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The Story Begins
T
he old one rocks herself by the hearth gently, so as not to wake the child in her lap. A circle of children sits at her feet, fidgeting and restless because the story has not yet begun, but knowing that, from this old one, it will be true. ere is a faraway look in her eyes as she draws the tale from her memory, and then, her face wreathed in a smile, she looks into the eyes of each child, one by one, and begins to weave the story into their souls. “in a place called Far Away, and a time called Long Ago, there once lived a woodcutter and his wife, in a simple hut like this one, in a hamlet in the woods. ey were happy but for the fact that they had no child. Nearby, around a plain and halfway up a mountain, towered a mighty castle where lived the king and queen of the land. ey too longed for a child. “And long before that Long Ago, and far beyond that Far Away, in a place of deepest magic hovering beyond the mists and veils of time itself, there was talk of change. And so the story begins.” 1