Winter's Tales

Book Name: Winter’s tales File Name: WTs_HB_JKT_UK_96908.indd Format: DEMY

Spine Size: Extent: Date:

14 mm 128 pages 24 July 2013 5:37 PM

Lari Don is a children’s author and storyteller, who was born in Chile, brought up in the north-east of Scotland, and now lives in Edinburgh with her two daughters.

She has previously worked in politics and broadcasting, but says retelling myths and writing adventures for kids is the best job in the world.

What’s the best way to get rid of Christmas trolls? Why did spiders make the first tinsel? What happens when the sun runs away? And how did a hero in hairy trousers use ice to kill a dragon?

Find out all this and much more in this unique collection of folk tales and legends about winter.

ISBN 978-1-4081-9690-8

90100

9 781408 196908 w w w.bloomsbur y.com

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£12.99

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For Colin, who loves cold northern landscapes too.

Published 2013 by A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP www.bloomsbury.com

Copyright © 2013 A&C Black Text copyright © 2013 Lari Don Illustrations copyright © 2013 Francesca Greenwood The right of Lari Don and Francesca Greenwood to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 978-1-4081-9690-8 A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

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Illustrated by Francesca Greenwood

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The Spiders’ Christmas Ukrainian folktale

I

t was Christmas Eve, and the children were cleaning the house for Santa.

“But he comes down the chimney!” said the smallest girl. “He’ll be covered in soot.

He won’t care if our house is dusty or not. He won’t even notice.”

“Yes he will,” said their mother. “I want our house to be the cleanest, tidiest, shiniest house in the whole village. So pick up those socks!”

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The children tidied, dusted, polished and mopped all day.

“I don’t want to see any dust or dirt, any cobwebs or fluff,” said their mother cheerfully.

“Christmas is hard work,” the smallest boy muttered.

“Cobwebs!” called out their mother. “I see cobwebs on the ceiling.”

So the biggest girl climbed the ladder and the biggest boy held it steady. She flicked with a feather duster until the cobwebs vanished.

A family of spiders were hiding in the darkest corner of the ceiling. As the dust and cobwebs were swept out of the house, the littlest spider whispered, “Where will we live now? If those huge people flick all our webs away, where will we live?”

The mother spider said, “Don’t worry.

This big clean only lasts one day and we can weave more webs once their winter festival is over. But watch what happens next.”

The little spiders watched as the children’s father arrived with a tall green sharp-needled 43

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tree. The smell of the outdoors followed the tree into the house.

The children clapped and cheered and got in the way, while their father put the tree in a bucket and jammed stones round the trunk to keep it upright.

Then the biggest boy held the ladder again, and the little spiders crept deeper into the corner. “It’s fine,” said their mother. “They’re not coming up here again. Look.”

The children were hanging glass globes, gingerbread men and little metal drums from the branches of the great green tree. They put a bright star, gleaming like the rest of the house, on the very top of the tree.

Then the whole family stood in a circle around the tree and sang lots of happy songs.

Finally, they all went upstairs to bed.

“Hurry up,” said the children’s mother, “you want to be asleep before Santa comes down the chimney.”

The spiders gazed at the tree.

“It’s magic,” said the littlest spider. “It’s like we have a forest in our house!”

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“Go to sleep,” said the mother spider. “We’ll need lots of energy to weave more webs.”

But while she fell asleep, the little spiders stayed awake, looking at the tree.

“Let’s go closer,” said the biggest baby spider.

They swung down on their spider silk, from the rafters to the top of the tree.

Then the little spiders played on the tree.

They waved at their reflections in the glass globes, played marching tunes on the tiny drums with all their feet, and danced round the gingerbread men. They leapt from branch to branch, singing the songs they had heard the family sing, and played hide and seek behind the dark green needles. They climbed up to the shiny star, daring each other to perch on the highest point. Then they challenged each other to an abseiling race from the star to the bucket.

As they dared and danced and raced and played, the little 45

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spiders left a maze of delicate spider silk all over the tree. Long lines of white, zigzagging round the tree, winding round the branches.

Then, suddenly, they heard a thump and a creak.

A big man in a red suit landed in front of the fireplace.

The baby spiders hid deep in the shadows of the tree, right up against the trunk.

Santa Claus walked up to the tree and looked at the pale threads chasing round it.

And he laughed.

He looked around the clean, gleaming, shining house and said, “Let’s make it all shine!”

He touched the nearest thread of spider silk, and it glowed silver. Santa nodded, then ran his gloved finger down another strand, and all the spider silk round the tree gleamed like silver. The whole tree shone.

Then Santa bent down, peered between the branches and winked at the little spiders.

Once he had filled all the stockings on the mantelpiece, he clambered back up the 46

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chimney. The little spiders scampered back to the ceiling, to snuggle up beside their mother.

The next morning, when the family came downstairs, they found their presents and they also found their tree covered in the very first tinsel.

Ever since that day, children in the Ukraine and Germany have decorated Christmas trees with strings of shining tinsel, but they also hide a little toy spider, deep inside the branches.

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Folk tales and legends...

From the ice of the frozen north of Canada to the islands at the very south of the globe.