“No,” she said, “you’re Goose!” And she ignored Ollie’s extended hand and hugged him again. “How’d you become a goose, anyway?”

Ollie hugged his sister back. “It’s rather a long story,” he said.

“Good!” said Asgard. “I love stories.”

“He’ll tell us over breakfast,” said Edvard. “Won’t you, son?”

Ollie grinned. “I’d love to.”

Edvard took him by one hand and Asgard by the other, and they led him into the house. After Edvard’s wife had recovered from the shock, they sat together and ate a breakfast of turnips on toast while Ollie told them all about his years as a goose. From that day forward he was a member of the family. Edvard loved his son unconditionally, and never again did Ollie lose his human form. And they lived happily ever after.

The Boy Who Could Hold Back the Sea

There was once a peculiar young man named Fergus who could harness the power of the currents and tides. This was in Ireland during its terrible famine. He might have used his talent to catch fish to eat, but he lived in a landlocked place far from the sea, and his power was of no use in rivers or lakes. He might have set off for the coast—he’d been there once as a young boy; that’s how he knew what he could do—but his mother was too weak to travel, and Fergus couldn’t leave her alone; he was all the family she had left. Fergus gave her every bit of food he could scrounge while he survived on sawdust and boiled shoe leather. But it was sickness that finally got her, not hunger, and in the end there was nothing to be done.

As she lay dying, his mother made him promise to leave for the coast as soon as she was in the ground. “With your talent, you’ll be the best fisherman who ever lived, and you’ll never have to go hungry again. But never tell anyone what you can do, son, or people will make your life hell.” He promised he would do as she said, and the next day she died. Fergus buried her in the churchyard, threw his few possessions into a sack, and began his long walk to the sea. He walked for six days with one shoe and no food. He was starving, and all the people in the towns he passed along the way were starving, too. Some towns had been abandoned altogether, the farmers gone to seek better fortunes and fuller stomachs in America.

Finally, he reached the seaside, and a little town called Skelligeen where none of the houses looked empty and none of the people looked hungry. This he took as a sign that he’d come to the right place: if the people of Skelligeen were still around and well-fed, the fishing must be very good. Which was a lucky thing, because he didn’t think he could go much longer without eating. He asked a man where he might find a fishing pole or a net, but the man told him he wouldn’t find any such thing in Skelligeen. “We don’t fish here,” the man said. He seemed oddly proud of it, as if being a fisherman were something shameful.