Bedtime Stories with R.A. Spratt

'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' as told by Nanny Piggins

May 05, 2021 R.A. Spratt Season 1 Episode 63
Bedtime Stories with R.A. Spratt
'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' as told by Nanny Piggins
Show Notes Transcript

When Michael is cast as a troll in a school play, Nanny Piggins tells the children the real story of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'. Spoiler alert - there were no goats in it.

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Hello and welcome to ‘Bedtime Stories’ with me, R.A. Spratt. This weeks story is…

 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

 

When Michael came home from school he was uncharacteristically downcast.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Did they force you to eat vegetables again at school?’

Michael had a very enthusiastic young teacher recently graduated from teachers’ college. She had brought in carrot sticks the previous week to share with her class as a snack. Michael actually hadn’t minded the carrots sticks. They weren’t too bad. But Nanny Piggins was horrified when she found out. She had a grudge against carrots because so many people insisted on griding them up and putting them in cake. The number of times she had thought she was sinking her teeth in a lovely piece of cake on to realise as it hit her taste buds that some one had put a vegetable in it. She strongly felt there should be laws against it. If people were going to insist on eating vegetables that was fine. It was none of her business. But to sneak them into cake was just wrong. No one ever snuck cake into a carrot. So why should carrots be allowed to do the reverse.

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Michael. ‘She wants to put on a play.’

‘Oh,’ said Nanny Piggins. She quite like a play herself. She enjoyed all forms of performance, but perhaps it was a dull play. ‘It’s not one of those old fashioned plays with lots of foresooths and Tisn’ts and absolutely nobody getting blasted out of a cannon by that Shakespeare fellow is it?’

‘No, it’s not that bad,’ said Michael. ‘She wants us to perform the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.’

‘Oh,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘She’s cast me as the troll,’ said Michael.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘And you’re disappointed because you wanted to play the role of one of the pigs?’

‘There are no pigs in the story of the three Billy Goats Gruff,’ Derrick pointed out.

‘Pish,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s only because humans wrote it down. And as you know humans are dreadfully pigist. No, the three Billy Goats Gruff wasn’t about goats at all. It was about two pigs and a bear.’

‘What?’ said Derrick. Which was quite rude really, he should have said ‘I beg your pardon’. But sometimes Nanny Piggins said the most shocking things, all the manners flew clean out of his head.

‘It’s an ancient Norse story originally,’ explained Nanny Piggins. ‘And pig must be harder to spell that goat in ancient norse, so the human who wrote it down just changed it. You know how shockingly lazy writers are. They’re the most amoral people. It’s why there are absolutely no fairy tales about platypuses or echidnas because they are much harder to spell than things like wolves and frogs.’

The children thought about this for a moment. They knew it most likely wasn’t true. But they didn’t like to say so out loud. It would be much more interesting hearing Nanny Piggins tell her version of the story, than hearing her rail against prejudice against hard to spell animals.

Samantha cleverly guided the conversation this way, ‘So how does the story really go?’

‘Actually,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The story was originally about three relatives of mine,’ said Nanny Piggins. 

‘Really?’ said Derrick. It was amazing how many fairy tales were apparently based on Nanny Piggins relatives. It seems unbelievable to someone who had never met a member of Nanny Piggins family. But the children had met several of them, and they were such spectacularly dramatic people they accepted that it was possible that this one family had inspired so many great events in world story telling.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It all started with my great great great times 28 greats aunt Agnetha and her no good brother Hamwell, and her lovely brother Horris.’

‘That’s a coincidence,’ said Michael. ‘You’ve got brothers with similar names. Bramwell and Boris.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s amazing how history repeats itself. Anyway, as you know life was dreadfully hard in the old story days. People were forever having to chop wood, build houses out of structurally unsound materials like gingerbread or straw and walk through forests fighting off wolves. It was exhausting and hard work. So naturally Agnetha and her brothers got very hungry.’

‘Sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning makes you so hungry you have to eat 28 chocolate chip pancakes just to over come the trauma,’ said Michael.

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Luckily I’m very brave and prepared to do what it takes. But Agnetha and her brothers were living this brutal existance and it was getting increasingly hard for them to find enough food to eat. As you know, fairy tales are always set in forests and by streams. Which is fine if you want to eat mushrooms or tree bark or sashimi. But chocolate and cake does not grow on trees.’

‘Oh my goodness, how did they survive?’ wailed Boris.

