Ballad of the Travelling Troll

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own The Neverending Story


"The Tinies bred the fastest snails

From ordinary ones I'm told.

The fastest racers deliver the mail

In six months to a year."

The bard's clear tenor soared above the soporific night air, saturating into the pores of the music festival goers. The elven bard with his long slender fingers and twinkling green eyes watched the children come racing toward his tent. He hummed the odd tune as he tightened the strings on his lyre.

"In the Tiny village of Narrowmore

At the base of the Cheesie-Weesies,

Dodging rocks from above

Had become a bother.

Where ordinary snails made due in a month

Racers zoomed at the hour."

The children snapped their fingers in tune to the jazzy part. The Ballad of the Travelling Troll was a great favorite at the fair every year. The elven bard obliged his audience.

"A travelling troll

Out for a stroll

Upon the windy moor

A Racer zoomed at half-past one

And met the troll coming back

Not a minute after."

The bard stopped playing to brush a loose strand of flaxen hair out of his eyes. He bowed his head in honor to the Tiny children, his green eyes sparkling with mischief.

"The travelling troll came to town

And walked up to a Racer.

'How come ye to be so fast

When ye were so slow?'"

The children all jumped up and joined in the refrain:

"Thyme and honey,

Time and money,

Make slow speed grow."

Rising to his feet, the elven bard replaced another loose strand of hair underneath his cap of scarlet red. A blue feather tucked jauntily at an angle.

"A snail that is slow

Ate an almond tree.

A piece of thyme and some time

A Tiny's Racer he became-fast and fleet."

The children cheered the elven bard as he took his leave. He sang the last verse as the dim lamps extinguished one by one:

"The travelling troll

No more did stroll

For fear had overtook him.

If a snail could race so far in half the time

When spring had come and gone.

By the time the snail returned,

The autumn's biting grip would fell him."