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Man or Beast.

The day started like many other days. I got out of bed had a wash brushed my teeth, combed my hair and dressed ready to make my breakfast. On going downstairs, I picked the newspaper from off the floor of the hallway and went into the kitchen. I soon had water on the boil ready for a pot of tea. Toast I made in my old toaster and butter and marmalade I took from the larder. The same routine as every day of the year one might say if it was not for the newspaper article. In large print were the headlines. Strange creature found roaming through the woods. One did not know whether it was animal or human.

I hurriedly ate my breakfast and drank a couple of cups of hot sweet tea. Grabbing my hat, I closed the front door and ran to the woods. I wanted to see at first hand what this strange creature looked like. Arriving in the woods, I found to my surprise no Fairies or indeed any of the Little Folk. I looked high and low but could find no trace of the strange creature. What I saw made me a little uneasy there were many strangers roaming the woods some of them had a folded newspaper with them. I remember thinking scandalmongers until I realized I was doing the same as they were.

I slowly made my way home to my house to prepare the midday dinner, No Fairies crossed my way, no creatures just a lady down the road that when she saw me told me about the Fairies in the woods. This she did on every occasion we met so I was not worried. I prepared and ate my dinner and went to bed for my midday sleep. I carried over from my time abroad in hot climates this habit. I jokingly told people that I held my siesta.

The next morning there was a new headline in the newspaper something about a fast ship that had broken the record while crossing the Atlantic. I walked slowly to the woods hoping to see the strange creature. Whether or not it was a summer filling of the newspaper because there was no news, I did not know but I surmised the same.

In the woods down by the old oak, I saw the Fairies tending to a creature that had a horse’s body and a man’s head. The poor thing had a few nasty looking cuts on its flanks.

The Fairy Queen was away on holiday and the Fairies did not know what to do with the creature apart from tending its wounds and making it invisible if humans came across it. That is why no one had seen it the day before and all thought it was some joke of the newspapers. I tried to speak to it in French then in German and at last; in English, it did not understand me. One of the Fairies told me that the creature’s words sounded like the old Greek language. Not many people apart from a few professors spoke this language nowadays.

Thousands of years ago these creatures lived peaceful lives with the human race but the humans were jealous these creature could run faster and were even more intelligent that the humans of that day. War between the two species broke out and the humans won the war. This creature the Fairy Queen of those days cast a spell over it and she made it invisible to all human beings thus saving its life. The spell the old Queen cast was so powerful that it increased the creature life to such a span that it was practically not possible for it to die of old age.

A week later the creature felt much better and it told us of its journey through Europe from Greece to France where it boarded a night ferry and landed in Dover from Calais. The wounds healed nicely and the creature felt fit enough to carry on its wanderings. Then with her most accurate timing, Her Majesty Queen Feeana greeted us all with the words. “You have tended its wounds? That is good.” I now only have to free you from the old spell cast on you by my ancestor in mistake.

The spell she performed in such a hurry, as she wanted to hide you from all humans that she made a mistake. You were given the gift of longevity, which meant that you were unable to die a natural death. I have the power to take this away from you. It is your choice. The creature opened its large brown eyes and I saw tears of joy running down its face. Please Your Majesty free me from this spell I am so lonely I have no friends and it is only the Fairies that can see me. Her Majesty Queen Feeana waved her magic wand and spoke in the old language.

The creature trotted away and the last I saw of it, it was disappearing until nothing was left of it.