The House in the Forest (1)
The story is based on a real fairytale. This is a rewrite of an obviously incorrect account of proceedings.
Once upon a time there was a family that lived on the edge of a forest and on the edge of society. The household was made up of a stout mother a short father and three bad looking daughters. They were Sad Sue, Stubborn Stella and Silly Sally.
One fine day the father, who happened to be a wood cutter had an idea. He didn´t often have one so he was right proud of himself whenever he did get one. He announced his great idea over the dinner table.
“As of from now I am not going to carry my own lunch with me every morning when I head off into the forest. I have enough to carry between my axe and the wood I cut.”
“But you have a pony and cart,” said the wife, “ I don´t see why you can´t carry the lunch in that too?”
“Listen woman,” began the wood cutter, “do you want the story to develop or not, the original story has less detail than this one.”
“Fair enough so,” said the stout lady.
The wood cutter proceeded to explain how he thought it would be an excellent idea if the eldest girl, Sue, brought the lunch to him every day at noon. And of course there was no arguing with him even though it was quite obviously a waste of everyone´s time. However that´s the way the original story goes.
So the next day the wood cutter went to work as usual. At lunchtime Sue headed out the door with his lunch under her arm and a bag of seeds. Halfway into the forest she had to leave a trail of seeds in order to be able to find her way back. Now what I didn´t understand from the original story is how the woodcutter got in and out of the forest no bother, while she needed the seeds.
In the end she didn´t even find the wood cutter to give him his lunch. To make matters worse she didn´t find the trail back home either because the birds ate up all the seeds.
She sat down on a log and ate the wood cutter´s lunch. What was she going to do now?
Night fell. She wandered around a bit until she saw in the distance a cottage with welcoming smoke curling out of the chimney.
She knocked on the door. “Come in,” said an old voice. Inside was an old man at a wooden table and behind the table stood a horse, a donkey and a fox. In the original story I can´t remember exactly what type of animals they were. This is near enough.
“Can I stay?” she asked.
The old man looked at the animals, they replied, “yes, no, maybe so.”
This was interpreted as yes. The old man told Sue to go into the kitchen and make herself something to eat. She did.
The old man told her to go into the spare bedroom and make the bed for herself. She did.
Finally when she dropped off the old man came into the room and pulled a lever on the wall. Down she went into the cellar. The animals clapped.