Tales of the Peculiar (illustrated)

The Tale of Cuthbert

nce upon a peculiar time, in a forest deep and ancient, there roamed a great many animals. There were rabbits and deer and foxes, just as there are in every forest, but there were animals of a less common sort, too, like stilt-legged grimbears and two-headed lynxes and talking emu-raffes. These peculiar animals were a favorite target of hunters, who loved to shoot them and mount them on walls and show them off to their hunter friends, but loved even more to sell them to zookeepers, who would lock them in cages and charge money to view them. Now, you might think it would be far better to be locked in a cage than to be shot and mounted on a wall, but peculiar creatures must roam free to be happy, and after a while the spirits of caged ones wither, and they begin to envy their wall-mounted friends.

This was an age when giants still roamed the earth, as they did in the long-ago Aldinn times, though they were few in number and diminishing.^{25} And it just so happened that one of these giants lived near the forest, and he was very kind and spoke very softly and ate only plants. His name was Cuthbert. One day Cuthbert came into the forest to gather berries, and there saw a hunter hunting an emu-raffe. Being the kindly giant that he was, Cuthbert picked up the little ’raffe by the scruff of its long neck, and by standing up to his full height, on tiptoe, which he rarely did because it made all his old bones crackle, Cuthbert was able to reach up very high and deposit the emu-raffe on a mountaintop, well out of danger. Then, just for good measure, he squashed the hunter to jelly between his toes.

Word of Cuthbert’s kindness spread throughout the forest, and soon peculiar animals were coming to him every day, asking to be lifted up to the mountaintop and out of danger. And Cuthbert said, “I’ll protect you, little brothers and sisters. All I ask in return is that you talk to me and keep me company. There aren’t many giants left in the world, and I get lonely from time to time.”

And they said, “We will, Cuthbert, we will.”

So every day Cuthbert saved more peculiar animals from the hunters, lifting them up to the mountain by the scruffs of their necks, until there was a whole peculiar menagerie up there. And the animals were happy there because they could finally live in peace, and Cuthbert was happy, too, because if he stood on his tiptoes and rested his chin on the top of the mountain he could talk to his new friends all he liked.

Then one morning a witch came to see Cuthbert. The giant was bathing in a little lake in the shadow of the mountain when she said to him, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve got to turn you into stone.”

“Why would you do that?” asked the giant. “I’m very kindly. A helping sort of giant.”

And she said, “I was hired by the family of the hunter you squashed.”

“Ah,” he replied. “Forgot about him.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” the witch said again, and then she waved a birch branch at him and poor Cuthbert turned to stone.

All of a sudden Cuthbert became very heavy—so heavy that he began to sink into the lake. He sank and sank and didn’t stop sinking until he was covered in water all the way up to his neck. His animal friends saw what was happening, and though they felt terrible about it, they decided they could do nothing to help him.

“I know you can’t save me,” Cuthbert shouted up to his friends, “but at least come and talk to me! I’m stuck down here, and so very lonely!”

“But if we come down there the hunters will shoot us!” they called back.

Cuthbert knew they were right, but still he pleaded with them.

“Talk to me!” he cried. “Please come and talk to me!”

The animals tried singing and shouting to poor Cuthbert from the safety of their cliff-top, but they were too distant and their voices too small, so that even to Cuthbert and his giant ears they sounded quieter than the whisper of leaves in the wind.

“Talk to me!” he begged. “Come and talk to me!”

But they never did. And he was still crying when his throat turned to stone like the rest of him.

• • •

Editor’s note:

That is, historically, where the tale ends. However, it’s so terribly sad, so lacking in useful moral lessons, and so well-known for leaving listeners in tears, that it’s become a tradition among tellers to improvise new and less dire conclusions. I’ve taken the liberty of including my own here.

—MN

The animals tried singing and shouting to poor Cuthbert from the safety of their cliff-top, but they were too distant and their voices too small, so that even to Cuthbert and his giant ears they sounded quieter than the whisper of leaves in the wind.

“Talk to me!” he begged. “Come and talk to me!”

After a while the animals began to feel very bad, especially the emu-raffe.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” he said. “All he wants is some company. Is that so much to ask?”

“I daresay it is,” said the grimbear. “It’s dangerous down there—and with Cuthbert turned to stone, how will we get back up to the safety of our cliff-top?”

“There’s nothing that can be done for him,” said the two-headed lynx. “Unless you know how to reverse a witch’s curse.”

“Of course I don’t,” said the emu-raffe, “but that doesn’t matter. We’re all going to die one day, and perhaps today it’s Cuthbert’s turn. But we mustn’t let him die alone. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

It was more guilt than the other animals could bear, and soon they had all decided to join the emu-raffe, despite the dangers that faced them on the ground. Led by the ’raffe, they made a ladder of their bodies, linking hands to ankles, and climbed down the cliff-face to the ground. How they would ever get back to safety again was a question for another time. They ran to Cuthbert and comforted him, and the giant wept with gratitude even while he was turning to stone.

As they talked with him, his voice grew quieter and quieter, his lips and throat petrifying until they could hardly move. Finally he became so quiet and still that the animals wondered if he had died. The emu-raffe pressed his head against Cuthbert’s chest.

After a moment he said, “I can still hear his heart beating.”

The wren who could turn into a woman perched on the rim of Cuthbert’s ear and said, “Friend, can you hear us?”

And from his stony throat they heard, no louder than a puff of breeze: “Yes, friends.”

They broke into a cheer! Cuthbert was still alive inside his skin of stone—and so he remained. The witch’s curse had been strong, but not strong enough to petrify him through and through. The animals were now poor Cuthbert’s caretakers, as he had once been theirs: they kept him company, gathered food and dropped it into his open mouth, and talked to him all day long. (His responses became more and more rare, but they knew he was alive from the beating of his heart.) And though the wingless among them had no way to reach the safety of their cliff-top, Cuthbert kept them safe another way. They slept inside his mouth at night, and if ever hunters came along, they would climb down his throat and make howling noises that terrified the humans. Cuthbert became their home and their refuge, and even though he could not move a muscle, he was happy as could be.

Many years later, Cuthbert’s heart finally stopped beating. He died peacefully, surrounded by friends, a happy giant. The wren, who had grown up to become an ymbryne, decided they had become too numerous to continue living inside the stone giant, so she brought all the peculiar animals to a time loop she had made atop the cliff.^{26} She put the entrance to the loop inside Cuthbert. That way he would never be forgotten, and every coming or going was a chance to say hello to their old friend. And whenever she or any of the animals passed through Cuthbert, they patted him on the shoulder and said, “Hello, friend.” And if they stopped and listened carefully, and if the wind was blowing just right, it almost sounded like hello.