THE DREADFUL
GRIFFINby Michael
Fairless.
All the trouble arose one day when the Princess
(there is always a
Princess in a fairy tale, you know) was playing in
the garden with her
ball. She threw it up in the air much higher than
usual and it never
came down again. There was an awful shriek, like
ten thousand
steam-engines; all the ladies-in-waiting fainted in
a row, the
inhabitants of the place went stone-deaf, and the
Captain of the Guard,
who was in attendance with a company of his troops,
seized the
Princess, put her on his horse, galloped away
followed by his soldiers
to a castle on the top of a hill, deposited the
Princess in the highest
room, and then and only then told her what had
happened.
"Miss," he said, for he was so upset he forgot
Court etiquette, "Miss,
your ball must have hit the Dreadful Griffin in the
eye (I noticed he
was taking a little fly in the neighbourhood) and
that was the reason
for the awful shriek. Well, Miss, the Dreadful
Griffin never was known
to forgive anybody anything, so I snatched you up
quick before he could
get at you and brought you to the Castle of the
White Cats. There are
seventeen of these animals sitting outside the door
and twenty-seven
more standing in the court-yard, so you're as safe
as safe can be, for
the Dreadful Griffin can't look at a white cat
without getting the ague
and then he shakes so a mouse wouldn't be afraid of
him. And now, Miss,
I must go back to your Royal Pa, so I will wish you
good-morning."
Having made this long speech the Captain suddenly
remembered the Court
etiquette, became very hot and red, went out of the
room backwards, and
instantly fell over the seventeen cats who all
swore at him, which so
confused the poor man that he rolled down the
stairs and out into the
court where the twenty-seven cats were having
rations of mouse-pie
served out to them; and the Captain rolled into the
middle of the pie,
scalded himself badly with the gravy, and was
thankful to jump on his
horse and ride away with his soldiers to report
matters to the King.
The King was so
pleased with his promptitude that he made him the
General of the Flying Squadron, which only fights
in the air, and
conferred on him the medal of the Society for the
Suppression of
Superfluous Salamanders, whereat the Captain was
overjoyed.But this is a digression, and I only told
you because I wanted you to
see that virtue is always rewarded.
Now for the
poor Princess. Well, she cried a little, of course,
but the cats brought her some
mouse-pie, which she found very good, and she was
soon quite happy
playing with some of the kittens and nearly forgot
all about the
Dreadful Griffin; but he did not forget about her,
oh dear no! He flew
after the Captain when he galloped away with the
Princess, but when he
saw the White Cats he shook with ague so fearfully
that his teeth
rolled about in his mouth like billiard balls and
he had to go and get
a new set before he could eat his dinner. Well, he
was in a perfect
fury, and how to get at the Princess he did not
know. He swallowed
several buckets of hot brimstone, rolled his head
in a red flannel
petticoat, put his tail in a hot sand bag, and went
to bed hoping to
cure the ague, which he did completely, so that he
was quite well next
day and more anxious to eat the Princess than
ever.
Now next door to the Dreadful Griffin (that is, a
hundred miles away)
there lived a Wicked Witch, and he went to consult
her as to how he
might get at the Princess. When the Wicked Witch
heard what a sad
effect White Cats had on the Griffin's constitution
she said that she
would have expected a Griffin of his coils to have
had more sense.
"Any slow-worm knows," said the Wicked Witch, "that
cats love mice
better than Princesses; therefore get a large sack
of fat mice, let
them loose a little way from the castle, and when
the cats see them
they will run after them, and you can eat the
Princess."
The Dreadful Griffin was so pleased with the Wicked
Witch that he
presented her with a pair of fire-bricks and a
hot-water in, and then
flew away to the Purveyor of Mice, who lived in a
town about seventy
miles away. He bought twelve hundred dozen fat mice
of the best
quality, all the Purveyor had in stock that were
home-grown, and flew
on with them to the castle. When he was a little
way off he let the
mice out, expecting all the cats to arrive at once,
but not a cat
appeared. They heard mice and they smelt mice, but
not a cat moved, for
they were on their honour, so they kept guard and
licked their lips
sadly. When the Griffin saw the last of the twelve
hundred dozen mice
disappearing down the road with never a cat after
them, he was in a
tremendous temper and flew away to the house of the
Wicked Witch, only
stopping to pick up a steam engine which he dropped
through her roof,
and then went home to bed. Next day he remembered a
friend of his
called the Grumpy Giant, who lived six doors away,
that is, about a
thousand miles, so he flew to ask his advice. When
the Giant heard his
story, he said in the gruffest voice you ever
heard,
"Mice is
common,
try sparrers" (by which you can see that he was
quite an uneducated
person), and then he turned over and went to
sleep.
Posted 14:43
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