The tale of Jumping Jim 2/3

The Oldest Goblin leaned back in his chair and laughed until he cried.

"Oh dear," he said at last, when he had wiped his eyes and stopped laughing, "are they still writing down all that rubbish? Oh well, I suppose they've just got rather set in their ways and after all, most of their stories are set in the old days. 'Good old days', my grandfather used to call them, when goblins were goblins and dwarves and fairies and even men...."

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mr Kernell, "very interesting, I'm sure but can you tell Jennifer Jane why human writers still tell stories about naughty goblins and why the Jumping Jim charm looks happy and why his boots look too big?"

"Slow down, young feller me lad," said the Oldest Goblin, "one thing at a time. In fact, you'll find all your questions will be answered if I tell you the story of Jumping Jim. Would you like to invite the other goblins in to listen as well?"

Jennifer Jane looked round the tiny parlour and wondered how they'd all get in but strangely, as the goblins crowded in to hear the story, the room always seemed to become just big enough for one more.

Now she understood what the Oldest Goblin had meant about the size of the family who lived in the house.

"Are we all here?" asked the Oldest Goblin.

Jennifer Jane looked round the room. She recognised Mr Kernell's little boy; some of the firemen were there and in one corner, was the cobbler, who was telling his friends that, although he'd heard the story before, it was always worth coming to hear the way in which the Oldest Goblin told it.

"Then I'll begin," said the Oldest Goblin and this is the story he told.

"Once upon a time there was a little red goblin called Jim."

"What's a red goblin?" asked Jennifer Jane, forgetting her manners.

All the goblins stared at her in horror.

"Shhh!" they all said at once.

" A red goblin is a red goblin," replied the Oldest Goblin a little crossly, as if that explained it. "We're all green goblins," he added, before Jennifer Jane could ask another question. "Now, where was I?"

"A red goblin called Jim," said Jennifer Jane.

"Now, in the far off days," continued the Oldest Goblin, looking sternly at her, "I'm afraid that there were a lot of goblins who were a bit mischievous. They thought it funny to turn the milk sour, or to let sheep loose to eat the crops just before the harvest. They'd jump out at people and frighten them and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Nobody human liked goblins.

"Now, Jim wasn't at all mischievous; he preferred to help people. He started to apologise for the bad behaviour of the other goblins and he would round up any animals which had been let loose. When it got dark and all the humans had gone indoors, he would go round their houses mending fences, sweeping paths and putting tiles back on roofs. He would do all the little jobs which humans are always going to do when they have the time. Early in the morning, people might see him just finishing off a job before he went home and they'd say "Thank you, Jim, for all your help."

"When people heard about the helpful goblin, lots of them went to live nearby and Jim found more and more work to do. It soon got to the state where he couldn't visit all the people he wanted to help, so he went to a cobbler and ordered a pair of seven league boots."

Jennifer Jane looked across the room to the cobbler. Sure enough, he was whispering to his friends, "My granddad made those boots for Jim, long before we moved here. Three and a half league boots, he called them; he didn't reckon Jim was big enough for a regular seven league pair."

The Oldest Goblin was continuing his story.

"The boots helped Jim move around much more quickly. He would run a couple of steps and then jump as hard as he could and go flying through the air towards his next job. Humans could look up and see him as he whizzed over their heads. 'There goes Jumping Jim,' they'd say and sometimes give him a friendly wave.

"When all the mischievous goblins saw how much people liked being helped, they gave up playing tricks and started to help with the good work and before long, humans were always happy to see a goblin.