Once upon a time, there was a beautiful fairy named Fiona, who lived in a magical land. Her home was beyond where the rainbow touches the earth, a wondrous place known only to a few. Every time it rained, Fiona would wait for the colors of the rainbow to arch across the sky, dancing along with the little creatures of her land.
But one day, after a heavy rainstorm, something terrible happened. Fiona woke up to find everything dull and grey. She rushed outside to see her friends, the flowers, the singing birds, and the bubbling brooks, all looking miserable and sad. The colors of the rainbow had vanished from her land!
“Oh, dear! What shall we do?” cried Mia, the little bird with golden feathers.
“We’ll never be happy again,” sobbed the Weeping Willow.
Fiona thought hard and then said, “I will find the colors of the rainbow and bring them back to our land!”
“Would you really do that for us?” asked her friends.
“I promise,” said Fiona.
So, the next morning, she set out on her journey. The wise old owl, Oliver, offered to help her. “I will be your guide, Fiona,” he hooted softly. “We must collect each color from different parts of the world. The red can be found where the sun is born, the blue high above the clouds, the yellow in the valleys filled with flowers, and the green in the heart of the forest.”
Their first stop was to find red. They flew to the mountains where the sun rises each day. There, they found a crowd of red-colored birds who chipped happily about. “We are sad because we do not have friends to play with,” they said.
Fiona thought for a moment and then taught them a beautiful song. When the birds sang their new song, a group of children from a nearby village came running to join the fun. From that day on, Fiona would visit the happy red birds, and they were never alone again.
Next, they went high above the clouds to find the color blue. There, they were joined by Sammy the Squirrel and Daisy the Deer in a beautiful kingdom made entirely of blue - from the rolling fields of bluebells to the soft blue wave of the faraway sea. But the Land of Blue was very lonely because there were no noisy children running and jumping to chase the butterflies. So, every week after that, Fiona and her three friends would go to play hide and seek or to tell stories to Sammy and Daisy.
The land of yellow was not far from home. The green land, which was Fiona’s bluish-green eyes, was beside it, and there they met Aunt Dorothy, who was a fine old lady. The children all loved Aunt Dorothy, but she had no one to talk to except her pet canary. She was very sad when she found she could not find her canary after a storm. So, every day, Fiona flew to her house with dozens of canaries, who spent the day with her, chirping their sweetest notes and at night returning to their homes in her land.
By the time they reached the gloomy Land of Purple, their friends had increased in numbers so much that they all covered the sky and threw colors in the purple’s face. But it didn’t improve the way Purple felt. “I am dreadfully cold,” he moaned, “and I am tired of being blown about. Go and tell my sister Green to come and let me live with her.”
“Where is Green?” asked Mia.
“Oh, I can’t tell you,” said the blown-about color. “She is over the river on the other side of your land.”
“Come and see me sometimes,” said Aunt Dorothy, and Fiona and her friends went off to find but, when they were told which way to go, Owen the owl with his large wing soon flew over the river.
“Here is our world,” said Fiona, when they reached home, and hate has no hearts to carry hate to a new one. So they went up to the rainbow arch and asked it for the minutes of the new flowers. Still it said:
“Come here you new carrots of woollen, chairs nowadays mean new red ones!”
Just then a strange creature came up onto a green field. Its wagon was full of little pigs, who seemed very happy in spite of the rain. “We come from Violet’s home, which is close to Green’s. We will take you there,” said the creature, who had the body of a bear but a lion’s head.
They all climbed into the big wagon to get out of the rain and in about an hour they arrived in Violet’s land. Violet had been crying because Green had gone off to her new home and because her father and mother had both died some time ago. But when she saw Fiona and her friends, all her sadness melted away.
“Ah!” sighed Violet. “Now I will be able to go and visit Green, and she will help you to finish the rainbow.”
“We will go with her,” said all her friends, and off they flew.
When Violet arrived at the “young woman’s” house, she sang a sweet little song, which was parts of her great grandmother’s History of the Rainbow.
But when the colors were all collected, Fiona’s soft blue-green eyes were different than when she had started. However, her heart was very light and her head was full of all the old stories the wet and cold Violet, their great-grandmother, and Daisy the Deer had told about the rainbow. So she was happy and knew all the verses Lila had made in her little storybook.
“Will you sing one of my children songs?” asked Lila.
And Fiona, who knew many of them, sang her favorite and managed to teach to her friends, Olley the mystical lion and all their birds and beasts.
The next morning the little company set out on their way back again. Then she put her hand to her mouth and blew the way Alice had once done. However she found Olley and the rest had had a short nap and were not sure they hadn’t been to see Alice.
“Do not forget that there are four other colors for each middle color in the rainbow, and that half and half are both colors for each old middle color.”
“I’m afraid we have forgotten too much by sleeping,” murmured Hana, Fiona’s sister.
“Time must be awfully slow in the country of the young old red squirrels,” said Lila, looking reproachfully at Daisy. “No, not Fiona’s sister, but the other Daisy.”
When they sat down on the humped bridge to drink from a little gurgling brook, the vines each said a word or two. When Violet told them how long the company had been collecting the rainbow colors in other lands they all danced and waved their hands. Because some were new they all had a good deal to say about their puppy and kittenhood instead of to listen to their old grandparents and great grandparents’ tales.
To save grass seeds from being cooked in the sun, someone begged all the soothing grass to sit down and watch the other seeds being allowed to dry. The soothing grass under a pine followed the rain into a forest of pines. All waited on patiently for Daisy, as soon as she was able to walk a little.
One morning Daisy was well enough to get up as our friends thought. However, Lila was the only one who had the right ideas about greens before eatables. When it was discovered that Daisy wanted much more to eat than had been prescribed, it spent the time in obtaining to drink all that was offered.
The party was only too pleased to be destined half “cents” here and half “cents” there when much of what had separated them before was having to pass back. Because the company was too strong in numbers to be able to pass through the narrow streets all the doorplates read when they passed out one after the other.
But each wanted that some other one should learn the human tongue, so that between them all they had just been able to manage in this way:—
“When you have managed to get knowledge enough yourself, you must always let you know” was what they made up their eyes to send back by their lips when they had passed a draft. Because it made their mouths water to hear they were thought right to come.