"A very long time ago, when fairies dwelt in England, there lived on a woody hill, near a lake in Cumberland, a king of the fairies, who was very good and benevolent; and if any of his little subjects ever committed evil or malicious tricks (to which it is said fairies are much inclined), he was sure to punish them severely. But it was the misfortune of this good king to have a little son, who, instead of resembling his excellent father, was of a most wicked and cruel disposition. The name of this mischievous being was Arphu, and to look at him, every one would have thought him exceedingly good. He had a beautiful face, and hair that glittered like sunbeams; he had downy wings which shone with a thousand different colours, like that beautiful stuffed humming-bird, which your kind uncle sent me. But though he had all these beauties, he was always inclined to do evil, rather than good. While the other fairies were, in obedience to the orders of the king, busily employed in supporting flowers that had been overthrown by the hail, or raising the ears of wheat which had been beaten to the earth by a thunder storm, Arphu would silently slip away from these kind offices, and fly or run through wet or mire, in search of mischief. If he chanced to see a poor snail which with great toil had climbed a leaf to eat its breakfast, he would give it so hard a push, that the hungry little creature would tumble down, and have all its labour to begin again. If he saw a harmless caterpillar crawling on a twig that overhung the lake, he would shake the branch violently, and then laugh to see the poor little animal descend by its slender thread, directly into the water below, where a greedy fish waited to devour it. He loved to drive flies into spiders' webs, and fish into nets; but his chief delight was to follow some rude children, the sons of a farmer, who lived in the valley under the hill. He did not mind if his golden ringlets were wet through, or his splendid wings dabbled with mire, if he could follow them in their play, and secretly tempt them to torment some harmless bird or animal, which he took care to entrap for their cruel sport.
Page 12. Page 4.
Published April 20 1823 by Harris & Son corner of St. Pauls.
This conduct gave great pain to the benevolent mind of the king; and, after some time, he declared in council, that the next wicked action which Arphu committed should be punished with exemplary severity. He then ordered four of the wisest fairies to follow the young prince secretly, and to bring him before his throne the next lawless deed they found him doing. They obeyed, and that day caught him in a very wicked trick. Two swallows had built their nest under the eaves of a farmer's barn; but when they had completed it, and hatched their young, Arphu stole up to the nest and loosened it from the barn, so that the tender young ones were shattered to pieces on the ground. Whilst the mischievous prince was surveying the dying pangs of the wretched little birds, and listening to the woeful complaint of their parents, the fairies seized him and hurried him to the foot of his father's throne, where they related the distressing scene which they had just witnessed.
The king, as you may suppose, was extremely angry, especially as this cruelty had been exercised upon swallows, which were protected both by fairies and men, for their industry in clearing the air from noxious insects, and for their ingenuity in building their curious nests. "Wicked and malicious little being!" said he, fixing his eyes with an awful frown on Arphu; "thou shalt learn by thy own experience what it is to suffer the miseries thou hast inflicted on others; and if this punishment do not amend thee, thou shalt be for ever stripped of thy gay wings and pearl coronet, and be confined with the evil gnomes in the neighbouring iron mines. Fly from my sight, and receive the reward of thy crimes!"
Arphu willingly fled from the palace of his angry father: but he had not proceeded far, before he felt himself whirled round and round in the air with such violence that his head became giddy, and he soon lost all sense. When he recovered, he was greatly astonished to find that he had entered the body of a little kitten, belonging to a cat which was tenderly nursing her young brood on some hay, in a loft over the farmer's barn. He now comprehended the justice of his father's sentence, and was aware that the very children whom he had taught to be cruel, would now have it in their power to torment him. He shuddered at the cruelty he had seen them practise; he shook and trembled in every limb at the least noise; he tried to speak, and call out, but found that he could only utter piteous mews; and to add to his distress, he could not even see in this degraded state. His new mother, however, licked and caressed him with much affection; and, after he had thought a great while, and bitterly repented of his faults, he fell fast asleep.
The next morning he awoke very cold and hungry, for the cat was gone. Well, he pawed about with his little blind brothers and sisters, and got as close to them as he could to warm himself, but they, in crawling about to find their mother, often scratched his face with their claws: he conceived, however, that they did not mean to hurt him, so he did not return it, for his weak and wretched state had already taught him wisdom. Presently he heard a loud purring: he shrunk in dismay, but he recollected it was only the cat who came to suckle and comfort them. Now for nine or ten days, old pussy took the tenderest care of her kits, though she did not know that the fairy prince was one of them; and in that time the kittens began to see clearly, and in a fortnight longer they grew strong, and very pretty; and Arphu with the rest of the brood began to frisk about and play a thousand funny tricks; and though they sometimes quarrelled with him, and bit his ears or tail, Arphu took such delight in their gambols, that he soon began to love them, and never attempted to hurt them. Arphu had often dreaded the time when he was to suffer pain, but so many days had gone by that he had almost forgotten it. One morning, however, they heard a great noise on the hayloft stairs: the kittens all fled in great haste from where they had been frisking, and scampered into their nest, where they lay in great dread crouching close to each other. And now there was the noise of a great many feet on the stairs, and Arphu plainly distinguished the voices of the farmer's children.
"Come here, Maudlin," said Hodge, the eldest boy, "come and look about, for I know that our Tib has kitted somewhere in the hayloft; let us find the kits, and we will have a nice drown."
"Go, Hodge!" said Maudlin, "you cruel boy! if I could find the poor things, I would hide them all from you. You have grown so hard-hearted of late!"