The Light Well
A fairy story, by JPB and TRFB. Long, long ago there was a little village in a little island now known as Britain. The villagers were all happy and content because a powerful wizard had made a light well for them--the only one in the world. The wizard had taken a piece from the sun and put a charm on it in a deep hole. Whoever had the magic bucket could pull up a bucketful of light and pour it on whatever he wanted; when he poured the light whatever he wished for came true until the next full moon. The bucket was made from oak wood with a rope of twisted mistletoe. Every inch of the bucket--the inside and outside and all the edges--was decorated with looping, spiraling pictures which the wizard had carved with the iron tip of his staff. Only a person who knew what every single picture on the bucket meant could lift the bucket. For anyone else the bucket would be as fixed and immovable as the biggest mountain in the world. The wizard had told the villagers what all the pictu...