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Diddily Dee Dot's Dreamland for Children Everywhere
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Older Entries
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Thu, 05 Nov 2009
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 From Arthur and Merlin to the Iroquois Indians and the Elves. |
THE little Elves of
Darkness, so says the old
Iroquois Grandmother, were wise and
 mysterious.
They dwelt under the Earth, where were deep
forests and broad plains. There they kept captive
all the evil things that wished to injure human
beings,—the venomous snakes, the wicked spiders,
and the fearful monsters. Sometimes one of these
evil creatures escaped and rushed upward to the
bright,
pure air, and spread its poisonous breath over the
Upper World. But such happenings were rare,
for the Elves of Darkness were faithful and strong,
and did not  willingly allow
the wicked beasts and
reptiles to harm human beings and the growing things.
 When the
night was lighted by the Moon's soft rays,
and the woods of the Upper World were sweet with
the odour
of the Spring flowers, then the Elves of Darkness left
the Under World, and creeping from their holes,
held a festival in the woods. And under many a tree
where the blades of grass had refused to grow,
the Little People danced until rings of green sprang
up under their feet. And to the festival came the
Elves
of Light,—among them the Tree-Elves, Flower-Elves,
and Fruit-Elves. They too danced and made merry.
But when the moonlight faded
away, and day began to break,
then the Elves of Darkness
scampered back to their holes,
and returned once more to the Under World,
while the Elves of Light began their daily tasks.
For in the Springtime these Little People of Light
hid in sheltered places. They listened to the
complaints
of the seeds that lay covered in the ground,
and they whispered to the Earth until the seeds burst
their pods and sent their shoots up
to the light.
Then the little Elves wandered through the woods
bidding all growing things look up to the Sun.
The Tree-Elves
tended the trees, unfolding their leaves,
and feeding their roots with sap from
the Earth.
The Flower-Elves unwrapped the baby buds,
and tinted the petals of the opening flowers,
and played with the Butterflies and Bees.
But the busiest of all were the Fruit-Elves.
Their greatest care in the Spring was the
Strawberry Plant.
When the ground softened from the frost,
the Fruit-Elves loosened the soil around each
Strawberry root, that its shoots might push through
to the light. They shaped the plant's leaves,
and turned its blossoms toward the warm rays of the
Sun.
They trained its runners, and helped the timid
fruit to form. They painted the luscious berry,
and bade it ripen. And when the first Strawberries
blushed on the vines, these guardian Elves
protected them from the evil insects
that had escaped from the world of darkness
underground.
 The old Iroquois Grandmother tells how
once, when the fruit first came to earth, the Evil
One, Hahgwehdaetgah, stole the Strawberry
Plant, and carried it to his gloomy cave, where he
hid it away.
And there it lay until a tiny sunbeam pierced the
damp mould, and finding the little vine,
carried it back to its sunny fields.
And ever since then the Strawberry Plant has
lived
and thrived in the fields and woods. But the
Fruit-Elves, fearing lest the Evil One should one
day steal the vine again, watch day and night
over their favourite. And when the Strawberries
ripen,
the Elves give the juicy, fragrant fruit
to the Iroquois children as they gather the
Spring flowers in the woods.
 Hahgwedaetgah
Iroquois Creator of Evil & Ruler of
the
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Posted 18:39
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Tue, 03 Nov 2009
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| I am sure you are fed up at looking at these now. Evening off for me tonight. xxx |
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Posted 16:24
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Mon, 02 Nov 2009
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| A Smiley Moon to start a new month, not long until Christmas comes. Are you all getting excited? |
CYDNEY'S
CASTLE
CYDNEY'S
CASTLE
CYDNEY'S
CASTLE
WHAT THE MOON
SAW!
IT is a strange thing, when
I feel most
fervently and most deeply, my hands and my
tongue seem alike tied, so that I
cannot rightly describe or accurately portray the
thoughts that are rising
within me; and yet I am a painter; my eye tells me
as much as that, and all my
friends who have seen my sketches and fancies say
the same.
I am a poor lad, and live in one of the narrowest
of lanes; but I do not want
for light, as my room is high up in the house, with
an extensive prospect over
the neighbouring roofs. During the first few days I
went to live in the town, I
felt low-spirited and solitary enough. Instead of
the forest and the green hills
of former days, I had here only a forest of
chimney-pots to look out upon. And
then I had not a single friend; not one familiar
face greeted me.
