Bedtime: Soothing Good Night Stories

Hey Diddle Diddle

A Cow called Emma

Once upon a time there was a little cow called Emma. She was born on a farm somewhere in the Midlands, quite some time ago. Due to very sad circumstances, circumstances that are far too sad to be told in a bedtime story, the little cow wasn’t raised by her own mother but by a little foals’ mum. So little Emma didn’t know she was a cow, she thought she was a foal just like her sister! And so she did all the things little horses do. She ran around the green meadows of the Midlands and played joyfully with the other foals all day long. She loved to jump over fences but for some strange reason; too strange to tell in a bedtime story, none of the horses could jump as high as she could. Emma was very proud and so she kept on jumping. First she jumped over small fences, then she jumped over high fences, but after a while she started jumping over the farmer’s car.

Then she jumped over the farmer’s tractor and one day she even jumped over the milkman’s lorry. How amazing was that? The horses were really impressed and the farmer was amazed by his very special cow. He went to the market place to tell the other farmers in the neighbourhood all about his special cow Emma; but of course they didn’t believe him, they just laughed at him when he told his story. You see, usually cows don’t like jumping over tractors and milk lorries. The poor old farmer left the market place and travelled home to his farm and the moon was shining brightly. When he got close to his farm he could clearly see Emma the cow jumping over his farmhouse. He shook his head sadly; no one would ever believe that, he thought.

As the days went by Emma the cow kept on jumping over everyone, over everything and everywhere until finally, the farmer decided to invite the whole village to a midsummer party so that they could see his remarkable cow. On that very next Sunday afternoon all the farmers of the village came to see the jumping cow and they brought along their wives and all their children too. No one actually believed there was a jumping cow, but they surely didn’t want to miss the party. It was a lovely day and everyone sitting on checked blankets spread about on the grass with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of cake in the other. It was a lovely day. Then suddenly everyone saw the cow jumping over a fence. There was cheering, there was applause, the cow bowed and then suddenly, it jumped over the tractor. The audience was shocked. They gasped and what next? Then it jumped over the farmhouse. What a cheering and a screaming there was!

The farmer was very proud and very pleased with his cow, now everyone knew that he hadn’t made up the story. It was a wonderful party; far too wonderful to be told in a bedtime story and people just couldn’t believe their eyes as even more strange things started to happen after the sun had gone down. There was a pussycat playing a fiddle and Mrs Johnson, the neighbour’s wife, pretended she had seen the table running away with all the plates and the spoons. Everyone laughed, as it was so funny and then someone shouted “look!” and pointed straight up to the moon. Everyone did look and could see Emma the cow jumping right over the moon. That was clearly a party to remember!

Song:
Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon
The little dog laughed to see such fun
And the dish ran away with the spoon
The spoon, the spoon, the spoon, the spoon

© 2015, written by Mike Wilbury

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