In Competition No. 2968 you were-invited to take the title of a short story by Ted Hughes, How the Whale Became, substitute-another animal or fish for ‘whale’ and provide a tale with that title. This comp was an absolute delight to judge. There were oodles of well-turned entries bursting with charm. Well done. Special mention go to C.J. Gleed, Michael McManus, Frank McDonald and Tracy Davidson. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Bill Greenwell.

Call me Nana. I was born when my mother was being born, into one gender, no need for more, only the cycle, the cycle of endless begetting. When I was a few days old, my great-great-great-great-grandnymphs yelled, ‘We’re pregnant.’ And indeed they were, my beautiful matryoshki. There is nothing in this girly world so perfect as a broad green leaf, and the suckling of it. Come on, let’s make dew, I cry to my ancestors, or are they descendants? I am often mistaken for my great-grandbuglet, and sometimes for my great-great-grandmother: so easy a mistake to make. Blessings to the ants, who suckle themselves on our dew. Excuse me, I must go to the labour-leaf. My life looks a pretty picture, but it’s a reproduction. I am made of being, in the act of being, all green. Until the Ladybird of Doom looms over me.
Bill Greenwell: How the Aphid Became
 
‘That wrap it up, then? Everything from aardvark to zorilla, right? Let me hear from you.’
‘I wonder…’
This was from a relatively junior archangel, a recent appointment to the committee. God’s eyes bulged to encourage him.
‘Well, the providential scheme hangs together with the zoology and so forth, but perhaps too neatly. Couldn’t we add a little weirdness? Something that would amuse Homo sapiens but also puzzle them, even freak them out a bit, an addictive pleasure they will never really understand?’
‘I’ve already given them sex. Isn’t that enough?’ God chuckled and was echoed round the table.
‘Well, this is the committee on biogenesis. I was thinking maybe an additional life form, a sort of constant animated tease.’
God checked his watch. ‘Constant animated tease? Good idea. I was thinking along those lines myself. Make it CAT for short. And now I believe it’s lunchtime.’
Basil Ransome-Davies: How the Cat Became
 
Loki the Trickster begged a feather from Freyja’s magic cloak. ‘From this,’ he boasted, ‘I shall create a bird to mock Men who live in overweening cities and forget the Vanir. It shall be fat and stupid, but tough and wearyingly persistent. It shall live in teeming numbers, especially where the great, sad towers of concrete are raised, and shall be clad in shapeless grey.’
‘You have given it Thor’s brains. Give it also Thor’s appetite, but not his courage,’ said the goddess.
‘Chips, kebabs, bread and pizza shall it guzzle, day and night. Thence it shall foul its home. Sex-mad it shall also be, breeding all year round unlike more seemly birds, and monotonous its cries. In homage to your familiars, O Lady of the Slain, its enemies shall be the cat and the falcon.’
So the pigeon became.
Frank Upton: How the Pigeon Became
 
‘So,’ thundered God, somewhere in the white space between Books of the Old Testament. ‘Creation is insufficiently rich for the tastes of Man. He looks upon my Works — the elephant, the fly, the scintillating multitudes of fish beneath the waves and birds upon the air — wonders for the barest moment, then hunts, eats or imprisons every single thing I have devised without thought. He cares not about the beauty of the eagle, the strength of the bear. He squanders his evenings, instead, etching into cave walls images of things he imagines his Creation. So I mock him with a white horse wearing a single horn at its brow. I put it into the world for just the moment it took for Man to see and wonder, ceasing its existence immediately thereafter. He will yearn for it, seek it, never find it. And that is how the Unicorn became. And Unbecame.’
Adrian Fry: How the Unicorn Became
 
The pig looked at the elephant and thought, ‘My snout is too small. I wish I had a trunk.’ Then he thought, ‘No, wait. A trunk would drag on the ground and I might trip over it. I don’t want to be just a pig with a trunk. I want to turn into an elephant.’
‘Wishing can make it so’, said a Voice from the sky. ‘Close your eyes and wish as hard as ever you can. Don’t open your eyes until you hear me speak again.’
The pig closed his eyes. He wished and wished. Slowly, he felt himself starting to change, his body growing larger and his snout stretching into a new, longer shape. ‘Hooray, I’m an elephant!’ he cried as he opened his eyes.
‘I told you not to open your eyes’, said the Voice. ‘The transformation was only half finished.’ And that’s how the tapir became.
Chris O’Carroll: How the Tapir Became
 
 There was once an enormous fish, so large that the sides of his body would barely fit between the banks of even the widest rivers. The creature was christened Colossal Carp on account of his size and the fact that he constantly carped and complained about feeling chilly. His Maker, tired of the groans and gripes, decided to mollycoddle the carp and knit him a tight-fitting onesie from Wensleydale sheep wool to keep out the cold. Pleased to be pampered, the fortunate fish now flaunted his fleece swimming to and fro displaying the onesie’s shimmering shine to his envious fishy friends. But Wensleydale wool, in spite of its sheen, is prone when wet to shrink and shrink it did, compressing and crushing the carp’s large frame to a fraction of its original size. The colossal carp was colossal no more. And that is how the minnow became the minnow.
Alan Millard: How the Minnow Became

No. 2971: lines from the left

Shoestring Press has just published Poems for Jeremy Corbyn, an anthology of verse written for the Labour party leader. But how about poems written by Jeremy: let’s have your best efforts (16 lines max) by midday on 19 October. Email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk.