Eva Ibbotson: Let Sleeping Sea-Monsters Lie-And Other Cautionary Tales (Short Story Collection)

As they got closer to the rock, the village dogs got quieter and quieter but Winsome Wilhelmina didn’t.

“What on earth is that absolutely extraordinary rock?” she said in her high, upper-class-dog voice.

“It’s the Frid rock,” said the sheepdog.

“It’s best to be quiet when we go past it,” said the basset hound.

“Quiet?” yapped Winsome piercingly. “Why should I be quiet because of some perfectly ridiculous rock? I’ve never even heard of a Frid. I don’t believe there is such a thing!”

“There is, Winsome,” said the sheepdog seriously. “There really is such a thing as a Frid and it’s inside that rock.”

“How do you know?” said Winsome, tossing her topknot.

“We know,” said the poodle, “because of what it does. Especially to dogs.”

“Pooh!” said Winsome. “Country dogs are always full of silly fancies.”

She trotted on her stiff little legs right up to the base of the rock and began to snuffle at the crumbs the villagers had left. Then out shot her little pink tongue and one by one she gobbled them up!

The spaniel whimpered with terror.

“Come away,” barked the mongrel. “For heaven’s sake, Winsome, come away before it is too late!”

Winsome Wilhelmina took not the slightest notice. Snuffling her way further along the rock she found a saucer of fresh milk.

“No!” yelped the basset hound. “Not the Frid’s milk! No, no, no!”

Winsome didn’t even bother to turn round. Out came her greedy little tongue again and lap, lap, lap she went until every single drop of milk was gone.

And then – you will find this almost impossible to believe – she went and made a puddle beside the Rock of the Frid itself!

With a howl of terror, the other dogs fled. A frightful silence fell. The sky darkened; the earth trembled. And on the face of the Frid rock there appeared something so awful that no one could give it a name. An eye – yet like no eye that has ever been seen. With a crack the rock split to form a mouth, a bottomless hole, a something that gaped and beckoned.

“ SCROOMPH! ” said the Frid. “ SQWILLOP! ”

And as it spoke these dreadful words, Winsome was lifted up bodily and sucked, slowly, into the hole.

The hole closed. The eye vanished, and Winsome Wilhemina had gone.

It was a long while before the whimpering dogs dared to crawl back again. But bravely they came and patiently they waited. They waited and they waited and then the awful eye appeared once again and the hole gaped open.

“GERTCH!” said the Frid. “PFOO! BWERK!”

And out on to the ground it spat – a thing.

Only what could it be? It was the size of a very small rat. It was quite raw and pink and totally naked. And as it lay there, like something on a butcher’s slab, it seemed more dead than alive.

The Frid had closed up again. Slowly the dogs crawled forward and the spaniel began to lick the pitiful thing with her loving tongue.

“Good heavens!” said the sheepdog, when he could trust himself to speak again. “Look – it’s her! It’s Winsome! She’s still wearing her collar.”

It was true. On the scalped, raw little rat of an animal, the collar of diamonds still twinkled.

And in that moment, the wise old sheepdog recalled what his great-grandmother had told him years and years before.

“I remember now,” he said, “what a Frid is. A Frid is a thing that turns dogs hairless .”

And the other dogs nodded, for it was coming back to them, too, that if there is a something that turns dogs hairless then that something is a Frid.

So they dragged the poor, silly, hairless little creature down to the village, and since her rich mistress wanted nothing to do with her now she was so ugly, the dogs themselves licked and loved her back to health. Winsome Wilhelmina became quite a nice dog but her hair never grew again, not so much as a single eyelash or a whisker. Nor could she ever speak about what had happened when she was inside the Frid. “Let sleeping Frids lie, my dears,” was all she would say when visiting dogs came and asked her questions. That’s all we dogs can do: just let them lie.”

And I am happy to say they did.

Let Sleeping Sea-Monsters Lie

Of all the monsters in the world there is none so fierce or so terrible as the Kraken. A Kraken is the size of an island; it can eat large ships at a single gulp and when it lashes its tail, whole cities on the shore will be flooded. If you just say the name “Kraken” to the bravest sailor with the biggest muscles and the largest anchor tattooed on his chest he will probably faint from fright.

The Kraken I am going to tell you about was, for many years, as terrible as any. He would eat a galleon for breakfast, a man-of-war for lunch, a pirate ship for supper, and still sometimes gulp down a rowing boat for tea. But one day he didn’t want to go on like this any more. The oars and the sails that he swallowed were beginning to scratch the inside of his stomach and the screams of the sailors as he sucked them into his mouth gave him earache and made him feel depressed. So he gorged himself on seaweed three times a day instead, which kept him perfectly healthy.

At the same time he decided to settle down because it is difficult to make friends if you are always roaring about and flooding things and swallowing them.

The place he chose to settle down was a peaceful, sunny bay with clear, deep water. The Kraken kept his neck and his huge, whiskery head with its big eyes, long eyelashes and intelligent forehead well down in the water and he kept his tail, which was scaly and interesting, in the water also, but he left his round, smooth back sticking out above the surface of the waves.

Soon he began to make friends. His head made friends with a mermaid who lived in a grotto not far from his chin. She was no longer young and the songs she sang were rude because she had learned them from some sailors in a pub. This had happened when she came out on land for a while and married an innkeeper who had forced her to work as a barmaid. But standing on her tail all day made her tired and when her husband said she smelled fishy she had left him and returned to the water. She was a motherly mermaid and very fond of the Kraken and he of her. The Kraken also liked a rather dotty sea-witch who roared about muttering spells which began with words like “Sweery, sweery linkum-loo” and usually ended with someone being turned into a sea cucumber. And he liked the sea horses and the peacefully squelching squids.