‘Well they nearly didn’t,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They were wasting away from having to eat healthy balanced meals made from fresh ingrediants. It was unendurable. It was only because Agnetha’s great strength of character that she was able to go on. There was no real food anywhere to be had. Just when things were getting so unbearable Agnetha thought they would have to give up and do something desperate like eat an apple, a new shop opened on the far side of the creek. And that shop was a bakery. They could smell it from their house. And Agnetha’s sense of smell was so acute that she could identify every item on the menus just by sniffing. ‘Why they have lemon tarts, pain au chocolate, apricot danishes, chocolate eclairs, custard slice and pink cupcakes!’

‘How could she tell the cupcakes were pink just by sniffing?’ asked Michael.

‘How can you not?’ demanded Nanny Piggins. 

‘We can’t,’ confessed Derrick.

Nanny Piggins shook her head sadly, ‘How the human species manages to survive with such poor sensory perception is beyond me.’

Agnetha and her brothers ran towards the smell of this divine new cake shop desperate to taste it’s wonderful creations. They ran through the forest getting closer and closer to the aroma all the way down to the river. And that’s when they saw it the beautiful cake shop La Patieserie Delciousoux. 

The smell was almost overpowering. It was so heavenly, Agnetha was seriously concerned that she had died in her sleep and that she was now standing in heaven. The only problem was to get to the cake shop they had to cross the river, to cross the river they needed to go over the bridge and no one ever crossed over the bridge because a troll lived underneath it.

‘Oh dear,’ said Boris.

‘What exactly is a troll?’ asked Samantha.

‘That’s something that has been lost through the course of time,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘These days a troll is a sad pathetic person who goes on the internet and says mean things to other people to make themselves feel better about their sad empty lives. But in the olden days it was different. Trolls were sad angry people who lived under bridges and were permanently grumpy because living under and open structure next to a damp duck poo covered creek is no one’s life goal. 

Imagine how awful it would be when you’re trying to read a really good bit in your book, and some nincompoop goes tromping over the bridge just above you head. It’s no wonder trolls are always jumping out and throwing people off bridges. If they’ve go no respect for literature and not interrupting stories like that.

Worst of all, Trolls hated going to the supermarket and there was no internet shopping back in the olden story days. So they only way they could get food was by eating any pedestrians that tried to walk over their bridge. 

‘So you’re say, if someone had just bought the troll a box of muesli bars,’ said Michael. ‘That could have solved the whole problem?’

‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But then that would make for a very boring end to the story, so we mustn’t be too sad. 

Where was a I… Agnetha and her brothers arrived at the bridge. The brothers were immediately terrified. They were both huge cowards. Now I want to be clear. I don’t want you think of them badly for this reason. In Hamwell’s case there were plenty of other reasons to think badly of him. But I won’t have you judging them too harshly for cowardice. Cowardice gets a bad rap in stories, particularly in ancient Greek myths, where deranged and irresponsible bravery is highly overrated. In real life, cowardice is actually just common sense. Would you like to confront a horrible hungry troll – no, of course not – that’s just common sense. 

But Agnetha’s love of chocolate cake was so great she was prepared to overcome her common sense and take on the troll. Hamwell and Horris stood on the bank quaking in fear as their sister boldy approached the river. As she stepped onto the timbers of the bridge she tried to make as little sound as possible, hoping that the troll might be asleep and not notice her. She took one step, two steps, she was three steps on and beginning to feel very optimistic indeed when suddenly 

Aaaggghhhhh! 

A hideously ugly huge troll leapt up onto the bridge in front of her.

‘Oh no!’ wailed Boris.

‘That’s what Agnetha thought too,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She had so been looking forward to a chocolate éclair and now she had to deal with this instead.’

‘I’m going to eat you up!’ declared the Troll. ‘Which just shows how lonely he was. If he was really hungry he would have just eaten her. But here he was trying to strike up some pre-dinner conversation.’

‘Of course,’ said Agnetha.

‘Of course?’ asked Samantha. ‘Didn’t she scream in fear or beg for her life.’

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She may have been deranged with chocolate cake longing but she still had good manners.’

‘Of course you want to eat me,’ said Agnetha. ‘I’m sure I’m delicious. I am so effortlessly good at everything I try, I have no reason to believe I wouldn’t excel at being delicious too. But you do look like a hungry fellow who could do with a really good meal.’

‘I could,’ agreed the Troll.

