A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Before we go ahead with today’s story, I’d like to acknowledge a milestone: In three days’ time, "Once Upon a Time and Long Ago” celebrates its second anniversary. I remember when I started this pointless project two years ago with fifty fairy tales in a Word file and no idea what I was doing. Now, two years and an additional eighty stories later…well, I still have no idea what I’m doing. The truth is I never had any specific goal with this blog. Yeah, it would be nice if it picked up and became really popular. It would been great if a publisher comes across it and offers me a book deal. I wouldn’t be at all dissapointed if some of the girls who rejectd me in the past saw how clever and talented I was and regretted not giving me the time of day. As it is, none of that crap has, as of yet, happened. What did happen is I made a few people smile every now and then, kept myself actively writing at a time in my life when I had no other creative outlet, learned a lot about fairy tales and folklore, and maybe even made a few friends along the way. I guess the truth is that I’ve been writing this blog for myself all this time. I wanted to create something. A body of work I can point to and say “I made that.” As the years pass, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that I will ever be a professional writer, and that doesn’t really bother me. Because if there’s every any doubt, I can click a link and see my words and pictures there on the internet for all the world to enjoy. And, honestly, I've loved every minute of it.


If, however, you were so inclined, you could aide my writing career by purchasing and downloading my sci-fi/fantasy novel 'Dragonfly' from the Amazon Kindle store (Remember, even if you don't have a kindle, you can download the free Kindle app for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, Windows Phone, Mac or PC). Or by buying one of my original designs at cafepress.com/GalleonsLap. I'm just sayin' is all!

Okay, now we come to the story itself: When people are talking about Shakespeare’s master works they are, almost without exception, talking about his great histories and tragedies like Richard III, Henry V, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. But, to me, the real Shakespeare is to be found in the comedies. Here you find all the beautiful prose, the breathtaking poetry, and it has a happy ending. If I’ve made any point at all over the past two years, it’s that no writer in the history of language has ever been able to devise a better ending than “and they all lived happily ever after,” which is why I felt that this momentous occasion called for a good old-fashioned “Mega-Happy Ending.”

It’s worth noting that, according to many scholars who are pretty sure of themselves, most if not all of Shakespeare’s plays were based on older stories, so there could very easily be some ancient fairy tale, now, sadly, lost to us, about four lovers falling all over each other in the woods at night. Speaking of which, you’ll find no mention of Bottom or the “Crude Mechanicals” here. In the interest of simplicity, I have decided to relate only the story of the Athenian Lovers.

A wedding is supposed to be a happy occasion. It should be celebrated with loud music, cheap booze and people dancing up a storm who can’t actually dance even a little. Unfortunately, that was not always the case. It seems that in Athens (which is in Greece), there used to be this law that fathers got to choose who their daughters married. I know, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me and we may never know whose idea it was to enact that silly law, but it was the law and that’s the point.

You see, there was this girl called Hermia who was in love with a boy called Lysander, and he, coincidentally enough, was in love with her. All things being equal, this would’ve been very good news, but for that silly law we mentioned earlier. See, Hermia’s father wanted her to marry this guy Demetrius who was, to be fair, a pretty nice guy, and probably would’ve treated Hermia pretty well, but she didn’t love him. It was beginning to look like Hermia would have to marry a man she didn’t love, or go away to a convent and never marry anyone ever for her whole life.

But Lysander was not the type to give up on true love (and, in fact, if you give up on it, it wasn’t really true love to begin with, now was it?). And he had an aunt who lived just outside of Athens. If he and Hermia fled there that night, they could get married outside of Athens where the law couldn’t touch them. Hermia didn’t like the idea of leaving her home and family forever…but it was preferable to leaving Lysander forever, so she consented.

And, again, we might have been just a hop, skip and a jump away from our happy ending, but Hermia couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to her bestest best friend, Helena. You see, Helena actually was in love with Demetrius, but he only had eyes for Hermia (brace yourselves, it’s actually gonna get a lot more confusing before we’re done here). So when Hermia told Helena that she and Lysander were eloping, hope dawned that maybe Demetrius would look her way. She wished her friends much luck and happiness and they were away and Helena went at once to talk to Demetrius…

“Do I lead you on?” said Demetrius, firmly. “Do I compliment you, give you false hope? Have I given you even the slightest indication that we will ever be together? No, I’m pretty sure I come right out and tell you, at every given opportunity, that I do not want you!”

“Why not?” said an admittedly desperate Helena. “What’s Hermia got that I haven’t got?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter anyway. Tomorrow we’re getting married, so—”

“No you’re not! Tomorrow she’ll be married to…oops.” Hermia hadn’t counted on the fact that her bestest best friend couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Needless to say, but apparently I’m going to, it took Demetrius all of forty-seven seconds to get Helena to spill the beans about the elopement. Knowing that the only way they could leave the city undetected was to go through the woods, Demetrius ran at once to catch them, with Helena following right behind.

Now, these particular woods, the ones just on the outskirts of Athens (what are outskirts, anyway? Are there inskirts?), were very unusual, as local legend had it that Oberon, King of the Fairies lived here with his band of magical fairies. And…he did! So, there ya go. Oberon didn’t usually get involved with human types, but every now and then when a suffering person swam into his purview, he was not above a little compassion. When, for example, two bickering young people in Athenian clothes came stomping through the forest, he took a moment to listen:

“It doesn’t matter what you do or say,” groveled Helena as she followed Demetrius closely. “Shout at me, insult me, reject me, push me away, it won’t do you any good. I’ll still love you.”

“You want me to insult you? Here: When I look at you, I feel phsically ill.”

“And I feel ill when I’m not looking at you. See how perfect we are for each other?”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

“I don’t care! I love you!”

Oberon saw this and thought it was…well, embarrassing, quite frankly. But, he could tell with that special sense of these things that only very magic creatures possess that this couple deserved a shot. So he sent for his righthand man, a mischevious fairy called Puck. “There’s a flower that grows on the very other side of the world,” he told his servant. “A drop of juice from this flower, when dripped into the eye of a sleeping mortal, will cause that mortal to fall hopelessly in love with the next person he sees. I want you to go get that flower, and drip it in the eyes of the young man who is traveling through our forest.”

“Yes, sir,” said Puck. “But how will I know this man?”

“He is traveling with a young woman and both are wearing the clothing of Athens. Now go!”

