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Artful Anticks

Chapter 25: The Elf & the Dormouse
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About This Book

A collection of short, humorous poems and light fables that animate animals, children, and fairies to expose human foibles through playful rhyme and gentle irony. Pieces range from brief narrative verses to comic monologues and a short stage piece, typically concluding with a witty reversal or moral sting. Imagery moves between domestic detail and fanciful incident, and the poems vary in meter and length to keep tone brisk. Overall the work favors whimsical satire, clever wordplay, and anthropomorphic scenarios intended to amuse while lightly admonishing readers about pride, industry, and pretension.

The Elf & the Dormouse

Under a toadstool
Crept a wee Elf,
Out of the rain
To shelter himself.
Under the toadstool,
Sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse
All in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf,
Frightened, and yet
Fearing to fly away
Lest he get wet.
To the next shelter—
Maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf
Smiled a wee smile,
Tugged till the toadstool
Toppled in two.
Holding it over him
Gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home
Dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse—
“Good gracious me!
Where is my toadstool?”
Loud he lamented.
—And that’s how umbrellas,
First were invented.