Music Welcome to Snuescast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us on snuescast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Golden Eagles. Tonight, we'll read the complete story of the Velveteen Rabbit, a British children's book written by Marjorie Williams in 1922. It chronicles the story of a stuffed rabbit's desire to become real through the love of his owner. Snew's cast first aired a version of this story that didn't include the ending back in 2019. Many listeners requested the ending, so we re-recorded it in 2021 and are

re-broadcasting it now. We hope you enjoy this lovely tale as much as we do. Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes. Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid. He was fat and bungee, as a rabbit should be. His coat was spotted brown and white. He had real thread whiskers. And his ears were lined with pink satin. On Christmas morning, when he sat wedged in the top of the boy's stocking, with a sprig of holly between his paws, the effect was charming. There were other things in the stocking, nuts and oranges and a toy engine chocolate almonds, and a clockwork mouse. But the rabbit was quite the best of all. For at least two hours, the boy loved him, and then aunts and uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents, the Velveteen rabbit was forgotten. For a long time, he lived in the toy cupboard, or on the nursery floor, and no one thought very much about him. He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him. The mechanical toys were very super rare and looked down upon everyone else. They were full of modern ideas and pretended they were real. The model boat, who had lived through two seasons and lost most of his paint, caught the tone from them, and never missed an opportunity of referring to his rigging in technical terms. The rabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for he didn't know that real rabbits existed. He thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out of date and should never be mentioned in modern circles. Even Timothy, the jointed wooden lion who was made by the disabled soldiers and should have been broader with his views, put on airs and pretended he was connected with the government. Between them all, the poor little rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant in commonplace. And the only person who was kind to him at all was the skin horse. The skin horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string-beet necklaces. He was wise for he had seen a long succession succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and buy and buy, break their mainsprings, and pass away. And he knew that they were only toys and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the skin horse understand all about it. It is real? Ask the rabbit one day when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender before Nana came to tidy the room. Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick out handle?

Real isn't how you're made.

Said the skin horse.

It's a thing that happens to you.

When a child loves you for a long, long time,

not just to play with, but really loves you. Then you become real. Does it hurt? Ask the rabbit. Sometimes said the skin horse, for he was always truthful. When you're real, you don't mind being hurt. Does it happen all at once? Like being wound up, he asked, or, is it bit by bit? It doesn't happen all at once. Said the skin horse. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily. Or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints, and very shabby. But these things don't matter at

all, because once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. I suppose you are real.

Set the rabbit.

And then he wished he had not said it. Brave thought the skinhors might be sensitive. But the skinhors only smiled. The boy's uncle made me real. He said. That was a great many years ago. But once you are real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always. The rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called real happened to him. He longed to become real, to know what it felt like, and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad.

He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him. There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, sometimes, for no reason, whatever. She went swooping about like a great wind, and hustled them away in cupboards. She called this tidying up, and the playthings all hated it, especially the tin ones. The rabbit didn't mind it so much. For wherever he was thrown, he came down soft. One evening, when the boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the China dog that always slept with him.

Nana was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to hunt for China dogs at bedtime, so she simply looked about her and, seeing that the toy cupboard door stood open, she made a swoop. Here, she said, take your old bunny.

He'll do to sleep with you, and she dragged the rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the boy's arms. That night, and for many nights after, the velveteen rabbit slept in the boy's bed. At first he found it rather uncomfortable, where the boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the rabbit could scarcely breathe. And he missed two, those long, moonlit hours in the nursery, when all the house was silent and his talks with the skin horse happened. But very soon he grew to like it. For the boy used to talk to him and made nice tunnels for him under the bed clothes. That he said were like the burrows the real rabbits lived in. And they had splendid games together in whispers, when Nana had gone away to her supper and left the nightlight burning on the mantle, and when the boy dropped off to sleep. The rabid would snuggle down close under his warm little chin and dream, with the boy's hands clasped close to him all night long. And so time went on. And the little rabbit was very happy.

