Adam and Eve: The Fairy Tale
Adam and Eve received the news the Angel of the Lord was coming to their house at midday. He wanted to bless all the children.
On that morning, Adam woke early. He forgot about the esteemed visitor and went straight out to the fields to work. Eve was left alone with all the children.
Standing with her hands on her hips, she looked hopelessly at how grubby her children appeared. She was upset, as Adam wasn’t there to help to get them ready.
She saw the Sun rising in the sky and began the mammoth task of cleaning them all.
Soap suds, steam and water filled the house. Soapy streams flowed out of the doors and the windows, in all the four directions. The grime and dirt was washed away down the hill, into valley below.
Eve kept looking at the position of the Sun, increasingly becoming more worried. ‘He would not be long’, she thought to herself.
She had just got to clean half them, when she saw the Angel of the Lord walking towards the house. In a panic, she scooped up all the remaining unwashed children, and pushed them out the back door.
“Stay there”, she said, pointing at them sternly.
There was a knock at the door. Eve ran and opened it. “Welcome, my Lord”, she said, encouraging the Angel of the Lord to enter the house. He greeted Eve and walked into the kitchen. The children stood aloof on the other side of the room, nervously looking at the ground.
He beckoned them to Himself and they crowded around Him. He knelt down and smiled.
He enquired, “Where’s Adam?”
“He’s working”, Eve replied quickly
He turned to Eve, “That isn’t good. I will speak with him. Today is a day of rest.”
Eve said nothing and nodded.
The Angel of the Lord stood up, opened His arms wide and gave a blessing over the children. They all stood still, with eyes closed.
He then looked directly into Eve’s eyes and asked whether she had any other children. Eve laughed, “No, no, I’ve not got anymore”.
Silence descended. He looked deeply at her, as though peering in through the windows of her heart. He moved towards the closed back door, opened it and saw a myriad of grubby-faced children.
He smiled at the children, but as He turned to look at Eve, the smile slowly vanished. “Why did you deceive me? Why did you try to hide them?”
Eve, with a downcast face, said “I was ashamed. I thought you’d think I was a bad mother. That I was not good enough to look after my children.”
The Angel of the Lord said, “Because of your dishonesty, I will give a different blessing, I will take the children you hid away, and I will give them a home. They shall live forever as children, and play, and have fun and enjoy my presence.”
In an instance, the dirty-faced children outside the house disappeared. “Where have they gone?”, Eve said crying through the tears.
“Tonight, go to the woods at the bottom of the hill. Take a story with you to read. Read it aloud, and they will come to you”, explained the Angel of the Lord.
That evening, as Adam returned and discovered all that had happened. His heart fell low. He had failed his children and he failed his wife. He should have stayed to help Eve.
After dinner, he helped Eve to think of a story, they collected some toys and she made her way to the wood at the bottom of the hill.
She placed the lantern on the ground next to her and sat on the grass. She began to read a children’s story and out of the woods flew a myriad of fairies. They hovered listening to the tale. And when she finished the fairies thanked their mother with broad smiles. She gave them the toys and kissed them good night.
As they flew back into the woods, they sang the bedtime lullaby their mother had sung to them. The song they had heard every night since they were born. A tear gathered in the corner of Eve’s eye, and it gentle trickled down her face. “At least, they were safe”, she said to herself.
From that night onwards, just after sunset, she would go back to the Fairy Wood, read her grubby children a bedtime story and kiss all of them goodnight.
(This is based upon a popular medieval story which told the origin of fairies.)