Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!
In this episode we bring Tegan’s story – The Travels of Tansy Tiger Spirit – to life.
It’s all about a brave dragon fighting princess…who just wants a holiday. Unfortunately for her there is a chaos causing spirit making that very difficult.
Tegan’s story, The Travels of Tansy Tiger Spirit, came to her when she was a Chessington World of Adventures and saw a ginormous tiger – and the idea just popped into her head and she thought “I have to tell Fun Kids this”. Well we are so glad Tegan did.
If you have a story idea, you could be like Tegan and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!
That’s just what Tegan did. You can watch the story she suggested come to life below, plus she tells us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.
Listen out for brand new Story Quest episodes every Thursday!
Stories for kids and families from Fun Kids – the UK’s children’s radio station. Perfect for all ages – listen in the car, when chilling at home and before bedtimes.
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Read along to The Travels of Tansy Tigerspirit
You can read along to the story while you listen. Just follow the text below. Don’t worry if you find a word tricky – you can pause the video whenever to give yourself more time.
Princess Tansy Tigerspirit was known through the Rivermist Realms as being the fiercest warrior of them all. She had single-handedly seen off an invasion from the trolls from the Om Peninsular, won a joust with Lord Wymark the Insane, and evicted a very stubborn dragon from the high council canteen. And this was all before lunchtime!
She was loved by the people and they would lavish her in jewels, bouquets and chocolates to show their gratitude, which they had to do quite a lot. The Realm did seem to have an awful lot of bad luck when it came to things like that and there was a reason. It was all to do with a certain Spirit.
Sallum was the Spirit of Bad Things. This ranged from stubbing your toe to facing an invasion of mountain trolls – anything that either ruined your day or razed a Kingdom. How could he get away with this you might ask? Surely the other Spirits would have a word, after all if everyone is miserable all the time the folk of the Kingdom might stop believing in Spirits entirely and then where would they be?
He saw things this way – if nothing bad ever happens then how can you feel excited about things being good? If it’s been raining for a week then it’s all the nicer when the sun comes out isn’t it? Now I suppose you and I can sort of see the sense in this but Sallum basically just got a bit carried away and as a result Princess Tansy Tigerspirit was kept busy. So busy that one day she could hardly get out of bed.
Her lady in waiting was worried.
“You need a holiday your highness – let the knights of the realm protect us – take a break!”
“I can’t take a holiday! What if we have another invasion of stealth beavers? You remember the stealth beavers, don’t you?”
The lady in waiting DID remember. How could you forget? I mean she was getting accustomed to expecting invasions all the time but BEAVERS? Especially stealthy ones. She was pretty sure there was still the odd beaver lurking in the castle. She did seem to hear rustling and nibbling noises a lot…
“Even still – if you don’t rest you’ll make yourself poorly and that won’t serve anyone. Least of all yourself!”
Princess Tansy thought about this and decided that taking a holiday would in fact be an EXCELLENT idea. The Silverine Coast! that’s where she would go. It was said the sea was turquoise and the sands were shimmering stars, and the weather was warm and balmy and it wasn’t home to anything more than a few crabs and she thought she could probably handle a moody crab.
So she excitedly packed a bag with swimming costumes, suntan creams and all the books she hadn’t got around to reading. A triumphant crowd waved her off, on her horse Darius the Hoof.
Unfortunately after a few hours clip clopping down the road she heard a terrified whinny. Before she knew it a unicorn came racing past – followed by an enormous snarling grizzly bear! Not just any bear this was a Doom Bear from The Crapuscular Cavern. They were dangerous, powerful and extremely HUNGRY.
Now although she WAS meant to be on holiday she quickly realised that if SHE didn’t help the unicorn, the unicorn would quickly be lunch for a Doom Bear from the Crapuscular Cavern, so sighing, she turned, and made chase – quickly catching up with the pair, the bear was snapping at the unicorn’s heels and despite him kicking his hoofs it seemed the bear would win. Until – SCWHING! Princess Tansy came alongside the bear and with a SCHWING AND A SCHWISH the bear was no more. The unicorn bowed deeply – steaming with the sweat from the pursuit.
“Thank you your Highness! you saved my life! But… aren’t you meant to be on holiday?”
“Well…. technically yes. In fact I shall continue on my way – safe travels unicorn!”
And a bit hot and sweaty, she set on her way once again.
A few hours later – not far from the coast – she was just imagining lying in a lovely hammock drinking coconut juice when she could hear the sound of screams and was that buzzing? It seemed to be coming from a small village just off the track.
