📖 tell me a story, vicar :3
Very well friend, I’ll tell you a tale we tell our children to be mindful of the hunt and the dangers it poses.
Once there was a family, who lived in the fields just outside our fair city. The mother tended these fields, each day she would tell her three children to stay inside their hut and never answer the door to anyone except her and her special greeting. The children were good and always listened, and each day she returned she would call:
“Come my children! My sweet dears,Open the door, for I bring us a treat,For I have brought fine food for us to eat”
The children knew it as their mother and happily welcomed her in and they would enjoy their meal. But unbeknownst to them, a skulking beast was watching and waiting in the shadows, desperate to devour the family and invade their home. He waited and listened but couldn’t quite understand the mother’s words, but when she left the next day he approached the door...
“Come my children! My sweet dears,Open the door, for I bring us a treat,For I have brought fine food for us to eat”
The voice was ragged and harsh, not familiar at all, the children called back “Go away, whoever you are! You are not our mother, your voice is all wrong! Our mother’s voice is gentle and light!”
The beast growled and left, and when the mother returned the children told her of the stranger at the door. She assured them they were safe, and to not answer the door for anyone except for herself. She again recited the greeting to the children, but now with a slight change only the children would know, and off again she went to the fields. And again the beast approached the door.
“Come my children! My sweet dears,Open the door, for I bring us a treat,For I have brought fine food for us to eat.”
“Go away friend!” the children called back, “Your voice is ragged and harsh, and the words are now wrong! Begone with you or we call forth a hunt!”
The beast fled back into the shadows, more defeated than before. He sat and again tried to change his voice, to sound gentler and lighter, which attracted a crow’s attention.
“Tell me beast,” the crow said, “Why are you howling? Is your hunger that severe?”
“No, crow. I am practicing to sound gentle and light,” the beast motioned to the hut, “I wish to devour the children inside but they will not let me in, my voice is wrong and now I know not the words.”
The crow scoffed and explained, “Foolish beast, you will never succeed on your own. I know what you must do, but you must do me a favor.”
The beast pleaded with the crow, “Anything, crow! Whatever you ask I will do!”
The Crow spoke swiftly, “You must kill the hunter in these woods, take his coat, and speak to the smithy outside of town and tell him to forge you a new throat.”
“You will give me his eyes.”
The deal was done, that night the beast searched for the hunter in the woods, chased him down and killed him; taking his eyes for the crow and the coat for himself. He thought it odd a smithy would help him, but he knew the smithy was old and that the crow was very smart.
The beast went to the smithy in his disguise, and begged, “Please smithy, forge me a new throat, so my voice is not ragged and harsh. I wish to have a gentle light voice so I do not scare the children.”
“And what shall I get in return, sir?” The smithy asked.
“I will bring you the head of the beast of this wood that plagues the fields.”
The blacksmith agreed, not knowing he was tricked. The beast forged a fake head out of straw, mud, and clay and brought it back to the old smithy, who accepted the offering.
“Lay your head upon the anvil, and show your neck to me, I will forge you a new throat to give you the voice you ask.” The beast, still in disguise, agreed, and laid his head on the anvil still, showing his neck and closing his eyes. The smithy drove his hammer down hard as he could, killing the beast in one blow, and taking his head as a trophy.
The family lived happily in the fields, free of worry. The crow was very smart indeed.
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