Tiidu, the Piper - Part Six

On the day that Tiidu started his journey, the wind had been good. But by night time a gale had picked up. The heavy winds were looking to rock the ship. 

For two days the ship bobbed up-and-down in the water. On the third day the ship hit a rock and began to drown.

Tiidu and three sailors got into the water. 

With the help of an oar which was floating near him Tiidu was able to keep on the surface of the water. In the morning Tiidu so that he was not far from shore. 

He swam hard and collapsed on the shore, realizing that his ship had been wrecked in a storm. 

Some time later, he looked around the island that he had landed and explored the places around him. 

He saw that there was no life on the island. He became very sad and for the first time it was not because Tiidu had lost his money. It was because Tiidu had lost his pipes and he could not make music anymore.  

But Tiidu was hungry as he looked around in the islands and he finally found big beautiful red apples in the trees. 

He ate the apples and then lay down and went to sleep.

In the morning when Tito woke up and went to a stream in the island he was horrified when he saw his own reflection.

He saw that his nose had become the colour of an apple and it had become so long that his nose reached his waist. 

He thought he was dreaming and he became very sad. He tried to cure the sudden growth of his nose but he did not know how to solve it. 

He did not know what had caused it.

Soon Tiidu was so exhausted with grief that he looked around and realized that he had to eat something just to survive. 

He found some ripe brown nuts and ate a handful of them. 

That was when he was shocked because his nose grew shorter and shorter. 

Tiidu fearfully walked towards the stream and looked in the waters. He was stunned because his nose was back to its normal size.

Slowly Tiidu recognised that eating the apples made his nose long and eating the nuts brought it back to its normal size.

Soon Tiidu wove a basket and he put as many apples and nuts as he could inside the basket.

That night when he fell asleep Tiidu dreamt of the old man. “This is the first time that you have not mourned about your money. Instead, you moaned that you do not have your pipes. You deserve a second chance. So I shall make sure that you get a set of pipes with you.”

In the morning when Tiidu woke up he was stunned because there was a set of pipes lying on the basket that he had woven the previous day.

Happily Tiidu held out his pipes and played the lovely music.

Adapted from Andrew Lang’s Fairy Tales