The Tale Of The Wicked Old Woman And The Very Nice 'Beast' Of Crouch End

The Tale Of The Wicked Old Woman And The Very Nice 'Beast' Of Crouch End Synopsis

What happens if you try to seize beauty and freeze time? This fable tells you, serious yet whimsical, full of myth and magic, contemporary reality and joyful fantasy-centered around a cat always in danger of being too big or too small. It is set long ago, a "Once Upon a Time" story that unfolds seamlessly among modern children and their parents and School in a contemporary urban setting.

In this Tale a woman long ago tries to keep her beautiful daughter to herself, yet who is so saddened when she loses her daughter to a handsome stranger that things wilt in her presence and die at her touch. Magically she lives into the modern era nursing her resentment until she meets a little girl called Daisy. Everyone and everything blooms in Daisy's delightful presence, who has a 'green thumb' to challenge all green thumbs!

Try as she does, the sad, now old, woman has no effect on Daisy until the mysterious gift of a kitten, Little Boots, brings Daisy and her family to grief. For the kitten won't stop growing, until their neighbors and the other parents and children at School turn on Daisy and her family. The local Council decides Little Boots may be a rare, semi-mythical English 'Beast' but he must go, along with Daisy and her family.

Climactically Daisy discovers it is all the Old Woman's doing and finds how to reverse what has been a subtle spell on Little Boots, facing then the problem of keeping her cat from growing too small. The children and parents confront the Old Woman who retreats before Daisy, at whose touch flowers grow, until she runs into her old, wooden home. At Daisy's touch that too bursts into life—and the Old Woman is never seen again.