So happy. So happy that he never noticed how his beautiful veil the teen fur was getting shabber and shabber and his tail becoming unsoan. and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the boy had kissed him. Spring came and they had long days in the garden, for wherever the boy went, the rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, and picnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under the raspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the boy was called away suddenly to go out to tea, the rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk. And Nana had to come and look for him with the candle, because the boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows the boy had made for him in the flower bed. And Nana grumbled that she rubbed him off with the corner of her apron. You must have your old bunny, she said, fancy all that fuss for a toy. The boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands. Give me my bunny. He said, you mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's real. When the little rabbit heard that, he was happy, for he knew that what the skin horse had said was true at last, the nursery magic had happened to him. And he was a toy no longer. He was real. The boy himself had said it. That night he was almost too happy to sleep and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. into his his boot-budden eyes that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up and said, I declare if that old bunny hasn't got quite a knowing expression. That was a wonderful summer near the house where they lived. There was a wood. And in the long, June evenings, the boy liked to go there after tea to play. He took the felveteen rabbit with him, and before he wandered off to pick flowers, or play among the trees, he always made the rabbit a little nest somewhere among the bracken, where he would be quite cozy, where he was a kind hearted little boy, and he liked bunny to be comfortable. One evening, while the rabbit was lying there alone, watching the ants that ran to and fro between his velvet paws in the grass he saw two strange beings creep out of the tall bracken near him. They were rabbits like himself, but quite furry and brand new. They must have been very well made, for their seams didn't show at all, and they changed shape in a strange way when they moved. One minute they were long and thin, and the next minute fat and bungee, instead of always staying the same like he did. Their feet pat its softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses while the rabbit stared hard to see which side the clockwork stuck out. Free knew that people who jump generally have something to wind them up, but he couldn't see it. They were evidently a new kind of rabbit altogether. They stared at him and the little rabbit stared back. And all the time their noses twitched.

Why don't you get up and play with us, one of the masks? I don't feel like it," said the rabbit. Or he didn't want to explain that he had no clockwork. Oh, said the furry rabbit. And so easy as anything. And he gave a big, hot, side waist and stood on his hind legs. I don't believe you can, he said. I can. Said the little rabbit. I can jump higher than anything. He meant when the boy threw him. But of course he didn't want to say so. Can you hop on your hind legs? Ask the furry rabbit. That was a dreadful question. For the velveteen rabbit had no hind legs at all. The back of him was made all in one piece, like a pinquition. He sat still in the bracken, and hoped that the other rabbits wouldn't notice. I don't want to, he said again. the wild rabbits have very sharp eyes, and this one stretched out his neck and looked. He hasn't got any hind legs. He called out, fancy a rabbit without any hind legs, and he began to laugh.

I have cried the little rabbit. I have got hind legs. I'm sitting on them and stretch them out and show me like this. Set the wild rabbit. began to whirl around and dance till the little rabbit. And he began to whirl around and dance. Till the little rabbit got quite dizzy. I don't like dancing, he said. I'd rather sit still. But all the while he was longing to dance.

For a funny new, tickly feeling ran through him, and he felt he would give anything in the world to be able to jump about like these rabbits did. The strange rabbit stopped dancing and came quite close. He came so close this time that his long whiskers brushed the velveteen rabbit's ear, And then he wrinkled his nose suddenly, and flattened his ears, and jumped backwards. He doesn't smell right. He exclaimed, he isn't a rabbit at all. He isn't real. I am real." Said the little rabbit. I am real, the boy said so, and he nearly began to cry. Just then, there was a sound of footsteps, and the boy ran past near them, and with a stamp of feet and a flash of white tails, the two strange rabbits disappeared. Come back and play with me, called the little rabbit. Oh, do come back. I know I am real.

But there was no answer. Only the little ants running to and fro, and the bracken that swayed gently, where the two strangers had passed. The Velveteen Rabbit was all alone.

Oh dear, he thought, why did they run away like that? Why couldn't they stop and talk to me? For a long time, he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping they would come back. But they never returned, and presently the sun sank lower, and the little white moths fluttered out, and the boy came and carried him home. Weeks passed, and the little rabbit grew very old and chubby, but the boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned gray, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit anymore, except to the boy. To him, he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people.

Because the nursery magic had made him real. And when you are real, shabbiness doesn't matter. And then one day, the boy was ill.

...