My Own Fairy Tales

The Three Gifts from Heaven

Once upon a time a servant girl named Hilda worked for a very rich family. But her life was not happy because she was an ugly looking girl. Because of her ugliness the other servants bullied her all the time and gave her more work than normal. They even made her wear tattered clothing and never gave her much to eat. The children of the wealthy couple were no better, especially the sons, because they mocked her and liked to throw things like mud at her. Hilda didn't let any of the bulling get her down and just got on with her work no matter what. Under all her ugliness, Hilda's heart was beautiful as glittering gold.

One evening Hilda was eating her supper, a bowl of cold vegetable soup with some hard bread, in the kitchen, when there was a knock on the back door. Hilda opened the door and there was a little girl outside, looking half-starved.

"Excuse me, but can I have something to eat please even if there are only table scraps left?" asked the little girl "I haven't eaten anything since yesterday".

"Of course come on in" said Hilda. She wasn't going to leave the poor little girl starving like that. So she led the girl into the kitchen, had her sit down at the table and served her some soup and bread that were still left.

The little girl happily ate the soup and bread. "Thank you for the food miss" she said. "You are welcome little girl," said Hilda "oh wait one moment". Anna found a small sack and filled it with some fruit and some bread she could find. "Now you won't feel hungry tomorrow" said Hilda, giving the little girl the sack. The little girl thanked Hilda with all her heart, said goodbye and left.

 That night while Hilda was asleep a white light shone through her window. Then, like magic, the window opened by itself and a white dove flew into the attic. The dove had a silver spoon in its beak and it dropped the spoon at the end of Hilda's bed. The dove flew out of the window, the window closed by itself and the light faded away.

Next morning Hilda found the silver spoon on her bed. "I wonder where this spoon came from?" she said to herself. She got out of bed, got dressed and went to the kitchen for breakfast, taking the silver spoon with her. Hilda's breakfast was a measly bowl of inedible gruel to her dismay because she didn't like gruel very much. Hilda got the silver spoon out from her pocket to eat the gruel with.

"Oh silver spoon I really want to eat porridge with milk and honey" said Hilda. When Hilda said those words the bowl of gruel magically changed into a bowl of porridge with some milk and honey on it. Hilda couldn't believe her eyes when that happened; the silver spoon was magic. Thanks to the silver spoon's magic Hilda never had to eat table scraps again and could eat whatever she wanted. She started to look healthier day after day.

One day the autumn came and the cold weather started to grow. That day Hilda was out in an orchard picking apples when she spotted a poor old woman by the road, looking very cold. Hilda took off her warm shawl and gave it to the woman.

"Thank you dear," said the woman "I should have been wearing one yes, but I don't have any money to buy anything warm for me to wear. I can't even afford to buy thread or wool to make myself anything for the winter".

Hilda felt sorry for the woman. "Wait here please ma'am" said Hilda. She ran back to house and went straight to the attic. In the attic there were chests of old clothes that hadn't been worn for years. "Since no one wears these old clothes anymore, I'm sure they won't be missed" Hilda said to herself. Hilda gathered some of the old clothes and went straight back to the woman.

"Here ma'am," said Hilda "you can have these old clothes as no one wears them anymore". The woman was delighted and accepted the clothes.

"Thank you dear, may God bless you" she said. Then the woman left, happy to have some clothing for winter.