Puck obeyed and was back with the flower in forty minutes (which might seem like a long time, but remember he was literally going to the other side of the world). It took him less time to find two young Athenians sleeping on a grassy knoll. “Let’s see,” he said. “Man, woman, Athenian clothes. Yep! This must be them.” With that, he dripped a single drop from the flower into the eye of the young man and scampered away to help play a prank on his master’s wife and some actors…but that’s another story.

Now, I don’t want you to blame Puck for any of this. Neither he nor Oberon had any idea that there were two pairs of young Athenians wandering the forest at night. When Puck saw their Athenian clothes, he assumed they were Helena and Demetrius…but they were, in fact, Hermia and Lysander! And it was Lysander’s eyes into which Puck had dripped the love juice! Meanwhile, Demetrius had finally lost Helena and she was wandering through the forest alone. When she stumbled (literally) upon Lysander’s sleeping form, she was overjoyed at seeing a familiar face.

“Lysander? Oh, thank heavens! Have you seen…Lysander? Are you okay?”

Lysander was not okay, not really. He was looking at Helena very strangely. As though he was seeing her for the first time. The magic flower had done its job and Lysander was now, through no fault of his own, hopelessly and totally in love with Helena.

“Transparent Helena!” he said at last. “Nature shows art, That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.” Turns out, being in love makes you talk funny. Who knew?

“Huh? Look, whatever, I need your help.”

“Of course. Anything. I’d do anything for you. I’d walk through fire, I’d swim the ocean, I’d slay a dragon and bring back its head to win your favor, fair Helena.”

“Fair Helena? What? Lysander, what are you talking about? I’m trying to find Demetrius.”

“Demetrius?” said Hermia. All this talk had woken her up. “Is Demetrius here? In the forest?”

“Yeah, I…I kinda let it slip that you guys were running away. I’m really sorry about that! And now he’s somewhere in the woods and I need to—”

“Demetrius?!?” cried Lysander. “Here? Then I shall duel him to the death for the hand of my beloved Helena.”

“Do what now?” said Hermia.

“Where is the swine who dares to claim my own sweet Helena’s heart?”

“What the heck are you talking about?” demanded Helena.

“How can I make it any clearer? I love you, Helena. You are my own heart’s desire. I will never be happy until I have won your heart and can call you my own.” Lysander was literally down on one knee as he said this. Hermia was speechless, as I’m sure you can imagine. Helena was very confused.

“What is this?” she said at last. “Some sort of joke? That’s it, isn’t it? ‘Oh, poor Helena! She’s in love with Demetrius but everyone’s in love with Hermia!’ Well it’s not funny!” So saying she stomped off into the woods to find Demetrius.

“Wait, my love!” said Lysander running after her.

“Your love? Wait, Lysander!” said Hermia running after the pair of them.

Well, Puck saw all this happen. And, while he personally thought it hilarious, he knew his master would be mad that he screwed up. So he searched the forest until he found Demetrius, sleeping on his own in another part of the forest. And, just as before, he dropped the juice of the flower into his eye and hid himself as who should come running up but everybody else in the story. Helena running away, Lysander chasing her, Hermia chasing him, all of them waking Demetrius who, the minute he saw Helena…well, you know.

“O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!”

“Oh, not you too!” cried Helena. “It was annoying coming from Lysander, but this is too cruel.”

“Yes, Demetrius!” said Lysander suddenly. “Stay away from my Helena!”

“Your Helena?” exclaimed Demetrius. “You love Hermia!”

“Love Hermia? No! I hate Hermia!”

“Excuse me?!?” said Hermia.

“I love Helena and we will be wed!”

“No, I love Helena, and we will be wed!”

“Nobody loves Helena!” shouted Hermia, and then immediately regretted it. “I’m so sorry, Helena, I didn’t mean that. But…look, what is wrong with you two?” It was a little confusing for the ladies. Just a few hours ago, both men had been determined to marry Hermia, now they both seemed to be in love with Helena. Hermia thought they had gone mad, Helena still thought they were all playing a mean trick on her and the boys…well, they were so addled with that love potion they didn’t know what they were doing.

“I challenge you to a duel!” declared Lysander, and would probably have slapped him with a glove, except this was the middle of summer and it was too hot for gloves.

“I accept your challenge!” said Demetrius, who didn't let the lack of handwear stop him and slapped Lysander across the face with his bare hand.

It was about this point that Puck decided his little joke had run its course and he went to go tell Oberon. The Fairy King was, understandably, annoyed at Puck. “Did you screw this up on accident because you’re a fool, or on purpose because you’re making trouble again?”

"Er...whichever one will get me in the least amount of trouble?"

Oberon did not find this funny.

“I promise, King of Shadows,” said the contrite Puck. “It was an innocent mistake. You said to look for a man and a woman wearing Athenian clothing, and I did.”

“And when you dripped the juice into the second mortal’s eyes?”

“Yes, okay, that wasn’t great, I admit. Still, you have to admit, it’s a little funny, right?”

Oberon didn't find that funny either.

“I don’t want those two killing each other!" bellowed the Fairy King. "I know where I can find an herb that will set everything straight. But you have to stop them fighting until I come back. Can you handle that?”

Puck said he could and he went at once to where Lysander was sharpening his sword and preparing for battle, while Hermia stood by him, begging him to come to his senses.

“Come out, Lysander, you coward!” said Puck, but he said it in Demetrius’ voice (which is a thing fairies can do, you know).

“You dare call me a coward? Then show yourself!”

“Follow my voice and we shall do battle this very night!” Using his magic, Puck made it sound like Demetrius’ voice was coming from deep in the woods, so Lysander tore into the trees to fight his imaginary foe, Hermia right on his heels.

Meanwhile, in Demetrius’ corner, Helena was doing some pleading of her own, when:

“Enough waiting!” came Lysander’s voice, courtesy of Puck. “Come get me and we’ll settle this right now!” And, just as Lysander had done, Demetrius followed the magical voice with Helena close behind him. Now both men, and their respective ladies, were walking further and further away from each other, convinced that they were getting closer and closer. Once they were at a safe distance, Puck cast a spell which put all four Athenians to sleep instantly.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” he said to himself as Oberon returned with the magic herb and worked one final spell before the dawn…

The next morning, Hermia was awakened by the bright sun shining on her face. She started to get up to draw her curtains, only to realize that she was not in her bed. She was lying on a grassy knoll in the forest. Memories of the night before came flooding back to her and her eyes quickly fell upon Lysander’s sleeping form a few feet away.

