The Middle Brother

Stories for Another Day

Once there was a wealthy man who had three sons. The eldest son, Marcus, was tall and well-made, the second son, Elford, was not as tall and not as well-made, and the youngest son, whose name was Jack, was the smallest but the bravest and the cleverest.

Marcus worked hard on the farm and looked after the house. The youngest son, Jack, set off to have adventures, in the time-honoured tradition. The middle son, Elford, really didn’t have much to do.

Elford had read all the story-books so he knew that his job was to do whatever his older brother Marcus did, but not quite as well. When there was a princess that needed rescuing, Marcus would leave his work and go to rescue her, and fail at the last moment, or be bewitched or turned to stone. Then Elford would try, knowing that he too would fail and be bewitched or turned to stone in his turn. And then Jack would come along and rescue the princess and defeat the witch or the wizard and undo the enchantment so that Marcus and Elford could go back to their normal work.

Elford wondered sometimes why he bothered. But still, it was what people expected and he didn’t want to let anyone down.

One day while Marcus was off riding his big, black horse, and Jack was out slaying giants as he often did, there was a knock at the door. It was a girl with brown curly hair and a silk dress and very nice shoes. Elford knew at once that she was a princess. He bowed low and said, “Your highness, how may I help you?”

The princess, whose name was Tissa, looked behind him and around him, and said, “Do you have an older brother? Or a younger brother, possibly named Jack?”

Elford knew that if he said he had an older brother, or a younger brother named Jack, then that would be the end of any chance of adventure for him, so he said, quite truthfully, “I am the youngest here.”

Tissa looked at him. He wasn’t particularly tall or well-made, he had ordinary straight brown hair, and altogether he looked, well, ordinary. She sighed. “Oh well, if there’s no-one else,” she said.

“How can I be of service?” Elford said, with growing excitement. “Have you a wicked stepmother, or are you afraid of pricking your finger on a spindle and falling asleep for a thousand years?”

“No, nothing like that,” Tissa said. “The fact is, I am under an enchantment.”

“Oh,” said Elford. “Are you transformed into an ogress each day at sunset? Does your hair grow another arm’s-length every day? Do lizards and toads fall from your mouth when you speak?”

“Hardly,” said Tissa. “Wouldn’t you have noticed by now?”

“Yes, of course,” said Elford. It must be said that he was a little disappointed.

“The fact is,” Tissa said, clearing her throat and looking over his shoulder once more. “Are you sure you don’t have an older brother?” she asked.

Elford admitted, “I do have an older brother but he is busy just now trying to ride his horse up a glass hill to rescue another princess.”

“What about a younger brother?” she asked.

Elford said, shamefaced, “Jack is busy slaying giants today, and tomorrow he has an appointment with a cat in boots, and the day after that he is planning to steal some gold from a castle at the top of a giant beanstalk. Would you like to wait?”

The princess said, “Oh. I suppose it will have to be you then.”

Elford’s heart beat faster. “Yes?” he said.

“The enchantment is this,” she said. “I can’t dance.”

Elford smiled. He may even have given a slight chuckle. “Are you sure it is an enchantment, not just a lack of practice, or if you’ll forgive me, a lack of ability?”

Tissa said, “No, listen to me. I can’t dance. Before I became enchanted I was a very good dancer. Everyone said how graceful and elegant I was. But now – just watch.” She lifted her left foot slightly and immediately she fell over as if someone had pushed her flat on her face.

Elford helped her up. “An unfortunate slip,” he said.

“No, you’re not listening,” Tissa said. “Watch.” She tried to give a very small twirl. Her body flew around, banging against one wall and bouncing off another. “See?” she said. “All my sisters dance, but this is what happens whenever I try. It’s terrible! Will you help me?”

Elford was disappointed that her problem was so small and unimportant, but at least a simple enchantment like this couldn’t be hard to fix. It wouldn’t involve anything really difficult, like walking over hot coals or drinking deadly poison, he chuckled to himself. “I’d be happy to help,” he said.

Tissa explained, “A wizard put an enchantment on me after I danced with him at the Royal Ball, just because I stepped on his foot once or twice. He got very angry and said I shouldn’t be allowed to dance again unless I could find someone stupid enough to be willing to risk their life. He said that dancing with me was more dangerous than walking over hot coals, or jumping off a cliff or drinking deadly poison, so that’s what my rescuer would have to do to break the enchantment.”

Elford went pale. The hardest challenge he had ever had was to pick which of three boxes had a princess’s picture in it, and even then he had chosen the wrong box. Still, he had given his word. He swallowed hard and said, “Of course.”

They went down to the village where some of the villagers were burning hot coals in a big pit for a really big barbecue. It was so hot that it burnt the hairs off Elford’s arms when he was still a metre away from it.

Tissa gasped, “You would do this for me? Walk over hot coals?”

Elford wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run away, but that was not the way a hero would act. “Yes, your highness,” he said. The villagers offered to lend him their big, thick boots, but he thought they would make him slower. He took a long, long run-up, and came tearing towards the pit at high speed.

“Wait!” yelled the princess. Elford teetered on the edge of the pit but he managed to save himself from falling in.

“What?” he said, backing away from the scorching heat.

Tissa told the villagers to bring all the blankets they could find, and lay them on top of the hot coals. “Now, Elford, run across the blankets.”

Elford sped across the pit as fast as he could go. His shoes caught on fire, and even his socks were smoking when he got to the other side, but he made it in one piece, with most of his eyebrows.

Tissa was very pleased. “Now go and jump off a cliff,” she said.

Elford’s face lost its smile. “Would a very low cliff be all right, do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Tissa said. They made their way to a nice, high cliff.

Elford looked over the cliff to the ground far beneath and groaned. “Jack would have found a way out of this,” he said to himself. “He’s never come home with burnt feet or broken legs.” Then an idea came to him and he smiled widely.

“What are you thinking?” Tissa asked.

“It’s not jumping off a cliff that hurts,” Elford said, “it’s the landing.”

Tissa smiled back. “Of course!” she said. “I know a friend who has a huge pile of mattresses that she sleeps on at her mother-in-law’s place.”

They borrowed the mattresses and made a pile of them at the bottom of the cliff, then Elford jumped down quite safely.

“Now all you have to do is drink deadly poison,” Tissa said happily.

Elford went pale again. Was he really prepared to die for the princess? And suddenly he realised that he was. “Right,” he said, “bring it on.”

Tissa was thinking. “The wizard didn’t say how much deadly poison. Or how deadly it had to be.”

“You mean, fairly deadly poison, or even quite deadly poison would do?” Elford said.

“Definitely,” Tissa said. “If you drink only a tiny, tiny drop, and then you drink the antidote straight away, perhaps it won’t kill you, but only make you very, very sick.”

“An antidote?” said Elford. “Why didn’t you say so? Let’s do it!”

They got a bottle of only slightly deadly poison, and Elford drank a tiny, tiny amount, hardly enough even to taste it. Then he drank a whole bucketful of the antidote. He was hardly sick at all, considering. When he had stopped being sick, Tissa said joyfully, “The enchantment is lifted! I can dance again! See?” She twirled and spun and waltzed around, and only crashed into one wall and knocked two tables over.

Elford took her in his arms. “I think it might be better if you stick to dancing just with me,” he said tenderly.

The princess said shyly, “I think so too. Would you like my hand in marriage?”

Hand in hand they went to ask Tissa’s parents. Since she was the seventh in a family of twelve princesses, the king and queen were very happy that she had found someone to marry all by herself, and they gave their consent at once. So Elford and Tissa were married and they lived happily together to the end of their days.