LOVELY CAT AND KITTENS !
Whenever Aunt Anny comes she brings with her a treasury of wonderful tales. There are tales of kings and queens, animals and adventures, gods and ghosts and what not!
Aunt Anny visited us during the Christmas holidays. We, the kids, gathered around her after supper and demanded for a nice tale. It was a cold night. Though we wore sweaters and monkey caps we were shivering. Aunt Anny asked which story we would love to hear. Santhosh said he wanted an adventurous story. Samarth wanted a nice tale about animals. Sumanth demanded a detective tale. Spoorthy asked for a story like that of the Adventures of Heidi. But to our surprise, Aunt Anny chose quite a different story which covered all these aspects.
"Dear Children, let me ask you a question. How do you feel when you are made to stand outside without warm clothing now?"
"No aunty, you cannot be so merciless! We shall die of cold! " replied Spoorthy.
"Well, it is only a guess. I don’t want any of you to go and stand in the cold winds. I wanted your opinion on this for it is needed to understand the story that I am going to tell you now."
"What story?" asked Samarth eagerly.
"It is a story of ghosts and goblins which drove away a kind hearted man in the cold night on the Christmas Eve."
"A story of ghosts!"
"Yes, now, can you tell me how many ghosts you know ?"
"I know only a few. Demons, Devils, Fiend, Vampair, trolls, that’s all, " said Sumanth and asked, "Are there any more, Aunty?"
"Definitely, there are more ghosts. Don’t you have a Thesaurus?"
"What is a Thesaurus, Aunty?"
"A Thesaurus is a book, like our dictionay, which contains words similar in meaning i.e., Synonyms and also the words opposite in meaning i.e., Antonyms. Rogets’ Thesaurus is a popular handy guide. I think your dad has got it in his personal library. Go and get it. Let us see the synonyms of ghosts," said Aunt Anny.
When the Thesaurus was brought from the father’s study, Aunt Anny searched the pages and showed us the synonyms entered under the heading "890 - EVIL SPIRITS - N. demon, fiend, devil; evil genius, familiar, familiar spirit, bad (or unclean) spirit ; incubus; ogre, ogress, ghoul, vampire, harpy; Fury, the Furies, the Erinyes, the Eumenides ; imp, bad fairy, sprite, jinni (plural jinn), genius (plural genii), dwarf, changeling, elf child, werewolf; satyr ; elemental, sylph, gnome, salamander, nymph (Rosicrucian); siren, niie, undine, Lorelei; bugbear, bugaboo, bogy, goblin, hobgoblin etc."
"Oh God! So many ghosts!"
"Well, now, think that all these spirits visit, rather invade, your house at the same time what will happen? You tend to rush out? No, they drive you out mercilessly. That’s what happened to a poor farmer on every Christmas Eve says a Norwegian folk tale. Here goes the tale :
Once upon a time there lived a poor farmer near the woods in a small village in Norwey. He was kind hearted Halvor. Halvor decorated his small house for Christmas very nicely. He prepared tasty dishes. He brought a good number of articles for presentation to his children and neighbours. On Christmas Eve the trolls from the nearby woods rushed in and ate all the dishes and destroyed the decorative items, broke all the nice gifts he had brought. This had been hapenning for many years till the hunter Nicholas brought his big polar bear and taught a lesson to all the trolls.
Nicholas of Denmark was a great hunter. He wanted to present a unique thing to the King of Denmark for the new year. He was searching for a great prize. His search brought him to Norwey. He caught a big polar bear there. He thought it would make a very nice present to the king. So off he went, leading the bear on a strong lead. On Christmas Eve, they reached a cottage beside the woods. It was the cottage of our kind hearted Halvor.
Nicholas requested Halvor if he could stay in the cottage for the night.
Halvor replied, "Oh, how I wish I could give you shelter, but tonight a great pack of trolls will come down from the woods and I shall not have a roof over my own head! Every Christmas Eve the trolls eat us out of home and there are so many of them that drive us out into the cold."
Nicholas pleaded, "Could you let me sleep in the outhouse and my bear could sleep under the stove, please?"
Halvor agreed to this but cautioned Nicholas, "The trolls will dirive you out, I warn you!"
Halvor prepared the dishes and shared the supper with Nicholas. He laid the table with great bowls of porridge, plates of fish and dishes of sausage. After supper Nicholas made himself comfortable in the outhouse leaving his bear to take rest under the stove.
As night fell, down came the trolls. There was a great horde of them, in all shapes and sizes. some were tall and thin, some were round and fat, some had long tails, and some had none at all. They brought many more goblins and all kinds of ghosts with them.All of them crowded into the kitchen, making a terrible noise, and they ate and drank everything they could see.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, the smallest troll saw the bear under the stove. He went over to the stove and pushed his fork under the bear’s nose, shouting, "Here you are, pussy. Have a nice bit of sausage."
At this, the bear stood up and roared at the top of his voice. Then chased all the trolls round the table and out of the door. All the goblins and ghosts too followed the trolls. Halvor and his family saw all this fighting. They were very happy to see the trolls running away. They thanked their guest Nicholas and his big bear. They thought it was Santa Claus who came there to rescue them. They celebrated the brith of the Lord happily. The next morning Nicholas went away with his bear.
Another year went by, and on Christmas Eve Halvor was hard at work, chopping wood for the fire. As he swung his axe, he heard a voice calling from the woods. It was one of the trolls.
"Halvor! Is that you?" said the voice. Surprised Halvor replied, "Yes, it is I."
"Does your big cat still sleep under the stove?" asked the troll.
"Yes, now, she has had seven kittens since last Christmas, and they have grown bigger and fiercer than the cat herself !" said Halvor.
"Oh dear! We won’t come to see you ever again. We don’t want to fight with your eight big cats! Off we go!" said the troll and ran away.
Halvor, ever since that day, has celebrated the birth of the Lord and has eaten his Christmas dinner in peace with his family.
How’s the tale, kids?
Bedre N. Manjunath
Transmission Eecutive
All India Radio
CHITRADURGA - 577 501.
Ph.9448589089
No comments:
Post a Comment