The Fire Queen

One Autumn day, long ago, the fire queen was travelling through the land as fast as wildfire spreads when she came to a house, outside of which, three little boys were playing.

 

And she made herself a firework display for them, with roman candles and whirling Catherine wheels and fountains of every colour and loud bangs and whooshes.

 

And the fireworks were so exciting to the little boys that their eyes lit up with wonder.

 

“We like you fire queen”, they said.

 

But then the mother of the three little boys saw the fire queen and dragged her sons away from her.

 

“No boy ever went near the fire queen without getting burned”, she told them.

 

But the fire queen just laughed like the roar and crackle of flames,

 

“Boys don’t want weak mothers milk. Boys want fireworks and they will come and leap into my flames sooner or later, you’ll see”.

 

But the mother took her sons inside and then, coming back out with a pail of water, hurled it at the fire queen and, because the fire queen did not want to get wet, she went away but said to the mother.

 

“I don’t need to take your boys. They will come to me”.

 

And, just as she had said, when the fire queen had gone, the boys told their mother that they hated her,

 

“We don’t want to stay with you”, they said, “We want to go with the fire queen”.

 

And so the mother locked the boys in their room for fear that they might try to run away.

 

But then, the next day, a bonfire started to blaze outside the woman’s house and, speaking with the fire queens voice, it called to the boys inside the house,

 

“Come little boys, jump into my bright flames”.

 

But the boys said to the fire, calling from their window.

 

“We cannot because our mother has locked us in our room. We can’t get out”.

 

And so the fire, reaching out and touching the metal lock upon the window, melted it and then the boys broke out of their room and started to run happily towards the fire, singing;

 

“We like fire; fire excites; fire is hot; fire is bright”.

 

But then, suddenly, out of the house came their mother and she had covered herself all over in Autumn leaves of bright red and gold and amber that looked just like flames.

 

“Look”, she said to the boys, dancing, “I can be a fire queen too, if that’s what you like but my arms will not burn you”.

 

And, when the boys saw their mother dressed in flames they preferred their mother to the fire queen and they ran back to her.

 

Then the fire queen, realising that she’d been defeated went away upon the wind but said to the woman as she left,

 

“I shall come back when your sons are older and, when I do, you will see; they’ll come to me then”.

 

And, years later, when the boys had grown into men, the fire queen came back to the woman’s house, just as she’d promised, and she had not aged a day but the mother had grown old and grey and wrinkled.

 

Appearing before the three men she put on her bright fireworks display again and said to them,

 

“Your mother is as old and grey as smoke and cinder, now will you leave her and come into my flames”.

 

But the three sons said to the fire queen;

 

“No. Because our mother became our fire queen, it made us love her more and now there is a fire of love in our hearts for her; we could never leave her”.

 

And so, the fire queen, realizing that she had been defeated a second time , blew away again upon the wind and never bothered the mother or her three sons ever again.