Storytelling Week 12

The Three Wishes

Once upon a time, there lived a man and his wife deep in the forested hills of Kentucky. They lived off the land the most they could, but sometimes they would travel to town and barter. The man was quite good at woodworking, so he often cut down trees and turned them to planks to barter. This particular day, he found an especially wide tree and he thought of how many good planks he could make from this one tree. As he was sharpening his axe, a fairy appeared and begged him not to cut down the tree. See, it was her home. She had just remodeled the fungi to match the fall leaves, so there was no way she was going to move again. The fairy was trying everything she could think of to stop the mountain man and finally she got his attention when she promised to grant his three wishes.

To a normal man or woman, three wishes seems like it would have all the possibilities in the world. However, fairies know from experience that people never really end up wishing for anything of much consequence. The man gladly accepted his reward and hurried home to tell his wife. His home was not very far away, but he was so excited that he was very eager to get there. He thought to himself, "I wish I was already home so I could tell my wife about the wishes!" Before he even had the chance to wonder about whether or not thinking a wish would result in the actual wishing, he was in his chair at the kitchen table in his log cabin.

His wife mentioned something about not hearing him come in, and he ignored her and immediately explained the situation. The woman could not believe what she was hearing and she wanted proof. Without much thought to the consequences, she said aloud "Well, if this is true, then I wish that you had a pig's nose! Hahaha!" As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she saw her husband transformed. His once ugly but human nose was now a big, flat, pink snout! She could not contain her giggling, which became infectious and he let out surprisingly loud snorts of laughter. Both of them were so joyful that they almost overlooked the fact that the man could be stuck with a pig nose forever. After some short conversation, the man quickly wished for his old nose again, and the wishes were spent. The man smiled at his wife and said, "Well, at least we will have a good story to tell..."

Adventure Time pig. Image info.

Authors Note: This is based on the poem "The Three Wishes" from the more English fairy tales unit. The story is almost the same, but the wasted wishes are slightly different. The man first wishes for a sausage, then the wife joking wishes his nose into the sausage, and then for the sausage to come off his face. I just thought it was a nice little story.

Read the story.