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The Snow Bunny, Concluded

Part One: Kay

Part Two: Gerda

Part Three: The Thrilling Conclusion  Coming Soon!

The situation became so desperate that the man resorted to asking anyone who walked by to help him out with the window. The first passer by to agree was a tall, broad shouldered polar bear, who happened to be very good indeed at fixing windows.

“Thank you, kind bear!” the man said when he was done. “Is there anything I can do for you in return?”

Yes, there was, the bear answered. And then he demanded the man’s youngest daughter for his wife.

When she was informed, tearfully, by her father about the arrangement, she just shrugged and agreed to go.

At this point, the narrator feels obligated to share with you certain information: the two elder daughters were dancers, famous throughout their town for their skill. And their younger sister, the one who agreed to go with the polar bear, was always their choreographer.

This is important because as soon as the girl reached her new home, she found a large crowd of bears waiting to be instructed in dancing. You see, the polar bears had long been at war with the penguins, and it had been decided centuries ago that the only way to resolve the conflict would be through a dance off.

The time for the dance off was drawing near, and the bears had no dance.

And so, the girl thought up a dance, and spent her days and some of her nights teaching it to the bears and having them run through the routine again and again. After some time, she discovered that she was actually quite happy living among the bears.

However, she still longed to see her family. When she thought to discuss her wishes with the bear, he agreed, but gave her one stipulation: she was not to tell her mother about the dance off, or the penguins.

And so the girl went home, and was received with much happiness and many hugs. She stayed up long into the night with her family, and before the sun came up, she told her mother about the dance off. And the penguins.

“That’s silly,” her mother said. “Polar bears live at the North Pole, and penguins at the South Pole. How can they dance against each other?”

The bear was cross indeed when he heard that the girl had told her mother, and what her mother had said.

“Now that that’s been pointed out to us, we will have to travel east of the sun and west of the moon, to where the penguins live.”

It was a very long journey, and the girl became worried that not all of the bears would make it. Every single one was vital for the routine.

Luckily, every bear survived the trip, and they danced their hardest and their fastest, and their routine looked even better than the choreographer could have imagined.

However, they did lose to the penguins. Penguins are fantastic dancers.

The End

Source: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Asbjornsen and Moe

Beatrix Cottonpants and her stories are moving to their very own home at beatrixcottonpants.com. Follow her there for more fables and fairy tales and more screwed up beyond recognition, plau new and exciting features to come!

Stories for Everyone But You,

You see, the winter was coming, and had promised, in writing, to be especially harsh that year. So many animals and insects and fish were forming alliances to get through the season.

Several times during the summer, and then during the fall, the ant attempted to get the grasshopper to meet with him and set down assignments for each to accomplish. However, the grasshopper always begged forgiveness and told the ant they’d meet another day.

By the time the winter finally came, the ant realized he had done all the work: he’d collected the food, prepared the food, stored the food, and made several special dishes that had been taught to him by his mother. The grasshopper, however, had done no work at all.

So one cold day, when the grasshopper was watching his soaps, there was a knocking on the door. The grasshopper gladly opened it. He had been anxiously awaiting the food provided by the ant.

Instead, he found the ant waiting with just his hoe.

The ant proceeded to beat the grasshopper with the hoe then, again and again until he lay bloody and twitching on the floor. After a while, he did toss him in the back of his van and take him to the hospital.

And so the grasshopper survived with only a few scars and a lifelong fear of hoes, but he never took advantage of the ant again.

The End.

Source: The Ant and the Grasshopper, Aesop’s Fables.

Sometimes, when Porpoise had no intruders to scare away, or dog food to eat, he liked to explore his big nice house. He almost always found something he’d never seen before, or at least something he’d found once and forgotten about.

One day, he was exploring a new room when, passing by something shiny and silver, he encountered something he’d not seen before: another dog.

It was most certainly a male, a brown dog with black ears and a fluffy tail. But it was snarling, and looked ready to attack.

Porpoise began to growl back, but was interrupted when his owner came in, patted him on the head, and laughed about him growling at the mirror.

As he left the room, he was sure he saw the mirror dog turn into a hippopotamus.

The following day, he walked back up to the mirror, where the dog was waiting. But this time, his smaller owner came and made him go outside and play. This time, the dog thought he saw a rhinoceros watching him leave.

But that night, Porpoise made sure no one else was awake when he returned to the mirror. And the mirror dog was there, waiting, and it seemed to smile.

Porpoise barked and he growled, and his hackles went up, and the mirror dog just snarled and growled and paced.

Not knowing what else to do, the dog took his favorite toy, a light blue kitty and hit it against the mirror.

There was a thud, and a thwack, and a small crack appeared on the mirror. And the mirror dog ran away with its tail between its legs. As it ran, the dog thought it saw it turn into something smaller and softer, with sharper claws and pointy ears.

But his job was done, so Porpoise went downstairs, and slept on the couch until the sun came up.

The End

© Beatrix Cottonpants Original

But later the very night he managed to do so, all seven kittens appeared in the windows,meowing and flicking their tails. Kittens, of course, are naturally good at finding their way home again.

