And sleep...

Once upon a time there were some animals in a barn that were unable to sleep. There was a celebration going on in the village and the wind carried all the music from the violins all the way in the barn. The sheep and pigs were fast asleep nevertheless, but the cow, the cat and the newly brought puppy, were all awake listening to the faint music. The cat said "I cannot sit around here so still any longer, I want to go and see the people playing the violins and dancing. I am going to go to the village. Anyway, I am not able to sleep". The puppy started jumping up and down in excitement, knocking over his plate of food and wooden spoon, "Me too, me too, me too!!!I am coming with you!", he barked squeakily. The cat shook her head slowly, "I cannot take such a responsibility and take you with me, you are still so young. You shall stay here with cow", she said and at once started to leave. They watched her gracefully sliding under the barn gate. She stood in the path and just before she left she waved at them with her head, under the golden moonlight and the faint violin music. The cow sighed and blinked her long black eye lashes. "How I would like to hear and see those violins play and all the villagers dance and sing!", she said. The puppy was crying "Please cow, let us go too! If I get tired you can carry me on your back! If I get hungry we can take with us my plate! Please cow, please!". The cow pushed the gate open and blinked again, her large brown eyes shining in the moonlight. "Let us go up to the little hill puppy and from there we can look down at the village", she said and the puppy came out jumping, holding in his mouth his wooden spoon and his plate. 

The cow walked slowly while the puppy jumped up and down and run ahead of her. The moonlight shone on them and the cow looked up to see. The moon was bright and the stars were shining and the path to the top of the hill was lit. On the top of the hill the music from the violins was very clear and loud and they could see bright lights flickering in the distance. "Lets dance too! Lets dance too cow please!", said the puppy. He started jumping in circles around the cow and cutting funny figures. He then started to sing and pine and he dropped his plate and his wooden spoon. They rolled all the way down towards the village. "You will have nothing more to eat now puppy", said the cow, "I really hope you are not hungry". But the puppy was not much worried and kept on dancing and singing around the cow. The cow did some small jumps, two jumps to the front and one to the back with the rhythm of the violins. After a while the cow said "Time to go now puppy, it is time for us to sleep. The music is dying away, the celebrations are over". They both started walking down the hill, back to the barn. The puppy still running ahead, jumping and singing. The cow caught up some speed from the slope of the hill and broke into a little trot. She saw a muddy puddle full of water and in it the shinning golden moon. She took a big breath and jumped over it. She looked up in the sky and the moon was there as well as in the muddy puddle. When they got back the puppy curled up next to the cow and fell asleep. The cow's large eyelids were now heavy with sleep too. Soon the cat was back and settled on her usual spot. And soon all the animals were asleep.

When I first came across British nursery rhymes in Agatha Christie's books, I found them very strange and a bit eerie. They are very fascinating nevertheless, and I would love to research the roots of some of them. The one that Aretousa likes a lot, Hey diddle diddle, the Cat and the fiddle, the Cow jumped over the moon, the little Dog laughed to see such sport and the Dish run away with the Spoon, I think is based on star formations in the sky. As entertaining and strange as they are, these British nursery rhymes, they never manage to make me sleepy, but make me rather nervous after I've read them. So as well as singing the rhymes to Aretousa, I tend to make up some stories to go with them (more for myself than for her), featuring the same main characters.

For me travelling and changing places was a very exciting time, an opportunity for adventure. But now it is also an opportunity to sleep -although it rarely works out that way. Lets hope it will during this holiday. In the meantime, below are some postscripts on three old posts.

*On Axolotl. If you found the Axolotls as fascinating as I did, please read this great short story named Axolotl, by the Argentine writer Julio Cortazar, which came to my attention via a friend after I had already written my post. http://southerncrossreview.org/73/axolotl.html

*On Totem and Taboo. For a little more information on Cycladic Art and a quick view, half way through the video, of how the Cycladic Art figurines and the antiquity sculptures are supposed to have looked like painted, you can watch the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCpPSBnHo6E

*On Roter Mohn. After I had written this post featuring my Grandmother's story with a German young boy, I received an email from the daughter, my cousin, of my Grandmother's only surviving brother. With her permission I copy here a small extract from her email:

"About the song and Aunt Marika. Did you know the story of the German boy? He was the son of a high ranking German officer who was fighting in Russia and since Crete was not in active battle in the manner that Russia was at the time, the German boy's father had a favor arranged to send him to Crete where he would be "safe" and out of the line of fire...and then to die from a balcony fall. The irony of life. And I'm guessing you've been in that house where the balcony was...I don't know if there's a balcony there anymore but George Kourtikakis in the village of Kousse now lives in that house across from his mother's house in that village."