If it's not already past your bedtime.

So as you know each of the kinds of flowers and plants has its own kind of fairy that lives in its roots and drinks its nectar and looks like that flower or that plant or weed. The fairies all have their own tribes and each tribe has its own king. Why don't the fairies have queens? Well that's a story for another time. This is the story of how the fairies chose one king to be the king over all the different tribes of fairies.

You see, back when, before they chose their king, the fairies couldn't get along. The Rose-fairies would see a Dandelion-fairy and they would get in a fight with her, or the Myrtle-fairies would fight the poison ivy-fairies. They couldn't get along at all. Well this was a problem because the fairies were getting beaten up some more by people, and goblins and trolls and all the other creatures that wreck things for them. And the kings of all the tribes of fairies came together in their circle in the forest. The Oak-tree-fairy king insisted that everyone should listen to him. He was very tall (for a fairy) and shook his acorn-fists in the air when he said it. The crabgrass-fairy king said that was nonsense, and that it was nonsense that the fairy kings should meet at all anyway. And the ivy-fairy king hugged everyone too much and the titan-aurum fairy king smelled up the place something fierce. It was not a good meeting and the fairy kings were all fighting worse than their own minions. By the end of it they were drawing their grass-bladed swords and clattering their birchpaper shields and were all ready to fight one another to decide who should be the King over all the fairies. Well, they were about to fight when the maple-tree-fairy king, who was sweetest of all the kings said - "Why don't we choose someone to be our king who isn't a fairy? Then no-one will have advantage over the others, we'll all promise to obey this king and then he can keep the peace between us."

Fairies have their own ecology and their own way of thinking that's different than ours. Maybe it was because of the way that the setting sun glowed through the Maple-Tree-King's red hair, or the way the seed-pods fell from his hair when he talked, or maybe it was because the spring was strong and the sap was flowing in their fairy hearts, or maybe they heard the song of the whippoorwill just then - but the fairy kings all agreed that the Maple-King's idea was best. Then they had to decide who would be their king.

This was not hard for the fairies to decide, because fairies don't think hard about these ideas. They found a squirrel and they had one of the Thorn-bush-fairies startle the poor squirrel by lashing at him with their long thorny arms, and then they followed to see where he'd go. The squirrel ran and hid in the chimney of a man who lived not far from the Fairy's circle. By that time it was dark and the man was lying in bed, asleep. The fairy kings decided that he should be their king and so they went to knock on his door.

Now this operation took a lot of co-ordination from the fairy kings. They had to stand on each others shoulders seven high to reach the door, and then they had to knock with all their might. The Dogwood king was at the bottom, and then on his shoulders was the Apple-king, and on his shoulders the Tulip-king, and on his shoulders the Poppy-King on whose shoulders stood the grass-king and who was holding up the Lilac-King. All these kings were in a big grumbling pile and none of them could knock very hard because they were so small. The Apple-King's foot went into the Dogwood King's eye, the Poppy-King's elbow went into the Tulip King's ribs, the Elm-King, who was only trying to help began to trip the Dogwood King and they all fell down and had to climb up once again. Once they had finally got into position once more they tried their best to knock, but they were tinier than you would believe and had the hardest time making a sound. Eventually all the Kings were knocking at the door - pound - pound - pound they went, every one of them all at once and it made a terrible roar (to them) to the sleeping man it sounded a lot like knock.

It was a faint knock but it woke the man up. He came to the door, very sleepy and tired and wondering who would try to bother him so late at night. As he opened the door all of the Fairy Kings remembered what their mothers had taught them - that no human should ever see them, and they couldn't help it, but they hid themselves so that the man couldn't see them.

"Grrr." Said the man, who did not like being woken up. And he went back to bed, but not before all the Fairy Kings crept into his house through the open door. He didn't notice them, he tried to go back to sleep.

Meanwhile the Fairy Kings tried to figure out a way to make the man notice them that wouldn't startle them and make them have to hide again. Some of them decided that they should fix up his food to make it better. Some decided that they should fix up his drink. Some decided that they should fix up his car, and some decided that they should fix up his books.

When the man had to get up to go to work he was still very tired. "Grrr." He said. He went to make his coffee, but his coffee was terrible! He spit it out in disgust and checked his coffee maker to see what was wrong. Sure enough it was full of flower petals and sticks and other Fairy items. He was pretty upset and said: "Grrr." And then he threw out his ruined coffee maker. Then he got dressed and brushed his hair. He noticed that there were twigs and twine and rocks in his brush and so he couldn't fix his hair the right way. He thought maybe he would call in sick, but when he tried to use his telephone it was clogged with moss. He decided that he should get out of the house then and went to get into his car. His car seemed alright but when it broke down on the way to work he found that the motor was full of seeds and feathers. So the poor man had to walk to work. He was very tired and all he could say was "Grrr."

