Fairy Stories & Other Tales

            There was once a young woman who was not especially kind, nor especially brave.   In fact, there was nothing particularly special about her at all, save that she was human, and that kind was of a sort that was never entirely similar to one another.   Perhaps it was because her life had been rather clear-cut, with nothing of challenge or consternation to develop her character.   Or perhaps it was because little was expected of her, or that she had never witnessed need.   And perhaps all of that had made her heart a bit small, a bit cold, a bit distant, and little inclined to care. One winter’s day she wandered about the forest, to be free of village prattle and intrusions on her thoughts, when she came upon a pack of mice, seven in all, who looked frozen with cold.   They seemed dead, but for the faintest beat of their hearts.   A spark of compassion lit within her, and it seemed a fate of gross cruelty that snow and ice should cause the animals such pain.   And in a des

             And so it happened, one winter afternoon, that a woman of elder years sat in a wing-backed chair fat with cushions, and thought deeply.             She thought about many things—about kings and princes, and whether she should do away with the lot of them; about fairies, and whether she should call and ask them to sit about inside her cottage house again, as they had made it look so cozy the last time; and, of course, about cats.             But the last was because there was one sitting under a pile of yarn, tugging at the mounds of string that grew slowly smaller and smaller as the woman’s knotted fingers curled around wooden needles for the small magic of making a sweater.   It was a small magic; infinitesimal in the grand scheme of the use to which she had put magic to in her time.   It was, as she might call it, other magic.   She could not say that knitting a sweater was any less magical per se ; singular threads became a woven whole, and that was indeed a for

             Joan stared with intensity at the red petals of a plant, as she had all day, willing them to disappear.   Her mind was clear, ready for the final step—the magic.   She cracked her knuckles and closed her eyes.   Raising her hands, Joan said the incantation.   She waited, then opened one eye.   She sighed; yet again,  nothing had happened.   Walking over, she picked up the plant and tossed it in the compost.   After all, in a world of books and chocolate, she had better things to do.  

There once was a dragon who knew how to fly She dove and she spun and she danced through the sky But it dawned on her once, how little she knew of anything other than how best she flew. What else, might you ask, would a dragon need know? Well, of the dark wild under, with its tides and its flows. Water, of course, was this dragon's dark spot And touch it she absolutely would not. Until one fine day, she emerged from her cave to frolic in windstorms that happened her way And a sight to behold lay below her and said, Who are you who keeps flying over my head? What the dragon saw then startled her out of flight For a face mirrored hers in the sun's early light But it was not anywhere close to the air No, this face was definitely far, far down there. Down there in the water, all moving about So far that the face not quite hers had to shout. Down the flying dragon went, until their snouts almost met and asked, how are you not drowned in that wet? I might ask

            When rain drops turn to snow, and the wind begins to grow cold and soft, that is when the magic comes.   Always in a different form, though never the same magic twice, it is magic all the same.   And it has a mind of its own.             On a day of such snow, not long ago, there lived a woman who was neither very young nor very old.   Nor was she dissatisfied with life.   Her house was small, just enough for her to make a home for herself.   There was no need for her to roam the world, for she had already done so—and when one city began to look like the next, and none looked like home, she knew to put such travels aside.   She had no desire for riches, for she had seen the trials gold brings to those under its burden, and knew she was free without it.   And of company, she could think of little more to desire when the North Wind and the Fairy Queen, the birds and the woodland creatures were her companions.   Thus, was she content.             But the snow had other p