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Well now, my darling boy—dry your eyes. The dream is done. You’re safe with your nana . All is well.
Shall we have a story? Everything will be better after a story. I’ll tell you a nice long one so you can take your time falling back to sleep. What’s that? Oh, don’t mind your brother. He’d slumber through stampeding horses—isn’t that right dear? Yes, just snuff out the candle and try to rest. Goodnight, sweet one. We’ll be quiet.
Now, darling, I know a good story for you. It’s not another one about the dancing Bear and the clever Fox, no, although Fox does make an appearance. It’s a new one. Settle in. I’ll tell it to you the way my mother told it to me.
In another age, on an island far, far away across the sea, there lived a young man who was always out picking fruit that wasn’t his. As a child, he was known to scale the lemon trees lining the lane down to the eastern shore, and as a growing boy he’d swipe plump persimmons quicker than a careening gull could sift its beak through the still, fish-filled waters of the bay. Along the lane lived three neighbours—a grumpy old sailor, retired from his labours at sea; a healer who often gave him and his brother sweets; and a carpenter grown wealthy from the ship-trade at the docks. All knew that not a single orange or apple was safe when it took the boy’s fancy. His father, unable to quell his son’s bad habit, often tried to quietly compensate the three of them with some coins or bushels of the yield from his own beloved garden. But the neighbours on that coastal lane politely turned him down.
“After all, he doesn’t take very much,” the carpenter had once pointed out to the boy’s father, who stood there emabarrassed, offering a basket of homegrown figs. “And he gives it all back one way or another.”
“Tarts and juices and dried peels for my tinctures,” the healer had said warmly. “He brings a little light to our little lane.”
The sailor had huffed, waving a hand. “He likes a challenge to go with his work, is all. He’d be a wonder in the rigging if you put him to sea.”
What is rigging? Well darling, when a ship has sails, it needs ropes to lift the sails up and down, and to help you climb up to the tops of the sails. That is called rigging. One day, when you visit my home, I’ll show you. The water is a little less scary when you have a good ship and good men to man the rigging.
Now, let us travel back to the island.
The boy’s father understood what the sailor was trying to tell him, and he respected his counsel, but he did not want to put his son to sea just yet. In those days, the island was home to some wicked men who didn’t like the boy’s father, and he was scared for the boy to be parted from him. The lane, with its fruit trees aplenty, was safe enough for now, and his son could still be happy and free.
The boy’s bad habit did not abate as he grew, but now that clambering up trees was to be seen as less dignified, he took to plucking his haul after dark, and became very good at it. This is where Fox comes into the story. You see, he knew there was a boy in the family who sometimes wandered the gardens—Fox would smell his scent still lingering around the fruit trees while out on his evening errands. It wasn’t until the boy, now a man, began trying to poke around the date-plum trees in the evening that Fox first spoke to him.
“Excuse me,” Fox politely asked. “How do you know this tree yields the best fruit?”
“Hush,” the man whispered, frowning down at Fox while he groped at a laden branch. “I’m trying not to wake the carpenter.”
Fox curled his tail over his paws, nodding at the tree. “If it were me, I’d take from her neighbour.” He gestured with his nose to the date-plum tree just beside it. “Those are growing soft already. Less time to wait to eat them.”
The young man gazed in wonder at the fox. “How do you know?”
“I’ve a splendid nose.”
“Let us put it to the test then,” he declared, gathering some off a branch. They didn’t feel much softer, but perhaps the Fox was right.
A day came and went. While snuffling around the sailor’s yard at twilight, the Fox caught the man’s scent on the wind and turned to see him clambering over the wall with a delicately-cradled parcel in his hand. He opened it and presented Fox with a date-plum, its top leaf removed and soft interior filled with delicious nuts and seeds.
“For your trouble,” he said kindly, and Fox gobbled down the gift. From that day, Fox often came along to help the young man thieve the best fruits, and always got a treat for himself in return.