At work things didn't go well either. His hair was a mess, he was very tired, his work was terrible. Some of the Fairy Kings tried to talk to the man through his computer. They sent him messages but the messages came out wrong. The man would get a message and it would say that he should meet in the conference room, and he would go to the room and there would be another meeting that he wasn't supposed to go to. Or he got a message from his boss saying that he should wallpaper the bathroom, and that was strange because that was not the kind of work he did at all. And when he asked his boss about it it seemed pretty clear that she thought he was very crazy, and he looked like he might be crazy because he had red, sleepy eyes and hadn't brushed his hair and he was stooped and sweaty from walking to work. His boss had to have a long talk with him and afterward he was pretty sure that he would get fired.

The poor man finally walked home after work. He thought he might really be crazy, he thought maybe that he was having delusions because he had gone crazy. He didn't know what to do so he just went home. What he said was "Grrr." When he got home he decided that he should try to relax. He got down one of his books to read and tried to relax. But the fairy kings had tampered with his books. They had tried to arrange the words of the books so they would say a special message to the man - but the fairy language is different than ours and the words of the book were jumbled crazily. When he shook the book the letters moved and swam around on the page. The man was finally pretty sure that he had gone crazy. He was having the worst day of his life and he was positive that it was because he had become insane. But he wasn't insane at all and you can tell because what he decided to do instead of anything else was to go to bed.

Well the Fairy Kings felt terrible. Here they had chosen themselves a king and they were ruining his life! They wanted him to make good decisions for them, but here they were, making him go crazy. The Pumpkin-King then decided that he wanted to help the man. He whipped up a batch of the Fairy-Drought, which is a special tea that the fairies drink that gives them long lives and helps them to be especially beautiful all the time. He set the drought out where the man could find it. Then the Cotton King felt bad for the man. He got the flax king to help him make a special suit for the Man out of fairy-cloth. This is a special cloth that makes perfect clothes and whoever wears them seems much more handsome than they would otherwise, and they help the people who wear them to be very good at their work. Then the Corn-King decided that he needed to help the man's car. He made a special oil with the Switchgrass-King that would power the car so that it would go for miles and miles. Then the Bean-Kings - and there are hundreds of kinds of bean fairies - got together to make a special meal for the man, and they set it out where he could find it in the morning.

When the man woke up he brushed his hair and then he brushed his teeth. No twigs or sticks or any problems at all. Then he went to the kitchen to make himself breakfast. He was still pretty sure he might be crazy, and when he found the big cup of the Fairy-Drought he drank it up. Suddenly he felt much better. He felt perfect in fact. Then he ate the fairy breakfast that was left out for him, and he felt strong and well. Then he put on the fairy suit that was laying out for him and he felt very handsome and he was sure he could do anything. Then he got in his car and drove and drove, and it was a smooth ride all the way to work.

When he got to work everyone noticed how handsome the man was. He felt perfect and he did his work splendidly. Everyone in the office noticed that he was very exceptional that day. He was invited to many meetings and his boss told him that he was doing a good job. The man was very, very happy and he thought - maybe being crazy isn't so bad. At the end of the day he went home to relax.

When he got home he got a call and it seemed to be from his girlfriend. It wasn't really though - it was the Fairy-Kings pretending to be her using their magic. "Meet me in the forest by your house for a surprise." Said the Fairy Kings, and then they told him to go to the circle in the forest where all the kinds of trees grow, and the man agreed. He was excited to go and see his girlfriend because he didn't even have a girlfriend. Not that he could remember. He was excited about being crazy now because it seemed like since he had gone crazy his work had improved, his health had improved and now he had a girlfriend.

When he got to the forest he found the fairy circle with no trouble at all. He started walking around while he was waiting and that's when the Fairy Kings - all of the Kings of all the tribes of fairies started talking to him.

"We want to ask you to become the king of all the Fairies." They said, all at once so that their voices were strong and the man could hear them. "Please become our king and save us from fighting each other."

Because the man had decided he must be crazy he agreed immediately. But once he was the King of all the fairies - the fairies could appear to him and were no longer shy. All the thousands and thousands of fairy kings appeared then in the circle and the man realized that he was not crazy at all, but that he had agreed to become the king of the fairies for real.

End of part one
My notes - So I got my fairytale telling mojo back. It's a special week and I got to get kiddo from school and have hangouts. We had a nice supper at coventry and then a really long walk home, most of which was spent giving her a ride on my shoulders and telling this story. There's actually a bit more to it, but I carried a sixty pound kid five miles today and I'm a little tired. Goodnight.