Rag, Tag and Bobtail and Other Magical Stories by Enid Blyton

Author:Enid Blyton
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Fables, Rabbits, Legends, Family, Juvenile Fiction, General, Myths, Animals, Classics
ISBN: 9781509825462
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2016-01-14T10:27:28.418000+00:00

The Three Naughty Children

One day Queen Peronel’s cook heard a knocking at her kitchen door. She opened it and saw a ragged pedlar there, his tray of goods in front of him.

‘Can I sell you something?’ said the pedlar. ‘Red ribbons, silver thimbles, honey-chocolate, high-heeled shoes – I have them all here.’

‘Nothing today, thank you,’ said the cook. But the pedlar would not go.

‘I am tired with walking many miles,’ he said. ‘Let me come in and rest a little. See, I will wipe my feet well on the mat so that I shall not dirty your clean kitchen floor.’

So the cook let him come in and sit down on her oldest chair for a little while. But when he had gone she missed three things, and flew to tell Queen Peronel.

‘Oh, Your Highness!’ she cried, bursting into the drawing-room where the Queen sat knitting a jersey. ‘Oh, Your Highness, a pedlar has stolen your blue milk-jug, your little silver spoon and your wooden porridge plate! Oh, whatever shall I do!’

Now these three things were all full of magic and the Queen treasured them very much. The blue milk-jug had the power of pouring out perfectly fresh milk twice a day, which was very useful for the Queen’s nurse, for she had two little princesses and a prince to look after in the royal nursery. The silver spoon would make anyone hungry if he put it into his mouth, and this, too, was very useful if any of the royal children wouldn’t eat a meal.

The wooden porridge plate could play a tune all the time that porridge was eaten from it, so the children loved it very much. Queen Peronel was dreadfully upset when she heard that all these things had been stolen.

‘What was the pedlar like?’ she asked. ‘I will have him captured and put into prison.’

But alas, when the cook told her about the pedlar’s looks, the Queen knew that he was no pedlar but a wizard who had dressed himself up to steal her treasures. She called the King and he really didn’t know what to do.

‘That wizard is too powerful for us to send to prison,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He won’t give us back those three things if we ask him nicely, for he will say he didn’t steal them. I really do not know what to do.’

Now when the two little princesses and the prince heard how the wizard had stolen their milk-jug, porridge plate and spoon, they were very angry.

‘Send a hundred soldiers to him, Father, and capture him!’ cried Roland, the little prince, standing straight and tall in front of the King.

‘Don’t be silly, my dear child,’ said the King. ‘He would turn them all into wolves and send them howling back here. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’

‘Well, Father, send someone to steal all the things from him,’ said Rosalind, the eldest child, throwing back her golden curls.

‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ said the King crossly. ‘Go back to the nursery, all of you, and play at trains.

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