New Fairy Tales

TheMountainRingerby Elaine CrinnionThere was once a womanwho lived in a village at thebottom of a mountain. Everymorning, while it was stilldark, she left her house andtramped up the long, steep,mountain path to themountain top. As the sun wasrising, she lifted the almightywooden mountain mallet, andbegan work, for she, Felicity,was The Mountain Ringer.The mountain had threesides: The sunny village side;the dappled forest side; andthe dark, dark, ravine side.At its stony summit, all threesides had a circle polishedinto the stone, the size of aporthole. Felicity started atthe sunny village side: With aheave of the mallet, shestruck the centre of thesunny-side stone circle: Ding!it chimed, on a high note.Then she ran to the dappledforest side, and with anotherheave of her mallet, struckthe centre of the dapple-sidestone circle: Dang! it rang,on a deep note. Then she ranto the dark, dark, ravine side,heaved her mallet again, andstruck the dark-side stonecircle: Dung! it sung, on alow note. Then she ran backand started again. On and onshe ran, round and round themountain top, striking theplates in turn: Ding!, Dang!,Dung!At first, the, Ding!, theDang!, and the Dung!sounded out separately, eachnote dying off before Felicityreached the next strikingplace.But by the third round,the notes began to join up:Dinggg!Danggg!Dunggg!After that, every strikingbrought the notes closer still,until, on the seventh hit, theplates played a chord of thethree notes combined:Dong!Dong!Dong! andFelicity knew she’d finishedher work for the day. She laydown, catching her breath,waiting...When the last Dong! hadalmost faded away, themountain began to vibrate.Felicity felt it tingling throughher strong mountain-ringerback. ‘Here it comes…’ shethought with excitement.And here it was: one final,enormous, ground-ripplingDONNGGGGG!!! resoundingfrom the middle of themountain. Loose rocksbounced down the mountainsideinto the ravine; flocks ofbirds flew from the forest;calling; and in the village,everyone woke up.By the time Felicity hadmade her way back down thelong, steep, mountain path,the baker had filled his shopwith bread and cakes, thefarmer had milked the cows,fetched the eggs, andchurned the butter, and thebutcher had prepared themeat.“Here’s some bread andpies for you Felicity!” hailedthe baker merrily, as soon hesaw Felicity returning.“And here are someeggs, milk, and butter!” criedthe farmer, cheerily.“And here’s a chicken foryou!” called the butcher, witha jolly grin.“Why thank you!” saidFelicity graciously.The villagers were goodto her: Her mountain ringinggot everybody up out of theright side of bed.Felicity went home for agrand cook-up. She neededit. She was a big, hungrywoman. Like all The MountainRingers before her, she hadchunky, mallet-swingingarms with massive hands tomatch; trunky mountainclimbinglegs, with huge feetat the end; and a hunkymountain-ringing body in themiddle. This was perfect forher work, but she did wonderif she might’ve found ahusband by now, if only shewas a little daintier.Whenever she went tobarn dances, no man couldlift her. She thought most ofthem probably couldn’t evenlift her mallet! She ended upthrowing her partners roundinstead and they didn’t dancewith her again after beingspun about like a lady.Although Felicity livedalone, she was still hopeful offinding herself a goodhusband, until, one day, shefound a single white hairamong her bright red locks…“Oh my!” she wailed,plucking it out. “A finewoman like me going towaste! If someone doesn’tsnap me up soon, I’ll be tooold to bother!”Felicity was so upset,she couldn’t sleep that night.She turned and turned in herbed whimpering “Oh my!”and by the morning, shewasn’t herself at all.Rubbing her eyes, shemade her way up the long,Issue 1 www.newfairytales.co.uk 5