1. There was once a family that had a destiny, like a black round polished rock at the back of their minds’ rucksack, weighing their futures down. It had been passed down for some time and the feeling was that it was time for the destiny to happen. The family lived in a cottage on the outskirts of a village and at the time they had rather a lot of sons. So they sent the eldest out to seek his fortune.
2. The eldest son came back with nothing but bee-stings, an empty wallet and a pile of creased takeaway menus. The parents took stock; they realised that they had forgotten to promise him to a witch, or gamble his future on the solution of a hedge-wizard’s riddle, or tell him not to come back until he had achieved something impossible. As such, their options for destiny had been limited. Since nothing ever came of doing anything with an even number of sons, they would probably be unable to fulfil their destiny until the third son had gone out into the world.
3. Excuse me, said the second son. Can I have a word? But the parents were deep in thought. Don’t bother yourself, they said. Staying here also constitutes failing the quest. Let us send out our third son.
4. The third son went out into the world. He was distracted by a passing flock of starlings and ended up in the queue to register for a hay-baling course, which actually turned out to be quite interesting. Before he knew it he had qualified to be a professional hay-baler. It did not pay enough to purchase his own cottage, house prices being what they were, but he was able to move back in with his parents.
5. The parents were puzzled. Clearly they were not possessors of the three-son type of destiny. The fourth son, fearing that he would be sent out on a pointless quest, had already made himself scarce. And try as they might there did not seem to be much in their culture on the myth and magic of fifth-sons seeking their futures. The most they got was something hand-wavy with pentagrams. The fifth son rolled his eyes, got on his bicycle, and wearily cycled off to the horizon. At the horizon was a good second-hand bookshop, and that made him happy. He came back two days later with a big stack of books, which kept everyone busy from worrying about destiny for a few weeks.
6. Excuse me, said the second son. But all eyes were now on the seventh son (the sixth, in any case, had left home some years ago and was living it up in the nearest town). Nobody could be quite sure, but Grandpa had been a bit of a shagger, so it was entirely possible that the seventh son was a seventh son of a seventh son, which was of course a destiny-squared sort of situation.
7. With much fanfare, the seventh son went out into the world. He carried on straight along the road to the West until he met a dreamy cowboy, and they set up a pie shop together. He was quite happy to be gone from the cottage. The cottage was cramped, and these days rather grumpy with the weight of destiny.
8. The parents got their calculations back out, scratched their heads, and got to conceiving an eighth and presumably ninth son. The eldest son (by now a builder with a new family of his own) started work on an extension. There was of necessity a brief lull in destiny-fulfilment.
9. Excuse me, said the second son. You do know that I’m actually your daughter, right? The parents thought back over time, and by and by they realised that she was right.
10. This necessitated a renumbering of sons. It was entirely possible that the old fourth son, out somewhere in the world, was even now in possession of a magnificent third-son fortune. Similarly the newborn eighth son did seem to be able to speak to birds.
11. However, by this time that daughter had run off with the destiny and the other two daughters (who had become tired of being ignored). And they made their own three-witches story, and a very fine one it was too.
12. There being many free rooms in the newly-extended cottage, those left behind eventually opened up a hotel.
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