The Magic Toybox – Part 2

Over the many rooftops of a snow covered kingdom they flew, Prince Tyan and Princess Katzerina, upon the back of the magic rocking horse and all below them looked like a toy world and all the hundreds of people that they saw milling around, like living dolls and they saw the great granite statues of their father and the kings who had come before him, their granite crowns all covered in snow and even they looked tiny and then they saw frozen Lake Marinka covered in hundreds of skaters and the snow covered golden dome and spires of the great city cathedral and Princess Katzerina laughed with glee because it was all so magical while Prince Tyan, who had been bedridden for most of his life, just gazed in stunned but happy silence at it all.

But then they flew beyond their city and over large snow covered hills and forests of birch and pine and then to the estate of a nobleman and, as they were passing over the nobleman’s enormous mansion they started to descend, however the rocking horse had not brought them to look at the mansion but at the small wooden huts nearby where peasants lived.

“This is the estate of Count Smorgski and these are the homes of the peasants who work his land and pay him taxes. They do all the hard work and tend to the land and yet they live in little one room wooden huts while he lives in a great mansion”, said the Rocking horse.

“But surely, it is Gods will that some be rich while others are poor?”, said Princess Katzerina.

“Then is it Gods will that a thief may be rich while those he steals from may be poor?”, asked the Rocking horse, “For all of these lands were taken, not given by any hand of god; taken as wolves
take a lamb, by brute force. All aristocrats are descended from brutes who hide their brutish past behind titles and pageantry. This land belongs to no one, but the peasants who work it have more right to it than the tyrannous Count Smorgsky for they give their blood and sweat and tears to the land”.

Then the rocking horse lead the two children into one of the cramped wooden dwellings and they, who had spent their entire lives in luxury, playing in their warm, brightly lit, lavish nursery or amid walled palace gardens were immediately struck and disheartened by the squalor in which the peasants lived.

“Oh my”, said the princess, candidly, holding her nose, “It really stinks in here”.

“That is the smell of poverty, Children”, said the rocking horse, “Here, in this tiny hut, live a whole family and here they keep their animals too and they do not sleep in nice warm beds as princes and princesses do but on the hard dirt floor or, in winter, as it is now, they may all sleep upon the stove if there is enough room”.

“Such a place is not fit for anyone to live in”, said the Princess, looking around in disgust.

“Well. You will one day have the power to improve the lives of these people”, said the Rocking horse.

But, just then, in a corner of the hut where the peasant family kept an altar with painted religious Ikons, one of the Ikons spoke up, “Don’t listen to that horse!”, said the Ikon, “If you help the poor they will start to get greedy and before long they’ll want your palace and all your possessions too”.

“Quiet, you demon”, said the Rocking horse, glaring at the Ikon, “Back into the darkness with you and tell no more of your lies”.

And then, out of the Ikon, they saw a tiny shadow flee, hissing and cursing the horse as it went.

“There’s one of those wicked shadows that profit from man’s inhumanity but he’s gone back to his dark home”, said the rocking horse and then, leading the children back out into the daylight said, “But pay no heed to what he said. The people who live here, in spite of the fact that they cannot read or write and in spite of the fact that they work the land and have ragged clothes and only wear shoes in the wintertime are people just like your father and they have children just like you and they deserve more than to live in squalor and be exploited by some fat, greedy landlord who never worked for a single part of his wealth”.

Then, however, the children heard the sound of bitter wailing and, following the sound, they came to a place where a child was being buried and its mother was lamenting her loss,

“All I have”, sang the woman, shaking her head, “Is a lake full of tears. All I have is the grief in my heart. Heaven has taken all my joy”.

“This mother’s child was only 4 years old but it got sick like many of the children here because they didn’t have clean drinking water”, said the Rocking horse, sadly.

But then they heard happy laughter and looking round saw a group of children who did not look like peasants but like the children of a lord apart from the fact that their feet were bare.

“There”, said the horse, motioning towards the laughing children, “Are the spirits of the children who have been set free from this sad life. They’re happy because they’re on their way to a place where it is always summer and there are no rich and no poor; no owners of land or of men but just
tranquility in the arms of their saviour”.