“Lysander? Lysander, wake up!” she said, shaking him gently.

“Hermia?” said Lysander, groggily. “I…I was having the strangest dream…or was it a dream?”

“I don’t know,” said Hermia. “But I think maybe we should get out of these woods.” They walked hand in hand, back the way they had come, in the hopes of finding their way to Lysander’s aunt’s home…but in retracing their steps, they found something they hadn’t expected: Another soft patch of earth in which Demetrius and Helena were asleep in each other’s arms.

“Demetrius? Helena?”

They both awoke at hearing their names and, like Hermia and Lysander, seemed to take a moment for their memories to return.

“How did…When did…Did we…Did I?” said Demetrius.

“Just what I was thinking,” said Lysander.

“I feel like I’ve been dreaming,” said Helena. “But I can’t for the life of me remember what I dreamed. Not clearly, anyway. Bits and pieces.”

“Same here,” said Hermia. “Maybe they’re right when they say these woods are enchanted.” They all agreed that it was possible. Had they seen the pair of eyes watching them and smiling before he went to sleep, they would’ve been certain.

A few hours later saw all four standing before Hermia’s father. Hermia and Lysander were hand-in-hand, as were Demetrius and Helena. They explained, as well as they could, the current state of affairs. Hermia’s father was confused, but even he had to admit that it was silly forcing two people to get married if neither one wanted to and gave his consent.

A wedding is supposed to be a happy occasion. It should be celebrated with loud music, cheap booze and people dancing up a storm who can’t actually dance even a little. And, if it’s a double wedding, there should be twice as much music, twice as much to drink, and twice as many terrible dancers taking up room on the floor from those who actually know what they’re doing. But the best part of a double wedding is that it means twice as many people are living happily ever after.

THE END


If You Liked My Story, You Might Enjoy:

• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) In this adaptation, Mickey Rooney is Puck and James Cagney is Bottom. Also stars Olivia De Havilland, Dick Powell and Joe E. Brown.
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) This more lavish, colorful version stars Stanley Tucci as Puck, Rupert Everett as Oberon and the Athenian lovers are played by Christian Bale, Dominic West, Anna Friel and Calista Flockhart.
• Disney's House of Mouse (TV) One episode featured a short version of the story which, like mine, focuses on the young lovers. Goofy's Puck is more absent-minded than mischevious and the couples are, of course, Mickey and Minnie, and Donald and Daisy (admittedly it was a little weird for this long-time Disney fan to hear Mickey shout "I'm yours, baby" to Daisy Duck, but otherwise pretty cute).

NEXT WEEK: Sasha and the Other

The Prince Frog

This is another one from ‘Fractured Fairy Tales.’ They ran it under the title “The Frog Prince,” but I think my title is more fitting. I think the reason this story has stayed with me for so many years is that under the jokes and the funny voices (courtesy of Daws Butler, who also voiced Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound) there is a genuine love story here. Falling in love means you’re willing to do anything to be with someone. Being in love means you’re willing to do anything for someone. As you’ll see:

There was once upon a time a country that was entirely overrun with witches. They were everywhere, you couldn’t move for witches back then. It finally got so bad that there were more witches than there were people to bewitch. It was perfectly common to see two witches literally fighting over a peasant saying:

“Let go! I want to put him to sleep for a thousand years!”

“No, you let go! I want to turn him into a chair!”

“Well I want…a chair? That’s a weird thing to turn somebody into.”

“I’m running out of ideas! So sue me!”

One day a little witch was walking through the woods, desperate to cast a spell on someone when she came upon a little pond where she saw a frog sitting on a lily pad.

“Good morning!” said the frog, with the customary friendliness for which frogs are known.

“Not so good for you, dearie,” said the witch. “Because I’m going to cast a spell on you.”

But the frog just laughed. “I’m already a frog! What are you gonna do? Turn me into a handsome prince?”

“Say! That’s an idea!” With that the witch waved her wand and the frog became a handsome young prince…a human prince, in case that wasn’t clear…not that frogs have monarchies so…never mind.

“What?” cried the frog…I mean prince. “No! I don’t want to be a prince! Change me back into a frog!”

“Never! You are doomed to be a handsome prince forever!” And with a wicked cackle, she was gone.

The poor frog…that is the poor prince…well, he was really a frog but…looked, let’s just call him Filbert, okay? So, poor Filbert was very depressed and even though he tried to adjust to being a prince, he found his life just wasn’t the same. He couldn’t croak, he couldn’t catch flies, he couldn’t sit on lily pads (he almost drowned three times before he gave that up). In the end he realized he was just going to have to find a witch to turn him back into a frog and he set forth.

But he didn’t meet any witches on his travels (which was sort of surprising, come to think of it). Instead he met a beautiful princess who, despite his insistence that he was a frog, fell in love with Filbert. Feeling it would be impolite to refuse a princess, Filbert agreed to marry Princess Sylvia and they moved into a beautiful home together. Knowing that her eccentric husband was fond of nature, the princess had a beautiful back garden added to the house and Prince Filbert would walk through it for hours every day, dreaming of the days when he was a frog.

One day while he was out walking, a witch passed by. Imagine her surprise at seeing a genuine, honest-to-goodness prince! And not even under a spell! So, without any further ado, she announced that she was going to turn the prince into…a chair!

“No, a frog!”

“Good idea! A frog’s much better!” And Filbert was a frog once again.

Princess Sylvia tried to understand, but it wasn’t easy being married to a prince in the morning and a frog in the evening. Nevertheless she had come to love her husband very much and so she had a big, beautiful pond added to the garden where she could go visit her frog-prince-husband-guy whenever she wanted.

Well, as fate would have it, that same witch who started this whole silly business came by one day and recognized Filbert from the first spell. That’s funny, she thought. Normally my spells last longer than that. Oh well, we’ll just have to try something else. And with a wave of her wand, Filbert became…a chicken?

“Okay! That does it!” said Filbert and he marched…or whatever chickens do that’s most like marching…straight into the forest where he found the SHCOW meeting place: That’s Secret High Council of Witches. They were the group that sort of oversaw all witchcraft in the area. Sort of a Witches’ Union, you might say. Filbert went straight to the Head Witch, Griselda, and said, “Now look: First I was a frog, and I was happy. Then I was a prince, then I was almost a chair, then I was a frog again, and now I’m a chicken! I’m getting tired of this. Tell your witches to leave me alone!”