Now the healer was well aware that the man’s antics hadn’t died down at the end of his childhood. While it still amused her, it also began to puzzle her. One evening, she went to a celebration at the young man’s home, with his father and mother and brother. It was the spring festival— a little like our Tuilérë —but their customs were quiet in those days, because the wicked men on the island thought the spring festival was a foolish old tradition and would bully people who celebrated it. After the prayers were said, the healer bade the young man help her carry a gift hamper to her door. Walking through the cool night, she asked him why he did not simply work a plot of land now that he was a grown man, and plant fruit trees of his own. Surely that would be easier?
He thought about it a moment, and then said: “I have wife and son now. While the sun shines, neither my time nor my heart will permit the joys that once filled my days, for worry of them. But when the island is sleeping and they are safe and abed, the Moon is high and lights my path, and the roots of the trees still support me. I can go out to them and feel safe again, too, and strong. It is a good tradition to observe, even if I must do so quietly now. Besides,” he smiled, plucking a cherry from where it dangled over the edge of her garden wall, “as long as I can continue to make cakes and cordials and decorations for everyone on this lane, I shall be content until the day I die.”
Why was he so worried about his family, you ask? Well, we’re just getting to that part, my darling one.
You see, there lived also on the island at that time a great Wizard, in a great golden house by a great golden palace where his friend the King often asked his counsel. In the palace was a magnificent garden of beautiful fruit trees. The Wizard’s troubles began when he first began coming to the garden in the palace in the city that was called Armenelos.
Ar-men-e-los. Yes. Say it one more time? There you go.
You see, the people could still find joy in colour and sweetness in those days, and the gardens brought many of them to the golden palace and the golden house, where they admired the King’s riches and paid tribute to the Wizard who they feared. The Wizard didn’t much care for trees, or flowers, or any growing things for that matter, but if it brought the people to them, that was better than it was worse. So, he swallowed his contempt and planted even more trees.
The people could not take anything from the garden as tokens, for the Wizard guarded what he owned fiercely. They thus took to bringing wish-ribbons to tie along the branches of the trees he had planted. The Wizard thought it stupid, but if they wished on his trees surely they must believe he had the power to grant wishes. So, he swallowed his distaste and let the practice continue.
The only tree he would not permit them to wish on was a tree of pure white at the heart of the garden. It was very, very old, planted by kings who lived and died long ago, before the Wizard came and bade men plant new trees, and he hated it because it did not belong to him. He could not cut it down, either, for the King thought it would be a bad omen. So, the Wizard swallowed his bitterness and simply refused to let people go close to it.
The Wizard, it must be said, was not a very nice Wizard. He didn’t make shows of light or talking toys for curious children. He preferred to craft illusions for the scared, worried people who came to visit him—great stories about the dreams they shared with him, about their deepest hopes and the most sacred wishes that they trusted to his ear—and he made the people feel even worse that they did not have what they wanted.
The King in Armenelos had hopes and dreams of his own, just like his people. But his dreams were not very pleasant. He wanted land that wasn’t his, and subjects that he could boss around, and he wanted to live forever so he could rule people forever. No indeed, darling, he wasn’t very nice either. I think that’s why he got on well with the Wizard. The greatest thing they had in common was being mean. Friendships like that never end well, though. Remember that.
Now, the young Fruit-thief did not like the Wizard at all, and he wasn’t too fond of the King either. He didn’t like the way they both took without giving back. He didn’t believe that it was right to have power if you didn’t try to do something good with it.
So he and Fox hatched a plan. One clear summer’s eve, the two of them stole into the Wizard’s garden. It was easy enough for there were only two guards, and he could hide among the trees and bushes. Quiet as a mouse, he plucked every orange from a tree covered in wish-ribbons, and he carried them out from the palace in a great sack tied to his back. Gleefully, he dropped an orange on every doorstep on his way home, saving one for Fox of course. In the morning, the people of Armenelos opened their doors and gasped and wept in delight, taking the gifts as omens that their dearest wishes were finally coming true.
