearly swooned.Yet he was still a dragon through and through, and so haggled for some time over a price for the loveliest one (so the dragon felt, anyway) and with feigned reluctance handed the man his dragon gold before hurrying off with his treasure.
Woe for the draper, for he was not from Sottocenere and had no experience with the dangers of dragons, nor knowledge that dragon gold is cursed. Instead, he promptly visited the local brewer and purchased an enormous bucket of beer. (The brewer wasn't so bright either, accepting that dragon gold, but there's never been much to say for Sottocenere brewers.) The draper then settled himself beneath a shady tree and drank so much of the beer that he fell into a deep, deep slumber.