The Flying Windmill

Long ago in a village in the Netherlands there lived a little boy named Jan and his grandmother.

 

And, one day, while Jan was gazing out of the window of his house at the clouds floating by and daydreaming, he saw, to his amazement, a gigantic flying windmill; its enormous sails turning round as it, in spite of being made of heavy looking iron and stone, floated through the air.

 

“Look”, he said, pointing and calling to his grandmother, “Look, grandmother; a flying windmill. Have you ever seen such a thing”.

 

However, seeing the windmill descend out of the air and land on a field of brightly coloured tulips nearby, Jan’s grandmother looked afraid.

 

“Yah, I have seen it before”, she said, trembling, “When I was just a child. It is the flying windmill of a witch called Hulda”.

 

Jan wanted to run outside to the windmill but his grandmother forbade him to.

 

“No. You must stay inside the house until the windmill is gone”, she told him, “Hulda is not a nice witch; she is a wicked witch who turns little boys into mice and the mice run round in little wheels that turn the sails of the windmill to make it fly”.

 

But hearing this only made Jan even more curious to see inside the strange windmill and, packing his school satchel with a little wheel of cheese that he thought he might feed to the mice, he waited until it was night time and then, just as quietly as a mouse, crept past his grandmothers room; down a creaking flight of wooden stairs and out of the house, heading towards the field of tulips where the witch’s windmill had landed.

 

As he entered the field however, all of the tulips, that were bobbing around and dancing frantically in the wind, called out to him.

 

“Oh stop! Stop, little boy”, they said, “Turn back please. Don’t you know that is Hulda’s windmill and that when she catch’s little boys she clicks her magic clogs together and turns them into mice and she will turn you into a mouse too if she catches you”.

 

“I know, I know”, he said, “But I’m not afraid and I just want to see it up close, just for a moment. I’ve never seen anything really magical before, you see”.

 

And, bending down and picking one of the tulips, Jan put its long, green stem through one the button holes of his jacket and the tulip talked to him as he approached the windmill’s large wooden door.

 

“Oh, I am glad that we tulips don’t have eyes”, it said, “For I would not like to see that ugly old witch. Just the thought of her makes me tremble. She is evil you know, because her heart is not flesh and blood like most peoples but a ticking watch made of cogs and gears”.

 

“Don’t worry”, said Jan bravely, “I will protect you”.

 

But then the boy came to the door of the windmill and reaching out, he touched its handle.

 

The moment he did however, the door of the windmill opened and as it did he heard a sound echoing from deep within; a loud sort of ticking sound like a gigantic clock and also the sound of squeaking voices; hundreds of them, singing as if in a high pitched choir.

 

“Heave ho! Heave ho! A mouse’s work is never done. Heave ho! Heave ho! Round in these wheels we mice must run. Heave ho! Heave ho! Oh, who would be a little mouse? Heave ho! Heave ho! And turn the wheels in Hulda’s house”.

 

“What is that sound?”, Jan asked the Tulip, “That ticking and those squeaking voices?”.

 

“It is the sound of the cogs and gears that make Hulda’s magic windmill work”, the tulip replied, “And the squeaking is the sound of all the many mouse slaves who run round in wheels to power the windmill; all of them once little boys like you before Hulda caught them”.

 

But then, without even thinking, Jan stepped inside the windmill, drawn deeper by an overpowering curiosity and, as he did, the sound of ticking clockwork and squeaking mice grew even louder.

 

Then, at the end of a dimly lit, winding corridor, Jan found a little room in which he saw all the worker mice, hundreds of them, running round in gold and silver wheels and, in turn, turning the cogs and moving the parts of a gigantic and very complicated clockwork mechanism.

 

“It’s amazing”, said Jan, gasping, his eyes lighting up with wonder.

 

“It’s terrifying if you ask me”, replied the tulip, “I’m just glad I am a tulip and not a mouse”.

 

But then, undoing the straps of his satchel, Jan took out the wheel of yellow cheese he had brought with him.

 

“I have bought you all cheese from home. Cheese that my grandmother made”, he said to the mice.

 

Now, smelling the cheese with their twitching noses, the mice that normally lived off of nothing but cold, lumpy porridge were so distracted with hunger that they stopped running and, leaping from their wheels, crowded round about Jan.

