The Three Truly Fabulous Things

Once a travelling showman dressed in a brightly coloured patchwork suit, with a green feather in his cap came to a village, playing a flute and riding upon a donkey which, behind it, pulled three cages; one of brass, one of iron and one of silver.

And, tying up his donkey in the village square, he called out to all the villagers he saw,

“Come, pay a penny and see the three most truly fabulous things in all the world”.

And after some time a crowd gathered round the man, of people who were eager to see the three fabulous things and all of them paid him a penny.

Then, jingling the coins in his purse, he tapped upon the first cage; the brass cage, with a stick and said,

“Now look closely. For in this cage you will see the most remarkable creature you have ever seen, a tortoise unlike any other, the fastest creature in the entire world”.

However, when the people looked in the cage all they saw was an ordinary looking tortoise with a chain attached by a leg iron to one of its hind legs.

“How do we know that it’s the fastest creature in the world?”, cried an angry man in the crowd, “It just looks like an ordinary tortoise to me. Take off that leg iron and let’s see it run around”.

“Oh but, sir”, said the showman, “If I did that then the tortoise would just run away as fast as the wind and no man, not even riding on the swiftest racing horse, could ever catch it”.

However, the crowd did not believe the showman and only laughed and jeered, demanding their money back.

So then the showman moved onto the second cage, the one made of iron and, tapping upon its bars said,

“Well if you are not amazed by my tortoise then perhaps you will find my next creature more remarkable. Behold, a flea but not just any flea; the strongest flea in the whole world”.

Unfortunately for the showman, when the crowd looked at the cage all they could see was an empty cage.

“There’s nothing there”, shouted one of the women in the crowd, waving her umbrella like a sword in the air, “You’re a liar and a swindler and I want my penny back”.

Then the whole crowd started to shout,

“We want our money back! We want our money back!”.

And so now, frantically, the showman moved onto the third cage and, tapping, on the bars of this cage said,

“Behold, ladies and gentleman; the amazing, the beautiful and the terrifying Siren. One of the very creatures of ancient myth that tried to lure the brave Ulysses onto the rocks and to his doom”.

However, when the people looked in the cage all they saw was a woman with a gag round her mouth.

“Let us hear her sing”, shouted a man, “If she’s really a siren”.

“Oh, but I daren’t”, said the man, “Because, if I did then you would all surely be mesmerized by her enchanting song”.

Now the crowd got very angry, turning into a mob and they grabbed hold of the purse full of money and tore it back but not only that, the man was taken by the village policemen and locked up in jail and a guard was put outside the jail to guard him.

“You must let me out of here”, begged the man to his guard, “Or else your whole village will be in terrible danger. You must believe me”.

But the guard only laughed at him,

“You can talk all you like”, he said, “But you can’t fool me with your con tricks because I’m no fool”.

And so the showman just lay down in his cell upon a moth eaten mattress and played upon his flute.

Shortly afterwards, however, a tortoise suddenly appeared before the guard and then he felt himself picked up and hurled through the air and then the door to the jailhouse appeared to break itself down and the bars of the cell in which the showman was being held, bend themselves open and then, climbing upon the back of the tortoise the showman rode upon the tortoise, as swiftly as a bolt of lightning back to his donkey and his caravan of cages .

But, just as the showman had feared, the Siren was gone from her cage; the people of the village having let her go and ungagged her.

In fact the siren was leading all the people of the village down to the river to drown them.

Fortunately, just as the first person was about to follow the siren into the water. The showman arrived, riding on his tortoise and, blowing on his flute he blew a peculiar note; not one that any human ear had ever heard before which put the wicked siren to sleep so that she stopped singing and, instead, started to snore so horribly and so loudly that it woke all the people of the village from her enchantment.

Unfortunately for the poor showman, when the people woke from their enchantment they were not grateful to him for saving them from drowning; in fact they blamed him for what had happened to them.

“He’s the one that put a spell on us!”, he heard people in the crowd cry out, “He’s a witch and he tried to drown us in the river! Let’s get him; tie him to a stake and burn him!”.

Fortunately, just then, the showman put his flute to his lips and, playing a melody of notes that no human ear had ever heard before, he put all of the angry mob of villagers to sleep.

“Will they wake up?”, asked the flea that was sitting upon his shoulder next to his right ear.

“Oh yes, they’ll wake again, my little friend”, he said, “But when they do we’ll be far away from here. Sadly some people just cannot appreciate truly fabulous things”.