SimonDoom
Kink Lord
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- Apr 9, 2015
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I am, but your mind went somewhere that hadn't even occurred to me. Kudos.
Writing exercise 8: fairy tales
- Thread starter StillStunned
- Start date
I am, but your mind went somewhere that hadn't even occurred to me. Kudos.
StillStunned
Writing...
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2023
- Posts
- 6,912
Here's the start of a story I started a while ago, but I doubt I'll ever get round to finishing it.
===
“Stay away from Riverbend Glade.” Every gnome in the Forest knew the rule. “Stay away from Riverbend Glade, on peril of life and soul.”
No-one knew why this was. The Forest was full of dangers. Trolls lurked under the steep banks of the streams and brooks. Anyone wandering alone might be caught by dwarves to work the smoking mines, or by elves to be herded on board a flying ship and never seen again. Pixies and sprites could mesmerise a gnome to feed to their Life Trees.
And then there were the wolves, the bears, the boars, the great wildcats, the giant owls and eagles, and the rapids in the River and the swampy marshlands that in the summer stank of death and decay, where stingflies swarmed and great toads lurked in the mud, waiting to snatch an unsuspecting wanderer with their tongues.
So whatever made Riverbend Glade particular dangerous, the warning was taken to heart. No gnome from Low Hill or Round Top or Long Rise had ventured there in generations. Fishing boats always took the bend in the River along the far bank, and the area inside the bend was easy enough to avoid from the land side.
“Stay away from Riverbend Glade.” It was as much a fact of life as the sun rising in the east every morning and setting in the west, as the turning of the seasons from spring to summer and autumn and winter. “Stay away from Riverbend Glade, on peril of life and soul.”
===
“Stay away from Riverbend Glade.” Every gnome in the Forest knew the rule. “Stay away from Riverbend Glade, on peril of life and soul.”
No-one knew why this was. The Forest was full of dangers. Trolls lurked under the steep banks of the streams and brooks. Anyone wandering alone might be caught by dwarves to work the smoking mines, or by elves to be herded on board a flying ship and never seen again. Pixies and sprites could mesmerise a gnome to feed to their Life Trees.
And then there were the wolves, the bears, the boars, the great wildcats, the giant owls and eagles, and the rapids in the River and the swampy marshlands that in the summer stank of death and decay, where stingflies swarmed and great toads lurked in the mud, waiting to snatch an unsuspecting wanderer with their tongues.
So whatever made Riverbend Glade particular dangerous, the warning was taken to heart. No gnome from Low Hill or Round Top or Long Rise had ventured there in generations. Fishing boats always took the bend in the River along the far bank, and the area inside the bend was easy enough to avoid from the land side.
“Stay away from Riverbend Glade.” It was as much a fact of life as the sun rising in the east every morning and setting in the west, as the turning of the seasons from spring to summer and autumn and winter. “Stay away from Riverbend Glade, on peril of life and soul.”
StillStunned
Writing...
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2023
- Posts
- 6,912
Hard Wood
It was a lovely piece of wood. A deep brown colour, with a grain so fine it was almost invisible, and when the carpenter rapped her knuckles on it, it gave a sound like a bell.
The merchant who sold it to her claimed it came from a faraway land, under the hot sun. It had travelled here on a succession of caravans, boats and carts to finally end up in the carpenter’s shop.
She knew what she was going to carve from it. Her husband had died young, unable to give her children, and she was lonely.
So for a year and a day she nursed the wood into shape. She carved the limb joints, smoothed the round edges, worked the wood with all the love she had in her. She etched the features and the lines of muscle. And when she was done, she painted the face: two bold eyes and full red lips.
Her neighbours scoffed at her. It wasn’t a child, they said. It was a puppet.
But the carpenter ignored them. Hadn’t she laboured long and hard? Hadn’t she brought it into the world with as much love as they had for their children?
The night that her son was finished, she dressed him in a nightshirt and laid him in her bed. The carpenter’s house was only small, and there had never been any need for a second bed.
She joined him, pleased with herself, comforted by her son’s presence beside her.
Still, she felt there was something missing.
Through a crack in the curtains she spied the full moon looking down at her.
“Moon,” she said, “you’re a woman. You understand how a woman needs love. Please, bring my son to life, if only at night so my neighbours don’t see.”
Perhaps the moon heard her. When it turned its gaze onto the hard form beside the carpenter, something happened. With a creak and a groan, the wooden form came to life. The bold eyes opened, the full red lips parted. Arms and legs trembled and moved.
As the carpenter looked on in amazement, her son spoke. “Mother,” he said. “I am your hardwood son.”
It was a lovely piece of wood. A deep brown colour, with a grain so fine it was almost invisible, and when the carpenter rapped her knuckles on it, it gave a sound like a bell.
The merchant who sold it to her claimed it came from a faraway land, under the hot sun. It had travelled here on a succession of caravans, boats and carts to finally end up in the carpenter’s shop.
She knew what she was going to carve from it. Her husband had died young, unable to give her children, and she was lonely.
So for a year and a day she nursed the wood into shape. She carved the limb joints, smoothed the round edges, worked the wood with all the love she had in her. She etched the features and the lines of muscle. And when she was done, she painted the face: two bold eyes and full red lips.
Her neighbours scoffed at her. It wasn’t a child, they said. It was a puppet.
But the carpenter ignored them. Hadn’t she laboured long and hard? Hadn’t she brought it into the world with as much love as they had for their children?
The night that her son was finished, she dressed him in a nightshirt and laid him in her bed. The carpenter’s house was only small, and there had never been any need for a second bed.
She joined him, pleased with herself, comforted by her son’s presence beside her.
Still, she felt there was something missing.
Through a crack in the curtains she spied the full moon looking down at her.
