Poem: Christening

a rough draft 

From about half a year ago.  Strike-through and red text are edits.  Gentle constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated!

Hush now, sleep.
Don't dream straw that burns
into gold, that diabolical
transformation. Death's bitter taste Bitter death
coated the back of my throat.
I couldn't fathom the scent
of skin-and-milk,
the heat of sweat-stained cheeks
in fitful sleep, after our intimate
ten-month
acquaintance.
                    Oh, God! 

                                   I would have traded
even you
to usurp nature’s sovereignty. 

Forgive me. 

I thought I wanted to hold magic
in my hands. I didn’t know
true magic dozes
out of reach and hums
itself the old stories, tracing
illuminated letters, growing toes
and fingers.  

                         You curl
your fist near your temple;
lashes skitter. Hush
little baby, I will scale
towers without doors, sift
lentils from soot and cinder,
wear out three pairs of iron shoes, cross
the briar-tangled border into wilderness
to and lay down my power;
ransom back the blood-token;
find the name
                         that will set you free.

Elenore Abbott

A Few Fairy Notes

1.  With the disappearance of the classic SSiG background, I'm revamping the imagery; so please bare with me and the shape-shifting blog for now!

2.  My poem "Achilles's Sister" was published in Fickle Muses.  Click the link to read.

3.  A new fairy tale publication is being released by the editor of Enchanted Conversation, Kate Wolfold, brought to us by World Weaver Press!  Beyond the Glass Slipper: Ten Neglected Fairy Tales to Fall in Love With introduces a collection of lesser known tales with the non-tedious yet intelligent blend of professionalism and personability with which Ms. Wolfold mans Enchanted Conversation.

In honor of the book's release, World Weaver Press is hosting a Fairy Tale Festival until May 6.  Go and join the fun!  And purchase the e-book because EC will be hosting a group discussion on the book you won't want to miss out on!

Poem: To the Sphinx

second revision

The latest version.  Do you prefer this one?

Dame, you ask questions that ring the nerve-cells.
Squat at brown crossroads and sound our death-knell.
What walks on four legs, on two legs, three--?  Tell.Laius and I know conundrums as well. 

Squat at brown crossroads and sound our death-knell,
riddles and rimes to crack open our brains.
Laius and I know conundrums as well.
Why stone-cracked famine, cold orphans, dry plague?

Fairy Tale: Changeling

The village bordered fairyland, and so to keep the peace, every seven years the villagers offered their fairy neighbors a bride. And with the bride, they provided such a dowry as their various fortunes and means allowed that year. In this way, they kept the Folk appeased and the bit of famine from their thresholds.

artist unknown

Now, there was a maiden who lived in that village who was not at any risk of being chosen for a fairy bride. She had been born ugly.

In fact, the day her mother went into labor, Saint Winifred was passing through. The laboring woman said to her husband, with perspiration glancing her brow, “Go and tell the saint to come hither. I would that she be present at this babe’s deliver and baptism and beg of her a blessing for the child.”

When the baby was delivered, however, they saw that she was homely: not from any clear deformity but from a lack of harmony among her tiny features, as if she had been pieced haphazardly together, and without care.

When they placed her in her mother’s arms, the woman was very distressed. But Saint Winifred had pity on the child. She took the little mewling thing and, blessing her, prayed unto God that for what she lacked in looks he would give back in skill. And so the babe grew to childhood, and it was said that there was not a thing done or made by the work of human hands that she could not perform. But her favorite of all these was the tiny, embroidery, like the web of a spider, and she always carried with her a fine silver needle.

The year of the fairy offering, an oppressive heat settled on the land. And the maiden’s mother was again with child, and she carried heavily and was weary.

“Oh, that this babe would come soon,” said her mother.

But the lass said, “Be careful, Mother, lest you rush the babe before its time.”

And so it was that in the very heat of summer, the woman’s second child was born, and this one was lovely, with a well-sculpted nose and brow, and perfect little lips like a flower bud.

The lass held the babe swaddled in her arms and told her father to send for the priest immediately, lest the faeries snatch her away before she could receive baptism. So he departed.