So one evening I sat at the window, in a desponding
mood; and presently I
opened the casement and looked out. Oh, how my
heart leaped up with joy! Here
was a well-known face at last—a round, friendly
countenance, the face of a good
friend I had known at home.
In, fact, it was
the MOON
that looked in
upon me.
He was quite unchanged, the dear old Moon, and had
the same face exactly that
he used to show when he peered down upon me through
the willow trees on the
moor. I kissed my hand to him over and over again,
as he shone far into my
little room; and he, for his part, promised me that
every evening, when he came
abroad, he would look in upon me for a few moments.
This promise he has
faithfully kept. It is a pity that he can only stay
such a short time when he
comes. Whenever he appears, he tells me of one
thing or another that he has
seen on the previous night, or on that same  evening. “Just paint the scenes I
describe to you”—this is what he said to me—“and
you will have a very pretty
picture-book.” I have followed his injunction for
many evenings. I could make
up a new “Thousand and One Nights,” in my own way,
out of these pictures, but
the number might be too great, after all. The
pictures I have here given have
not been chosen at random, but follow in their
proper order, just as they were
described to me. Some great gifted painter, or some
poet or musician, may make
something more of them if he likes; what I have
given here are only hasty
sketches, hurriedly put upon the paper, with some
of my own thoughts,
interspersed; for the Moon did not come to me every
evening— a cloud sometimes
hid his face from me.
First
Evening
LAST
night”—I am quoting the Moon’s own words—“last
night I was gliding through
the cloudless Indian sky. My face was mirrored in
the waters of the Ganges, and my beams strove to
pierce through the thick
intertwining boughs of the bananas, arching beneath
me like the tortoise’s
shell. Forth from the thicket tripped a Hindoo
maid, light as a gazelle,
beautiful as Eve. Airy and etherial as a vision,
and yet sharply defined amid
the surrounding shadows, stood this daughter of
Hindostan: I could read on her
delicate brow the thought that had brought her
hither. The thorny creeping
plants tore her sandals, but for all that she came
 rapidly forward. The deer
that had come down to the river to quench her
thirst, sprang by with a startled
bound, for in her hand the maiden bore a lighted
lamp. I could see the blood in
her delicate finger tips, as she spread them for a
screen before the dancing
flame. She came down to the stream, and set the
lamp upon the water, and let it
float away. The flame flickered to and fro, and
seemed ready to expire; but
still the lamp burned on, and the girl’s
black sparkling eyes, half veiled
behind their long silken lashes, followed it with a
gaze of earnest intensity.
She knew that if the lamp continued to burn so long
as she could keep it in
sight, her betrothed was still alive; but if the
lamp was suddenly
extinguished, he was dead. And the lamp burned
bravely on, and she fell on her
knees, and prayed. Near her in the grass lay a
speckled snake, but she heeded
it not—she thought only of Bramah and of her
betrothed. ‘He lives!’ she shouted
joyfully, ‘he lives!’ And from the mountains the
echo came back upon her, ‘he
lives!’”
Second
Evening
YESTERDAY,” said the Moon to me, “I looked down
upon a small courtyard
surrounded on all sides by houses. In the courtyard
sat a clucking hen with
eleven chickens; and a pretty little girl was
running and jumping around them.
The hen was frightened, and screamed, and spread
out her wings over the little
brood. Then the girl’s father came out and scolded
her; and I glided away and
thought no more of the matter. 
“But this evening, only a few minutes ago, I looked
down into the same
courtyard. Everything was quiet. But presently the
little girl came forth
again, crept quietly to the hen-house, pushed back
the bolt, and slipped into
the apartment of the hen and chickens. They cried
out loudly, and came
fluttering down from their perches, and ran about
in dismay, and the little
girl ran after them. I saw it quite plainly, for I
looked through a hole in the
hen-house wall. I was angry with the willful child,
and felt glad when her
father came out and scolded her more violently than
yesterday, holding her
roughly by the arm; she held down her head, and her
blue eyes were full of
large tears. ‘What are you about here?’ he asked.
She wept and said, ‘I wanted
to kiss the hen and beg her pardon for frightening
her yesterday; but I was
afraid to tell you.’
“And the father kissed the
innocent child’s forehead, and I kissed her on the
mouth and eyes.”
And there you go
, the first two little tales from the one and only
Hans Christian Anderson, we still have thirty more
to go, I hope you will stay awake to read them all.
But not all tonight, two is quite enough for one
night., by the way there are 14 little
chickens.
