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From: Part I Once Upon A Time,
in a far-off kingdom, there lived...
a fair young maiden, a sad young lad, and a childless baker with his wife.
The maiden, called Cinderella, wished more than anything, more than life, to go to the King's festival.
The lad, named Jack, also had a wish. He wished., more than anything, more than fife, more than riches, that his cow would give him some milk.
The Baker and the Baker's Wife were wishing, too. They wished more than anything, more than life, more than riches, more than the moon, that they had a child.
Cinderella's mother had died, and her father had taken for his new wife a woman with two daughters of her own. All three were beautiful of face but vile and black of heart. And, jealous of Cinderella's good qualities, they cruelly thrust upon her the dirtiest tasks around the house.
"You wish to go to the festival?" the Stepmother asked mockingly.
"Look at your nails!" chuckled Lucinda, one of Cinderella's stepsisters.
"Look at your dress!" giggled Florinda, the other.
"You wish to go to the festival and dance before the Prince?!" they all exclaimed, and fell down laughing out of control.
Jack, on the other hand, had no father. And his mother was concerned about her son and his devotion to his cow, Milky-White.
"You foolish child! What in Heaven's name are you doing with the cow inside the house?" she demanded.
"A warm environment might be just what Milky-White needs to produce his milk," replied Jack.
"It's a she! How many times must I tell you? Only shes can give milk! Besides, she's been dry for a week straight. We've no food or money and no choice but to sell her while she can still command a price.
"But Milky-White is my best friend in the whole world," Jack pleaded.
"Look at her! There are bugs on her dugs. There are flies in her eyes. There's a lump on her rump big enough to be a hump. Weve no time to sit and dither while her withers wither with her. And no one keeps a cow for a friend!"
Meanwhile, the Stepmother was playing a cruel joke on Cinderella. "I have emptied a pot of lentils into the ashes," she told the girl. "If you have picked them out again in two hours' time, you shall go to the festival with us."
But the Stepmother was unaware that Cinderella had friends in high places. No sooner had the cruel woman left than Cinderella sang out:
"Birds in the sky, Birds in the eaves,
In the leaves,
In the fields,
In the castles and ponds.
Quick, little birds,
Flick through the ashes.
Pick and peck and sift,
But swiftly.
Put the lentils into my pot."
As she sang, flocks of birds fluttered down into the ashes and busily set to work sorting out the lentils and dropping them into the pot. The task completed, Cinderella thanked them, bade them farewell, and awaited the Stepmother's return.
Because the Baker had lost his mother and father in a baking accident — or so he believed — he was eager to have a family of his own and was concerned that all efforts had failed. The reason for this misfortune was explained to him that afternoon when the creepy old Witch from next door paid them a visit.
"What do you wish?" the Baker asked.
"It's not what I wish. It's what you wish," the hag cackled as she pointed to his wife's belly. "Nothing cooking in there now, is there?"
The ancient enchantress went on to tell the couple that she had placed a spell on their house. "In the past," she informed the Baker, "when you were no more than a baby, your father brought your mother and you to this cottage. She was with child, and she developed an unusual appetite. She took one look at my beautiful garden and told your father that what she wanted more than anything in the world was greens, greens, and nothing but greens! Parsley, peppers, cabbages and celery, asparagus and watercress and fiddleferns and lattice!
"He said, 'All right,' but it wasn't, quite, 'cause I caught him in the autumn in my garden one night! He was robbing me, raping me, rooting through my rutabaga, raiding my arugula, and ripping up the rampion. My champion! My favorite! I should have laid a spell on him right there. Could have turned him into stone or a dog or a chair..."
At which point, the Witch went into a trance, shuddering and gurgling with ghastly noises of joy. The Baker and the Wife could only stand by, trembling with fear, when without warning the Witch continued chattily.
"But I let him have the rampion — I'd lots to spare. In return, however, I said, 'Fair is fair: You can let me have the baby that your wife will bear. And we'll call it square.'"
"I had a brother?" asked the Baker.
"No...but you had a sister," the Witch hissed. However, she refused to tell him any more of his sister — not even that her name was Rapunzel.
"I thought I had been more than reasonable," the Witch continued petulantly, "and we all might have lived happily thereafter. But how was I to know what he'd also put in his pocket?! You see, when I had inherited that garden, my mother warned me that I would be punished if ever I were to lose any of the beans."
"Beans?" asked the couple.
"The special beans! I let him go, I didn't know he'd stolen my beans! I was watching him crawl back over the wall when bang! crash! and the lightning flash! and the — never mind, that's another story.
This book is adapted from the play Into the Woods copyright © 1987 by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, Inc.
Illustrations and adaptation copyright © 1988 by Hudson Talbott