‘Well I am just a petite little pig,’ said Agnetha. ‘I’m only four foot tall and only weight 40kg. I would barely whet your appetite. It would be better to save yourself for a proper meal. My brother Hamwell will be along in a minute and he is ten times larger than me. He will really fill you up. If you eat me now, you won’t be able to enjoy him properly.’

‘Oh,’ said the Troll. ‘Thanks for the tip. Your brother sounds scrumptious. I’ll wait for him then. So Agnetha safely crossed over the river and made it to the cake shop.’

On the opposite bank Hamwell watched all this with interest. He had his own strategy for getting across. Even though he was a huge coward. He knew he could do it now.

He stepped forward onto the bridge and straight away the troll leapt out. 

‘Ahah,’ said the Troll,  ‘You are the big brother. I am going to eat you up.’

‘Oh, of course,’ said Bramwell. ‘You could do that. But I’m actually the smaller brother. Agnetha and I have an even bigger brother. He’ll be along in a moment. You don’t want to waste your time on me. He is a much better meal.’

‘Bigger than you?’ asked the troll.

‘Much much bigger,’ said Dramwel.

‘Oh, alright,’ said the Troll. ‘Thanks for letting me know. I’ll wait then.’

And so Hamwell was able to cross safely and ran off to the cake shop to be with his sister.

Meanwhile on the bank Horris was weeping. He had been so terrified for the safety of his brother and sister that he had blubbered the whole time. Now that he saw that they were safely across he felt much better. But he was still crying because he missed them dreadfully and wanted to be with them again. You see, Horris may have been a big coward but he had an even bigger heart. He couldn’t bear being separated from his family. It was horrible. And he could smell a delicious honey pastry in the bakery so in a flood of emotion he ran weeping down the river and stepped on to the bridge.

The troll immediately leapt out and was delighted by what he saw. The other two had not lied. Horris was enormous. He was ten feet tall and weighed 700kg!

Hey! Said Boris.

‘Not that that is big,’ said Nanny Piggins. And Horris was so athletic you’d never guess he was a milligram over 695 kg.

Boris smiled happily at this. 

When Horris saw the troll. Who really was hideous. Living under a bridge is dreadful for the complexion. His fear immediately dissolved and he was filled with pity for this poor unloved creature. And being a bear of big heart. He lunged forward and gave the troll a great big bear hug. 

‘Awwww,’ said the children. They knew from experience having lived with Boris for several years that nothing beat a bear hug from an actual bear.

‘But that is where things went horribly wrong,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Oooh,’ said the children.

‘Unfortunately, the civil engineers at the local council had not considered the possibility of a fully grown kodiak bear and a fully grown troll standing on the small timber foot bridge at the exact same moment. The structure was not designed to take that amount of weight. As soon as Horris wrapped the troll in a hug the timbers beneath they feet snapped and they both fell into the river. 

Fortunately, Agnetha was quick thinking and full of energy having consumed a vast amount of cake in her short time in the cake shop. She ran out of the shop with her arms full of doughnuts and threw them to her brother to use as flotation devices.

‘Do doughnuts make good flotation devices?’ asked Michael. They were round just like flotation rings, but they were made of cake which was absorbant.

‘We’ll never know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Because Horris didn’t realise what his sister was doing. When she through 300 doughnuts at him, he assumed she was just giving him a snack. He caught the doughnuts in his mouth and ate them. But the doughnuts did give him the energy to grab the troll and swim them both to the bank safely. Together they went to the shop and ate lots of honey cake. The troll had never realised how much better cake tasted than pedestrians and he never bothered anyone trying to cross the bridge again. The end time for bed.

I don’t think that version is the one my teacher intends to put on,’ said Michael.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll persuade her to see things my way.’

‘How?’ asked Michael.

‘I’ll bake her a cake,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘That ought to do it,’ said Michael. Nanny Piggins cakes were so good they could convince anyone of anything. Which was how she managed to get through so many international borders without a passport.

‘And if it doesn’t,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I’ll get Boris to give her a hug. While she’s distracted I’ll put her version of the play in the worm compost.’

And that is what she did.

 

The end.

 

Thank you for listening. To support this podcast just buy a book by me RA Spratt. There are plenty to choose from, across the Friday Barnes, Nanny Piggins and Peski Kids series. And now there are the audio books of The Adventures of Nanny Piggins and Friday Barnes, Girl Detective as well. You can order any of these things through your local bookstore. Or go to my website raspratt.com and click on the Book Depository banner. They have all my titles and free international shipping. 

 

That’s it for now, until next time. Goodbye.