Three Foolish Beasts

After many vicissitudes, the Tree Son and the Starwife are united, and they all frolic with the Godchild on Christmas day.

They then have the adventure of the pheasant and the fruit, aided by their children.

They had a wondrous journey through the cloud lands—the Tree Son, the Starwife, their son Foresight and their daughter Hear-and-Speak, the golden pheasant and his two wives. Clouds would drift into other clouds higgledy-piggledy, or sometimes just shift, hokitypokity. They went from summer clouds to storm clouds to drizzly clouds and back again. Sunrise clouds and sunset clouds. Mackerel clouds. They made friends with a great many birds. Hear-and-Speak didn’t have to translate for them, as she had put a bit of cloudstuff in each one’s ear, allowing them to understand birds.

One fluffy day, a chatty crow told them there were some very foolish objects on the other side of the cloud. Objects was what birds called land animals, so without further ado they strolled over.

They found, lolling around a wispy kind of cloud half arch, a turkey, a donkey, and a monkey. The monkey had an extremely long tail that he was extremely absorbed in sniffing. The donkey had huge ears and huge teeth. The turkey cock had a huge pendulous waddle that he was swaying from side to side.

When the group came into sight, the donkey brayed, the monkey chattered, and the turkey gobbled. No one could understand them, not even the turkey who was, after all, a kind of bird. Not even Hear-and-Speak could understand them. “I think they are dumb animals,” she said sadly.

Now very peculiarly, each animal had with him a glossy black speckled light blue hen nestled down into the cloud. The hens ignored the travelers in concentration, then simultaneously stood up with a huge racket of bawking and wing flapping. Each one had laid a pearly egg. The donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock started playing with the eggs. Throwing, kicking, and hurling around, until they smashed them all. The hens meanwhile were pecking at the cloud stuff until they had eaten their fill when they promptly nestled back down and the whole performance repeated itself.

The travelers themselves had been eating cloud stuff. They had the golden pear and a golden pinecone that when planted grew up a pear tree and a pine tree with pine nuts respectively. But except for the pheasant and his wives, the diet of pine nuts and pears had begun to pall. The cloud stuff, while edible, was neither very filling nor very tasty.

So the travelers longed for those eggs. The second time the performance repeated, right down to the destruction of the second set of eggs, the travelers noticed that there were broken eggs all around. With one accord they rushed to the hens promising to protect them from having their eggs destroyed if only they might share one or two.

The hens could barely be brought to acknowledge the travelers, so busy were they on eating more cloud stuff, but finally responded to Hear-and-Speak’s importuning. They themselves, the hens said, belonged to the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock, so perforce so did their eggs also. With this explanation, the hens nestled back down and ignored all further attempts at conversation.

The travelers tried to negotiate with the dumb beasts using pantomime and dumb show, to no avail. The Tree Son planted the golden pear and when it sprung up into a full pear tree, he offered juicy bright pears to them. The donkey brayed, the turkey cock shook his head with his swaying wattle from side to side, and the monkey stuck out his tongue. The same result obtained when the Tree Son tried pine nuts. The Tree Son reluctantly plucked the pure gold pear and the pure gold pinecone from the loftiest branch of the trees, whereupon the trees disappeared. The Starwife sang to them sweetly. She was ignored. Hear-and-Speak tried braying, gobbling, and chattering and hooting, with like results.

The babies were watching this all intently. One of them said,

Father, Mother, let me shape,

that turkey will like the thing I make.

And with that the baby let go and when its feet hit the ground it was a full grown young man. He ripped off a twist of cloud stuff and with a pat and slap and a pull and a stretch he made a ridiculous puffy tangled sort of hat. He offered it to the turkey cock. The turkey cock gobbed loudly, ran around in circles, then stretched out his head for the hat. He held his head up high and pompously gestured the boy towards one of the hens and her egg.

On seeing this, another baby spoke up:

Father, Mother, let me try.

Maybe that monkey will like it up high.

No sooner had this young man let go and touched the ground t hen he reached his full height, which was high indeed. Not as tall as his giant father or mother, but very tall for a man. He attracted the monkey’s attention and with a gesture indicated his shoulder. The monkey gaped. He peeked at the lad first through one eye, than through the other. He sprang backwards and then scrambled forward on all fours, up the boy’s leg and chest until he perched comfortably on his shoulder, very smug and pleased. He to made signs with his hands indicating that his new friends could have eggs.

There were still only two eggs. After a little time, one of the baby girls piped up:

Father, Mother, I’m such a dear

that burro beast will want to be near

When she let go and lit on the ground, she because a small young woman with a dazzling smile. She ran over to the donkey, gave a him a great hug, and invited him to join their group. The donkey fell over onto his back, legs kicking in the air, and braying. Which must have in some manner indicated acceptance, because when he regained his feet he ran over to the family and scratched his hide on the Tree Son’s convenient leg.

The Tree Son and the Starwife named these three children Thingmaker, Lifter-Upper, and Friend.

Before they could set off, the family and the menagerie, another girl spoke up.

Father, mother, search far and wide

There are other beasts who shyly hide.

She sprung down and, now a full grown woman, led the search herself. Behind the half arch was a cloud cave and other animals were in it, a whole retinue for the donkey and the monkey and the turkey cock, who despite being dumb beasts had acquired an extraordinarily loyal set of servants.

So, when these creatures had been invited to join the number and the new daughter was satisfied that everyone was found, off they went. Four bugle birds from the retinue leading the way and the whole procession strung out behind them, with the newest daughter, now named Leave-None-Out, at the very rear.

That night, as they dozed on a cloud under the night sky, at midnight, very briefly, the Tree Son thought he saw the donkey, the monkey, and the turkey cock take on the shape of man. But when he looked again, they were in their familiar forms.

Thanks for reading.  My goal is to update these every day through Christmas until Twelfth Night.  This was ready to go for Sunday but I forgot to publish it.  Here it is now.  I will try to include  links so you can follow, but if not please  use the Christmas Fairytale tag at the end of this post.  You can also use the Merry Christmas page on the header bar above to find other writing that celebrates Christmas