Mixed Fairytales and Stories

Abigail, Queen of Natronia

Her name was Abigail, Queen of Natronia. Her beauty is legendary
among the people of her country. Her wisdom was a marvel and as
well-known as her compassion and love for the people of the
kingdom.

She was born in the natural way, but Abigail’s appearance at the time
of her birth was anything but ordinary. Her bright red lips were huge, her ears equally so; her nose lay flat against her face; her eyes, though brilliant blue, were small and squinty.

Her head was too large for her
body; her arms, hands and legs looked more like those of a scaly reptile. The nurses attending her mother covered their faces, then baby Abigail’s, fearing she would frighten the other patients.

Despite her appearance, Abigail’s parents loved her. As a baby, then a
toddler, Abigail rarely was seen in public. If her mother took her out
at all, she would put a veil over Abigail’s face. Her parents consulted
many doctors to see if there was anything they could do for the little
girl. The doctors performed every test known to the medical field at
that time but could find nothing physically wrong with the child.

Telling her parents they could only hope she would somehow outgrow
her repulsiveness, the doctors sent Abigail home.

When the time came for Abigail to go to school, her mother fashioned
a cloth sack to cover her head.

However, she could do nothing about the little girl’s body. The children were curious as to why Abigail wore the strange hood. When they discovered the truth, they began to make cruel remarks. The boys made a game of trying to snatch the sack from Abigail’s head. If one of them succeeded, he would run away laughing while holding the bag high like a victory flag. Then he
would hide it.

Once, at recess, the children joined hands and danced in a circle around Abigail, taunting the weeping girl. When the bell rang and her classmates went back inside, Abigail wandered the school grounds
looking for the sack. Finally giving up, she entered the classroom, trying to hide her face behind her hands while the children giggled and laughed.

Disgusted with their behavior, the teacher stopped the lesson, scolded the students and made the boy who hid the sack go and retrieve it. Class would not resume until it was back on Abigail’s head.

Even with all the unkindness heaped on her, Abigail’s pure heart
remained loving, sweet and kind.

However, the children’s cruel taunts
and even some adults in the village heartlessly shunning her cut
Abigail to the bone. Personally, she was glad to wear the bag over her
head. That way, the others could not see the tears running down her
face. The cloth barrier gave her a sense of privacy from the unkind
world.

As time went on, Abigail grew more sensitive to her appearance. She
refused to look in a mirror. Each time she left her bedroom, she wore
the sack over her face. She wore loose-fitting clothes to disguise her
body and gloves to conceal her hands. As she got older, Abigail’s one
joy was writing stories about love, justice and compassion. All the
emotions the outside world denied her were expressed in those stories.
As she wrote, she perfected her language skills and her stories took on a dreamy, poetic air.

The day came when Abigail accidentally left one of her fairy tales on a bench outside the bakery. Hurrying by, the baker noticed the sheaf of papers lying there. He sat down on the bench and began reading the anonymous author’s folktale. He was so amazed by the story he
couldn’t put it down, and only when customers began to pound on the
bakery shop door did he remember his urgent errand. That night he
gave the tale to his wife to read, who in turn gave it to a friend, who
gave it to another, and so forth and so on until the entire village had
read Abigail’s yarn. In every shop and home, people spoke of the
story and wondered, who was this brilliant writer who could charm
the whole countryside with such magical words?