Open Writing

Once upon a time a poor farmer let his rooster go under the floor of his cottage. There the rooster found a pea seed. He called the hens, and they came running.

'Shoo!' said the farmer, waving his hands. 'Be off!' He had an idea. He watered the seed, and soon it began to grow. Then he drilled a hole in the floor.

'What are you doing, husband?' his wife asked in surprise.

'There's a pea plant under the house,' said the farmer. 'I'm drilling a hole so it can grow taller.'

The pea plant grew up into the room, and soon it reached the ceiling. The farmer drilled a hole in the roof to let the pea plant grow taller. It grew and grew, until it reached the sky.

'Wife, wife!' said the farmer. 'I'll climb up to the sky. Perhaps I'll find plenty to eat and drink up there.' 'Off you go!' said the farmer's wife.

So the farmer climbed and climbed and, at last, reached the sky, where he saw a large house. He walked in and found plates of food and jugs of drink set out on a table, guarded by a seven-eyed goat. The farmer didn't see the goat.

'Mmmm!' He walked around the table, growing hungrier by the minute. 'Roast goose, baked pork, beef pies, chocolate cream cakes, lime jelly, cider…' Then he saw the goat and stepped back in surprise. 'A guard!'

The farmer walked around to the front of the goat and counted the eyes. 'Six eyes,' he said, for he missed the seventh on the back of the goat's head.

He pointed to one of the eyes, and chanted a spell, 'Sleep, little eye!' The eye closed. He chanted six times, and the six eyes closed. 'Now the guard is asleep.'

The farmer ate and drank, trying everything. After a while, he became uncomfortably full, so he staggered into the next room and stretched out on a bed. Immediately, he fell asleep.

The owner of the house came home. 'What's happening here?' he asked. He walked around the goat and shouted, 'Wake!' The goat's six eyes woke, and the goat told everything he had seen with his seventh eye. 'Servants!' shouted the owner. 'Find the rascal and throw him out!'

The servants quickly found the farmer who was still fast asleep, and threw him out the door. The farmer set off, running toward the edge of the sky. He ran back and forth along the edge, looking for the pea plant, but it had disappeared. In its place, were cobwebs, floating in the breeze.

'What can I do?' said the farmer in great distress. 'How can I get down?' Soon he had an idea. 'I'll collect the webs and twist them to make a rope.' So he made a rope and fastened it to the edge of the sky.

Hand over hand, he began to climb down. Down, down, down . . . Below, he could see a swamp, with ducks swimming and diving. He came to the end of the rope and looked down.

'Oh, the ground is far away!' he said. 'I'll have to let go and drop to the earth.' He let go, and fell and fell and fell, landing in the swamp where he sank up to his neck in the mud. Soon a duck flew in and landed on the farmer's head. Glad to find a warm, dry place, she began to build a nest. Then she laid some eggs.

One day, when she flew away to find food, the farmer had an idea. 'I'll grab the duck's tail, and she can lift me out of the mud.'

The duck returned to her nest, and the farmer grabbed her tail feathers. He held tightly while she beat the air with her wings, struggling to get free. At last, with a huge effort, she rose into the air, lifting the farmer, the nest and the eggs out of the mud. She flew to the cottage where the farmer's wife was working in the garden.

'Home he comes,' said the farmer's wife. 'Where have you been? You've brought a duck and eggs, but why have you been so long?'

So the farmer sat down and told his wife all his adventures, from beginning to end.