4
Editor’s note
This is, historically, where the tale ends. However, it’s so terribly sad, so lacking in useful moral lessons, and so well known for leaving listeners in tears, that it’s become a tradition among tellers to improvise new and less dire conclusions. I’ve taken the liberty of including my own here. – MN
5
The animals tried singing and shouting to poor Cuthbert from the safety of their cliff -top, but they were too distant and their voices too small, so that even to Cuthbert and his giant ears they sounded quieter than the whisper of leaves in the wind.
‘Talk to me!’ he begged. ‘Come and talk to me!’ After a while the animals began to feel very bad, especially the emu-raff e. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ he said. ‘All he wants is some company. Is that too much to ask?’
‘I daresay it is,’ said the grimbear. ‘It’s dangerous down there – and with Cuthbert turned to stone, how will we get back up to the safety of our cliff -top?’
‘There’s nothing can be done for him,’ said the two-headed-lynx. ‘Unless you know how to reverse a witch’s curse.’
‘Of course I don’t,’ said the emu-raff e, ‘but that doesn’t matter. We’re all going to die one day, and perhaps today it’s Cuthbert’s turn. But we mustn’t let him die alone. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.’
6
It was more guilt than the other animals could bear, and soon they had all decided to join the emu-raff e, despite the dangers that faced them on the ground. Led by the ‘raff e, they made a ladder of their bodies, linking hands to ankles, and climbed down the cliff face to the ground. How they would ever get back to safety again was a question for another time. They ran to Cuthbert and comforted him, and the giant wept with gratitude even while he was turning to stone.
changing into a stony substance (petra is the Greek word for ‘rock’)
As they talked with him, his voice grew quieter and quieter, his lips and throat petrifying until they could hardly move. Finally, he became so quiet and still that the animals wondered if he had died. The emu-raff e pressed his head against Cuthbert’s chest.
7 After a moment he said, ‘I can still hear his heart beating.’
The wren, who could turn into a woman, perched on the rim of Cuthbert’s ear and said, ‘Friend, can you hear us?’ And from his stony throat they heard, no louder than a puff of breeze: ‘Yes, friends.’
They broke into a cheer! Cuthbert was still alive inside his skin of stone – and so he remained. The witch’s curse had been strong, but not strong enough to petrify him through and through. The animals were now poor Cuthbert’s caretakers, as he had once been theirs: they kept him company, gathered food and dropped it into his open mouth, and talked
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