Once upon a time there was a pig who did not like being a pig.
Every day he would walk down to a still pond and study his reflection in the muddy water before the other animals spoiled the smooth surface with their drinking.
“ I look like a big fat pig!” he would say to himself. And he would turn away from the water disgusted and stump back up the little hill to the farmyard where he lived.
All day long he would avoid spending time with his brothers. “Let them root and grunt and grow fat” he said to himself. “I am not going to become a fat pig like them”!
Instead, the unhappy pig would avoid the company of other animals of his kind. He took to walking alone for hours in the woods that adjoined the farm.
Instead of rolling in the mud, he found a small secluded stream where he would wash each day, and bracken where he would roll until he was dry and clean.
Instead of rooting for food and truffles, he made cologne for himself and
wore it on his clean pink skin. He purchased wax and somehow managed to remove all of his course piggy hair with it.
Instead of the rich swill enjoyed by his brothers, the pig kept to a strict diet of leaves and berries and ate as little as he could bear.
But every day when he went to look at himself in the water, he still saw a pig staring back at him.
The pig became more and more despondent until, one day, as he was walking in the wood and thinking about how very hungry he felt; he came upon the wizards cottage.
Now the pig knew very well that it never does any good to talk to wizards. No matter what they promise; it always turns out badly in the end. The pig recalled that his mother had always been very firm on the subject of wizards.
Nevertheless, the pig was so tired and hungry that before he knew it he found that he was already at the edge of the wizard’s garden and peering over his fence.
The wizard was outside tending to his vegetable garden and appeared not to have noticed the pig. Like all wizards he looked a little frightening with a shock of brown hair that he had formed into great spikes using goose fat. His face was painted with thick white clay and his eyes appeared a little too large for it which always made people feel uncomfortable when they spoke to him.
He straightened up and regarded the pig. “ What do you want little pig, and what are you doing in my vegetable garden?” he asked. The pig noticed that the wizard had sharpened his teeth to points and he stepped back a little way out of fear. Eventually he found his tongue and answered the wizard.
“ Please sir; I came because I don’t want to be this big fat pig anymore”.
“ Oh really,” said the wizard, “and what will you give to me if I agree to turn you into a man?”.
“ Oh, I would give you anything, anything you asked” cried the pig as hopeless tears brimmed and fell from his eyes.
“ Very well then,” said the wizard, “ I will require your two front legs for my dinner tonight”.
The pig was afraid, but he had already agreed to the bargain and told the wizard that he would give whatever was asked. In the end, he allowed the wizard to cut off his two front legs and to cook and eat them for his tea.
When finally the wizard had finished eating the meal he sat back at his dining table, threw down his knife and fork with a crash and cried “very well then, let us get to work”!
The wizard drew a chalk circle around the unhappy pig and lit smoking braziers that made the pig cough and feel ill. He uttered strange enchantments in foreign languages that made the pig’s ears buzz and ache and caused his skin to tingle and burn.
By the time the wizard had finished with him, the pig was very tired and so the wizard led him to a small bed and bade him lie down whilst he went to get two fresh willow branches from the garden.
The wizard took the branches and put them in the empty places where the pigs front legs had been. He bound them in place with a fresh cloth and spoke a last spell over him.
“Sleep now pig, and when you wake, these willow wands new arms will make. Your skin will bubble, melt and flow; until into a man you grow.
And that was the last thing that the pig heard; for he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, the pig was all alone. The wizard had gone. The house and garden, the bed and covers. Everything had disappeared. The pig was lying naked in some bracken and night was closing in.
But this was not what frightened the pig and made him cry out in alarm.
It was when he tried to stand up and found legs and toes and arms and hands and feet where before there had been only trotters and pork and willow wands.
The pig ran and ran through the darkening woods. His new soft human skin was little defence against branches and thorns and soon he was bleeding from a dozen cuts and welts.
Finally he arrived at the little pond near the farm where he lived and peered anxiously into the water.
A very ugly human face peered back at him.
The pig was exhausted from his long ordeal. He finally collapsed by the side of the pond and wept.
“ Oh, Oh, what have I done to myself? I was a perfectly beautiful pig and now I’ve changed myself into a terribly ugly man. Whatever shall I do?”.
And so the man set about looking for the wizard so that he might ask to be made back into a pig again. He searched from place to place and from year to year. To pay for food he would work at local farms as a labourer and became known as an excellent pigs herd. He asked again and again about the wizard and gave his description to everyone he met. But as the years passed he was no nearer to finding him and found that he did not really fit into the human world.
For all I know, he is searching still to this day. Moving from farm to farm and having few friends because of his ugliness.
And at night. When the farms are silent and still and all eyes are closed, he will often creep back down to the pig sty and snuggle warmly in amongst the swine. For you see, inside himself he never really stopped being a pig.
He was the pig who wasn’t
