Long ago, there was a young boy called Jack, but everybody in the village called him The Curious One because Jack always wanted things which appeared beyond the grasp of others. He did not care about things which he could get simply by reaching out his hand. Instead, he wanted things which required a great effort to obtain. Once, when everybody in the village was sitting around the bonfire, the elder of the village told the story of the Fern Flower. The woman was very old and had travelled all over the world and seen many strange things, so Jack listened to the story very carefully. The young boy was fascinated and promised himself then and there that he would find the flower and make all of his wishes come true. It did not matter that the Fern Flower bloomed only once a year. If Jack did not find the flower on the first year, then he would keep looking year after year. When St John’s Night finally arrived, Jack dressed in his best clothes and went into the forest to seek out the mythical flower. Jack knew the paths and the trees of the forest very well, but on this night he did not recognize a single thing. The trees appeared much taller, and their branches and trunks stretched out in such a way that he could not always walk around them. The bushes were thicker and spikier, and the pathways were all darker and scarier. Jack kept walking despite all of the obstacles in his way; despite the darkness and the terrifying blue, red, yellow and green eyes watching from the darkness. Jack walked on because he knew that the strangeness of the forest, and the scary eyes in the darkness, were all there to prevent him from finding the mythical Fern Flower. The pine trees were tall and wide and caused Jack to make very slow progress. The bushes were so thick that he had to hack at them with his hands and feet in order to continue on his journey. Then he came across a pine tree that was so tall it seemed to stretch up into the sky, and so wide it seemed to him as if it would take forever to walk around its trunk. When eventually he had gotten to the other side of the tree, he noticed that it was not so tall and wide after all, but rather another trick of the mysterious forest. Some time later, Jack came across a marsh in the middle of the gloomiest, dampest part of the forest. There was no way around the marsh, and when Jack tried to put his foot into the water he almost sank to the bottom. Eventually the young boy noticed very small clumps of grass dotted here and there across the length of the marsh. He decided that this was the only way to cross the boggy water, so he took a deep breath and jumped from one clump to the next until he had crossed over to the other side.