The Cornish Teeny-Tiny

A tale from Cornwall, England

 

 

Once, near the town of Perranzabuloe, there lived a teeny-tiny lady in a teeny-tiny house. This straw and clay cottage had only one room and one window, and even children had to crouch down to get through the doorway. The old woman herself was so small that she had to climb on a stool just to look out the window, but what she lacked in size she made up in spirit.

She shared her cottage with a stubby-tailed spaniel named Jacky. He was little too, but unlike his mistress, he was growing bigger every year. Thatdog never missed a meal or overlooked a bone.

“Ye’s stuffed full as a sausage, and that’s the truth!” scolded the teeny-tiny woman in her squeaky little voice.

Jacky wagged his tail, which was the only thing little about him.

Life went well enough for the two of them until the morning that the teeny-tiny woman felt a teeny-tiny twinge in a tooth.

“Ooh!” She rubbed her cheek. “Some imp is pinching me!”

The old woman knew what to do, for she’d not lived all these years without listening and learning.

“To be rid of a toothache, pull on your right stocking first,” she recited.

That’s what she did, and to be twice as sure, she buttoned on her right shoe first, too. But her tooth still hurt. That night the twinge became a throb. So the teeny-tiny lady fetched her stool and peered out her window.

“Ah!” she said when she saw a full moon. “A good night for good medicine.”

With Jacky at her heels, the old woman ventured out onto the moonlit moor and picked an armful of sorrel. When she got home she boiled the herb into a thick green tea, taking care to stir the kettle with her left hand.

“Sorrel’s the cure for toothache,” said the teeny-tiny lady.

She poured herself a cup and filled the saucer for Jacky. Jacky pulled his tongue out after one lap, but the old woman drank her tea to the last drop.

“There!” she said, and sat down to wait.

The longer she waited, the worse she felt. The teeny-tiny woman sighed, wrapped a strip of red flannel around her jaw, and climbed into her feather bed. The next morning the throb had grown into a giant-sized toothache.

“Lawk-a-mercy-me!” squealed the old woman, hopping up and down. Jacky looked at her and whimpered.

“There’s but one thing left to do,” the old woman told him, “and that’s to pay a visit to the churchyard.”

Ever since she was a teeny-tiny girl the teeny-tiny lady had that buried treasure might sometimes be found in the sandy soil of the churchyard. But she wasn’t going to a gloomy graveyard on a sunny morning to search for riches. She hoped to find a tooth. Of all the charms for toothache, a tooth from a graveyard put under your pillow worked the strongest magic.

“It takes a tooth to cure a tooth,” she declared, “and that’s the truth.”

With Jacky trotting behind, she set out for the Perranzabuloe Church. All the headstones in the churchyard were green with moss and a few had tumbled over. The teeny-tiny lady poked about in the soft ground with her walking stick, taking care not to disturb any graves. By late afternoon all she had gotten for her trouble was a bent hairpin and a broken teacup. A chill wind was rising, and wisps of fog, like gray ghosts, floated overhead. The old woman shivered.

“Time we went home Jacky,” she said. She turned, but the dog was not at her heels.

The teeny-tiny lady searched the shadowy churchyard, whistling for her dog and to keep up her spirits. She found him in the far corner, digging beside a fallen headstone and scattering dirt in all directions.

“For shame!” she cried. “Hunting rabbits in a graveyard!”

Jacky ran to the old woman and dropped something at her feet. It wasn’t a rabbit. By her boots lay a set of false teeth.

“China teeth !” she exclaimed. “Aren’t ye a clever beast!”

The spaniel cocked his head and twitched his tail.

When she got home the old woman scrubbed the teeth and polished them on her apron. They smiled at her, bright as new, fifteen on top and fifteen on the bottom. She couldn’t smile back, for her own teeny-tiny tooth hurt too much.

“But not for long,” said she, tucking the false ones under her pillow.

“Now I’ve thirty churchyard teeth to work their magic!”

A bit past midnight an eerie wail woke her. The old woman patted her aching cheek.

 “Mayhap I woke myself up with groaning.”

“Eeee-ooooh!”

The hair stood up on Jacky’s back, and he began to howl. “Tis just the wind blowing over the moor,” said the old woman. Then she heard fingers scritch-scratching on her teeny-tiny door.

“Honest folks aren’t abroad so late,” she muttered.

Raising her wee voice, she called through the keyhole, “Go away, whoever ye be!”

From the other side of the door a voice shouted, “Teef!”

“Thief, are ye?” The teeny-tiny lady drew herself up as tall as she could. “Ye’ll find nothing worth the taking here.”

That caused such a thumping and a bumping on the door that even the rafters shook.

“Ye’ll break the latch,” warned the old woman, “but ye’ll never fit through the doorway.”

The knocking and banging stopped as suddenly as it began. “Just in time too, “she declared. “Who knows what my terrible tooth might make me do?”

The teeny-tiny lady was about to draw her bed curtains when an enormous dark shape loomed outside at her window silhouetted against the moon. “An ogre!” she gasped.The old woman covered her eyes, but curiosity made her peek through her fingers. A man stared back at her, but not an ordinary one. He was as big for a man as she was small for a woman and was grandly dressed. He wore a gentleman’s frock coat with shiny brass buttons, a lace shirt with ruffles, and a tricorn hat on his head.

Without thinking, the teeny-tiny lady asked, “Are ye off to a funeral?”

Pounding a gloved fist on the sill, the man growled, “Teef!”

Jacky scrambled under the bed, but the old woman cupped a hand to her ear and said, “Ye’re mumbling. Speak up.”

The man thrust his huge head right in through the window. His eyes glowed oranger than a tomcat’s and his mouth was open wide enough to swallow a sheep whole Although the teeny-tiny lady could see right down his throat, she couldn’t spy a single tooth.

“My soul!” she cried. “So THAT’s why ye mumble ! Tis plain to see what ye came for!”

“GIF ME BACK MY TEEF!” roared the man.

She reached under her pillow and pulled out the china teeth. They gleamed like silver coins in the light of the moon. The teeny-tiny lady sighed, raised her teeny-tiny arm, and threw the teeth out the window.

“Drat it! she shrieked in her loudest, shrillest, bravest wee voice. “TAKE EM!”

The next morning the old woman and her dog searched and sniffed all around the house. They found no trace of the false teeth or their mysterious midnight visitor. The ground beneath the window wasn’t even marked by the heel of a boot.

“No footprints !” the old woman exclaimed. “As sure as ye’re a dog, Jacky, that gentleman was a ghost!”

Something else had vanished in the night. The old woman’s toothache has disappeared along with the china teeth. Not so much as a twinge remained.

“There’s no explaining magic,” said the teeny-tiny lady, shaking her teeny-tiny head. “And that’s the truth.”