When the Wizard discovered what had happened, he grew furious at the insult. Who was this thief, who dared claim what belonged to the Wizard? No matter who he asked or how hard he searched, he discovered nothing. And so he cast the two guards into the dungeon and bade his men fell every orange tree, and brought four new guards to watch over the garden day and night.
The Fruit-thief and Fox, of course, were delighted at the new challenge. So the next month, when the guard had grown weary and complacent, the two of them stole into the garden again and plucked all the lemons from a wish-tree. It was a little trickier with four guards, but clouds shrouded the Moon, and the winds of a coming storm helped muffle their tracks as they stole away into the night. The next morning the people were delighted to find ripe lemons on their doorsteps, to slice and put in their hot tea while rain battered Armenelos. They began to whisper and wonder who might be the brave soul contesting the powerful Wizard, but still nobody could learn their name.
The Wizard was outraged, and threw the four guards in the dungeon. While his men felled every lemon tree in the garden, he once again doubled the guard, setting eight men about the garden to ward off the bold intruder.
The Fruit-thief and Fox now puzzled over their next step. It would do to insult the Wizard one last time; but ever since stealing from the lemon tree, the Fruit-thief’s father had caught on to their schemes. He forbade him to return to the gardens, worried over the guards and whether the wicked men might discover the name of the thief. The Fruit-thief was anxious not to disobey, and he loved his father. But he also loved his people, and hated how the Wizard looked down on them. Fox, for his part, unashamedly looked down on the Wizard who thought himself so clever—foxes know all about cleverness, you see, even more than Wizards, who are only intelligent. Fox was proud, and was more than happy to show the Wizard that he wasn’t so clever after all.
So one final time, the pair resolved to rob the garden of one tree’s apples, just coming to ripening as the summer ended. For his father’s sake, this time the Fruit-thief brought a knife on his belt. The garden was half barren now, and they had to be clever about passing through and not rousing the guard. But Fox was swift and found a hidden route among the apple trees to a stout little one, easy to steal from. When a guard began to approach, roused by the rustling of a tree, he darted away as if to say, “It is only I! Pay no heed to nightly noises.” As the two thieves snuck out of the garden, they barely avoided the return of another guard who had stepped away from his post. They stood in the dark for a moment, big and small hearts pumping wildly, until they were sure it was safe to slip away. The Fruit-thief did not remove his hand from his knife until he had deposited all the apples in an empty city fountain with a little sign bidding people take them freely.
The next day, Armenelos was woken by the scream of the Wizard, venting his anger upon the eight guards who he dismissed and sent away to a place worse than the dungeons, so upset was he that the Fruit-thief had struck again—he of course had no knowledge of the clever, wily Fox. The Wizard now decided that spiting the Fruit-thief was more important than any goodwill he might gain from letting the people into his garden, and so he bade his men fell every single tree. The King stayed his hand once again from felling the white tree at its centre, so it stood now alone and frail in the desolated garden that once smelled so sweet and swam with blossoms. Sixteen guards the Wizard set about the tree, ever in motion, day and night, never resting.
The Fruit-thief and all his family feared for that one last tree. It was so very, very old, and what if one day the Wizard decided to cut it down too? What if the King decided he no longer needed old trees or wishing trees and let the Wizard do what he would? Despite their worry, the man’s father once again forbade him from going to the garden.
“Even the most sacred fruit is not worth your life, my son,” he said, but his face was sad, for he was certain that his son would not listen.
Sure enough, the next night, the Fruit-thief and Fox undertook their greatest mission together. Passing silent as a shadow over the ground, they came as close to the garden as they dared. Rings of men paced around the broken branches and stumps, spears shining in the half-moon light. Fox looked to his friend and simply said, “Run fast.”
