There was once an elf that lived in the pocket of a trench coat that had been abandoned in an alley. It wasn’t the roomiest of places to live and how the furnishings were barren!
“It may not be much, but it has a charm about it, for sure!” She told herself each morning when she woke up and each evening when she went to bed.
One day the little pocket of the elf began to shake and swing, leaving its resident scared out of her wits.
“What’s this?!” She shrieked as she fumbled around, hoping to gain some footing.
She somehow managed to crawl and climb her way to the lip of her home to see a poor shoemaker dusting off the trench coat in which the little elf lived. Slowly, shivering in the cold, he shuffled back to his hovel where there were many forlorn half-finished shoes scattered about. The poor man’s hands had been shaking so much that he could hardly stich the shoes together properly.
“What an outright shame this is!” the little elf cried out at the sight, her own home forgotten. “Why, this poor fella needs help, he does!”
Later that night, when the shoemaker had somehow fallen asleep on the icy ground, the elf got to work. She pushed and pulled throughout the night, trying desperately to help the poor man who was curled up in a mere trench coat for warmth. It took almost all of her strength and concentration, but by morning a single pair of beautiful shoes was left in the poor man’s room.
“Goodness gracious!” The man gave a shout as the shoes entered his line of sight. “I must’ve forgotten these, how silly of me!” and he rushed into town to sell his only good pair of shoes. They were so well constructed that the man had no trouble selling them right away for a generous price. The man quickly spent his earnings on food and wood for the fire. When he returned home, he dined for the first time in what must have been years, the elf guessed as he scarfed it all down. Then, he lit a fire for the room and fell asleep lazily in the glow’s warmth.
The elf felt the glow of the fire and felt rejuvenated.
“Why, I feel like I can make two pairs of shoes in this warmth, I can!”
And so it went that the elf would make more and more shoes each night, and the man would sell and spend his money on wood, wine and women. This went on for many a year until one day the elf, who had worked so much, had grown old and tired. She could no longer craft any shoes, and thus the man eventually sold out. He had no savings to go back on and he had long since lost his craft for shoemaking. To this day his pockets are just as empty as the elf’s former home.
Note from the Author: This was originally inspired by the famous Fairy Tale The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm. This is just my little twist on a classic tale with a much different ending than the Grimm version. I hope you enjoy!
