The Three Bailey-Gruff Trolls

A Fairy Tale

On the day the new Capricorn River Bridge was to be dedicated (and paid for), the mayor of the happy little village of Goatville absconded with the money.

The Bailey-Gruff family of trolls had worked over a year on the bridge. Lugger Bailey-Gruff was the architect and brains of the family; his brother Lunker and sister Michelle did most of the heavy lifting. The Capricorn River Bridge was Lugger’s masterpiece. It spanned the deep gorge in a majestic arch of multicolored stone. The villagers loved their new bridge. But how would they pay for it?

“Nobody crosses until it’s paid for,” said Lugger Bailey-Gruff. “You can keep walking the five miles to Sheeptown and cross the bridge there.”

The Egg Princess

A Fairy Tale

Ivana’s parents, Ivan and Svetlana, were the poorest egg farmers in Polentia. They had but two hens, and the red one hadn’t laid in over a year. But Ivana was always happy. “Someday, I am going to be a princess,” she would say.

“What prince would marry you?” they asked.

“Oh, I’m not going to get married,” she would reply. “I’m going to be a princess on my own merits.”

How the Tortoise Lost His Stripes

A Just-So Tale

In the beginning of our story, the Giftgiver gave wonderful gifts to all the creatures of the world, and all the creatures were happy. The mouse was proud of his long, sharp teeth; the elephant was happy with her big, floppy ears; the eagle enjoyed soaring high in the air. But the happiest creature of all was the tortoise, who had two lovely racing stripes down his hard shell, to signify his great speed.

The Story of Boyling and Girlchen

A Fairy Tale

Boyling and Girlchen were brother and sister, and lived with their mother Annalisa and wicked stepfather Kobold at the edge of the only bamboo forest in pre-industrial Bavaria. One night, as they lay awake in their tiny bed in the other room, unable to sleep for hunger, they heard their parents talking in the kitchen.

“We cannot make enough money cutting and selling bamboo,” said Kobold, who was in fact a goblin that had taken the form of a man. “We are all going to starve to death.”

“I assume you have some plan, or you wouldn’t have brought this up,” said Annalisa sharply. She had come to realize her new husband wasn’t very nice, and had taken to reading the tortuously complex pre-industrial Bavarian divorce laws when he wasn’t around.

The King of Sorrow

A Fairy Tale

There once dwelt, on an island in the middle of the ocean where no boats ever came, a sad King named Mirth. For when he was born, an old fairy with a Magic Eight Ball told his parents that love of him would one day bring sorrow to a lonely Queen. His parents, the King and the Queen of Pavendia, laughed this off. But when Mirth became King, he learned of the prophecy, and swore he would never be the cause of sorrow for any Queen, however lonely. Therefore he had himself banished. He entrusted the Kingdom to his brother, and had himself clapped in chains and rowed away. With him went fifty-two sheep, fifty-two packets of vegetable seeds, fifty-two books about philosophy and other arcane subjects, and a deck of cards.

Years passed. Mirth read every book he owned until the pages fell out, and played so many games of solitaire that the cards were worn white, and it was impossible to tell the King of Diamonds from the Deuce of Spades. Back in Pavendia, he was quickly forgotten, except by the manufacturers of playing cards, who still printed his likeness on the Jack of Hearts.