There were once three young children, two boys and a girl, who lived with their mother and father in a house in the city. But it came to pass that the father left the mother for a younger woman, and the mother and her children were forced out of their home.
Taking what measly coin the husband had left her, the mother set out in search of a new home. All of the nearby houses were far too expensive, though, and she was forced to look elsewhere.
The day came on to evening. Soon the family came to where no other houses were, and the mother despaired, for she knew that their luck had run out, and they would have to spend the night in the cold and the weather. But just as she knelt to the ground, beginning to cry, she saw in the distance the shape of a hut. Mustering what little hope she had left, the mother led her brood to the small house.
She rapped on the door thrice. It swung open to reveal a fat, ugly woman with a hooked nose and a crooked, toothy leer.
“Please, kind lady, I and my children are poor and without house. Would you be so kind as to let us shelter here for the night?” Said the mother.
“Of course, my dear, of course!” Said the woman. “Pray come in.”
She led them into her house, and had them sit upon comfortable chairs.
“Wait here, I will get you all some tea and cookies. They are my best recipe, and they are right from the oven!”
As they waited the mother leaned over to her three children and whispered to them:
“Listen to me, children. The woman who hosts us is a stranger, and I do not know that I trust her. Never fully trust such a one, nor accept gifts of advice from them, until you have grown to know them. You may eat her cookies and drink her tea, but take nothing else from her.”
The woman returned, laden with mugs of tea and trays of cookies. They were baked just right, so that they were crumbly and sweet. The children soon forgot their woes, but the mother remained wary of the strange woman.
The woman began to ask the mother questions. What were her favorite recipes? What did she garden? How was her sewing? The mother was quickly put at ease. The stranger was quite friendly, and the mother had soon quite forgotten her fears as well.
Night fell and the old crone led the mother and her four children to a small, comfortable bedroom with a window. The bed was very soft, and one by one the children fell asleep. The mother was awake for some time, but eventually she too succumbed.
The youngest child awoke to a tapping noise on the window. Moonlight streamed into the room, but it was blocked by the large head of the old crone. She smiled and beckoned to the little girl, holding aloft a pretty silver necklace. The little girl quietly slipped from her bed and made for the door. Soon she was outside.
The crone loomed above her, and suddenly the child was frightened.
“Why are we outside?” Asked the little girl.
“Why, so that I can give you this pretty little gift!” Said the crone, grinning toothlessly. “I crafted it just for you! Let it be our secret, child.” She winked, and for the first time the girl noticed that the woman’s eyes glowed yellow.
And yet she forgot the command of her mother, and she took the pretty necklace, and wore it. And that night as she slept the necklace tightened and strangled the girl until she died.
The next child awoke to tapping on the window. There, like his sister, he saw the old crone smiling and beckoning to him. But he remembered his mother’s warning, and stayed still. Then the old crone held to the moonlight an awesome wooden sword, and the little boy could not resist his curiosity to touch the plaything. And thus he left the side of his sister who had just died, and went outside.
There the crone was waiting.
“Why have you called me?” The little boy asked cautiously.
“Why, so that I can give you this pretty little gift!” Answered the crone, grinning her toothless grin. “I crafted it just for you! Let it be our secret, child.”
She winked, and the boy noticed that her eyes were an unnatural shade of yellow. But in his excitement for the sword, he paid it no heed. Thus he took the sword and went back to his room, where he fell back to sleep.
But as he slept the enchanted, evil wooden sword became of a cold iron of the shadows, and it lifted into the air all on its own, and fell upon the boy’s chest, spearing his heart. Thus the boy died silently.
The third and eldest child now awoke to the tapping of the window. He sat up in his bed, never noticing his strangled sister or his stabbed brother. At the window was the crone, beckoning to the boy to come outside.
But the eldest child was the wisest of the three, and he remembered clearly the words of his mother. He sat and looked upon crone, and in that instant he saw her malice, and her cruelty, and her evil. And then he was frightened, and he awoke his mother.
When she was roused from her sleep the mother asked her son what was wrong. It was then, as he pointed to the window, that she noticed her two dead children.
The mother screamed and looked to where her son pointed. Then she saw the crone, and a great, hateful sadness filled her. For she knew that she had been blinded by the crone’s kind words and her hospitality, when she was really a vile witch. In her rage she left the house and went to face the crone, but when came upon the cold night air the witch was nowhere to be found.
But as the eldest child sat huddled, crying and hugging his knees, the witch appeared out of thin air before the bed. She crept to the boy’s side, singing a wicked rhyme:
Little bird, little bird, in a crow’s nest,
What shall I do with the dirty little pest?
Pluck out its eyes and steal its sight?
Or take its legs and rob it of its flight?
P’raps crush it slow and let it squeal all night!
But as the crone laughed and plotted these horrid things, a sudden courage came into the boy’s heart. He seized the witch’s wicked sword from his poor brother, and drove it into her chest. Then he took his poor sister’s necklace and deftly fastened it around the witch’s neck. And thus the witch died, killed by her own fell instruments and the wit of a clever boy.
The mother died soon after of grief, but the boy grew into a fine man. He became a master swordsman, and fought evils from coast to coast before marrying the princess and becoming King of the land. He lived happily ever after.
The End.
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