Avui proposo un conte tradicional del nord del comtat de Yorkshire, en la seva llengua original…
It was an ordinary spring afternoon, except for the fact that the sun had already set. It had been setting earlier than usual for the last week, and today had been the earliest sunset yet. At 12.13, exactly (well, as exactly as the sundial could guess?).
The young prince realised that he had gone a bit too far with his wishes. Pauline, the recently graduated fairy godmother, would not be too happy about it.
Young prince Harold was a lazy, overweight, lonely boy, who dreamt of big, heroic battles, of the crusades, of slaying dragons and saving beautiful princesses. But he just spent all day either in school or in the lonely palace with no one to play with. He would spend his evenings and nights reading books full with valiant knights and round tables and fire-throwing reptiles. He would dress up in his great-great-great-great grandfather?s armour, trying to hold the heavy sword, and win unwinnable battles against dreadful enemies.
Young prince Harold?s teachers would always complain to his father the king that he never completed the homework, and that he kept on falling asleep in class. Particularly Mr Rottenbottom, the maths teacher, who was the worst of them all. Harold sometimes dreamt he was actually cutting him to pieces, rather than dragons.
One morning, Mr Rottenbottom did not appear in class. He was found by the castle guards, cut into seven pieces in his bedroom. Young prince Harold got really scared. Did he really make that happen? Did his dream actually come true? The following night, in that place where no-one knows whether they are dreaming or awake, Pauline appeared in front of him, clumsily flapping her new wings. She was his new fairy godmother. She reminded him that he had two more wishes, but that he had to use them wisely. It was then that he dreamt of longer nights, so that he could have more time to dream about his adventures, and also shorter days, which meant less school hours.
But he did not expect it to happen this way. Everyone was going crazy, panicked, and thought that the world was ending. There was complete chaos everywhere, as people did not understand what was happening to the sun? Only Harold and Pauline knew what was really happening, and how to put things right.
And Harold had one wish left. Surely Pauline would expect him to wish to bring the daytime back to normal? But young prince Harold quite fancied a mountain-high pile of sweets?
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