The Halcyon Fairy Book

the other eight.
There’s a whole branch of — well, porn isn’t quite the term, but I’m drawing a blank on another one — devoted to people who are really into transformations into animals. You go to a furry convention as an artist, and sometimes you’ll get people asking for transformation drawings, and usually the more agonizing and painful and freaky it is, the happier they are. Tearing off your own skin to reveal the animal underneath is a common one (and has some precedent in Aztec mythology, if my memory isn’t failing me.)
I am not saying this to judge anyone’s fetish, and as these things go, this one’s pretty harmless, but it does bring up the point that transformation probably either goes one of two ways — either you get the glowy transporter effect thing and wham! Peahen! or you get the horrible bone-cracking internal organs on the outside oh god oh god it hurts and where did I put my pancreas I swear it was here a moment ago and then at the end of it, you’ve gone from a 150-lb woman to a 10-lb bird and the prince watching you is vomiting into the bushes in horror.
Gonna guess this was a glowy transporter effect one. Just a feeling.
Next morning, the king’s son took the two apples to his father, and the king was much pleased, and praised his son.
When the evening came, the king’s youngest son took his place again under the apple tree to keep guard over it. He again conversed as he had done the night before with the beautiful girl, and brought to his father, the next morning, two apples as before.
But, after he had succeeded so well several nights, his two elder brothers grew envious because he had been able to do what they could not. At length they found an old woman, who promised to discover how the youngest brother had succeeded in saving the two apples.
Never send a postadolescent male to do an old woman’s job! Also, am I the only one picturing Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote?
So, as the evening came, the old woman stole softly under the bed which stood under the apple tree, and hid herself. And after a while, came also the king’s son, and laid himself down as usual to sleep. When it was near midnight the nine peahens flew up as before, and eight of them settled on the branches, and the ninth stood by his bed, and turned into a most beautiful girl.
The old woman, being under the bed and all, could only tell that she had really sexy ankles.
Then the old woman slowly took hold of one of the girl’s curls, and cut it off, and the girl immediately rose up, changed again into a peahen and flew away, and the other peahens followed her, and so they all disappeared.
… I guess her hair hung down to the ground? Otherwise Jessica Fletcher is a ninja.
Then the king’s son jumped up, and cried out, “What is that?” and, looking under the bed, he saw the old woman, and drew her out. Next morning he ordered her to be tied to a horse’s tail, and so torn to pieces.
Nooooo! Jessica! Who will solve Cabot Cove’s murders now? (or possibly secretly commit them?)
Seriously, though, this is way overkill. Your brothers hired the woman! If they didn’t step in and say “Whoops, sorry, told her to do that!” then they are scum and deserve whatever happens to them. And I do not think highly of your kingdom, when you are allowed to draw-and-quarter people in the morning without a trial.
But the peahens never came back, so the king’s son was very sad for a long time, and wept at his loss.
Oh, you’re crying? That old woman had six grandkids. She was beloved in the community. Her gingersnap-baking skills were hailed far and wide. You monster. The peahens probably aren’t coming back because YOU TIE LITTLE OLD LADIES TO HORSES, did you think of that?
At length he resolved to go and look after his peahen, and never to come back again unless he should find her. When he told the king his father of his intention, the king begged him not do go away, and told him that he would find him another beautiful girl, and that he might choose out of the whole kingdom.
But all the king’s persuasions were useless, so his son went into the world — taking only one servant to serve him — to search everywhere for his peahen.
I like to think that there were posters up with a picture of a peahen and “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?” written underneath.
After many travels he came one day to a lake. Now by the lake stood a large and beautiful palace. In the palace lived an old woman as queen, and with the queen lived a girl, her daughter. He said to the old woman, “For heaven’s sake, grandmother, do you know anything about nine golden peahens?”
And the old woman answered, “Oh, my son, I know all about them. They come every midday to bathe in the lake. But what do you want with them? Let them be. Think nothing about them. Here is my daughter. Such a beautiful girl! And such an heiress! All my wealth will remain to you if you marry her.”
I frequently try to marry my daughter to random vagrants who show up babbling about being in love with fowl. It’s a thing.
But he, burning with desire to see the peahens, would not listen to what the old woman spoke about her daughter.
Next morning, when day dawned, the prince prepared to go down to the lake to wait for the peahens. Then the old queen bribed the servant and gave him a little pair of bellows, and said, “Do you see these bellows? When you come to the lake you must blow secretly with them behind his neck, and then he will fall asleep, and not be able to speak to the