[Editor: This short story for children, by Eva Oakley, was published in Real Australian Fairy Stories (1945).]
The Snow-man and the Fairies
Once upon a time, some rosy-cheeked, happy, healthy children put on their snow-shoes, on a very cold, winter’s day, and ran off into the snow to make a Snow-man. When they had finished him, they had great fun pelting him with snow-balls.
After a while they began to feel tired and hungry, so they sped off home and were soon sitting down to a nice hot dinner, in a lovely, warm dining-room. But!!! What about the poor old Snow-man? Well! He felt terribly lonely, without anyone left to play with him.
The Snow Fairies heard all about it, and down they came to keep him company. They danced Fairy rings round him, and sang sweetly to him, and he was so overcome by their kindness, that he melted into tears. These tears formed a tiny rivulet, which ran right down through the garden where the Fairies danced each night, and beautiful Snowdrops grew up all along its sides; so the Fairies were rewarded for their kindness, and danced in and out the Snowdrops every night, and wherever their tiny feet touched the ground, they left lovely, wee snowflakes, which, by morning, had turned into beautiful, sparkling dew-drops.
Source:
Eva Oakley, Real Australian Fairy Stories, Melbourne: Austral Printing & Publishing Company, [1945], p. 3
Editor’s notes:
wee = little, very small, diminutive, e.g. “the wee child” (the small child), “the wee hours of the morning” (the small hours of the morning, i.e. the early hours of the morning)
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
Leave a Reply