A Fairy Tale and a Song
written by Athos Hajimadtheos
A collection of ten short stories each with a song.
Paraphrasing from the book, excepts courtesy of Athos Hajimadtheos
my first published illustrations
the brainless mouse
The story of a young hungry mouse. Despite being warned not to leave the nest by his mother, he got very hungry and ended up in a mouse trap.
the red hen
The arrival of a young pretty red hen disrupts the order of the chicken coop. The red hen wants to take over control of the coop from the eldest and kindest hen.
the wise ant
The wise ant could not be persuaded by the cicada to take a break from his work and listen to the cicada’s violin playing.
The wise any kept working so that he would have food through the winter.
the little sparrow
The little sparrow thought that he was ready to fly. His mother, before leaving to see a friend for the morning, warned her son not to try to fly until she returned.
The little sparrow was impatient and determined to try fly by himself. He plummeted from the nest and fell to the ground.
the butterfly
The beautiful blue butterfly was told by her mother to stay close to the other butterflies and not to venture beyond their paradise-like field.
She ignored her mother and left the field and went into a garden.
the fight
After eating lunch, the chickens in the chicken coop go to sleep. One hen is still hungry and has been waiting to go out alone so she could scratch and the ground and find something more to eat. Her scratching wakes up the other hens and they tell her to keep quiet. A white hen also hungry, gets up to find something to eat too. She finds two seeds and exclaims happily. The first hen rushed at her, pushed her and try to eat both seeds in one mouthful. A fight breaks out with pecking and scratching waking up the whole coop including the cockerel.
the swallow
Little Annoulla was sad. In the spring when the swallows arrived none of them chose her balcony to nest on as they had done previously.
One swallow landed by her and explained why. They only nest where they are loved.
Last year Annoulla’s father had destroyed a swallow’s nest with a broom handle showing that he did not want them on his balcony.
the squirrel
When the bell rang for lunch in the forest school all the hungry little animals ran to the canteen to buy food.
The little squirrel ran and got into line wanting a back of fresh hazlenuts. When he got to the kind deer serving the food and requested a bag of nuts he found that he had no money.
The kind deer let him have the bag for free but the next morning before class he ran to her to pay his debt.
the lie
Dolly the young doe, ran from class when the bell rang to go buy lunch. The coin given to her by her mother fell from her pocket.
A little pig, last to come out of class spotted the coin and picked it up. A badger from their class saw the little pig and admonished him, saying he was stealing.
Dolly ran out crying realising that she dropped her coin and was searching for it. The little pig saw her and realised the badger was lying.
the prankster hare
Billy was a hare that loved to play pranks on his friends. Billy told Diddy, the little deer that his mother was caught in a trap and killed by hunters. When Diddy went to his nest he found out that it was all a big lie. Billy told Charlie, the little squirrel that the woodcutters cut down their oak tree where they had built their nest on and that all his family were crushed to pieces. This was a lie. Billy’s friends threw Billy out of the group and refused to play with him. Billy plotted revenge instead of apologising and found himself in a trap of his own creation.
the disobedient duckling
The disobedient duckling did not listen to his mothers warning about keeping to the edge of the pond and not to go into deep waters. He thought her over-protective.
One day the mother duckling was sick and asked her friend the mother goose to take the ducklings to the pond. The disobedient duckling ignored the mother goose and swam into deep waters.