Nodwin and the Pixie’s Curse - 1 - A Note About Pims
November 19, 2007 by Basil Munroe Godevenos
A Note About Pims
Somewhere near the centre of the In-Between (it is impossible, you understand, to say exactly where) there is a forest. Though it is an old forest, it is small and generally friendly. The trees are big and leafy, the moss is soft underfoot. There are many small, playful animals and the big animals are mostly of the docile persuasion, deer and the like. Even the few bears are smallish and lazy, content to eat fish from the stream and suck honey from beehives. Incidentally, the bees, as a result, are the only folk in this forest who harbour any kind of malice, but it is generally thought that the bees merely misunderstand the bears, and that some mutually agreeable arrangement will be worked out in time, when they get around to it.
There is another group of small creatures in this little, friendly forest, but they are not animals. The Pims are a very little people, the tallest of them might be all of six inches. They are not Pixies or Faeries (and nor are those the same as each other) though they might be considered their cousins; they have no wings and they have tails. They are covered everywhere but their palms, soles, bellies and faces by a very fine downy fur - as fine as thistledown - which thickens in tufts on the tops of their heads and the tips of their tails. They eat berries and nuts and drink dew in the morning and tree sap in the evening. They are peaceful and playful and spend their days playing and working on the forest floor.
The Pims in this forest live in a glade where the moss is particularly soft and the berries and nuts are plentiful. It is far from the stream, and thus far from the wandering paws and hooves of the bears and deer, who might unknowingly trample a Pim. They live in roundish clay houses, nestled into the hollows between the roots of trees. Few enemies bother them in their glade. At worst, the village bands together with home-made spears and bows to fend off a rat or a hungry bird, new to the forest. Their life is happy and peaceful.
At least, it is usually happy and peaceful. This tale is about Nodwin, a young Pim whose father was ill and was soon to die.
