Well, I didn’t know I had the power of wishes! I was just driven by the necessity of finding food, you see, because my grandmother and I had nothing to eat. I spread out my net in the water, and when I went back the next morning, the net was swarming with fish! To cook them I needed fire, and the only way of getting it was to cross to the other side of the wide river and steal it from the people who lived there.

I stood at river bank, trying to think of how I would get across, and the words of a spell came to me…something I’d heard a wizard say, and suddenly, the water was full of whales. They made a bridge for me to cross over. By the time I had reached the other side, it had begun to dawn on me that I had the power of wishes. Well, I had better start using that power in earnest, because the children had caught me and the people were about to throw me into the pot!

The Hare with the Power of Wishes in The Cunning Hare, Brown Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.