The girl with dancing feet

There once was a little girl called Torina who was born to dance. She danced all the time. She danced to school and she danced as she was doing her chores; sometimes she’d even dance in her sleep.

But then, one day, she was dancing through the forest when she came to the cave of a giant with three legs as long as pillars and the giant, coming out of his cave, said to her,
“So you like dancing, do you, little girl? Well then, we’ll see how well you dance on my frying pan”.

But the little girl wasn’t scared.

“Oh you’ll have to catch me before you can cook me, you three legged oaf”, she said.

Angry at being so insulted, the giant started to chase after Torina but, whenever he tried to snatch hold of her, the dancing girl always managed to dance out of reach of his long arms and grasping hands.

“Hold still you”, yelled the giant, puffing and panting as he chased her in circles.

But Torina knew that she dare not stop because the giant would catch her if she did.

However, just then, looking above the giants head, she spotted a rocky hillside covered with lots of large rocks and boulders and, a brilliant idea flashing into the young girls head, she said,
“I will only hold still if you show me how a giant dances”.

And so, although he did not like dancing at all and thought it was only something that little girls did, the giant agreed and, much to Torina’s amusement, the giant began a clog dance, stamping its three enormous feet heavily upon the ground.

Of course, when the giant did this, the earth beneath him began to shake and it shook so violently that the boulders and rocks on the hillside above its head started to shake too and tumble downhill and, before long, there was a huge avalanche that came crashing down upon the giants head. So huge, in fact that it buried the giant completely.

Now, happy that she was safe from the giant, the little girl danced with joy.

But, just then, from behind all of the trees in the forest came a band of fairies with glittering, fluttering wings and the queen of the fairies said to Torina,
“Oh, thank you, so much little girl. That giant has been such a bully to us fairies, always chopping down the trees that are our homes but now you have taken care of him we are free again”.

Then, to show her gratitude, the fairy queen placed a pair of golden coloured ballet slippers upon the little girls feet with wings upon their heels and now, whenever the little girl dances, she dances upon air.