And so began the eagle king’s long year of knitting, and the toil was made even more onerous by using nettles for yarn and having to abstain from speaking and smiling. But, as he expected, it was his subjects who posed the biggest problem. And they had reason enough to be resentful. Him not smiling worried them the least; eagles, as we know, are not famous for their sense of humour. But him not speaking made for a serious problem. If only his reason had been pride and loftiness they would have forgiven him – he was the king of the eagles, after all. But hour after hour, day after day and month after month he just sat on his throne of stone, flightless, wordless, and knitted! He flew only after midnight, and then it was to cemeteries to pick nettles for knitting those shirts. The fingers on his left hand were covered with blisters, but he kept on knitting in silence with a dull look in his eyes. The eagles saw this as complete and utter decadence.
They began to whisper about him, and soon they were gossiping openly. Still he held his tongue and knitted. Now the eagles called an urgent assembly. Angry voices went up: ‘We are sick of this ruler! Oust him!’ He was calmly knitting the third shirt, with the other two lying finished beside him. ‘This is an insult!’ ‘He’s mocking us!’ ‘What a disgrace!’ ‘Depose him!’ ‘Lynch him!’ The threats became more severe by the minute as a circle of eagles drew tighter around him.
All of a sudden, the sky darkened and three white swans came down to land in the small space that remained around him and meekly bowed their long necks. He quickly cast the shirts over their heads and, to the wonder of all those present, except himself, the swans turned into Eliza and her two sisters. What a beautiful sight! The girls were gorgeous, and their shirts were like tunics that showed off their svelte yet curvaceous bodies. Tears of joy rolled down Eliza’s cheeks as she told the curious listeners of the sisters’ rousing odyssey, caused by their stepmother-witch and her bad magic, and the ordeal the eagle king had gone through for her sake.
‘Move back, all of you. Give her room to breathe!’ the eagles now heard their ruler’s voice for the first time in a year, and it was as resolute and confident as before. They made way for him, and he went up to Eliza and hugged her tight. He began to caress her and soon noticed that, instead of a left arm, she still had a wing: ‘your poor arm! I’ve failed you. I didn’t finish the last sleeve.’
‘Don’t be sad. I’ll wear this swan’s wing with pride, as a symbol of your selfless love. And we’ll complement each other when we do what lovers do.’
They finished the court and family formalities with the king’s ministers as quickly as they could. Then his mother (who reminded all who couldn’t escape her company of her vital role in the knitting saga) and the sisters all undressed and went to bed.
‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, a little snubbed, when he saw Eliza grinning.
‘The birthmark, my dear – the birthmark on your penis. Now, just before we get intimate, I was checking that it’s on the right-hand side.’
‘What the...’
‘You see, there’s a belief among our people that those with a birthmark on the left lean one way, so to speak, and those with it on the right lean another... so I just wanted to check. But now we can make love. My kisses will put a smile back on your face.’
Her voice went husky, as if there was a fluttering bird in her throat that wanted to escape. ‘Oh my God,’ the man with one wing muttered before getting down to business. And it was much better than in his wildest dreams.
And so the two of them lived happily for many, many years, until the end of their lives. Especially him. Eliza watched over him until her death. He was eighty when she died, having inherited his mother’s longevity, and his son, the heir to the throne, made sure he lacked nothing. Even his fading memory became a boon, for he felt carefree, as if he lived in a second childhood filled with fantasies and mythical creatures from distant, fairy-tale worlds. In old age, when he became ever more simple-minded, his imagination gained two powerful wings for antics and frivolity.
Now and again, accompanied by some of his caring servants, he would climb a hill that seemed strangely familiar (where did he know it from?) and sit on a rock there amidst a somehow familiar clearing. Taking the occasional bite of his favourite Turkish delight with coconut, tasty and soft enough for his toothless jaws, he would stare at the sky, where large and small clouds were in flight, changing shape from a horse into an elephant, an elephant into a train, a train into a snake – and so on, and so forth, almost without end.
This fairy tale is to be told to a little girl who has fallen and grazed her knee
The Dance of the Coloured Handkerchiefs
One day, a colourful silk handkerchief got angry with its mother, ran away from home and set off into the wide world in search of a boy or girl with a runny nose. It was very small and didn’t yet know how to wipe someone’s nose; it didn’t even know what a child looked like; but still, it left on the long journey.
It wandered for a long time until it came to a pretty yellow house with a red chimney and swirls of smoke coming out. The brave little handkerchief thought the house was a boy or girl, and the chimney its nose.
‘No, no. I am a house,’ it corrected the little traveller. ‘But come inside and perhaps you will find a child.’
Without further ado, the handkerchief went in and found itself in a large, well-lit room with a big round lamp in the corner.
‘That must be the head of the child, but where is its nose?’ our little hero asked itself when it saw the smooth, attractive lamp.
‘No, no. I am a lamp. But just wait a minute and André will come home from school.’
And, sure enough, a few moments later a tousled little head ran into the room. It had restless locks, a cheerful smile with a row of tiny white stones, and a snotty nose like a little potato that’s been in the pan for too long.
‘I’ve found you, I’ve found you,’ the handkerchief piped. ‘Let me wipe your nose!’
André blew his nose into it, laughed a hearty little laugh, and snatched the handkerchief. ‘You’re just what I need, but for something quite different. You can help me in my new act.’
Later, in the long evening by the fire, André told his new friend that he was the son of the great magician Petronius and that tomorrow they would start practicing a new act together – The Dance of the Coloured Handkerchiefs.
So the wayward handkerchief became a great star in the circus tent and beyond. Every evening, for an enthusiastic audience, it vanished into a magic hat and then flew out again as a white dove. Such a life was exciting for the handkerchief, and it enjoyed being pampered: it was washed, ironed, and even doused with exotic perfumes. At night it slept close to André’s heart, in the upper left-hand pocket of his juggler’s costume. In the meantime it made it up with its mother, and she became very, very proud of it.