Then the prince and princess saw the children become white geese and fly up towards and beyond the clouds.

A cold wind started to blow across Princess Katzerina and made her shiver, “It’s very cold”, she said to the magic rocking horse, “May we go home now?”.

“You may”, said the horse letting the royal children climb upon its back, “But you are fortunate, for the children who live here cannot leave”.

Then the magic rocking horse rose up into the air once again and, flying back over snow covered forest and city, brought the prince and princess safely home to their warm, bright nursery.

“Oh, I am happy to be home”, said the Princess, looking round about her at the beautiful room and all its plush, velvet covered furnishings and her china dolls and toys scattered about, “I had always thought it a dull place to live but it is a far happier place than where I have just been”.

Just then, however, her angry father and four of his palace guards rushed in and he shouted “Arrest that rocking Trojan horse in the name of the king!”.

And the guards set upon the wooden horse with axes for chopping wood and burning torches; but then, suddenly, the wooden horse started to grow and grow, sprouting painted wooden flapping wings on either side of its body; growing a long wooden kneck and a long wooden tail and wooden horns upon its head; transforming, before the eyes of the astonished guards, into a giant wooden dragon and then, even more miraculously, the wooden mouth of the dragon started to open and breath fire and roar like a hundred lions.

“It’s even bigger than the one slain by St George!”, cried one of the guards in terror before fleeing, along with the three other guards, like a frantic mouse from the nursery door.

But the King was braver than his soldiers, not to mention more stubborn and, with a cry of, “Cowards! Knaves to desert your king!”, he drew his sword and charged at the great wooden dragon; driving the blade deep into a painted wooden heart.

However, the dragon, though the kings sword was buried deep up to its golden and jewelled hilt, neither cried nor screamed or wept but merely burst out into ferocious, booming laughter, before
drawing the sword back out with painted wooden claws and hurling it, clattering onto the nursery floor.

Then, shrinking, the dragon magically returned to its former shape of a rocking horse and, whinnying with laughter, the horse said, “Foolish little man! All your sharpest blades of steel are wooden toys to me. You cannot do anything to hurt me”.

“Then”, replied the king, refusing to admit defeat, “I will find the carpenter who made you and when I do I’ll have my own carpenters build him a gallows and hang him from it”.

Suddenly, however the Rocking Horse bowed its head low as if in respect and, at first, the King thought that it might be bowing to him but then he heard a voice from behind him.

“There is no need to look for me. I am the man you want”, said the voice and, turning round, the King saw the carpenter standing before him.

Immediately the king struck the Carpenter and struck him so hard that he was knocked to the ground, “How dare you!”, he said, “Who do you think you are to abduct a kings children and meddle in a kings affairs”.

But the carpenter seemed unafraid of the King and, rising to his feet again, replied, softly, “You know who I am”.

And, stretching his arms out on either side of him, the Carpenter opened his palms and the King saw red roses bloom from his hands and his feet, “I am a carpenter.. of Galilee”.

And then, suddenly, the king started trembling as the Carpenter began to shine as brightly as a window through which the sun is bursting and, kneeling, the King said, “Forgive me, my king”.

“Every man is a king. Every child, a prince or princess”, replied the glowing figure.

The King only nodded, for he was too stunned to speak but then, in a flash, the Carpenter, the rocking horse, the magic toy box and all its wooden toys were gone and there was only the King
and his two children in the nursery.

“I am not the man I was”, said the King, hanging his head in shame and shaking it in disbelief.

“Nor am I the boy I was”, laughed Prince Tyan with glee, leaping about and even spinning round, “I don’t feel ill anymore, Father. I feel just like a normal boy”.

Then, taking hold of their fathers hands, the children persuaded him to come out into the snow with them and play and he did so happily and felt more joyous than he had ever felt before and, seeing him play with his children in the snow; all the peasants round about laughed at him but he didn’t get angry.

Instead, he merely smiled and took off his crown and all his gold and jewels and gave them away to all the peasants and swore, from that moment, to view every man as a king and every child as a prince or princess and he devoted himself to improving the lives of all the peasants in his kingdom so that after that day there was not a person in the land who did not lead a happier life or enjoy a merry Christmas.