The baby slept, and the lass laid her in her cradle.

P.J. Lynch

Now the lass’s mother was not as young as she had been, and bringing that pretty child into the world sucked the strength from her.

“Daughter,” she told the lass, “this heat will surely kill me. Go and open all the doors and windows, so that perhaps a breeze or breath may turn over the stuffy air, like an old mattress, and bring me some refreshment.”

But the lass hesitated, saying, “Mother, I daren’t open the windows and doors and expose our little babe before the priest arrives.”

“Daughter,” said her mother, “you are a good and faithful girl. I trust your watchful eyes on the little babe. No harm will befall her.”

So the lass parted the shutters and swung wide the doors, and the opening up of the room gave her mother some comfort, and she slept.

Now the ugly lass drew her chair near the cradle where the new baby slept and took up her spindle. While she worked, pulling and spinning her flax with dexterity, she ever kept an eye on her little sister, sleeping in the peace of one who knows heaven.

Just then a rush of air, like great wings beating, blew through the house and slammed closed the doors and windows. The calamity so startled the lass that she dropped her spindle. It clattered upon the hearth and rolled beneath the baby’s cradle.

The lass stooped and reached for the spindle, but though she had seen it roll beneath, she could not now detect where it settled. At last she rose, bewildered, and as she now stood over the cradle, she peered into the bundled covers. But something about the lumpy shape alarmed her. She put out her hand and parted the coverlet—only to find an oblong block of crumbling peat instead of the child.

By the time the priest arrived, the lass and her mother were pale and sallow, their cheeks streaked with tears.

Fairy Tale Prompt: Volume 2

"The World's Bride"

Fourth Friday Fairy Tale prompts are exercises for the fairy tale, writing, and fairy tale-writing online community for the purpose of cultivating creativity, helping with, and sharing our art with others.

This poem has been hard to find my footing on.  Perhaps because the prompt was a complete, though mysterious, story in itself.  "I cannot explain," it says, and that strikes me as very appropriate.

Martine Johanna

The World's Bride   

The bride of the world
goes in ceremony,
hair dressed with shell and
pinned with a tiny bird's skull.
She makes her vows in a court
lit by clouds, curtained
with night-fabric, moon-studded:
powdered, coiffed, ruffed,
anise-brushed,
she unbuttons plush turf
from around her wrists
of moon-bath flesh.
Come to retire
Anubis's feather,
she holds three offerings:
a dandelion scepter gone
to seed; a bubble for a
globus cruciger; in the slope
of her breasts, the answer
to an half-formed question.

The Prince and the King

LLANWMOR was no more than a cluster of buildings upon the coast, but it did boast a mill. Twyla’s godmother told her once that somewhere, in a grand house, there was a king who wanted Llanwmor, and the countryside, and all the lands surrounding, but that a prince, in a house rather closer than the king’s and rather less grand, fought him fiercely for it. 

This scared Twyla, for she knew that should the king gain the upper hand, he would certainly come for her father’s mill at once, for kings (especially kings in grand houses) wanted grand things. And the mill, as she understood, was a very grand thing. Only a cathedral was better. 

When Twyla voiced this concern to her godmother, Elfthryth laughed, a laugh of the ocean and of weather, deep and vast, and a bit unpredictable. 

“You’ve nothing to fear, child. All this passed in the same year you were born. The very next year, they drew up a treaty.”  

“What’s a treaty?” 

“It’s a promise of peace. And to seal the promise, the king gave the prince the king’s own cousin as bride.” 

That was before Twyla nearly drowned. Before the king reneged on his treaty and killed the prince and took the land. Before Twyla knew that true tales don’t have neat, happy endings.

Don't forget, it's not too late to write something up for the Fourth Friday Fairy Tale Prompt; see you there!

Poem: To the Sphinx

revised

Remember this?

Here's the first two stanzas after some intense revision.

My old dame, you ask questions that ring the nerve-cells
while you squat at brown crossroads and sound our                  death-knell.
Now what manner of things walks on four legs, three—?      Tell.
Poor King Laius and I know conundrums as well.  