“Sorry, sir,” said Griselda. “We normally make it a point not to persecute any one person like this, but times are hard for us witches. Anyway, I’ll put you on the official ‘no-curse’ list, if you like and I’ll even change you back to your preferred form right now. So, what’ll it be?”

Of course, Filbert’s first thought was that he wanted to be a frog again. But then he thought about Sylvia. How she had humored him in his belief that he was a frog, how she had been so patient with his long walks in the garden, how she had let him live in the pond because she thought it would make him happy. She had done so much to make him happy; now, it was his turn. He knew what he had to do:

“I wanna be a prince!”

“Sure thing,” said Griselda and with a wave of her wand, the chicken was gone, and in its place was…a big, shaggy sheepdog? “Here, Prince. Good boy, Prince.”

“Not this kind of prince!”

“Oh, sorry.” So, Griselda waved her magic wand again and this time Filbert was a cat. Then a parakeet. Then a garden snail. Then a buffalo. Then a chair. And, finally, the frog he was at the start of all this nonsense. “Sorry, sir,” said the exhausted witch. “All that bewitching has rewritten your internal biology. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll never be able to make you a prince again.”

Filbert was confused and very unhappy as he thanked Griselda for trying and hopped on home. He didn’t know what he was going to say to his wife. But when he got back home, he found the house was empty. Sylvia was nowhere to be seen. Then he thought perhaps she was looking for him back in the pond so he hopped to the garden and when he reached the pond…there, sitting on his favorite lily pad, was the most beautiful girl-frog Filbert had ever seen. And, somehow, though he didn’t know how, he knew exactly who she was.

“Sylvia?”

Yes, it was! It turns out that while Filbert had been thinking of becoming a prince to make her happy, she had decided that the only way she could be happy was to be with Filbert. And if Filbert needed to be a frog to be happy, then a frog is just what she’d be, too. She marched straight out into the woods and ordered the first witch she met to turn her into a frog. The confused witch obliged and Sylvia hopped back to the pond to wait for Filbert.

No one ever knew what happened to the prince and princess. Their house soon feel into disrepair and another couple moved in and rebuilt it about two years later. By now the witch crisis was over and they felt it was once again safe to bring up children in the neighborhood and, before long, two beautiful little kids joined the family. And every day after their lessons, they would come straight home and run right out to the back where there was a little lilly pond which was very cozy and inviting and, in residence, two friendly frogs and a whole lot of little pollywogs living very happily ever after.

THE END

NEXT WEEK: Something short, I promise!

The Matchmaker

This story was either inspired by a TV show plot or a dream I had after watching said TV show. It’s kind of blurry, but either way I woke up and thought about a matchmaker holding a grand ball full of eligible women for her client to choose from. Then I hung the rest of the story on that like ornaments on a Chrsitmas tree and this is what I came up with. The names are all taken from the Danny Kaye movie The Court Jester which is wonderful.

A while back I came up with an idea for a TV show about professional matchmakers (though not in a fairy tale setting, of course) and the main dating tip given on that show is the same as the lesson of today’s story.

A very clever man once said repeatedly, “It’s good to be da king.” And, yes, in many ways it is. Roderick, for example, had just about everything a man could wish for. He had a beautiful castle to live in, hundreds of servants at his beck and call, a lush prosperous kingdom to rule over and more money than he could spend if he lived to be three hundred and four. He had horses and silks and gold and precious jewels and even a bust of himself made of solid platinum, which not many people have, don’tcha know.

Of course, no man has everything but there is one thing that every man (woman, child, animal, trees even) has: Problems. Yes, kids and people, even King Roderick ruler of the kingdom of Pimpernel (named for the beautiful and medicinal flower that grew there), had his allotment of problems. For one thing, he had to act like a king all the time, which meant being regal and important and speaking with a booming sort of voice and enacting laws and levying taxes and doing other kingly stuff which is all very well if you’re fifty or so with a big beard and a belly to match, but Roderick was twenty-four and had taken over the kingdom quite suddenly when his father had abdicated the throne the previous year in order to spend some quality time with his cows.

Yeah, he liked cows. So? What’s wrong with cows?

In other words, Roderick never really wanted to be king. At least not while he was so young. When you’re a young, handsomish prince, you can do what you like. Go off on adventures, rescue damsels, ride white chargers, or just hang out with the knights and do guy stuff like hunting or fishing or watching The Big Lebowski…or, ya know, whatever guys watched before the Cohen Brothers started making movies…murals, maybe? About rugs, bowling and missing toes?

I feel like I’m digressing a little bit. Let’s try again.

The other thing about being a king is getting married. See, the tricky thing about a monarchy is that it requires constant maintenance. There always has to be a prince or princess to take over the throne from the king and/or queen, depending on how patriarchal the kingdom in question is (kids, this is all complex political stuff that your parents can tell you more about. In the meantime: Kings have to get married and make babies). Now, Roderick had taken over from his father, but if Roderick died or became interested in cattle, there was no one to take over.

“You must get married, sire,” insisted Lord Ravenhurst, who had one of those pointy goatees that bad guys usually have.

“But who am I supposed to marry?” was the king’s answer. “I don’t know any girls. And it’s not like I can go to a bar and meet someone like common folk do. I’m a king. The rules say I have to marry a princess or a countess or a duchess or a waitress or…no, not that last one. But she has to be nobility. And I don’t like the nobility. How am I going to be happy with someone who just cares about fancy clothes and precious jewels?”

“I’m sorry, sire, I think we’re talking at cross purposes, here. I was discussing marriage. You seem to be talking about happiness. I’m afraid I can’t see the connection.”

As unromantic as that sounds, that’s kind of how marriage worked for royalty in them days. Love didn’t matter quite so much as breeding, fortunes and social standing. Left to his own devices, the king would’ve married for true love, which is better than any of those other things, but there were rules to follow and, as Ravenhurst had told him at his coronation: “You’re King Roderick, not Roderick King. That means you are a king first and yourself second."

So Roderick relutctantly agreed to let Ravenhurst call a meeting of the Royal Council. These were the king’s closest advisors who were known for advising him the closest. There was Lord Hubert, and Sir Griswold and Ravenhurst, of course, and many other important men with ridiculous names. They all came together to discuss possibilities for the king’s new wife:

“What about Lady Glynis?” said one. “She is said to be more beautiful than Aphrodite.”

