The Fairy BootsBefore the Storyteller's Garden was created, the patch of land at Church Stile was a jungle with an interesting clump of grass. One day a tramp man, a gentleman of the road who had walked for many days without stopping for a meal, a sleep or even a wash, was walking out of Grasmere and his feet were killing him. He spotted a tuft of grass and thought it would be a nice place to take the weight off his feet, and maybe even to have forty winks. He sat down and, because he hadn't stopped walking for many hours, he kicked his boots off and was soon fast asleep.
He had been so eager to sit down that he hadn't noticed he was in the middle of a circle of toadstools; a fairy ring. And because he hadn't stopped for a wash, he hadn't shaved either so he had a stubbly chin. After a few moments he was awakened by somebody pulling on one of his whiskers as though it were a tug- of-war rope. OUCH! He opened his eyes to discover it was a tiny man in a yellow and green suit.
'Get out,' he yelped.
'Get out yourself!' said the fairy. 'You're in my place.'
'What do you mean, I'm in your place?' asked the tramp.
'This is the fairy ring and my king, the King of the Fairies, it's his birthday today. We're going to have a party right here. You're sitting where the band is going, and where your old boots are, that's where the food and drink are going. In short, you're in the way. Clear off.'
The tramp looked down at his worn old boots and saw that the tops had come away from the bottoms.
He said, 'If you would only give me some new boots, then I'll clear off.'
In a twink, the little man was gone. In what may have been a second or it may have been a minute, he returned clutching a pair of bright yellow boots in his fingers. He popped them down by the tramp and said, 'There's your new boots. Now clear off.'
The tramp picked the boots up and examined them. Those boots were buttercup yellow, every stitch was perfect, but they were only half the size of one of the tramp's thumbs. Angrily the tramp complained, 'Those boots are so small, they wouldn't even fit on my big toe'.
The little man said, 'Try them. Those boots are fairy boots. They're bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. Try them.'
The tramp slipped one of the boots over his right big toe and the other over his left. His feet slipped right inside. They were a perfect fit. Excited, he turned to the fairy. 'Those boots are fantastic. Where can I get boots like that?'
The little man replied, 'Money wouldn't buy you boots like that. However, my king, the King of the Fairies, tells me you can have those boots if you make me a promise. You must promise me you'll never ever tell a soul where they came from. And if you do, they'll disappear back to where they came from at the speed of light.'
The tramp promised and, doing up the laces, set off towards the road. 'Oy!' The little man called him back. 'You've forgotten something. You've forgotten your old boots.'
'But I don't need them any more, said the tramp man.
'Never mind,' said the fairy, 'If you're in beautiful Lakeland, you can't leave rubbish lying around. Put it in a bin or take it home with you.'
The tramp picked up the old boots and put one in each of his jacket pockets, and it was a good job that he did. He set off down the road, walking faster and farther than he had ever done before. He didn't stop to eat, he didn't stop to drink and he didn't even stop to wash ... and it was hot midsummer. He didn't stop to wash his feet and change his socks, so before long his feet started to smell. In fact, his feet ponged so badly that all of the cows looking over the hedge said poo instead of moo. That tramp was more than two metres tall so you can see how far his nose was away from his socks, but even he couldn't stand the stench any longer. He was going to have to wash his feet. He looked into the next field and saw a fisherman standing waist-deep in a river, fly- fishing. The tramp thought that the fisherman would not be pleased if he muddied the stream, but too bad. He couldn't stand the smell any longer. He walked over to the river and removed his buttercup-yellow boots, putting them on a stone. His socks were so rotten that they fell off. He dipped his toes in the water. It felt so good he had to stand up and plodge around. This made the stream muddy. The fisherman turned to tell the tramp to push off when he spotted the bright yellow boots on the stone.
'Those boots are fantastic. Where can I get boots like that?'
The tramp replied that money could not buy boots like that.
'Well, whose are they?' asked the fisherman.
'They're mine,' said the tramp.
'But they're too small,' said the fisherman, 'they can't be yours. 'Ah,' said the tramp, 'those boots are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.'
'Where did you get them?' the fisherman enquired.
'Not saying,' said the tramp.
The fisherman told the tramp that if he couldn't reveal the origin of the boots, he'd probably stolen them. Then the fisherman said that if the tramp would say where he had got the boots, he would leave him in peace. So, just to get the fisherman out of his hair, the tramp man told him the story of how he had come by the boots. Looking up at the sky, the tramp realised there was just enough daylight for him to walk another five miles. He paddled to the bank and bent down to put on his boots. Although he searched under the stones and in the grass, he couldn't find them anywhere. They had gone back to where they had come from. All the tramp could do was to take the old boots out of his jacket pocket and wrap a piece of orange baler-twine around them, and walk off down the road.
So if you're in the Lake District and you spot a gentlemen of the road with old boots with orange twine wrapped around them, then you know as I know that he once had a pair of buttercup-yellow boots but he lost them because he didn't know how to keep a promise to the fairies.