While you squat at brown crossroads and sound our                death-knell,
we’ve wrought riddles and rimes to crack open your                brain.
Poor King Laius and I know conundrums as well.
Why Jocasta, cracked famine, cold orphans, dry plague?

Still not finished!  As always, gentle feedback desired and appreciated.

The 1st Chapter

Make your own word cloud at Wordle.

Father Christmas as Fairy Tale

ONCE upon a time, there was a man and his wife who were very wealthy.  They had one son, whom they loved.  Sadly, the boy's parents fell sick and died, and so he was sent to be raised by his uncle.  He was not a wicked uncle, and he made sure that the boy was well taken care of and educated him. 

As he walked down the road one day to see his teacher, the boy came upon an old woman with a withered hand.  He felt pity for her, so he touched her and prayed that she would be restored.  As he prayed, the old woman's hand healed, and she became whole. 

The young boy grew into a good and kind man.  He was so good and kind that he was made into a bishop.  In fact, he was a saint, and what he loved most of all was to give, especially to little children.  

The saint went on to do many wonderful things: he restored people to health, saved them from famine, and even brought them back to life.  You see, he had been given great authority, and even the emperor answered to him. 

When he grew old, at the hour of his death, the angles flew him to live in a land eternally covered in ice, and the fair folk who lived there took him in as one of their own. 

Once a year, the old saint prepared a sleigh and filled it with good things: sugared candies, clockwork toys, nuts, exotic fruits, and many elfish trinkets.  He harnessed the sleigh to enchanted reindeer that flew the sleigh all over the world in one night.    

And the old saint slipped down the chimneys and left gifts for the good children.  But for the bad children, he left coal.

Wieslaw Piesak, saint nicholas brings the snow

By now you know that the young boy who grew into a saint was Saint Nick, also known as Santa Claus or Father Christmas.  But I wrote the story to show that his is a fairy tale.  Or a folk tale, if you prefer.  Many elements of a fairy/folk tale are present: an ordinary person called to do or be something extraordinary; a journey, whether symbolic or literal; dealings with faeries (elves); reward and justice; the sense of mystery or more questions left than answers.  Here is a figure as universal but specific as Baba Yaga.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "as King Arthur."  The historical origin of Father Christmas makes a good argument for him as legend.  But at some point, the legend of Saint Nicholas leaves off and gives way to whimsical fancy.

In "A Visit from Saint Nicholas," better know as "The Night before Christmas," by Clement Clarke Moore, we find even more evidence of fairy tale influence: the stockings hung by the chimney (no mention of a German Christmas tree yet) are reminiscent of putting particular but unusual household objects in certain places, either to attract or to repel the faeries, such as horseshoes, dolls, and gifts of food.

Raul Guerra, Father Christmas

That's another one.  Father Christmas gets left cookies and milk, and sometimes hay for his horses or reindeer, like an offering to an ancient household god in exchange for blessings.

It escapes notice that the poem goes on to describe "a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer."  I used to think that part was odd.  Were people of the time accustomed to very large, many-person sleighs?  Were the reindeer "tiny" in the sense that they were more the size of small horses or ponies?  Reading further, St. Nick is called "a right jolly old elf."  Combining these descriptions with the knowledge that Santa slides easily down chimneys, we have a pretty good argument for making Saint Nick fairy-sized.  He is an actual adoptee of the elves!

Saint Nick would not be the only human being, living or dead, to be adopted by the good folk.  Tam Lin was a mortal knight who was rescued and kept by the fairy queen, and the banshee is more like a ghost than a different species, despite her name meaning "fairy woman."  Will-o-the-wisps were often described as ghosts or ghost-lights.  And on liminal nights like Halloween (All Hallows' Eve) and Christmas eve, it was long believed that living people could interact with the dead.

Anne Stokes, Spirit of Yule

The tradition of converting old pagan figures and their trademarks into Christian saints is a well-known cultural phenomenon, and it's believed that Santa Claus absorbed aspects of Odin from Germanic paganism: his long white beard and his midwinter midnight ride, for instance.  The same process from pagan myth to fairy tale figures pervades many creeds and cultures.

