The Wee One sat on a patch of Sweet Woodruff surveying the damage to her cottage.  The wind had been blowing quite heavily the night before.   A branch from an old oak,  had fallen and almost flattened the old house wren’s birdhouse, she had called home.  The fae knew Rufus the gnome would be upset.  He had warned her many times that a cottage  under the old oak was not a very safe place to live.
 

The Wee One knew Rufus was right.  She preferred the cottage to living in the rather grand surroundings of fae halls.  These were formed from the hollows where the old roots met the trunks of the oaks.

“You may not like 'em, but wee folk such as ye hafta be caring where ye put yur ‘ome.  Never ‘eard of such a one, livin’ in a wee box fer birds,”  he muttered.
 
 

Rufus was right.  The Wee One knew it and didn’t protest too much.   They worked together to move her nut bed, filled with owl’s feathers and her few household treasures into the sturdy oak cavity.  It was just a bit bigger than the old birdhouse.  The ceiling was vaulted and Rufus had shined it and the walls with beeswax.   She thought it was very pretty.  Rufus put the last touches on a wooden door, shaped like a church window.  The fae sat down on a tiny mushroom and pulled it closer to the larger mushroom that formed her table. She rubbed the beeswax into the mushroom to make it hard and shiny.  Above her head the fireflies had already settled.  The glow of their lights gave the inside of the cave the look of clover  honey.
 
 

There really was only one thing missing, and that was a window.  She could hear Rufus making a burring noise.  In a few minutes his happy face was to be seen poking through the window.  He had managed to make it by chipping out the wood at the other side of the tree, where another root arch had formed.  Rufus quickly tapped a spider’s web in place to cover the window and let the air and starlight into her new home.
 
 

“Now lass, just make up yer mind ta be ‘appy here and ye will be.”   He said, as he packed his tools and put them in his wheelbarrow, along with the bits of wood from the broken birdhouse.   “I’ll be checkin’ on ye later.”  He said as he waved good-bye.

Finally she was all snug and moved in, it felt good.  “Thank you Rufus,” she said running to the door.  She watched as he made his way down the path and through the little woods, whistling a tune.
 
 

All the material on this page is Copyright 2000 Idris O'Neill