Keeping Up With the Boneses

Long before you were born, long before your great grandfather was born, in the time when magic was approximately eight times more plentiful than it is today, there lived a family in the remote part of a forest.  There was a mother, Mrs. Slimbones, who was a witch, and there was a father, who was a horse.  It seems that one day, the missus, in a pique of anger, deliberately intoned, "you knew one day it would happen of course / from this day on, you are a horse."  No one questioned the soft-spoken father's disappearance or the appearance of the horse, chalking it all up to providence. Three children dwelt in that humble forest cottage. Two lazy elder children, Hambone and Pigbone, along with their mother, would terrorize the third, youngest child, whose job it was to gather firewood.  Featherbone didn't complain, as he loved venturing into the thick woods, among the melodious birds and forest creatures.  One fine day, he picked up eighty-eight sticks of wood, returned home, and placed them neatly in a pile in the woodshed, singing "I live in a story where everyone rhymes / and I picked up sticks eighty-eight times".      Do you think his mother was pleased?  No!  Mrs. Slimbones announced, right on the spot, that she had decided to lock little Featherbone in the shed next to the house, because he was horribly deformed and disfigured, as well as an abomination before the Lord.  The porcine brothers kept watch in the event that the little one would escape, repeating "we two brothers are exceedingly dumb / tum-dee-dum, dee-dum, dee-dum". As Featherbone shivered in the night, a pretty nightingale lit on the one window, which had recently been fitted with iron bars.  She said, "Woodpile on the floor I see / a piano you will be".And so it was that, every night, the boy would play piano, accompanied by the beautiful voice of the nightingale.  It wasn't long before an owl, who was spying for Mrs. Slimbones, reported, "Nightly, nightly, a beauty sings / just for Featherbone.  She has wings. / The sticks are now piano keys / Her voice is like a summer breeze." Enraged, Mrs. Slimbones gritted her teeth and recited, "My young son who is the lightest / shall be afflicted with arthritis. " That night the evil owl reported, "the boy still plays with fingers stiff, tonight he performed Beethoven's Fifth".  On the second night, Mrs. Slimbones, naturally, escalated, "My son's fingers will surely fail / like a fox with a burning tail".  Unfortunately for mother, the owl dutifully divulged, "That boy's playing neither stank nor stunk / He sounded like Thelonious Monk".  She saved the most dreadful curse for the third and final night, "My son who shivers behind locked door / will play piano, just one time more", and was pleased to hear, "Featherbone played as his hope died / he and his bird friend broke down and cried".  As I mentioned, Mrs. Slimbones was overjoyed, but do you think she had a kind word to say to her faithful owl?  No!  She cooed, "You've served your purpose nicely, and now I shall roast you and serve you just as nicely - for dinner!"  He flew quickly out the door to the woodshed, followed closely by the cruel axe-wielding mother, and flying between the iron bars, said to the piano, which had returned to its prior form of eighty eight sticks,  "surround the witch and catch on fire / with orange-red flames, hotly ply her."  The minute the witch entered the shed, she was swiftly consumed by flames, and, like that, she was a small pile of gray ashes. The whole multitude of evil curses she had ever cast, ceased.  The horse turned back into a father, seemingly unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened, and neither commenting nor taking notice of his wife's demise. The little nightingale returned into the form of a princess, and presented Featherbone with a mirror, which said, "Featherbone, you are not disgusting / your mother's judgment, you should not be trusting."  And so it was, the handsome young man named after a bird part married a princess who was once a bird.  The owl also reverted to human form, but continued to serve ably as a messenger, and the young man's porky brothers did a great job of collecting firewood and ploughing the abundant fields of the new king and queen, who ruled kindly over the land. And what is this?  Oh, it's just a normal day around the castle.  The queen hums a beautiful melody while Featherbone's father sits quietly, eating his oats.