For more on the links and similarities between Father Christmas and fairy tales, read up on Tales of Faerie.

Mirror, Mirror . . .

Check out the Winter Issue of Mirror Dance, now live, for my prose poem experiment "Green," all polished and professional-like, Spinning Straw into Gold's friend and regular, A.L. Loveday, and well known in the speculative fiction blogosphere, talented poet Sandi Leibowitz, among others.

Always a fairy tale treat, Mirror Dance, perfect for toothsome bites throughout the day.

Some Fairy Tale Fare

This November I've been neglectful of fairy tale fare, so I hope this essay, on the abstract and concrete in fairy tales, written a few months previously and just published on Enchanted Conversation, will somewhat make up for it.

Jackie Morris, East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon

While you're there, read some of the other masterly-written fairy tales and poems.

NaNoWriMo Series, Part 2

Why write a book in thirty days?  I mean, isn't it a waste of time?  Writing 50,000 words on paper or a word processor doesn't make you a novelist, or even a meaningful storyteller.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's a good excuse to write a lot of junk.

But you have to start somewhere.  That is, I think, what the National Novel Writing Month event is about.  Getting people started.  Telling them it's okay to dive in and not worry (yet) about the end result, to let go of their expectations.  

Because if they don't, they'll never start.  They'll be crippled by the magnitude of the huge task before them.  And then they'll never accomplish anything.

Some quotes, to keep you afloat during this second half of the marathon.

From Stephen King:

Writing a book is like finding a brilliantly colored string in the grass and following it to see where it might lead. Sometimes the string breaks and leaves you with nothing. But sometimes--if you are lucky, if you are brave, if you persevere--it brings you to a treasure. And the treasure is never the money you get for the book; the treasure is the book.

And from Ray Bradbury:

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or flower you planted, you're there.  

"It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something form the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and the real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there for a lifetime.

And because I forgot to share it when it was published, an interview with me at Red Poppy Review.

Read the other interviews, too, to get some insight from inspirational poets.  Some of them dabble in fairy tales and speculative fiction as well.

As for NaNoWriMo, f you're in this with me, hang in there!

Fairy Tale: Fire and Snow

Lately, what I've been working on.

FIRST, the stays of ribbon, like shreds of river. 

The seven little men who took you in as housekeeper, cook, and dry-nurse had gone into the monster’s belly, to dig out hidden ore. They warned you, left behind in the cottage, not to let a soul inside. 

I called out my wares, and when you came to the window, I hung them before you in red and verdant curtains. 

“I am not supposed to go to the door,” you said. 

“No?” said I. “But you are so very pretty. And in a saggy, shapeless dress! Where is the little waist?” 

“Oh, I haven’t a care for that.” 

I almost knew hope. But you looked at them, and I saw your eyes shimmer as though full of tears, and I saw desire sway in your throat. You reached for them. 

“Here, child,” I said. “Let me help you.” 

I snaked the stays around your slender trunk. 

“That is quite tight.” 

copyright Quentin Greban

“Anything for beauty,” I said, and pulled them tighter. 

I snuffed the breath from you, and you sank.

Poem: To the Sphinx

I've been working on this one for almost ten years.  I think it's close to getting there.

Here's the first two stanzas:

Sphinx, you ask questions that ring the nerve-cell,
while you squat at brown crossroads and sound our                     death knell.
What walks on four legs, two legs, three?  Tell.
King Oedipus and I know conundrums as well. 

While you squat at brown crossroads and sound our                     death knell,
we have crossroads and riddles to crack open your brain.
King Oedipus and I know conundrums as well.
Why Jocasta, why Laius?  Why the Theban plague?

Feel free to give feedback.  Useless bonus points if you know what poetic form that is.

This poem began life rather formless, kind of scattered, then drew back in, started to arrange itself.  Dropped some words, added others. Got a form, started to rhyme.  It's so awing, these poems have a life of their own.

I have been very, very productive with poems of late.  Now to send them out, to find homes for them.

