A wicked tale of how the girls escaped the land of Bad Hairy Scary Men

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a beautiful country full of deserts and rivers and wild, wild mountains and villages and cities and families and all kinds of people just going about their business.

But something happened to change some of the men.

Some of them decided that they wanted to be in charge of everything, all the time.

You see, they figured if they were in charge of everything, they could have whatever they wanted – all the land, all the money, all the food, all the fun, all the best things would be theirs.

They gave themselves a leader and he was the biggest, hairiest, and scariest of them all.

And the men decided that if they were to be in charge of everything, all the time, they had to take charge of all the wicked girls.

Now when I say wicked, I mean clever, creative, ingenious, kind, thoughtful, and curious – the girls in the land were full of ideas and hopes and dreams – all the sorts of things that were quite hard to control.

The hairy scary men were quite afraid of those girls and how they might stop their plans to be in charge of everything, all the time.

The hairiest and scariest men got together to decide what to do about the girls.

They had a meeting and worked out that before they could be in charge of everything, all the time, they needed to do something to control all the girls.

They talked to their Hairy Scary leader, and he agreed that the girls needed to be stopped, shut out and not allowed to be all the things they were.

They are not allowed to be pretty, he declared, because people will like them and follow them if they are attracted to their beauty.

“We will cover them up!” he growled.

They are not allowed to have wisdom, because that will give them new ideas and people will follow them.

“We will stop them from going to school!” he shouted.

They are not allowed to talk to others, because if people hear them, they might see they have valuable thoughts.

“We will scare them, so they stay in their houses!” he hissed with a horrid, hairy, scary smile.

Girls are wicked, he yelled. And the men joined the chant. Girls are Wicked.

But when he said wicked, the Hairy Scary leader meant girls were bad, evil, and had to be stopped from being all the wonderful things they are. Because, he said, if we don’t control the girls, we cannot be in charge of everything, all the time.

The hairy scary men went out into the land on big trucks, shouting and hollering down every street and in every village and locked up all the girls in their houses. They made them wear clothes to cover their beauty. They took away their books and their phones and left them alone and frightened behind closed doors.

All the girls were very sad and at first, they didn’t know what to do.

The men were big. The men were bad. Most of all, they were hairy and scary.

But then one girl, being wickedly ingenious started to sing. She sang a little coded song about knitting.

The song went something like this.

Feeling alone, yes, but

Really it isn’t so bad

Every sister knows,

Each girl can knit her thoughts

Download them in her yarn

One idea can create a

Miracle – a field, a path a farm.

Craft a world around us

A veil for our salvation

Little needles working deftly to

Lead us from this place

Sisters we can do it, we know we have the grace.

It was a strange song…but as one girl heard the last verse, another would pick up the tune and sing it too.

Across rivers and valleys and down every street in the land, the song murmured like a bubbling brook. And because it was sung so sweetly, and so quietly, the hairy scary men paid no mind to the sound.

They knew the girls were tucked away and could no longer threaten them with bold ideas, they could no longer spread kindness or understanding, they could no longer show examples of sharing and caring, beauty and blessings.

And along with the little song the country echoed with the ever so soft click and clack of knitting needles.

In each house, in the lap of every girl, great swathes of knitting were being created.

Their knitting was exquisite.

Beautiful scenes of the world outside. There were trees and mountains, and birds and flowers waving in the wind, and cars and buses and roads and dogs on the street, religious temples, hospitals, stores, and people walking about to do their shopping. There were even images of the bad, hairy scary men in their trucks hollering and hooting as they drove around the country.

And the girls sang as they knitted, and secretly, with great quietness, under the cover of knitted veils that looked just like a lamp post or the side of house, they began to move between houses and collect each other’s knitting so that they could join the pieces together.

They created enormous curtains that looked just like the world outside.

It was wickedly clever.

And with great stealth, they were on the move.

Holding up their knitting they passed through the landscape, perfectly camouflaged. Disguised as cities, they moved through the cities, to the country, where hidden behind scenes of mountains they moved as one, gathering more and more girls on their journey.

And from the far corners of the country, the wickedly gifted girls, hidden by their incredible knitting, quietly moved far away from the land of Bad Hairy Scary men, without them even noticing they were gone.

And without the girls, the Bad Hairy Scary men grew old, and thin, and weak. They drove around hooting and shouting and were in control of everything, all the time.

But eventually their time ran out and they were all gone to dust.