“Moon,” she said, “you’re a woman. You understand how a woman needs love. Please, bring my son to life, if only at night so my neighbours don’t see.”
Perhaps the moon heard her. When it turned its gaze onto the hard form beside the carpenter, something happened. With a creak and a groan, the wooden form came to life. The bold eyes opened, the full red lips parted. Arms and legs trembled and moved.
As the carpenter looked on in amazement, her son spoke. “Mother,” he said. “I am your hardwood son.”
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2017
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- 7,129
A beginning, the setting of a scene, magic as yet scarcely hinted at.
The Crowned Toad
Upstream from the city on the old river road, a day’s walk in older times, lay an inn. The Crowned Toad had been around for a long time, longer than many others claiming to be the oldest in the nation - or so it was said locally. The publican, James Healey, always gave a wink when questioned.
“The rocks have their memories,” he would say, brushing his hands over the old stone walls, “and who are we to challenge them?”
Famed for its brewing, it was - unfairly, perhaps - less renowned for its appearance. From a quarter mile away, a casual observer would not have noticed the paved road and electrical wires, leaving the Toad an architectural refugee from a Gainsborough landscape.
Inside, the ceiling beams were low, reflecting the shorter height of the builders so long ago. Hundreds of years of smoke from fireplaces, pipes, candles and lanterns had darkened walls and ceiling, leaving them a warm cream colour which even the most ambitious scrubbing or regular whitewashing could never entirely subdue.
Local custom permitted regular customers to bring in their own mugs and hang them from a peg or hook driven into one of the overhead beams. Generations, perhaps centuries, of pewter tankards lowered the ale room’s headroom to the point where tall customers soon learned to duck when walking inside.
Strangely, although neither James nor his staff had ever been seen to dust this mismatched chronology of drinking implements, the mugs uniformly maintained that clean glow typifying well-loved and much-used pewter-ware. And while strangers were always welcome in The Crowned Toad, any newcomer impulsively reaching for one of the serried tankards would find his fingers inexplicably stopping just short. Some determined newcomers would try several times before stopping, shaking their heads in puzzlement.
Regulars, on the other hand, could reach up almost without looking to grasp a tankard perhaps first used by a long-departed ancestor. Locals simply accepted it as a convenient reality and visitors were in no position to question.
The Crowned Toad
Upstream from the city on the old river road, a day’s walk in older times, lay an inn. The Crowned Toad had been around for a long time, longer than many others claiming to be the oldest in the nation - or so it was said locally. The publican, James Healey, always gave a wink when questioned.
“The rocks have their memories,” he would say, brushing his hands over the old stone walls, “and who are we to challenge them?”
Famed for its brewing, it was - unfairly, perhaps - less renowned for its appearance. From a quarter mile away, a casual observer would not have noticed the paved road and electrical wires, leaving the Toad an architectural refugee from a Gainsborough landscape.
Inside, the ceiling beams were low, reflecting the shorter height of the builders so long ago. Hundreds of years of smoke from fireplaces, pipes, candles and lanterns had darkened walls and ceiling, leaving them a warm cream colour which even the most ambitious scrubbing or regular whitewashing could never entirely subdue.
Local custom permitted regular customers to bring in their own mugs and hang them from a peg or hook driven into one of the overhead beams. Generations, perhaps centuries, of pewter tankards lowered the ale room’s headroom to the point where tall customers soon learned to duck when walking inside.
Strangely, although neither James nor his staff had ever been seen to dust this mismatched chronology of drinking implements, the mugs uniformly maintained that clean glow typifying well-loved and much-used pewter-ware. And while strangers were always welcome in The Crowned Toad, any newcomer impulsively reaching for one of the serried tankards would find his fingers inexplicably stopping just short. Some determined newcomers would try several times before stopping, shaking their heads in puzzlement.
Regulars, on the other hand, could reach up almost without looking to grasp a tankard perhaps first used by a long-departed ancestor. Locals simply accepted it as a convenient reality and visitors were in no position to question.
Tio_Narratore
Studies
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2008
- Posts
- 75,882
Dark? When my kids were in nursey school I was a parent volunteer. The teachers would become very upset with my telling of The Bridge of Avignon. I'd start off singing the song:
Sur le Pont d'Avignon, On y danse, on y danse;
Sur le Pont d'Avignon, On y danse tout en ronde.
But then I'd change it a bit:
Sous le Pont d'Avignon, On y mange, on y mange;
Sous le Pont d'Avignon, On y mange des enfants!
Then I'd tell the story:
Oui! Sous le Pont d'Avignon habit un grand monstre qui devour les enfants . . .
Whenever the children tried to cross the bridge, the monster would jump up from his lair and . . .
The kids loved it; the teachers always gave me nasty looks.
Sur le Pont d'Avignon, On y danse, on y danse;
Sur le Pont d'Avignon, On y danse tout en ronde.
But then I'd change it a bit:
Sous le Pont d'Avignon, On y mange, on y mange;
Sous le Pont d'Avignon, On y mange des enfants!
Then I'd tell the story:
Oui! Sous le Pont d'Avignon habit un grand monstre qui devour les enfants . . .
Whenever the children tried to cross the bridge, the monster would jump up from his lair and . . .
The kids loved it; the teachers always gave me nasty looks.
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- Dec 4, 2017
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Hella bridge in any case!
Tio_Narratore
Studies
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- Dec 2, 2008
- Posts
- 75,882
Yes, the bridge at Avignon is one of a very few that only go half way across a river.
StillStunned
Writing...
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- Jun 4, 2023
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You have to slip it a little blue pill to make it go all the way across. But that never lasts for more than four hours.
TheWritingGroup
Writing Group
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- Jun 30, 2024
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- 628
If your bridge extension lasts more than four hours, contact a roadway engineer immediately.
-Rocco