Sandara of deviantART, Sphinx's Day Off, source

Guest Post: "Nina Faces Reality"

By Alex Schattner

[Dear readers:  Alex Schattner is founder and writer of Modern American Folktales, a worthy and brilliant project in which he undertakes to continue the fairy tale tradition for our times.  I want to talk about why I find this project so important (and sort of ground-breaking), but for now, he has graciously provided Spinning Straw into Gold with an original modern American folktale.  The prompts given were "reality television" and "Los Angeles."  Enjoy! -- Christie]

Nina Faces Reality

THERE once were three daughters born to the V.P. of a major television network, living in Hollywood, CA.  The eldest daughter was Lena.  She was not the most beautiful, but she was the most vain.  Her three favorite things were mirrors, glitter, and attention.  The middle sister was Mena.  She was similarly vain and similarly unattractive.  Her three favorite things were gossip, pleather, and . . . attention.   

Then there was the youngest daughter, Nina, who was smart, loving, and uninterested in unwarranted attention.  Posessing these qualities endowed Nina with a freedom and beauty that was beyond her sisters' understanding.  This, in turn, made her sisters unbearable.

Attention!  Attention!  Attention!  Lena and Mena had to have the spotlight . . . ALWAYS!  With this thought in mind (the only one they ever had), they went to their father and demanded that a reality show be made of their lives.  To Nina, this sounded like an awful idea, and she tried to warn her sisters against it.

"We'll be made to look ridiculous," she said, but they didn't listen.  Therefore, Nina was forced to take steps of her own.  When asked, she refused to sign a waiver that would allow them to show her face on screen.  This meant Nina would appear as merely a blur, and nothing else.  Her sisters were thrilled with this idea.

"It's as if we planned it," Lena said, and the following Monday, a van pulled up outside the house.  Out stepped Walter, an old cameraman who had been in the industry forever, and Leo, a fresh-faced, newly-promoted Camera Assistant.  To Leo, this job held the potential of bringing him closer to his ultimate dream job as a documentarian.  Little did he know that he and Walter would spend the next several weeks filming the shallow escapades of Lena and Mena.  Leo and Walter filmed excessive shopping sprees, dates with basketball players, random acts of arguing, and talking about friends behind their backs.  Leo's only solace were the brief moments in which Nina made an appearance.  Even though he was instructed not to focus on her, he felt that her story was the one he wanted to tell.  He couldn't help but pity the guy in the editing room whose job it was to blur out Nina's lovely face.

Indeed, this concern was warranted, for the editing crew would spend way longer editing Nina's appearances than on any other thing.  When the show was aired, Lena and Mena became household names, but no one could stop talking about "the blurry-faced sister."  Paparazzi began staking out the sisters' house.  Pictures of Lena and Mena were profitable, but a picture of Nina earned top dollar.  Rumors were running rampant.  People said everything from, "Her beauty distorts camera lenses" to "one look in her eyes will turn you to stone."

Nina didn't mind what anyone said about her, but she didn't want to get too roped into her sisters antics.  So, late one night, while the paparazzi followed her sisters on their "glorious" night on the town, Nina sneaked out of the house with a duffle bag and the keys to her father's car.  Little did she suspect that Leo would return early. 

"You have two options," Leo told her, standing in front of the car.  "I could alert your father to your leaving, or . . . you can take me with you."  Nina had little choice but to let him in the passenger side door.

"Where are we going?" Leo asked.

"I think we deserve to have a 'glorious' time, too."  Nina said, "And I know just the place."

Over the course of their journey, through dinner, and singing along to the radio, Leo kept the camera running.  By mid-morning, Leo was overjoyed to find that they had arrived at Yosemite National park.  He watched how Nina's face lit up as they took an easy hike to Bridalveil Fall.  As they watched the cascading water, and basked in the mist, Leo couldn't help but lean in and give Nina a kiss.  It lasted less than a second, but they both knew there would be more.  That night, laying out under the stars, Leo and Nina shared their dreams with one another.

Meanwhile, back at Nina's home, her father alerted the police, and the press, to his daughter's disappearance.  The police said they required a photograph of Nina, so Nina's father gave them one.  An hour later, everyone in the world knew what Nina looked like, and they were going to search everywhere for her.