The Magic Toybox – Part 2

Over the many rooftops of a snow covered kingdom they flew, Prince Tyan and Princess Katzerina, upon the back of the magic rocking horse and all below them looked like a toy world and all the hundreds of people that they saw milling around, like living dolls and they saw the great granite statues of their father and the kings who had come before him, their granite crowns all covered in snow and even they looked tiny and then they saw frozen Lake Marinka covered in hundreds of skaters and the snow covered golden dome and spires of the great city cathedral and Princess Katzerina laughed with glee because it was all so magical while Prince Tyan, who had been bedridden for most of his life, just gazed in stunned but happy silence at it all.

But then they flew beyond their city and over large snow covered hills and forests of birch and pine and then to the estate of a nobleman and, as they were passing over the nobleman’s enormous mansion they started to descend, however the rocking horse had not brought them to look at the mansion but at the small wooden huts nearby where peasants lived.

“This is the estate of Count Smorgski and these are the homes of the peasants who work his land and pay him taxes. They do all the hard work and tend to the land and yet they live in little one room wooden huts while he lives in a great mansion”, said the Rocking horse.

“But surely, it is Gods will that some be rich while others are poor?”, said Princess Katzerina.

“Then is it Gods will that a thief may be rich while those he steals from may be poor?”, asked the Rocking horse, “For all of these lands were taken, not given by any hand of god; taken as wolves
take a lamb, by brute force. All aristocrats are descended from brutes who hide their brutish past behind titles and pageantry. This land belongs to no one, but the peasants who work it have more right to it than the tyrannous Count Smorgsky for they give their blood and sweat and tears to the land”.

Then the rocking horse lead the two children into one of the cramped wooden dwellings and they, who had spent their entire lives in luxury, playing in their warm, brightly lit, lavish nursery or amid walled palace gardens were immediately struck and disheartened by the squalor in which the peasants lived.

“Oh my”, said the princess, candidly, holding her nose, “It really stinks in here”.

“That is the smell of poverty, Children”, said the rocking horse, “Here, in this tiny hut, live a whole family and here they keep their animals too and they do not sleep in nice warm beds as princes and princesses do but on the hard dirt floor or, in winter, as it is now, they may all sleep upon the stove if there is enough room”.

“Such a place is not fit for anyone to live in”, said the Princess, looking around in disgust.

“Well. You will one day have the power to improve the lives of these people”, said the Rocking horse.

But, just then, in a corner of the hut where the peasant family kept an altar with painted religious Ikons, one of the Ikons spoke up, “Don’t listen to that horse!”, said the Ikon, “If you help the poor they will start to get greedy and before long they’ll want your palace and all your possessions too”.

“Quiet, you demon”, said the Rocking horse, glaring at the Ikon, “Back into the darkness with you and tell no more of your lies”.

And then, out of the Ikon, they saw a tiny shadow flee, hissing and cursing the horse as it went.

“There’s one of those wicked shadows that profit from man’s inhumanity but he’s gone back to his dark home”, said the rocking horse and then, leading the children back out into the daylight said, “But pay no heed to what he said. The people who live here, in spite of the fact that they cannot read or write and in spite of the fact that they work the land and have ragged clothes and only wear shoes in the wintertime are people just like your father and they have children just like you and they deserve more than to live in squalor and be exploited by some fat, greedy landlord who never worked for a single part of his wealth”.

Then, however, the children heard the sound of bitter wailing and, following the sound, they came to a place where a child was being buried and its mother was lamenting her loss,

“All I have”, sang the woman, shaking her head, “Is a lake full of tears. All I have is the grief in my heart. Heaven has taken all my joy”.

“This mother’s child was only 4 years old but it got sick like many of the children here because they didn’t have clean drinking water”, said the Rocking horse, sadly.

But then they heard happy laughter and looking round saw a group of children who did not look like peasants but like the children of a lord apart from the fact that their feet were bare.

“There”, said the horse, motioning towards the laughing children, “Are the spirits of the children who have been set free from this sad life. They’re happy because they’re on their way to a place where it is always summer and there are no rich and no poor; no owners of land or of men but just
tranquility in the arms of their saviour”.

