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The legend of the tooth mouse


Once upon a time there was a mouse called Lauchito, who was very crafty and worldly and had been in all kinds of kitchens stealing little bits of food from the humans.

The humans didn't mind too much because he was a very clean mouse and always tidied up after himself, and because long ago he had befriended a small boy who had given him some food in exchange for some of the little night that he kept in his cave, back when humans didn't have night and had to sleep in the bright sun instead.

The mouse was always playing tricks on the fox, who was very greedy and not very nice. Most of all the fox wanted to be like a human. And one day he managed to marry a princess who had a baby daughter and later became king. But he was not a very nice king and made everyone very poor by taking all their money and keeping it himself.

The princess became a queen and her daughter became princess. The fox king didn't like the princess and kept her locked up in the castle all the time. She had lots of money but no friends. The princess was bigger now though so when she lost her first tooth she put it under her pillow because her mummy had told her that a mouse might come and give her a present. So she did, and waited, and when the night came she saw a little mouse who was dressed in human clothes and was climbing up her bed carrying a bag to put the tooth in. She tried to catch him in her hands and he slipped out and ran through a hole in the room. She followed him and was able to fit through the mouse hole and had become like a mouse too. She chased him all around town and when he thought he had lost her he went along his way chased by cats and getting out of the way of the people walking everywhere while the princess chased him.



She saw him take presents and take teeth from all children around the town, some very poor children and very rich children, all kinds of children. She really liked this and made friends with the mouse and he liked her very much. He said she must be a fairy princess and that's how she was able to come with him.

She came back and the king was very angry that she had escaped, and locked her and the mouse up in the cupboard under the stairs. Her mum he locked in her room. And then he was very tired of all that shouting and being horrible so he went to bed. The mouse escaped and climbed under his pillow, and the king found him.

Hello Fox, said the mouse from under the pillow. The king was very angry to be found out to be a fox, so he punched the pillow. He pulled out the pillow expecting a flat mouse, but under the pillow the mouse was fine, and he got out of his huge bag of teeth and ka-boom he hit the fox king sending teeth everywhere and told him never to be horrible again.



From then on the tooth mouse and the tooth fairy went around together giving presents to children. The tooth fairy had only money though, so she sent that. Also they are always arguing but that's normal when people work together for a long time!




This is an attempt to make a short story to explain why my children have 2 different beings who share their teeth (they have italian, chilean and north american traditions). Here are some of the links I used to figure it all out:

http://etimologias.dechile.net/?mapuche
http://cvc.cervantes.es/actcult/raton/cuento.htm
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Bonne_Petite_Souris
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/6413/leyendas/noche.html
http://www.telepolis.com/cgi-bin/web/DISTRITODOCVIEW?url=/1356/doc/cruzdelsur/aymara.htm
http://www.unap.cl/sociales/revistasociales/articulos/rcs_3/articulo_3_4.htm

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