Hugs, Diddilydeedot in Dreamland.
xxxx
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Posted 21:52
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Fri, 30 Oct 2009
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 One more night and the tricks and the treats will begin. I wonder if any of you like water-melons |
An old Ghost story
from Alabama
Now, old Sam Gibb, he didn't believe in ghosts, not
one little bit.
Everyone in town knew the old log cabin back in the
woods was haunted,
but Sam Gibb just laughed whenever folks talked
about it. Finally, the
blacksmith dared Sam Gibb to spend the night in the
haunted log cabin and if he stayed there until
dawn, the blacksmith would buy him a whole
cartload of water-melons. Sam was delighted, if he
had one passion in life, it was the water-melon. It
was Sam's
absolute favourite fruit, so of course he accepted
the dare at once, packed some
matches and his pipe, and went right over to the
log cabin to spend the
night in the old cabin. He set about lighting a
fire, then he lit his pipe and
settled down in a rickety old arm-chair to read his
newspaper. 
He hadn't been reading for too long when he
heard a creaking sound. Sam looked around until his
eyes settle on the chair next to him. On it sat a
gnarled
little creature with glowing red eyes, it
had a long, forked tail, two horns on its head,
claws at the ends of
its hands, and sharp teeth that poked right through
its large lips.
Then it spoke;
"There ain't nobody here tonight
except you and me," it said
to old Sam Gibb. It had a voice like the hiss of
flames. Poor Sam, his heart almost stopped with
fright. He leapt to his feet, knocking the chair
over and yelled.
"Aye and there ain't going to be nobody here
but you in a minute," As he made straight for the
nearest exit, which just happened to be the window.
He was off down that lane lickety-split.
Why,
he ran so fast he overtook two rabbits being chased
by a
coyote. But then he heard the pounding of little
hooves and when he looked round the gnarled
creature with the red eyes was quickly catching up
with him.
"Phew you're making pretty good
speed for an old man," said the creature to old Sam
Gibb.
"Oh, I can run much faster than this," Sam Gibb
told it, and he took off
like a bolt of lightning, leaving the gnarled
creature in the dust.
The Blacksmith came
flying out of the forge
to see what was wrong, all he caught was the words.
"Never mind about them water-melons, you can keep
them" as Sam Gibb shouted without breaking
his stride.
Ha ha ha, poor old Sam Gibb he ran all the way
home and hid under his bed for the rest of
the night, and part of the next
day.
And you
might say that nobody heard him talk about ghosts
and spooks ever again in fact, he became a firm
believer in ghosts and spooks, and
he refused to go anywhere near the old cabin in the
woods, not for a hundred cart-loads of
water-melons.
Diddilydeedot, is tucked away every
halloween, well that is until about midnight when
she has to find her cat Tuppence, and her
broomstick  
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Posted 21:23
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Tue, 27 Oct 2009
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 Legends of the Snow, and the Legends won't blog on Dr Do-Diddilys and the Dee Dot's, so I asked My twin sister can I use her blog and she said ok. xxx |
 - The Legend of the
Arctic Hares
- And why they
Change Colour in Winter
Time
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- Along
time ago in the Arctic forest lived a rabbit. She was a
little brown rabbit. She was born when the sky
was blue, green,
pink, purple and
orange.
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- The
little rabbit liked the colours of the sky so much she
wanted to be those colours. The rabbit tried and
tried, but she
just couldn't change herself into these colours.
- It was getting
close to winter, the little rabbit needed food.
Mama rabbit told her daughter . " Now go get
food!"
-
- As the little rabbit left she asked her
Mom " Is it safe out
there ?"
- " Yes " answered Mom
.
- When the
little rabbit came back home it was raining. For 5
days it rained none stop. On the 6th day the
rain stopped . A
beautiful shinning rainbow appeared in the
sky.
- The
little rabbit looked at all the beautiful colours
in the
sky and wished he could be all those colours.
The little rabbit
was very upset that he would never be able to
change colours.
-
Just then snowflakes fell on her back. She tried to
shake them
off but just couldn't. She noticed she was now
white. The little
rabbit felt very excited because she was no
longer brown and was a
beautiful white . Still she was a little
disappointed because she
wasn't the colours of the rainbow. Mostly she
was proud of her
white coat.
-
- Today if
see an Arctic hare you'll remember that it turns
white in the winter because the snow flakes
stuck to his back. Now
all Arctic hares turn white in the
winter.
by
Alyssa M.
-
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Posted 16:49
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