“I knew her when we were kids,” said the king. “She used to kick me mercilessly.”

“Then what about Princess Angela?” said another. “Word is she is in want of a husband.”

“Ugh! No thank you. She’s the biggest bore in the world. Talks about nothing but herself.”

“Mildred of Natwick?”

“No, she won’t do?”

“Why not?” bellowed Ravenhurst. “With all possible respect, majesty, you are far too picky. You should just pick a bride and have done with it.”

“Not Mildred of Natwick.”

“And why not? What’s wrong with her? Too vain? Too selfish? What petty little personality problem has sprung into your royal mind to cause you to take issue with Mildred of Natwick?!?”

“She’s eighty-two!”

“Oh…oh, yes…I see.” Ravenhurst didn’t say anything for the rest of the meeting.

“Look, I appreciate all the work you guys are doing,” said King Roderick. “But you’ve got to at least find me somebody I’ll like. I don’t think that’s asking too much, is it?”

“Too much? No. Not enough? Perhaps,” came a voice who was definitely not invited to this top secret meeting.

“Giacamo,” said Lord Hubert to the owner of the voice, “this meeting is for royal council only.”

“Scratch the surface of a fool and you will often find a wiseman,” said Giacamo the court jester. “That’s true the other way around, as well.”

“Giacamo,” began the king, as Lord Hubert took offense, “has been a loyal friend and servant since my father was my age and we shall hear what he has to say.” Turning to his fool, he asked, “What do you suggest be done about this marriage situation?”

“My advice in this matter, as in all matters, is that you should make like the hunter chasing a stag through the woods.”

“Meaning?”

“Follow your hart!” This fairly awful pun was met with groans from the council, but King Roderick chuckled in spite of himself. “However,” the jester continued, “if majesty is insistent on marrying regardless of love, I suggest you call upon my sister, Gwendolyn., the world’s greatest matchmaker!”

“You fool!” cried Sir Griswold. “How are matches going to help? The king doesn’t need to start a fire, he needs to—”

“That’s not the kind of matchmaker he meant!” interrupted the king and Griswold joined Ravenhurst in silence for the rest of the meeting. The king turned back to his trusty fool. “A matchmaker, you say. Is she any good?”

“Is she any good? Is she any good?” cried Giacamo. “My liege, she is known throughout the land. She is called Cupid’s Servant. She has made over one hundred perfect matches. There is no one for whom she has failed to find a bride or groom! There is no matchmaker in all the universe who can match her skill and talent.”

“So she’s good?”

“Yeah, she’s all right.”

Gwendolyn was sent for and appeared before King Roderick. “I am told,” said the king, “that you can find a perfect match for anybody.”

“That I can, sire,” said Gwendolyn.

“Mine is, of course, a special case.”

“Rule #2,” said Gwendolyn, “No matter how different they are, everyone in the world is exactly the same.”

“Well said,” replied the king. “So, what will you need?”

“First and foremost, sire, your complete cooperation or all my skills will be useless. You must trust me implicitly. Rule #3: There can be no true love without complete trust. You must answer any question I put to you entirely honestly. Rule #4: Honesty is the best policy. You must be willing to do things that do not come naturally to you. Rule #5: No one ever achieved greatness by doing what they do every day.”

“How many of these rules do you have?”

“Only six. Rule #1, however, is the last you will learn.”

“And what’s Rule #6?”

Gwendolyn smiled. “All rules are made to be broken…including this one, because by following Rules 1 through 5, you will be breaking Rule 6. Do you see?”

“No…no, not really.”

“That’s not important. Do you agree to my rules?”

“All that I am and all that I have is at your disposal if you can find me a bride.”

“Groovy! Let’s get started.”

The first part of the process was a questionaire, which had only just recently been invented (by Gwendolyn, coincidentally) so the king was a little confused by it. He got the idea soon enough, however. The following is an extract from the finished questionaire (questions relating to popular culture of Ancient Pimpernel have been removed for clarity’s sake):

25. How do you like to spend Sunday mornings?

I like to sort of take it easy. Stay in bed for a bit, read a book. Of course, I’d rather have someone to talk to.

29. What is your position on Dragon Rights?

Anyone who still believes that dragons are evil in this day and age is just plain ignorant.

31. If you had to choose, would you rather be blind or deaf?

Blind. I don’t really know why.

38. How important is honesty to you?

Very important. I don’t see how anyone can have any kind of relationship that isn’t based on mutual trust, and that can’t exist without honesty.

42. When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

            I seem to remember wanting to be a horse.

43. What about when you were ten?

            All I knew is that I didn’t want my father’s job. We all know how that turned out.

And so on in that fashion. When he was finished filling in his answers, he handed the paper back to Gwendolyn who looked over it carefully.

“Hmmm,” was all she said at first. “Interesting.”

“Interesting? Is that good or bad?”

“Interesting is only bad when one is discussing odors.”

“Does that mean you can help me?”

“Sire, there was never any doubt that I would be of help to you. The question was only ever how long it would take.” As she said this, there was a faint knock on the door and a chambermaid called Jean entered.

“Oh, pardon me, your majesty. I thought you were alone,” said Jean, timidly.

“Quite all right, Jean,” said King Roderick. Gwendolyn reacted to this, because it was fairly uncommon for kings to be on first name terms with the cleaning staff. “This is Gwendolyn, the matchmaker.”

“Oh!” said Jean with an odd tone to her voice that Gwendolyn recognized but didn’t understand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Then she curtsied.

“No need of that, child,” said Gwendolyn. “I’m no better than you. We are both servants of the king.”

“I don’t really like that word,” said Roderick. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“It’s accurate. The girl is employed by you to serve you, is she not?”

“She was employed by my late father to serve him. She’s only serving me because I—”

“Inherited her?”

“Something like that.”

“I only came to see if you had any washing,” said Jean. “But if this is a bad time…”

“No!” said the king much more forcefully than he meant to. “I mean…yes, I do have some things for you to wash. Wait here.” With that, the king drifted off into the next chamber. Gwendolyn kept her eyes on Jean as the king left and noticed that the maid’s eyes followed the king’s path even after he was out of sight.

“That answers that question!” said Gwendolyn with a grin.

“Excuse me?” asked Jean.

“Nothing, dear, nothing. Tell me, how long have you worked in the palace.”

“Practically all my life. My mother worked in the kitchens and I was born two years after the king. We used to play together when we were small.”

“How and when did you stop playing?”

