Knjigice
Fairy tale · Classic fairy tales
The Phoenix and the Carpet
The story of a golden bird and a carpet that grants wishes
Also in: Feniks in preproga (Slovenian) · Fénix a koberec (Slovak)
One November evening the children set off fireworks in the nursery — right on the old carpet. The little stars fizzed beautifully, and then the last rocket shot sideways. The carpet smouldered and the whole room smelled of smoke. Mother came running with a bucket of water. By morning the old carpet was full of black holes. "We shall buy another," she said.
1
A new carpet arrived from the shop — an old one, really, Persian, red with a blue pattern. Cyril unrolled it across the floor and something rolled out of it onto the bare boards. An egg! As big as an orange, and glowing like gold. "A bird's?" asked Jane. Robert set it carefully on the shelf. But Anthea said: "That is no ordinary egg."
2
That evening Robert spun the egg along the shelf and it rolled straight into the fire. The children cried out. But the egg did not burst in the heat — it opened like a flower. Out of the flames rose a golden bird as big as a pheasant, its tail like a fan of fire. It shook its feathers and said clearly: "Good morning. I have slept two thousand years."
3
"The carpet you are standing on," the Phoenix explained, "is no ordinary one. Three times a day it will carry you wherever you wish." The children had no words. "And I," the bird added, drawing himself up, "am a personage of great importance. Politeness is never wasted, especially upon phoenixes." Anthea bowed low, and the Phoenix liked her at once.
4
"We wish for somewhere sunny!" said Cyril. The carpet lifted, and in a blink they were sitting on top of a ruined tower above a French hillside, among vines and the chirring of grasshoppers. In a corner Jane noticed a stone that was not quite in its place. Under it lay a little chest of old gold coins. "You see," said the Phoenix, "politeness pays."
5
Next time the carpet rose too quickly — the cook was still sweeping it. They landed on a hot shore among palm trees. The islanders crowded round her, hung a garland of flowers about her neck and cheered. "What are they saying?" asked Robert. "That she is their queen," said the Phoenix. The cook straightened her cap: "Well. Somebody appreciates me at last."
6
The children tugged at her sleeve: "Come home with us!" But the cook looked at the palms, the sea and her new subjects, and shook her head firmly. "At home I scrub pots from morning till night. Here I am a queen. I stay." The children shook her hand and wished her luck. Then the carpet carried them home — without the cook, and without any dinner.
7
"Now to my temple," the Phoenix demanded. The carpet set them down before a great house in the middle of the city, where a golden bird in flames really did shine above the door — a fire insurance office. The Phoenix strode grandly in. The clerks laid down their pens, stood up and bowed to the ground. "You see," said the bird, well pleased, "they worship me still."
8
One day they wished for a cat. The carpet misunderstood and came back with a hundred Persian cats, mewing all over the room. "They are hungry," said Anthea. And a hundred cats need a hundred saucers of milk! So the children sent the carpet for a cow — and it stood there calmly in the middle of the nursery until every last cat was full.
9
The carpet was old, and every wish wore it thinner. Its edge frayed, its pattern faded, and a hole opened in the middle. The Phoenix, too, dozed longer on the shelf. "A thousand years is quite enough to be awake," he said one evening. "Now I am tired." The children said nothing. They knew what that meant.
10
He built up the fire himself with a great beat of his wings. When the flames danced at their highest, the golden bird stepped into them. "Do not be afraid," he said. "In the fire I shall lay a new egg, and fall asleep inside it." The children asked the carpet to carry him somewhere quiet. The carpet shivered and was gone up the chimney.
11
In the morning the nursery was perfectly ordinary. On the floor lay a new, ordinary carpet that could not fly anywhere at all. The grown-ups noticed nothing. Everything was just as it had been — except when one of the children sits on that carpet, the plain, new one, quite still, and smiles.
12The End