Then the prince and princess saw the children become white geese and fly up towards and beyond the clouds.

A cold wind started to blow across Princess Katzerina and made her shiver, “It’s very cold”, she said to the magic rocking horse, “May we go home now?”.

“You may”, said the horse letting the royal children climb upon its back, “But you are fortunate, for the children who live here cannot leave”.

Then the magic rocking horse rose up into the air once again and, flying back over snow covered forest and city, brought the prince and princess safely home to their warm, bright nursery.

“Oh, I am happy to be home”, said the Princess, looking round about her at the beautiful room and all its plush, velvet covered furnishings and her china dolls and toys scattered about, “I had always thought it a dull place to live but it is a far happier place than where I have just been”.

Just then, however, her angry father and four of his palace guards rushed in and he shouted “Arrest that rocking Trojan horse in the name of the king!”.

And the guards set upon the wooden horse with axes for chopping wood and burning torches; but then, suddenly, the wooden horse started to grow and grow, sprouting painted wooden flapping wings on either side of its body; growing a long wooden kneck and a long wooden tail and wooden horns upon its head; transforming, before the eyes of the astonished guards, into a giant wooden dragon and then, even more miraculously, the wooden mouth of the dragon started to open and breath fire and roar like a hundred lions.

“It’s even bigger than the one slain by St George!”, cried one of the guards in terror before fleeing, along with the three other guards, like a frantic mouse from the nursery door.

But the King was braver than his soldiers, not to mention more stubborn and, with a cry of, “Cowards! Knaves to desert your king!”, he drew his sword and charged at the great wooden dragon; driving the blade deep into a painted wooden heart.

However, the dragon, though the kings sword was buried deep up to its golden and jewelled hilt, neither cried nor screamed or wept but merely burst out into ferocious, booming laughter, before
drawing the sword back out with painted wooden claws and hurling it, clattering onto the nursery floor.

Then, shrinking, the dragon magically returned to its former shape of a rocking horse and, whinnying with laughter, the horse said, “Foolish little man! All your sharpest blades of steel are wooden toys to me. You cannot do anything to hurt me”.

“Then”, replied the king, refusing to admit defeat, “I will find the carpenter who made you and when I do I’ll have my own carpenters build him a gallows and hang him from it”.

Suddenly, however the Rocking Horse bowed its head low as if in respect and, at first, the King thought that it might be bowing to him but then he heard a voice from behind him.

“There is no need to look for me. I am the man you want”, said the voice and, turning round, the King saw the carpenter standing before him.

Immediately the king struck the Carpenter and struck him so hard that he was knocked to the ground, “How dare you!”, he said, “Who do you think you are to abduct a kings children and meddle in a kings affairs”.

But the carpenter seemed unafraid of the King and, rising to his feet again, replied, softly, “You know who I am”.

And, stretching his arms out on either side of him, the Carpenter opened his palms and the King saw red roses bloom from his hands and his feet, “I am a carpenter.. of Galilee”.

And then, suddenly, the king started trembling as the Carpenter began to shine as brightly as a window through which the sun is bursting and, kneeling, the King said, “Forgive me, my king”.

“Every man is a king. Every child, a prince or princess”, replied the glowing figure.

The King only nodded, for he was too stunned to speak but then, in a flash, the Carpenter, the rocking horse, the magic toy box and all its wooden toys were gone and there was only the King
and his two children in the nursery.

“I am not the man I was”, said the King, hanging his head in shame and shaking it in disbelief.

“Nor am I the boy I was”, laughed Prince Tyan with glee, leaping about and even spinning round, “I don’t feel ill anymore, Father. I feel just like a normal boy”.

Then, taking hold of their fathers hands, the children persuaded him to come out into the snow with them and play and he did so happily and felt more joyous than he had ever felt before and, seeing him play with his children in the snow; all the peasants round about laughed at him but he didn’t get angry.

Instead, he merely smiled and took off his crown and all his gold and jewels and gave them away to all the peasants and swore, from that moment, to view every man as a king and every child as a prince or princess and he devoted himself to improving the lives of all the peasants in his kingdom so that after that day there was not a person in the land who did not lead a happier life or enjoy a merry Christmas.