The next time, the man made sure to take the kittens out during the day, when they were naturally more sleepy.

And so the kittens woke up later that night without any idea where they were, and most began to panic and fret. But the tiniest kitten told them to shut up, and promised he would rescue them. First, he demanded the other kittens bring him a glass of water, and a nice Hat, with a pretty design on it. Once that had been accomplished, he led them on a long winding trail through the woods, until they reached a cabin.

The tiniest kitten walked up first, and looked through the window until he was certain only a friendly looking woman was inside. Then he mewled at the door in his tiniest voice, until she got up and opened the door.

“Now!” he called, and all of the other kittens ran into the house through the friendly woman’s feet, and hid behind or between various pieces of furniture.

She grumbled quite a lot over the next few hours, but still left some cat food out before she went to sleep.

But the next morning, there was a stomping, and a thumping, and a grumbling that went through the entire house, and the tiniest kitten could just about see a giant bird stomp into the room, and demand a meal of kittens from his mother.

You see, the friendly woman had not mentioned that she had a son who happened to be a giant bird, nor that he enjoyed the taste of kittens above all other foods.

So the tiniest kitten gave the signal, and the kittens dashed through the door again. Some ran very fast, and some hid in trees and bushes and discarded shoes, and some weaved between the giant bird’s feet.

Now, before the giant bird had begun to chase the kittens, he made sure to put on his magical boots, which helped him run very fast indeed, but also made his long spindly legs move in a funny way.

So he sort of pranced along after the kittens, until they reached the woods.

In the woods, things changed.

Birds are the natural prey of kittens, and in the woods, they began to stalk the large bird, pouncing on his boots and saying mean things about his appearance, until the bird was reduced to a weeping mess, and the kittens had his magical boots.

It was decided that the tiniest kitten deserved the wonderful boots most of all, and he sold them on ebay for so much money he was able to buy himself and the other kittens a mansion in the mountains.  They never heard from the giant bird, or his sneaky mother, again.

The End.

Source: Tom Thumb, Brothers Grimm

He was about to be very mad indeed, but he found that it was not his dog, asking him to do the dishes, after all; it was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

In the most beautiful voice he had ever heard, she told him that if he could guess who she was, she would take him home with her.

“Are you…my mother?” he asked, which was really sort of a silly question, as he knew his mother was home with the dog, probably washing the dishes.

“Are you..Madonna?” he asked.

“Do you speak of the Virgin Mary?”

“No, the singer.”

The lady shook her head.

“Are you…the lady from up the hill?”

“Close enough.”

She pulled Thad up on her horse with her, and they galloped away. As they rode, she explained that she was the Queen of Faerie, and that he was very lucky indeed, since she had chosen him to be her mortal lover.

As they rode, she pointed out three paths: the path to Heaven, the path to Hell, and the path they would ride on, which led to Faerie.

“What’s that path?” Thad asked, pointing to an overgrown road next to the one they had turned down.

“That one leads to Creepy Jim’s house.” the Queen informed him. “I wouldn’t go down that path.”

As they rode, Thad was sure they passed through meadows of guts and jumped over gates made of bone. But the lady held him, and told him he would reside in Faerie with her for but seven years, and as long as he ate nothing, nor spoke not a word, he would return home with the gift of prophecy, and the inability to lie. However, if he did eat or speak, he must remain in Faerie forever.

And so they rode into Faerie, where courtiers and horses greeted them with songs and cheer.

As they stopped, Thad reached into a basket of baked goods offered to him and bit into a cupcake. “Hey guys,” he said. “What’s up?”

The Queen of Faerie began to feel as though she’d made a grave error, indeed.

The End.

Source: Thomas the Rhymer

When she used the rear view mirror to investigate, she saw only a very pale young girl in a very white dress standing just off the side of the road.

She must be looking for a ride, the woman figured, and backed up to pick the girl up.

For a few miles, they made some attempt at conversation, but the girl gave short answers, and vague ones. Finally, the woman, just managing not to ask her why she was so pale and wouldn’t she like a tan, thought to ask her just where her home actually was.

The girl explained that it was on the hill, just past the graveyard, and then the woman Knew.

And so, despite the girl’s protests that the house was on the hill, and not in the graveyard itself, the woman left her at the entrance to the graveyard, and was too creeped out to watch her make her way back “home”, or, indeed, give her back the sweater she had left on the passenger seat.

But in the light of the next day, things seemed less scary, so she made her way back to the graveyard, thinking to lay the sweater down by the ghost girl’s grave. However, after realizing she did not know the girl’s name or date of birth, she decided instead to take the sweater to her parents.

Two people opened the door, and as she expressed sorrow for their loss, and tried to explain the otherwordly way in which she’d gotten the sweater, she thought she could see the girl behind them, scowling and trying to say something.

The couple mostly looked confused, and eventually, the girl declared that she was giving up, and was going to go back inside and watch TV. Still, the woman felt confident that she had done a Good Thing, and even so, resolved not to pick up hitchhikers without tans ever again.

The End.

Source: The Pretty Girl in the Road, American folktale.