“He would have been…ten years old,” said Jean, wondering why the matchmaker was so interested in her life story, but wanting to be polite. “I was eight. We were outside, playing at Gamby,” (a sport popular at this time in history, though it’s unclear how the two children played it when it is unique among sporting events for requiring three sides to play), “when Lord Ravenhurst yelled at him, ‘Prince Roderick! Come away from that filthy child and come inside for your lessons.’ We never played after that.”

“That must’ve hurt your feelings.”

“It did. I asked my mother about it when I was helping her prepare supper that night. She said it’s just the way things are.”

“Ugh! The way things are! How I hate that phrase. It’s thinking like that which forces our beloved king to marry for politics instead of love. Take a lesson from me, child, and don’t live based on the way things are, but rather on the way they should be.”

Jean didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter because the king returned with some hose and tunics at this point and handed them to Jean. “I mean, there’s no hurry,” he said, stupidly. “Just, whenever you get a chance to—”

“Of course, sire. Thank you, sire. Ma’am.” With another curtsie, the girl was gone.

“Now then,” said the king, after he was quite done looking at the spot where Jean was before she shut the door. “Where were we?”

“I was wondering how long it would take to help you, but now I am certain that it will take me no time to unite you with your perfect match.”

“Really? That’s sensational news!”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” said the sly old lady. Gwendolyn then asked the king for some gold for a journey she would have to go on. The king gave it to her, and Gwendolyn left, promising to return in a few days with results. After a week, Roderick was a nervous wreck. Where was she? When would she be back? His council, still miffed at him for brining in Gwendolyn at the advice of a jester, were not terribly helpful, so he found that the only person he could talk to was Jean. As the days wore on, their conversations got longer, so that by the time Gwendolyn had been gone a fortnight (that’s a fancy way of saying “two weeks.” Go ahead, use it in a conversation, you’ll love it) Jean was speaking very candidly to her king and old friend, much to the shock and outrage of the other servants.

“You are a servant, he is a king,” they would say. “You have no business speaking to him like that.”

“He’s okay with it,” said Jean, defiantly. “So what difference does it make to you?” Indeed, the two were becoming good friends, almost as good as they were when they were children. But their most common topic of discussion was, of course, the matchmaker.

“I’m sure she’ll be back soon, sire,” said Jean as she gathered up some of the king’s laundry.

“I don’t know,” said Roderick, slightly embarrassed at Jean’s picking up after him. “What if she comes back and couldn’t find anyone? I knew I should’ve picked deaf instead of blind!”

“In the first place, I would’ve said blind, too. Secondly, your majesty is being ridiculous. You’re worrying about nothing. My father used to say worry is just a waste of imagination. Besides, I’m sure there are hundreds of princesses and duchesses and countesses out there who would love to be your queen.”

“You really think there’s someone out there for me?”

“Of course, your majesty.” As she was leaving for the laundry room she added, softer than the king could hear, “And if not out there…maybe in here.”

Well, it turned out that the king’s fears about Gwendolyn not being able to find someone were not well-founded as she returned with close on to fifty beautiful damsels. It was decided that a great ball would be held so that the king could get to know them all. It was the grandest ball in all the land. The guests all looked gorgeous, the foremost musicians (and even one or two of the fivemost) were on hand to entertain and the finest food and wine from all over the world was served. It was, in short, THE social event of this or any other season. In fact, the name given to the ball was derived from an old word meaning “great gathering of people with food, drink and music” which was pronounced “Party.”

Yeah. That’s where that comes from. Yeah. Really. Not really.

Basically, it was the best celebration ever and there was only one thing missing: The king. The king was hiding in the kitchen where he surprised Jean, who had come in to get more punch to serve to the guests. “Sire, what are you doing in here? Shouldn’t you be out enjoying your Bride-Finding Ball?”

“I know, but I can’t stand it out there. All those strange women throwing themselves at me.”

“Yeah, I can see where that might get annoying.” Sarcasm, like the questionaire, was a recent invention, so the king didn’t quite understand. “Sire, the whole point of this ball was for you to find the woman you want to marry.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…All these women are wearing these fancy gowns and shiny jewels and acting regal and they expect me to do the same. They’re all here to dance with the king, not me. They care more about my crown than I do. I’m sure these are all perfectly nice and interesting women,” (he was wrong, by the way, only about four of them were nice and/or interesting, the other forty-two being just as vapid and shallow as they seemed), “but I can’t imagine spending a Sunday morning with any one of them. I can’t even have a conversation with them because all they want to talk about is how many acres their fathers own or how many knights have died in their name.”

“They brag about that?”

“Yeah, it’s messed up. They’re all beautiful and rich elegant but none of them are…well, real. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake.”

“Sire, can I tell you what my father told my brother on the day he left home to find his own bride?”

“What’s that?”

“He said, ‘the best advice I can give you regarding love is the only advice anyone really needs: Be yourself.’ That’s true of peasants as well as kings, sire. It doesn’t matter if you don’t marry a single one of those vapid, dolled-up, overstuffed, overdressed peanhens out there who wouldn’t look a serving girl in the eye if her hair was on fire.”

“That sounded a little personal toward the end there.”

“Regardless! What matters is that you’re honest with yourself and others. What matters is that you just be yourself.”

Eventually, Roderick did return to the party, put on a brave face and even danced with a few of the girls, but the whole time he didn’t act like “King Roderick” he just acted like…Roderick. He talked about things that made him happy and didn’t even mention his wealth and power. This made the guests a little unhappy because his wealth and power were the things about him they were most interested in. To make a long, awkward story short, the party ended with all of the glamorous guests leaving unengaged.

“Well, Gwendolyn,” said the king the following morning. “It seems you’ve finally failed.”

“No, I didn’t, sire,” said Gwendolyn. “I’m just here to collect the remainder of my fee and then I’ll move on.”

“What? But none of the women you invited were right for me.”

“I know. That’s why I invited them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Sire, I looked at your questionaire and despaired of ever finding you a princess who would be right for you. Then, your maid, Jean came in the room, and I realized what I had to do. I went out and invited all those princesses and duchesses and countesses to force you to confront how phoney and pointless all this is and get you to be yourself for once. As I knew you would, you went straight where your heart led you: to your best friend and closest confidant, Jean the maid.”

“Jean?”