The Magic Toybox – Part 2

Over the many rooftops of a snow covered kingdom they flew, Prince Tyan and Princess Katzerina, upon the back of the magic rocking horse and all below them looked like a toy world and all the hundreds of people that they saw milling around, like living dolls and they saw the great granite statues of their father and the kings who had come before him, their granite crowns all covered in snow and even they looked tiny and then they saw frozen Lake Marinka covered in hundreds of skaters and the snow covered golden dome and spires of the great city cathedral and Princess Katzerina laughed with glee because it was all so magical while Prince Tyan, who had been bedridden for most of his life, just gazed in stunned but happy silence at it all.

But then they flew beyond their city and over large snow covered hills and forests of birch and pine and then to the estate of a nobleman and, as they were passing over the nobleman’s enormous mansion they started to descend, however the rocking horse had not brought them to look at the mansion but at the small wooden huts nearby where peasants lived.

“This is the estate of Count Smorgski and these are the homes of the peasants who work his land and pay him taxes. They do all the hard work and tend to the land and yet they live in little one room wooden huts while he lives in a great mansion”, said the Rocking horse.

“But surely, it is Gods will that some be rich while others are poor?”, said Princess Katzerina.

“Then is it Gods will that a thief may be rich while those he steals from may be poor?”, asked the Rocking horse, “For all of these lands were taken, not given by any hand of god; taken as wolves
take a lamb, by brute force. All aristocrats are descended from brutes who hide their brutish past behind titles and pageantry. This land belongs to no one, but the peasants who work it have more right to it than the tyrannous Count Smorgsky for they give their blood and sweat and tears to the land”.

Then the rocking horse lead the two children into one of the cramped wooden dwellings and they, who had spent their entire lives in luxury, playing in their warm, brightly lit, lavish nursery or amid walled palace gardens were immediately struck and disheartened by the squalor in which the peasants lived.

“Oh my”, said the princess, candidly, holding her nose, “It really stinks in here”.

“That is the smell of poverty, Children”, said the rocking horse, “Here, in this tiny hut, live a whole family and here they keep their animals too and they do not sleep in nice warm beds as princes and princesses do but on the hard dirt floor or, in winter, as it is now, they may all sleep upon the stove if there is enough room”.

“Such a place is not fit for anyone to live in”, said the Princess, looking around in disgust.

“Well. You will one day have the power to improve the lives of these people”, said the Rocking horse.

But, just then, in a corner of the hut where the peasant family kept an altar with painted religious Ikons, one of the Ikons spoke up, “Don’t listen to that horse!”, said the Ikon, “If you help the poor they will start to get greedy and before long they’ll want your palace and all your possessions too”.

“Quiet, you demon”, said the Rocking horse, glaring at the Ikon, “Back into the darkness with you and tell no more of your lies”.

And then, out of the Ikon, they saw a tiny shadow flee, hissing and cursing the horse as it went.

“There’s one of those wicked shadows that profit from man’s inhumanity but he’s gone back to his dark home”, said the rocking horse and then, leading the children back out into the daylight said, “But pay no heed to what he said. The people who live here, in spite of the fact that they cannot read or write and in spite of the fact that they work the land and have ragged clothes and only wear shoes in the wintertime are people just like your father and they have children just like you and they deserve more than to live in squalor and be exploited by some fat, greedy landlord who never worked for a single part of his wealth”.

Then, however, the children heard the sound of bitter wailing and, following the sound, they came to a place where a child was being buried and its mother was lamenting her loss,

“All I have”, sang the woman, shaking her head, “Is a lake full of tears. All I have is the grief in my heart. Heaven has taken all my joy”.

“This mother’s child was only 4 years old but it got sick like many of the children here because they didn’t have clean drinking water”, said the Rocking horse, sadly.

But then they heard happy laughter and looking round saw a group of children who did not look like peasants but like the children of a lord apart from the fact that their feet were bare.

“There”, said the horse, motioning towards the laughing children, “Are the spirits of the children who have been set free from this sad life. They’re happy because they’re on their way to a place where it is always summer and there are no rich and no poor; no owners of land or of men but just
tranquility in the arms of their saviour”.

