One winter’s night a traveller became lost in a forest.
He was chilled to the bone, tired, hungry, afraid.
As if in answer to his prayers, out of the dark came a strange figure.
‘Come with me.’
The creature took the traveller’s hand in his paw and led him to a hut.
‘Come inside.’
Paragraph: Gratefully the traveller stumbled in.
‘Welcome. Welcome to my home.’
The traveller looked the creature up and down.
This thing was hairy;
sharp ears, a tail, and the legs of a goat.
Paragraph: ‘Thank you,’ said the man. ‘But please tell me:
I have never met a creature like you before, what are you?’
Paragraph: ‘I am a satyr.
What are you?’
Paragraph: ‘I am a man.’
Paragraph: ‘A man? Your kind and my kind will be friends.’
Paragraph: The traveller lifted his hands to his mouth then and
– ‘fwww’ –
blew.
The satyr was fascinated.
Paragraph: ‘Why do you do this?’
Paragraph: ‘I blow on my hands to make them warm.’
Paragraph: The Satyr was amazed.
‘Please, come and sit by my fire.’
So the traveller sat.
Paragraph: Over the fire was a bubbling pot of soup.
The satyr ladled out two bowls.
One he kept for himself,
the other he passed to the man.
The man cupped the bowl in his hands,
lifted it to his lips and
– ‘fwww’.
Paragraph: The satyr: ‘Why do you do this?’
Paragraph: ‘I blow on the soup,’ said the man,
‘to cool it down.’
Paragraph: Solemnly, the satyr put down his bowl.
‘I am sorry.
I thought you and I could be friends but I am wrong.
I will stay with the animals,
for you are a creature that can blow hot and cold with the same breath.’