A villager ran towards her. She turned to face him. He hurriedly bowed. His face looked a bit puffy.
“Roderick Staff your highness!”
“What on earth is going on? What happened to your face?”
“Bees your highness – A swarm of Dung Bees – they’re the size of bricks!”
The Princess sighed.
“Light fires – as many as you can! I will help you.”
“But I thought you were meant to be on ho..
“Never mind that now! There’s no time to lose. I’ll bring you hay to burn but start fires now! Dung Bees hate smoke!
With the Princess on horseback she raced from the hay fields to the village back and again with armfuls of hay which the villagers piled and burned in great smoky piles. She also waved her sword around to distract the bees from the villagers getting a good few stings herself in the process. Within a few hours the bees had finally buzzed off and the villagers were thankful.
I’d like to say that she finally got to the Silverine Coast but JUST as it came into sight and she felt her shoulders relax in anticipation something caught her eye.
Gnomes! a squad of nasty looking gnomes had surrounded a small boy who didn’t seem to be able to get away. She didn’t like the look of this and trotted over.
“What’s going on here?”
“Nothing to concern you Your Highness, this boy was just about to give me his purse of money – WEREN’T YOU” said a particularly gnarly gnome – he squinted at the boy, who was cowering away.
“You look like a bully to me!” said the Princess slowly taking her sword out of its shealth. “Why don’t you pick on someone your OWN size…”
This didn’t make much sense as the boy was bigger than the gnomes and the Princess even bigger but gnomes like most bullies were cowards and squeaking in horror they ran into the distance. She pulled the boy onto her horse and took him safely home. He hugged her back and said thank you a hundred times and he also said wasn’t she meant to be on holiday?
She grimaced at this and for a moment said nothing. Both she and her horse were exhausted. She’d be too tired to finish the journey at this rate and was still itchy with Dung Bee stings.
“No”, she said. “It turns out holidays are just as much work as anything else. I’m going home”
And despondent and disappointed she turned and galloped back to the castle where she shut herself in her chambers and refused to come out.
Word got around about the holiday – or lack of holiday and everyone felt sorry for the princess. A group of three decided to do something about it. The unicorn, Roderick Staff and the little boy decided to do something about it. Together, they went to the temple of Sallum and lit incense to summon the spirit himself.
“We beseech you to let the Princess take a rest – her holiday was quite spoiled because of all the bad things that happened on the way.
A booming voice came from the air around them.
“But…If bad things don’t happen how can we appreciate the good things?”
The assembled group looked at each other. He SORT of had a point.
“But can’t you just make the bad things, only a BIT bad? You know, so they’re mildly convenient as opposed to being, I don’t know a DOOM BEAR or an DUNG BEE or a STEALTH BEAVER?”
Sallum chuckled. “I thought the whole stealth beaver was quite inventive. I mean if you’re looking for the element of surprise, a killer beaver has to be up there with the most surprising things you can imagine”
“They were TERRIFYING! And there was hardly a twig left on any of the trees once they’d cleared us out.” said the little boy.
“Can you just accept that yes, well done, we are all scared witless by the things you do, and Princess Tansy does a brilliant job at sorting everything out. But if she’s too tired then we are doomed! And if we are all doomed we might just stop believing in you and then where would you be?” this was from Roderick, still a little puffy from the bee stings.
Sallum thought about this. It was important that people believed in him, otherwise he might be little more than a ghost. There was silence. Finally he spoke, his voice again booming around the temple.
“Alright. for ONE WEEK a year I will cease the chaos. Princess Tansy Tigerspirit can have a well earned break safe in the knowledge that there will be no surprise rescues, defences or hand to hand combat requited. But ONLY IF she’s back on duty the following week.
The Unicorn, Roderick and the litleboy smiled happily at each other.
Princess Tansy Tigerspirit was absolutely DELIGHTED with this news and hurried to pack her bag once more. Sallum was as good as his word, and Tansy could set off once more on her horse Darius The Hoof to the warm sunny shores of the glittering Silverine Coast where she slept, swam in the glittering waterfalls and properly relaxed without even a slightly moody crab disturbing her peace.
And do you know what? It seemed even more wonderful to have a break after all the battles fought and – yes, even after the beavers, bees and bears she had vanquished. So maybe Sallum had a point after all!
Do you have a story you want to hear made into a Story Quest?
We’d love to hear from you, submit your idea here and maybe we’ll be hearing you on Story Quest soon.