“Haven’t you figured it out, sire? I gave you almost fifty gorgeous, wealthy, powerful young women to choose from, and the only one you wanted to talk to was your chambermaid. Doesn’t that tell you anything? Haven’t you figured out Rule #1 yet?”

It did and he had. Roderick paid Gwendolyn the remainder of her fee and she departed to find matches for the forty-six women who came to the party. She made a mint off of them and retired early to live out the rest of her days in luxury and comfort.

That very same day, Roderick summoned up every last ounce of his courage and asked Jean if she would have dinner with him. She accepted, of course, and thus began a wonderful romance which led, as we all knew it would, to marriage and family. Of course, it was a terrific scandal, a king marrying an (ugh!) commoner and a servant at that. Lord Ravenhurst and the council were shocked and tried desperately to talk him out of it, but failed. The servants despised Jean (thought that was probably more jealousy than anything else) but she let them. Neither Roderick nor Jean cared what anyone else said. They were done living to please others. And they lived very happily ever after, as we are all sure to if we only remember Rule #1: Be yourself!

THE END

NEXT WEEK: "The Three Sillies"

The Magic Fish

Better known under the title “The Fisherman and his Wife,” this is an old story which has gone through several transformations in its lifespan. Some versions depict the fisherman getting his wish from a mermaid. Another story has the fish granting three wishes only which are then promptly wasted by the happy fishercouple. Wanting to put my own stamp on this story (and to save me having to do any further research), I’ve turned it into a love story, hence the change of title, as you will see.

Once upon a time and really quite far away, there lived a fisherman named Dave. Now, Dave wasn’t his real name, of course, but this story takes place in a very, very far away country, as I said, and the language they speak there is really quite complicated and the only thing harder than pronouncing the names is spelling them, so, for the purposes of our story, we shall call the fisherman Dave.

Now there are really only two kinds of fishermen in this big ole’ world of ours: Successful and the other thing, which, unfortuantely, is what Dave was. He couldn’t catch a cold. Many is the time he heard a strange sound when he was out in his boat, little realizing that it was fish giggling in the water below him. The fact is Dave was an abysmal failure as a fisherman and anybody else would’ve been considering a career change, but not Dave. You see, there are three very good reasons why Dave wanted to stay a fisherman. In the first place, he loved the life. Living by the sea, up at dawn, the salty air, the struggle of man versus fish. In the second place, he wasn’t really qualified for anything else. His resumé was sort of a joke, he had no administrative skills and the only reference he could list was his mother, and she was no help. She always told the story about the time Dave was little when he jumped off the roof with an umbrella thinking he’d float like Mary Poppins.

This bring us to the third reason why Dave wanted to stay a fisherman: He was stupid. But he had a good heart, and he was very kind and people liked him wherever he went. And, as luck would have it, he liked just about everyone he met right back. Especially Sara.

Ah, Sara. The beautiful girl he passed every day on his way to the fish market. It might strike you as odd that so terrible a fisherman would be going to the fish market every day, but he really just went so that he could pass Sara every day. You see, despite never talking to her and only successfully achieving eye contact once (she thought he was someone else), Dave was madly in love with Sara and wanted nothing more than to be with her always.

One day, while Dave was out in his fishing boat, casting his line, thinking about Sara, something happened which had never happened to Dave before. A tug on his line! For a moment, Dave just sat there in the boat, unable to believe it. In fact, it’s likely the fish would’ve gotten away had Dave not snapped out of it at the last moment and started reeling it in like a mad man. It was an epic struggle of man versus fish, just like he’d always wanted. Even better than the one in that Spencer Tracy movie! Finally, with his last ounce of strength, he was able to land the fish in the boat at which point something even more impossible happened.

“Please throw me back!” said the fish.

Dave took another moment to deal with the last three words of the previous sentence before he was able to respond. “Er…huh?” Like I said, none too bright.

“Please,” begged the fish, whose scales were sparkling as though made from genuine gold, “put me back in the water. I’ve got a wife and eight thousand roe waiting for me!”

“You don’t understand,” answered Dave. “I’ve been a fisherman all my life and you’re the first fish I ever caught! I can’t throw you back.”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your predicament, but this is my life we’re talking about! Look, if you let me go, I can help you.”

“Help me? How?”

“I’m a magic fish!”

“No, really.”

“I swear. I can grant wishes. You want a wish? I’ll grant you a wish!”

“You mean I can really have any wish I want? Anything in the whole wide world is mine if I throw you back?”

“Exactly, my friend! What will it be?”

Of course, there was only one thing in the entire world that Dave wanted. “I wish Sara were my girl.”

“Granted!” said the fish. And then Dave picked him up and tosses him back into the sea, where he waved a fin in gratitude before disapearing under the waves. It was a slightly apprehensive Dave who rowed his boat for home. He wasn’t entirely sure that the fish was trustworthy. And, after all, he had just thrown back the first and only fish he’d ever caught. Had he made a terrible mistake?

So, that afternoon, as he made his way to the fish market, his eyes fell on Sara and something else happened that had never happened before: She smiled at him. He smiled back. A flower seller by trade, Sara took a shining blue flower from her cart and handed it to Dave. On his way back from the fish market he felt braver, more confident. So he went to Sara and asked her for a date. She said yes and thus began their courtship.

But soon, Dave was filled with misgivings. Sure, he loved Sara, but what else had he to offer her? He lived in a tumbledown shack by the sea, he couldn’t make money, and somehow, even though he had very little contact with them, he usually smelled strongly of fish. True, she was his girlfriend thanks to the fish’s magic, but he was sure that deep down Sara was not happy. Dave got an idea and rowed his boat out to the very same spot where he had met the magic fish in the first place.

“Hello! Magic fish? Are you down there?”

“Hey, how’s it going?” said a familiar voice, as the magic fish popped his head up above the water. “You and the girl, everything good there?”

“Well yes, everything’s wonderful…for me. But I don’t know how happy she is. I mean, I know your magic made her love me…”

“Er, actually, I—”

“But I want her to be really happy. So, I was hoping I could trouble you for another wish. Not for me, you understand. For her.”

“Of course,” said the magic fish. “What kind of fish would I be if I didn’t aid in the cause of true love? What’ll it be?”

“Well, you probably already know I’m not much of a fisherman…”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“So, I wish I was the greatest fisherman of all time!”

