Understanding | Violet's Vegan Comics

A long long time ago, long before you or I, or our great grandparents, were born, the world was ruled by a powerful witch called Ermendrud.

Ermendrud was respected and feared because she saw everything and punished those who disobeyed her law. There was only one. For a whole millennium only one was needed. No one broke it. Well, one or two did, at the beginning, but when people saw what happened to them, they were careful, very very careful, not to make the same mistake.
So life in those days was very harmonious. There were no wars. There was no murder. There was no stealing. There was only co-operation, and kindness, and health and happiness.

After a thousand years of being quite content to live alone, Ermendrud decided she wanted baby. So she went out into the poppy field to look for the tallest poppy. She found two that were very tall, more than a head taller than the rest. A red one and a yellow one. She watched them for several minutes but it was impossible to be sure which was the tallest, swaying in the wind as they were. Finally she settled on the red one, for red was her favourite colour. She placed a lock of her hair inside it, folded the petals on top and sealed it with a kiss.

The following morning, as soon as the sun rose, Ermendrud hurried back to the poppy field where she found not one, but two babies. They were both girls. One had bright red hair, the other’s was golden yellow. Ermendrud realised that some of her hair must have blown onto the yellow poppy after she left, and she was very happy it had.

She bent down to kiss the red haired baby. “Welcome to the world baby Bertha,” she said. Then she kissed the yellow haired baby. “Welcome to the world baby Brynja.”

The little witch twins grew up happy and strong until, on their sixteenth birthday, their mother called them to her.
“This world is yours now, my loves,” she told them, “watch it carefully and remember the spell. My time is done.”
Tears pricked their eyes but they didn’t argue. They knew that if their mother said something was true, then it was. Ermendrud faded away in her sleep that night, leaving nothing behind but a handful of poppy seeds.

Autumn came and went. Winter settled in and seemed to last forever. The young witches, mired in grief, were not keeping an eye on the world. One day they were both hit with a short sharp pain between the eyes.

“Aaaagh!” Bertha rubbed her finger over the skin above her nose, “What was that?”

“The sharp pain!” yelled Brynja, jumping to her feet, “someone’s broken the law!”

“Oh no! What do we do?”

“The spell! Mother said we have to do the spell!”

“But we’ve never done it before! I thought we’d be able to watch Mother do it …”

“Well no one broke the law while Mother was here, but now she’s gone they think they can get away with it. We’ve got to show them they can’t!”

“I don’t know …”

“Yes you do! She taught us a hundred times! We have to do it! If we don’t do it in the next four minutes it’ll be too late.”

Brynja rushed to her mother’s room for the ingredients. Bertha waited. Brynja went to the stream behind the house. Bertha followed. Brynja sprinkled lavender into the water, held a seed of Black-eyed Susan in each hand, and recited the spell.

“There is one who did not heed
The law of good and of good deed.
They broke the law, did something bad,
Selfish, cruel or making sad.
So find the one who did offend
And make their ill deed twist and bend
Back on them so they will feel it,
What they gave they now receive it.”

Brynja dropped the seeds into the water and looked at Bertha. “Did it work? D’you think it worked?”

Bertha scanned the sky. “I can’t see a rainbow.” She turned back to Brynja and shook her head.

Three and a half minutes had passed since the pain.

“Your hair!” Bertha pointed frantically, “you forgot your hair!” She grabbed the scissors from her apron pocket and passed them to Brynja.

Brynja cut a curl from her beautiful yellow hair and dropped it into the stream. A rainbow formed over the water for a few seconds, and then dissolved.

“You did it!” cried Bertha.

Brynja’s face flushed and she closed her eyes. She felt vibrant. Full of energy. Wide awake.

She smiled at her sister. “Yes I did.”

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Story continues tomorrow but if you don’t want to wait you can read the whole fairy tale here now 😀

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Flower illustrations by Owantana of Pixabay, Poppies illustration by GreissDesign of Pixabay

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Violet’s Vegan Comics – making funny, enlightening and sometimes action-packed vegan children’s books for readers of all ages since 2012

vegan fairy tale

Chapter Two of Luke Walker: animal stick up for-er continues from yesterday:

“Can anyone give me a sensible answer?”

Simon Butler read aloud from the board on the fence.

“They’re Bengal tigers; well known for their power and strength; one of the most feared predators in nature. In the wild they scent mark large areas of up to 100 square kilometres to keep their rivals away.”

“Very good Simon,” Mrs Tebbut smiled.

Luke didn’t think there was much to smile about.

“The wild ones live in massive places, prob’ly bigger ‘n Bournemouth, and this cage is smaller ‘n my back garden. No wonder they look fed up,” he thought.

They moved on. Luke lagged behind with diminishing enthusiasm. Mrs Tebbut drew everyone’s attention to another enclosure.

“Can anyone tell me what these guys are?”

“They’re penguins,” said Anna.

“That’s right. Does anyone know what type?”

“They’re bored penguins.” He knew the moment he said it that he’d said it too loud.

“Luke Walker! I am tired of your attitude! If you can’t enter into the spirit of things with a smile on your face and some genuine effort then kindly do not participate at all.”

That was fine by Luke.

“Why do teachers ask you what you think if all they really want you to tell ’em is what they think?” he grumbled to himself.

When Mrs Tebbut was distracted by Katia getting a splinter, Luke decided to take her at her word and ‘not participate at all’. He was better off on his own anyway. He wandered around the zoo, looking at the animals and feeling sorry for them.

“Don’t seem right to lock animals up when they ‘aven’t done nothin’. It’s like the Sheriff of Nottin’am all over again.”

He noticed an empty bench in front of a line of trees, away from the busier zoo paths, and decided to have a sit down.

“It’s a shame about zoos,” he thought, disappointed.

While he sat there he looked around. Over his left shoulder, behind the trees, he saw another enclosure. It was off the beaten track and smaller than the others. It was concrete and contained nothing of beauty or interest except its occupant. There stood the biggest, most breath-taking, awe-inspiring individual Luke had ever encountered. An elephant. All on her own.

“All on your own,” Luke sympathised, as he made his way to her, “another damson in distress.”

He climbed up on the fence so that he could talk to her over the top of it and she walked towards him to get a closer look.

“I’m on me own too,” he continued, “not stayin’ with the group if I’m not wanted!”

Then he had an idea.

“Would you like to come out an’ play with me?”

The elephant seemed interested so he went on.

“ok, listen, we’ll have to be a bit sneaky. You wait here while I find a key; then I’ll open this gate and you can slip out before anyone sees.”

It was a brilliant plan!

It didn’t take long for Luke to work out where he might find what he was looking for.

“Somebody what works here will have keys!”

It never occurred to him that he would need a particular key for the particular lock he wanted to open but, as it happened, that wasn’t going to be a problem. When the zoo was built over thirty years earlier, it boasted the largest number of animal enclosures in the country. It was deemed impractical to have hundreds of different keys so the same three locks were fitted to everything: one for animal enclosures; one for outer gates; and one for buildings. Each key-holder carried the same three keys. That was all anyone needed. It was all Luke needed.