Then the prince and princess saw the children become white geese and fly up towards and beyond the clouds.

A cold wind started to blow across Princess Katzerina and made her shiver, “It’s very cold”, she said to the magic rocking horse, “May we go home now?”.

“You may”, said the horse letting the royal children climb upon its back, “But you are fortunate, for the children who live here cannot leave”.

Then the magic rocking horse rose up into the air once again and, flying back over snow covered forest and city, brought the prince and princess safely home to their warm, bright nursery.

“Oh, I am happy to be home”, said the Princess, looking round about her at the beautiful room and all its plush, velvet covered furnishings and her china dolls and toys scattered about, “I had always thought it a dull place to live but it is a far happier place than where I have just been”.

Just then, however, her angry father and four of his palace guards rushed in and he shouted “Arrest that rocking Trojan horse in the name of the king!”.

And the guards set upon the wooden horse with axes for chopping wood and burning torches; but then, suddenly, the wooden horse started to grow and grow, sprouting painted wooden flapping wings on either side of its body; growing a long wooden kneck and a long wooden tail and wooden horns upon its head; transforming, before the eyes of the astonished guards, into a giant wooden dragon and then, even more miraculously, the wooden mouth of the dragon started to open and breath fire and roar like a hundred lions.

“It’s even bigger than the one slain by St George!”, cried one of the guards in terror before fleeing, along with the three other guards, like a frantic mouse from the nursery door.

But the King was braver than his soldiers, not to mention more stubborn and, with a cry of, “Cowards! Knaves to desert your king!”, he drew his sword and charged at the great wooden dragon; driving the blade deep into a painted wooden heart.

However, the dragon, though the kings sword was buried deep up to its golden and jewelled hilt, neither cried nor screamed or wept but merely burst out into ferocious, booming laughter, before
drawing the sword back out with painted wooden claws and hurling it, clattering onto the nursery floor.

Then, shrinking, the dragon magically returned to its former shape of a rocking horse and, whinnying with laughter, the horse said, “Foolish little man! All your sharpest blades of steel are wooden toys to me. You cannot do anything to hurt me”.

“Then”, replied the king, refusing to admit defeat, “I will find the carpenter who made you and when I do I’ll have my own carpenters build him a gallows and hang him from it”.

Suddenly, however the Rocking Horse bowed its head low as if in respect and, at first, the King thought that it might be bowing to him but then he heard a voice from behind him.

“There is no need to look for me. I am the man you want”, said the voice and, turning round, the King saw the carpenter standing before him.

Immediately the king struck the Carpenter and struck him so hard that he was knocked to the ground, “How dare you!”, he said, “Who do you think you are to abduct a kings children and meddle in a kings affairs”.

But the carpenter seemed unafraid of the King and, rising to his feet again, replied, softly, “You know who I am”.

And, stretching his arms out on either side of him, the Carpenter opened his palms and the King saw red roses bloom from his hands and his feet, “I am a carpenter.. of Galilee”.

And then, suddenly, the king started trembling as the Carpenter began to shine as brightly as a window through which the sun is bursting and, kneeling, the King said, “Forgive me, my king”.

“Every man is a king. Every child, a prince or princess”, replied the glowing figure.

The King only nodded, for he was too stunned to speak but then, in a flash, the Carpenter, the rocking horse, the magic toy box and all its wooden toys were gone and there was only the King
and his two children in the nursery.

“I am not the man I was”, said the King, hanging his head in shame and shaking it in disbelief.

“Nor am I the boy I was”, laughed Prince Tyan with glee, leaping about and even spinning round, “I don’t feel ill anymore, Father. I feel just like a normal boy”.

Then, taking hold of their fathers hands, the children persuaded him to come out into the snow with them and play and he did so happily and felt more joyous than he had ever felt before and, seeing him play with his children in the snow; all the peasants round about laughed at him but he didn’t get angry.

Instead, he merely smiled and took off his crown and all his gold and jewels and gave them away to all the peasants and swore, from that moment, to view every man as a king and every child as a prince or princess and he devoted himself to improving the lives of all the peasants in his kingdom so that after that day there was not a person in the land who did not lead a happier life or enjoy a merry Christmas.