How The Fairies Borrowed the Moon

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How the fairies borrowed the moon.

I don't suppose that everybody knows why it is that sometimes when you look up at the

sky at night you see only a part of the moon, and perhaps nobody would have ever known

if the goblins had not spied on the fairies festival one night and found out and told

it.

The fairies had for a long time held festivals in the spring and summer and in the fall,

but they had never had a winter festival, although one would have thought that the white

snow would have made an especially pretty setting for one of their dances.

But one night, at a gathering of the fairies, it was proposed to hold a winter festival,

and after it had been talked over a little, every fairy there was enthusiastically planning

what to do.

Finally, one of the fairies said,

I think it would be nicest to have the festival on the lake, and then we will have the smooth

ice to dance on.

And set another fairy, we can build a fire over on the side of the lake so that we can warm

ourselves if we get cold.

And set another, those who do not wish to dance, can skate by tying their wands on the

bottom of their shoes.

The gnome said they would look after the polishing of the ice by going to Jack Frost and getting

him to help them, and they planned to ask Northwind to blow and send some clean white snow,

and every fairy was to have her dress trimmed with fur, and each was to wear a little

bonnet made of swans down and tied with a red ribbon.

Altogether, the festival was planned to be one of the most elaborate the fairies ever

had given.

But just as the meeting was breaking up, one of the fairies said, what are we going to

do for light?

In the summer we have always had the fireflies to help us, but now they are all fast asleep,

and we cannot wake them up, and anyway their lights are all out at this time of the year.

Why, we have the moon said one of the fairies?

Yes, set another, but while the moon is bright enough for us on ordinary nights, we certainly

need more light than she will give for so great a festival as we are going to have.

That so said the first fairy, but I do not see how we can get anything brighter.

The moon would be all right if only it was nearer so that its light would showing better

said another fairy, and after thinking a minute she said, I wonder if we could not borrow

the moon.

Borrow the moon, cried half a dozen fairies in chorus?

Why, what would people think?

Well, said the fairy, if we couldn't borrow the whole of it, perhaps we could borrow

a piece of it, and then if we left the rest of it to shine in the sky, perhaps the people

wouldn't notice it.

That's not such a bad idea, said the queen of the fairies, and I will appoint a committee

to try and arrange it.

So she named three of the fairies to act as a committee to borrow the moon.

The day before the festival was to take place, the three fairies all got a stride of a broomstick,

which a witch loaned them and sailed away up into the sky, and when the man in the moon

saw them coming toward him, he was very much surprised, and was more surprised when he

heard the curious request that they had to make.

Will I lend you the moon, he said?

Why would a strange thing ask me?

What do you think all the people down on the earth would say if they found out that I had

done such an unheard of thing?

They might even make me move out of the moon and go somewhere else, and I have lived

here so long that I would never be happy anywhere else.

But so the fairies, if we do not have some life, our festival will be a failure, and this

is the first winter festival we have ever had, and Jack Frost has been just splendid in

helping us, and we think you might help too.

If you won't loan us the whole of the moon, couldn't you loan a part of it?

They will be sure to bring it back, just as good as it was when we took it.

How big a piece would you want to ask the man?

Just as big as you can spare, said the fairies.

Well he said after thinking a minute, you have come a long way, and I would like to help

you, and I certainly want your festival to be a success, so I'm going to let you take

a piece off the edge, but so as to be sure that you return it, I'm going to make one

of your fairies stay here all the time the piece is gone, and when it is returned the

fairies can go home.

So the fairies drew lots as to which one should stay, and the man took a big saw and sought

off a piece of the moon, right near the edge where the people would be least likely to notice

it was gone, and the two fairies took it with them on the broomstick back to the earth.

With such a festival as the first winter festival was, everybody voted it the best they

had ever had, and all agreed that the piece of the moon which they borrowed gave the

finest light.

After the festival was over, the two fairies took it back to the sky, and returned with

their sister who had stayed there while they were away.

The man in the moon was so pleased with the visit of the fairies that he told them that

they could borrow a part of the moon any time they liked, and so when you look up in the

sky and see only a part of the moon there, why perhaps the fairies are holding another

festival and have borrowed another piece of the moon.

And of how the fairies borrowed the moon by Abby Phillips-Walker.