Nina and Leo learned of this anonymity issue in a very odd way.  The next morning, after being awoken by a bear, Nina and Leo were sent running and screaming to the nearest campsite.  Apparently, the other outdoorsmen didn't take too kindly to being woken up, because they threw out some oddly personal insults.

"I thought you were the quiet one," one woman yelled.

After that, Nina and Leo had little reason not to return to Nina's house.  Before they left, however, Leo gave Nina the tape of their time together.

"Now they can't take our privacy away from us," he said, "and we can deal with anything that comes our way."  When Nina and Leo arrived back at the house, they refused to talk about their trip, either with reporters or family members.  Her sisters pretended to go along with this, but secretly they waited until Nina was asleep so they could snoop around.  Eventually, they found the tape, but had no way of watching it. 

"It doesn't matter, " Lena said, "Nina never does anything interesting.  We'll just sell the tape, and let everyone see how boring she is.  Then no one will think of her again."  So, they sold the tape to the highest bidder, and were feeling pretty good about themselves.  That was until the next afternoon when the number one entertainment news program bumped a story of "Lena's Night Out" for a report on "The Caring Sister."  The show took the footage of Leo and Nina and showed clips of the most loving and tender moments.  Lena and Mena couldn't understand it.

"But there's no glitter," Lena said.

"And where' are all the flashy clothes?  How could anyone like this?" Mena said.  During all this time, they had forgotten that Walter was filming them, and would continue to film them as they stormed into Nina's room, and demanded to learn the meaning of her popularity.  Nina and Leo, having not seen the coverage, had no idea what the sisters were talking about, but Leo was ready with an answer all the same.

"Once you've had the best, who needs the rest," he said, and he kissed Nina for the hundredth time that day.

Story and illustration copyright Alex Schattner.  All rights reserved. 

Fairy Tale Prompt: Volume 1

"Miranda at the Stern"

If you haven't seen this before or are new to SSiG, this is a writing prompt community project in which we share our art and writing for encouragement and constructive criticism.

Click here for the rules and deadline.

I'm posting this way ahead of time in case some people are still unclear about how to go about participating and what that participation entails.

Copyright Claudia Bernasconi Esposito.  Source.

Reflecting on the prompt (above) made me think of undines, which became the wreaths or petals of the poem, and grew backward and inward from there.

I would be very grateful for a critical eye: style, word choice, stanzas, story, anything that catches your attention.  I purposefully did not ask for feedback on this before hand.  

The idea is to encourage and critique.  But please be gentle and considerate!  We want to uplift, not to trample.*

Miranda at the Stern

The buoyant fruit, seeded

with pearlescent faces bearing names

of extinct, pedantic gods,

dives from father's cay

in albatross form, sails puffed

but breathless, catching no current,

slapped by the wide palms of rain;

the mineral sea a mouthless

appetite, devouring islands, spitting them

back like stones.

The waves' tongues pitch and roll

the rootless boat.  Fish-eyed

undines swirl, stare

at she who tore and drifted through

the veil, broke the soot-circumference

of Prospero's pentagrams, forsook

what is solid, with no place

to anchor.

*  Please also be aware when offering constructive criticism that, as a writer once said about her craft, "there are no mistakes, only effects."  Tone and style are unique and personal.  It can be hard for the un-trained critiquer to recognize the difference between what isn't working and what isn't his personal taste.  I would be mortified if, through a desire to help foster someone's creative inclinations to art and writing, we unwittingly discourage and cause self-doubt and discouragement.

Poem: Two Autumns

Ghosts hang in branches,

bonfire incense upon

bleak autumn altars.

Autumn sheds excess--

leaves, thin fur, warmth; climbs toward

shuddering winter.

source

October and the Folktale

Towards evening, Sister Ruth thumbed through the birth announcements section of a pawed-over newspaper.  Sometimes she licked her fingers and moved them as if to turn the page, but her hand hoverd in mid-air.  Lola saw her cast her eyes like a pair of black die.

"Hey, Sister," she said, "what's caught your up now?"

Sister's eyes slid to her.  She put a pudgy finger to her mouth.  "Sssshhh."

