Y is for Yurt

I’ve decided to start writing up the stories I come up with for Lexi when I’m putting her to bed. Here’s the first one…

Once upon a time, there was a turkish princess who lived in a yurt.

If you’ve never seen a yurt, it’s a large round tent, filled with pillows and rugs.

The princess decided that she wanted to live in a room filled with light, so in her yurt one day, she gathered one thousand candles, and set them up in a spiral around the room.

Then she went to light them.

One at a time, she lit each candle, going around the spiral, up and up and up, until three days later she was done.

Before she had chance to even admire the shining candles, she fell into a deep sleep, exhausted.

The next day, she awoke to find that the first candle had gone out. She lit it again, but as she did so, the next candle went out.

She re-lit that candle, but the next one went out as well! And so it went for the next three days until she re-lit all the candles.

And then again, she fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, another of the candles had gone out. So around and around the spiral she went again, lighting each of the candles in turn.

Half-way through her task, she realized that if she carried on like this, she’d spend the rest of her life lighting and relighting candles, with no time for anything else.

So she went outside and in the field there, she found a prince.

She asked the prince, “Come with me, and help me light my candles, and I will show you the most wonderful of sights”.

The prince followed her in, and together they lit all of the candles. And this time, they could watch the golden glow bouncing off the walls inside the yurt. It was spectacular.

As they were sitting there, the prince looked at the princess, deep in thought. He said to her “My princess, why did you light so many candles? If you had less candles, you’d spend less time doing this. It’s beautiful, but is it worth your time?”

The princess looked at him for a moment. “Oh, my silly prince… If I had less candles, I wouldn’t need you.”