Then he took off barking and screaming. The sound echoed through the palace like the wail of a woman or a child, and the men startled, and many of them ran to see the commotion. In the confusion the Fruit-thief pulled up his hood, feet flying over the earth as he careened past the tree and yanked a single silver fruit from its branch. But oh! There were simply too many guards. It took only one to look away from the unseen wailing and sight the Fruit-thief fleeing over the garden wall. Such an alarm was raised that night as had not been raised in an age, and arrows were loosed and spears were thrown and daggers spinning were flung his way, cutting and piercing their target. The Fruit-thief ran as a stag from the hounds, and Fox kept pace with him, guiding him through the hidden streets and lapping up the trail of blood so they would not be found. As they reached the bottom of the palace grounds, a great shape loomed out of the shadows and frightened them—but behold, it was his father’s horse, riderless yet saddled and bridled. The Fruit-thief could have wept for joy, and he loved his father. He bade Fox climb onto his lap and rode as fast as he could, but his wounds were grievous and soon enough it was all Fox could do to tug at his shirt and keep him from falling.
When at last they came to the little coastal lane lined with lemon trees, the Fruit-thief slid from his horse in his father’s garden, and knew and saw no more. But clever Fox ran straight to the healer and brought her to where the man’s father had laid him in bed. Immediately she set to work with the leaves and seeds and pulps and tinctures and salves that he had helped her make, and the man’s father bade the carpenter help him guard the door, and the sailor went into town each day to learn the news and warn them if ill deeds were afoot. And they were, indeed. For the very next day, the Wizard—mad with fury and disgust—declared that the beautiful old tree should be felled and burned to warm his own golden house, and the smoke stank and covered the whole island.
That night, the man’s father sat in his garden with his head in his hands, until Fox came and nudged his knee.
“If it were me,” he said, “I’d plant that fruit, and hope for the best. We need new trees.”
“You helped him.”
“He helped me.”
And the man's father thought that he should help them both.
So quietly the father and Fox planted the fruit, and put it in a pot by the Fruit-thief’s bedside. Seven days and seven nights passed as he lay still and slumbering, the seedling softly growing beside him. Then one morning, the seedling bloomed, and its sweet scent took away the young man’s wounds, and as he woke a single memory entered his mind, and he thought of the night that the healer and he had walked home from the spring festival. He turned his eyes to the seedling, and his father dozing beside it where he sat against the wall, and he smiled. He realised that now, if he and his family were to feel safe and strong again, it seemed they would indeed have to plant their own fruit-trees.
In after days, the Wizard never let the Fruit-thief know peace, for if he could not have that tree, no-one could have it. When the wicked men grew too wicked and the Fruit-thief and his family were forced to flee the island, the Wizard followed them away across the sea to strange lands. When they built new homes, and grew to great lords with kingdoms of their own, the Wizard assailed them. At each stage, he sought to cut down every new tree the Fruit-thief planted—and every time, the young man outran him, a tender fruit clutched carefully in his hand. Finally, the Wizard made war on the Men, and in that great battle he was finally thrown down and defeated. And for the final time, safe and sound at last, the Fruit-thief planted the tree in a new little garden, and let it grow. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll go for a walk and see if we can’t find it.
And what of Fox? He survived the war of the gardens also, and left the island too, and settled in the north of these lands and sired many pups. They say one or two may yet wander the wilds. But I don't think we'll find them, unless we're not looking for them.
Well now, that’s enough of that, my son. Look at you, nodding off. Good.
Rest now, Faramir. Dream no more dreams of water. Think only of strong roots and flowers and seeds. In the morning, we’ll eat oranges and apples and climb trees together. And if the dream comes back, it only takes five steps across the floor to wake your brother. I told him this story once, too, and he knows it well enough. He’ll tell you all about the Fruit-thief of Armenelos again, and remind you that no matter what happens, trees can always flower again, and you can always be safe and strong again too. Always.