Lola summoned  a stage sigh.  But she fingered for the button that would call the nurses, just in case.

When the ashy-haired nurse rolled in the trolley with their evening meds and her "lights out," Sister bent forward.

"I know what they're here for.  I know what they want."

This one has been recently submitted for the Tuscany Prize, and while it's not, under any concievable definition, a fairy tale, I do believe the supernatural firmly stakes its claim in it.

October is a month of conjuring, superstitions, spooks, and the primordial sense that there-is-more-than-this.  Ray Bradbury is right to give October its own country.  I want to say more, but it must wait for another day.

So I leave you with insights from Sofia Samatar to mull over:

. . . it seems to me that if you set out to look for the ancestors of weird fiction, you'd wind up at the folktale.  Folktales are very weird.  They use strong, unexpected imagery, and mix the mundane with the magical: the witch gives you a comb, and it turns into a forest.  Folktales are extremely short on explanations.  They often drop you abruptly at the end, with some obscure formula like "there's bread and cheese upon the shelf."  They are also peasant stories, as opposed to the epic, which belongs to kings.  They're a little bit subversive, and quite often grotesque.  I think they may have given us the weird tale.  (I'm also pretty sure they gave us horror.)

Fourth Friday Fairy Tale Prompt: Volume 1

Welcome to our first Fourth Fridays Fairy Tale Prompt (slightly late).  And here's the prompt:

Copyright Claudia Bernasconi Esposito.  Source.*

How to Participate 

 

1. You have until the fourth Friday of next month to use this prompt to inspire a piece of art, music, or writing.
2. Your piece does not have to be supernatural, as long as it is inspired by the fairy tale prompt.
3. Post your finished piece on your blog, site, or other online presence.
4. Link your virtually published piece to this post.  (See inlinlz tool at the bottom.)
5. Read (or view) the other entries.  Offer insights, appreciation, constructive criticism, and encouragement.  Have fun.
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Fairy Tale: Green

Vincent van Gogh, Mulberry Tree

 A rough draft.  For Masha.

UNDER the lemon curd moon, Mrs. Teatree digs in her garden.  The baby is sleeping.  The dog slouches in the doorway.  Mr. Teatree eats tea cakes in candlelight.  Perhaps he eats them because the moon's a pastry.  Or perhaps the moon is a pastry because he eats them.

At any rate, she is here, in the powdered sugar mist.  She plants parsley.  Parsley planted and grown in the nocturne protects against ogre's eyes, and tastes better.

Mrs. Teatree plunges her fingers into the coffee-grind soil and brings her hands out full of earth.

She inhales its aroma, so rich she can taste it.

Earlier that day, Mrs. Teatree, her husband, and the baby went into town to buy some cinnamon and use the internet.  On the corner opposite the market, a boy from the university decked in hemp and dread locks stood sans-soap box with a Sharpie-penned sign denouncing consumerism and the wasteful rituals of the human race.

Now in the moonlight, Mrs. Teatree wets her lips.  Her tongue sweeps and lingers over the tarragon and scrambled eggs she ate for dinner, the eggs she gathered from under the chicken down in the prickly gray before dawn.

Mrs. Teatree brings the soil closer to her face, until her nose is tingling.  She breathes it in.

Crickets keep time to her heart's beat.

The soil travels through her nostrils and fills her lungs.  It trickles, sifted flour-like, and packs her feet and calves like stuffing.

She curls her toes into the dirt and tastes parsnips.

From the eaves, two angels shaped like owls look on.

The dog stirs and rambles toward her.  He sniffs the scaly bark where there used to be denim.  Her hair un-leaves in currents, tossing moss.  She drinks the soil deep, from soles to brow.

The crickets beat earth's pulse.

Mrs. Teatree is a floret-whisk.  She stirs the air and throws in succulent ingredients: oxygen, moisture, a hint of fertile leaf-rot simmering.

In the morning, when the moon is devoured, her husband carries out the baby.  He lifts her in his arms to pluck the fabulous branches, and the baby crowns her curls with spray that smells of molasses tea and virility, of clover honey and of morning bread baking.