Sun Jul 30, 2006 2:04 am by Tawakalna Qubt-ut Allah
i remember a lovely story I read as a child called "the Woodcutter and the Fairy" where said woodcutter (rather advanced in years) spared the life of a fairy he'd found and captured in the forest. As a reward, she gave him 3 wishes, but warned him to be careful what he wished for (all wish stories are cautionary tales, are they not?)
well, he spent all morning thinking of possible wishes, but by dinner time he'd not thought of any. On his arrival home, he found that his wife hadn't prepared him a meal as they were so poor and he hadn't earnt any money, and absentmindedly he wished for a sausage! which of coures instantly appeared. His wife, soemthing of a virago, demanded to know how said sausage had magically appeared, and as you can imagine wasn't best pleased when she found that her husband had foolishly wished for a sausage rather than gold or jewels or a fine house, and proceeded to verbally castigate the unfortunate man. Eventually, tiring of his wife's harsh criticisms, the woodcutter loses his temper (and judgement, again) and wishes for the sausage to become his wife's nose!
After a brief moment of malicious glee, the woodcutter regrets his decision seeing the distress his wife, who was after all once a very pretty and loving girl who he still loves dearly despite the strains on their relationship caused by their poverty and circumstances, and endeavours to calm her and remove the offending sausage. Affter several hours, nothing has worked, and of course in the end he uses the last wish to restore his wife to normal once again. Needless to say, the experience has been valuable for them both despite the distress and through it they once again discover the simple joy they once had in their mutual love, and when sometime later the woodcutter meets the fairy again in the forest, and the fairy asks him whether the wishes were useful or not, he thanks her and says that they brought him the most precious thing in the world that he thought he'd lost (or something like that, i haven't read it for over 30 years.)
Were i to be offered three wishes, I wouldn't accept them; I've read too many cautionary tales and in all ofthem, the wishes turn out to bring misfortune upon the recipient in some way. We still have similar themes running through modern culture - if you watch Lost, you'll recall that Hurley uses the "numbers" to win the lottery, which brings him vast wealth yet in all other respects nothing but personal misfortune.