The Magic Well

Tonight we’ll read an Australian fairy tale called “The Magic Well” written by Hume Cook and published in 1925.

Hume Cook was a politician as well as a writer, serving as a member of Australia’s Parliament at the turn of the twentieth century. Beyond politics, he had a lifelong fondness for storytelling, and eventually wrote down the tales he had invented for his three children. The result was a book called Australian Fairy Tales, where gum trees, billabongs, and local wildlife mingled with elves and sprites, firmly grounding old-world fantasy in an Australian setting.

What makes these stories unusual is their attempt to create a distinctly Australian branch of fairy lore. At the time, children’s stories were still overwhelmingly European in flavor—full of castles, cobblestones, and northern forests. By weaving in native landscapes and animals, Cook gave his children stories where fairies might hide behind eucalyptus trees instead of oaks, or guard hidden wells in the bush rather than mossy glades.

In “The Magic Well,” we’ll hear one such tale, where an enchanted spring becomes the heart of a story about discovery and wonder.

— read by 'V' —

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