In which the Gift of Stories continues and you may notice a theme

My family has recently noticed that we really don't need more stuff.  In the coming months my brother will be getting married, my parents and my kids will be moving (not together), and the rest of us are...pretty full up on stuff.  So this year for the holidays, we've decided to celebrate "Socksmas."  Instead of exchanging big gifts and gift cards, we will spend time together and exchange socks. Socks are rarely the wrong size or color, they are easy to pack up with you move, and hey:  who doesn't need socks?

That's why the stories this years have a decided "sock-y" theme.  I thought y'all would like to know that.

--Aarene

The Golden Chair a story given by Barra the Bard

Every day, through summer and winter, it was the job of a young lass to lead her family’s flock up on the moor.

As the sheep grazed around her, she would sit on a rock and knit socks from of the wool scrips and scraps she had saved into her possibles bag. 

All day, every day, she would knit: while she was leading them up, while they roamed around her, and she would even knit while she was walked the flock back home each evening.

The fairy folk were much impressed by her industry.

One day, to her surprise, she found a golden chair beside the rock where she usually sat. 

Her first thought was about the difficulty she might have to get the wondrous thing home so her family could sell it (that was, after all, why she was constantly knitting: to supplement the family income, besides using a few pairs of socks themselves).

It was far too heavy for her to carry or even budge.

So she took the flock home early, to get her da and brothers with the horse.

The wee folk below were greatly dismayed that she didn’t even sit on it, and they decided that she didn’t like it. 

Their feelings were hurt, and they were insulted that she didn’t even call out a “thank you.”

   

And that girl never did find the chair again, nor did she ever see even one of the fairies.

This was a favorite of my granny’s in teaching me manners.

“Always say thank you, first thing! Dinna be like the lass wha almaist had the golden chair!” she’d admonish me.

When the fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!