the cat and the fiddle
I was tasked with finding that cat who could play the fiddle because the band needed a proper fiddle player and the sheep were lousy at anything but percussion (including running their own errands). I asked around at pubs and shoppes and fairy markets and several questionable sources pointed me in the same direction but when I got there I only found the cow.
I asked if she had really jumped over the moon and she said yes but technically it was a moon and not the moon.
She told me that tale-tellers are prone to hyperbole, especially when rhyming.
I asked after the cat, hoping that part wasn’t also a rhyme-necessitated exaggeration. I explained how I was searching for a fiddle player and she told me the cat did indeed play the fiddle once but she gave it up, something about no longer finding the instrument challenging. The last the cow had heard was that the cat was studying the harpsichord, or at least that’s what the little dog said.
I told her that was a shame as I had been sent in search of a fiddle player and not a harpsichordist, and thanked her for saving me the trouble of looking further. She told me the cat always declined invitations to join bands anyway because the fiddle thing had given her a bit of a reputation and she preferred to be free to follow her muse.
Then the cow added in a whisper that the dish really did run away with the spoon but the fork was the only one who didn’t see that coming and he’s still in therapy.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.