“Granted!” said the obliging fish and he dove back under the water. The fisherman threw his nets overboard and in seconds they were full to bursting with fish. In fact, much to his surprise, he now saw that there were three more nets in his boat, which he also cast overboard to be filled almost immediately. Now with four huge bundles of fish, he walked to the fish market with his head held high, and he caught Sara’s eye on his way and she beamed with pride at her boyfriend, the great fisherman. He sold the fish at market and used the money to take Sara out for a night on the town. Fine food and drink, beautiful new clothes for both of them, and tickets to the theatre to see the new Neil Simon play (wow, that guy’s been around forever!).

And from then on, whenever Dave dropped his nets in the water, he was sure to come back with a bounty of fish. And with the money he made, he fixed up his house into a beautiful estate, he bought new fishing boats and hired men to go out and actually catch the fish and he soon became the most famous fish tycoon of all time. He missed going out in the boat and being a fisherman, of course, but now he could treat Sara the way she deserved. They were married, of course, and she gave up her job at the flower cart. Now they were two of the beautiful people…

But something was still wrong.

Unsure of where else to go, Dave took his boat out late at night to find the magic fish. “Magic fish!” he cried out. “Are you there?”

“Well, this is a surprise,” said the fish when he arrived. “I thought you had people do this kind of thing for you nowadays.”

“I know, I know. But I wanted to talk to you.”

“Let me guess. Things not going quite right still?”

“That’s right. How did you know?”

“You’re not the only idiot I’ve granted wishes to, kid. Don’t you have everything you’ve ever wanted?”

“I don’t know. I live in a big house, I’ve got lots of money, I have the most beautiful, wonderful wife in the world, I never have to do any work…”

“You miss your old life, huh?”

“I do.”

“Look, kid, I know you want to make your girl happy, but what good is that if you have to change yourself so much that you’re not happy? Love is supposed to be a two-way street, it doesn’t work if one person is happy and the other is miserable.”

“How do you know so much about love?”

“How do you think I got my eight thousand kids? A genie in a bottle? Listen, Dave, I like you. You’re none too bright, but you’ve got a good heart and you threw me back even when you had no real reason to. So I’m gonna grant you one last wish. Close your eyes, and listen to your heart. Now tell me, what is the one thing you want more than anything else in the world?”

Dave closed his eyes and didn’t have to listen to his heart because it was clear as a bell. “I wish for Sara to have a long and happy life.”

“You’re sure? Cuz this wish will undo all your other wishes. She won’t be your wife anymore. It’ll be like you and I never met.”

“I don’t care. As long as she has what she wants.”

“You’re a good man, Dave. Granted!”

Dave rowed back to shore. It was dark and the moon provided very poor light, so it some time before he noticed that his boat was changing from the fine fishing boat he had bought to the old dinghy he had before. His clothes were the dingy, smelly rags of an unsuccessful fisherman and when he arrived home, his house was once again a shack and it was empty. He was alone. With a very heavy heart, he went to bed and, in his grief, fell fast asleep.

The next day he didn’t get up early. He didn’t go out fishing. He didn’t go to the fish market to see Sara. He figured she wouldn’t be there anyway. Probably living with some prince charming in some other fairy tale living happily ever—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!!

Being poor, untalented and stupid, Dave had very few friends and, therefore, not many visitors. So he was a little surprised when he heard someone knocking on his door. He was more surprised when he opened it and saw Sara standing there.

“Hi,” she said, timidly. Dave had to remind himself that they had actually never spoken before.

“Hi,” he said.

“Er…I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m—”

“You’re Sara, the girl who works at the flower cart on the way to the fish market…I mean, I think that’s you. Is it?”

“Yes. That’s me. And you’re Dave the fisherman, right?”

“More like Dave the failure. But, yeah, that’s me.”

“Great! I mean, good. It’s good that you’re…er, what I mean is, I didn’t see you in the market today and someone told me this is where you lived. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I don’t know if you realize this, but I see you on the way to the fish market every day.”

“You…you do?”

“Yeah. I even made eye contact with you once, but I got nervous and looked away.”

“You got nervous?”

“Well, like I said I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I guess I’ll leave you alone now, if you want me to—”

“No, wait. You don’t have to go. I mean, if you wanted to come in that would be…if you want to, I mean.”

She said yes, and thus began their courtship…again.

It wasn’t long before Dave and Sara were going steady. Dave couldn’t afford to buy her fancy meals and theatre tickets (which is too bad, since this was just around the time the musical was invented), but they always had fun together, whatever they were doing. Once, Dave even took her out on his fishing boat and she was able to figure out the fairly obvious mistake he was making that was preventing him from catching fish all these years: he wasn’t using bait.

Again, none too bright, good heart.

Now, he wasn’t exactly the greatest fisherman on earth anymore, but he was at least a good fisherman. He was now able to catch something. And he had good days, where he caught lots of fish, and bad days where he caught very few. But he made enough money to repair his leaky shack, keep food on the table and, eventually, to buy a diamond ring (or near enough) for Sara, who would’ve agreed to marry him if he’d given her a ring made of tin.

About a year after he had first met the magic fish, the fisherman was out at work when a familiar voice came from under the sea. “Well, look who’s back!” said the magic fish, popping his head up again.

“Hello, Magic fish!”

“You seem to be in good spirits, Dave. I take it everything’s going well?”

“Wonderful, magic fish…I’m sorry, I never thought to ask, but do you have a name?”

“Yes, I do. It’s…well, it’s David, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, what are the odds, huh? So, you’re doing all right for yourself? And Sara? She’s very happy?”

“We’re both happy, David. It’s funny. When I first wished that she’d fall in love with me—”

“Yeah, I hate to break this to you, pal, but that’s not what you wished. You wished she’d be your girl so I just cast a spell to give her courage enough to approach you with that flower. Which gave you confidence enough to ask her out. But I can’t make people fall in love, that’s well beyond the limits of magic.”

“So…so she wasn’t with me just because she was under a spell?”

“No, Dave, you wonderful idiot, you! She was in love with you from the start. But you needed to realize it on your own before you could have your own happy ending.”

“Well, thanks for everything David.”

“You’re quite welcome, Dave!” And with a playful whip of his tail, David, the magic, talking, wish-granting fish dove back into the water and was never heard of again. As for Dave and Sara, they lived very happily ever after…but, you probably already knew that, huh?

THE END

If You Liked My Story, You Might Enjoy:

• “Fractured Fairy Tales” (TV) A segment of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show which did this story several times. Sometimes I wish I could get Edward Everett Horton to read my stories.

NEXT WEEK: "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"