 

And then, breaking off pieces of cheese, the boy handed them out to all of the mice and, seizing the yellow chunks eagerly with their little pink hands, the mice began to nibble hungrily upon them.

 

However, the moment that the mice stopped running, the loud ticking of the clockwork mechanism also stopped and, when it stopped; hearing the silence, Hulda, who had been fast asleep in her bed, loudly snoring, woke up, opening both her eyes.

 

“Why have the wheels stopped turning?”, she called out angrily to the mice, “Who gave you rodents permission to stop running?”.

 

Then, leaping as quick as a jack in the box from her bed and into her magic wooden clogs, Hulda; her clogs clacking against the hard wooden floor of her room, hurried out of her room to see what the mice were up to.

 

And, hearing and recognising the sound of the witch’s clacking clogs, the mice all started to grow terrified not just for themselves but for also for the boy.

 

“Oh no”, said one of the mice that had crawled up and perched itself upon Jan’s shoulder, its large round ears pricking up, “That’s the witch. The Witch is coming. Quick little boy; run; hide before she clicks those magic clogs of hers together and turns you into a mouse like us”.

 

But then, sadly, looking round about him, Jan could not see anywhere within the room to hide  and then, suddenly, into the room he saw the witch enter; a wicked, foul grin spreading across her face as she spotted him.

 

“So, a little visitor has come calling on old Hulda has he?”, she said, “Well he’ll soon be sorry that he was so nosy because no little boy who enters Hulda’s house comes out again…ever”.

 

And, throwing her head back, the witch gave a loud cackle before, leaping with the agility of a frog, up in the air she clicked the heels of her magical wooden clogs hard together.

 

“Three times, my clogs, I click to work my wicked trick”, she said, as if reciting a magical spell.

 

Then, leaping up again into the air, as Jan, the tulip in his buttonhole and the mouse upon his shoulder all cowered in fear, she clicked her clogs a second time.

 

“For when I click them thrice”, she continued, gleefuly, “Little boys turn to mice”.

 

However, just then; as she was about to leap up and click her heels a third time, something peculiar started to happen all around the room.

 

For now, round about him, rather than the sound of mouse like squeaking, Jan started to hear louder and slightly deeper voices; the voices of little boys.

 

Hearing it too, the witch looked round her in horror and saw all of her mouse slaves turning back into their original human forms.

 

“Ach!”, she exclaimed, “What did you do, you little trouble maker? Why are my mice workers turning back into boys?”.

 

“I didn’t do anything”, said Jan, just as bewildered as the witch, “All I did was give them some cheese?”.

 

The witch looked over at the wheel of yellow cheese in Jan’s hands and her face turned pale.

 

“Why you little fool”, she said, “You have shown them kindness. Kindness breaks the spell”.

 

But, by the time she had said this it was already too late, for all of the mice’s long slender pink tails; large round mouse ears and twitching noses started to shrink and their white furry bodies started to grow as they became boys again and then, realising themselves what had happened, a look of anger and hatred filled the eyes of every boy and, rushing towards the witch with vengeance in their hearts, their hands grabbed hold of her and they started trying to pull her to the ground.

 

There were so many of them; far too many for the witch to turn them all back into mice  and so instead, the witch, clicking her clogs together, turned herself into a mouse instead and, scurrying between the feet of the angry crowd of boys, headed towards the door of the room.

 

And, she almost escaped as well; however, just as she was about to leap through the doorway; Jan, spotting her and thinking quickly, stepped upon the witch mouse’s long tail and then, bending down, snatched the now little mouse sized pair of clogs from off of her tiny pink feet.

 

Then, lifting up his shoe again, Jan let the mouse scamper away.

 

But without her magic clogs, the witch was never able to turn back into her human form and spent the rest of her life as a mouse and was thus never heard of or seen again.

 

Then, however, because they had nowhere else to go, Jan took all the boys who had been Hulda’s slaves back to his Grandma’s house where his Grandmother, though quite astounded, happily made them all a big pot of soup and an enormous pile of cheese sandwiches and even put the little tulip in a vase full of water.

 

And then, later, after the boys had all eaten and were feeling sleepy, Jan’s grandmother put the little mouse sized clogs on her thumb and index finger and, clicking them together, turned the witches towering windmill into a beautiful big orphanage where all the boys could live and then they; Jan and his Grandmother, all lived together happily ever after.