Fairy Stories & Other Tales

There’s a tremor in the water of a river bank where a hag sits alongside it, letting her knotted fingers soak in the coolness of its gentle flow.   Against the homespun cloth that cloaks her aged body brush the bulrushes and the cattails and the water grasses.   Memories flicker in her mind as small daisies press against her.   She looks with longing at the water lilies, or rather the water beneath them, for, once upon a time, it had been her home.               She had been a young naiad then, indeed the youngest of them all.   This was the doing of the river master, who saw the naiad’s youth and delighted in her childish ways.   But a naiad is not always so young.   It is in engagement with humans that raises up their years and fills them with a melancholy so pernicious, that quickly they begin to drown those who come upon them.             Seeking to save her from this fate, the river master protected her.   But he did not see the harm in the visit of a small human child.   

There’s a sound.   Can you hear it? A breathing in the wind. A noise between the trees. And then a bellow. It hits your ears as if a thousand glasses shatter. And that is when you see it. It’s ten taloned feet thudding, three tails blazing forked fire, as many heads slashing their gnashing teeth through the air in ripping snarls.   A monster. Your feet back up as quickly as your jaw drops and you take in the gleaming red eyes that pulse with each closing of scaly lids.   Until you feel the wall of an ancient castle tight against your back, the deep moss soaking through your clothes, the points of uneven stone making small cuts as you push willing it to move, or, better still, fold in around you. You feel the clang of metal hit against the stone, a reminder that the silver that runs down your leg is no more than a toothpick in comparison to the monster that wildly advances. Sweat drips down your face and back and neck as you draw the thin blade.   It’s the shake

Once upon a time a man stood at the edge of the ocean.   A look of wonder played on his face, for he had journeyed far to witness the sight, and encountered many obstacles that would have barred him from it.             It had begun when he had heard tell of a body of water that swept out to meet all the stars that had ever been.   It had been said that to see it was to see infinity proved endless.   Though the man had long struggled to act bravely, having denied himself all adventure in the name of fear, when the words fell from the lips of more than one passing traveler, a charge lit through him.   It was as though a tremor had set within him; a task from God.             Thus, he had gone forth without trepidation, his goal fixed firmly in his mind.             But a week into his journey, he was set upon by ravens who plucked at his clothes and his shoes leaving his body scarred and covered in nothing more than rags.   In the second week creeping thieves took advantage of his

This is a tale of three witches who lived long ago.   One was young and fair, one of middle years, the third so old her teeth no longer sat inside her mouth.   They were weavers by profession, but their fame lay in the greatness of their patience and the apathy of their care for humankind.             But perhaps they were not so apathetic as one might think.   Perhaps they were only waiting, waiting to perform a last act.   One known only by means of a story.             It began with a girl.   Eldra.   A fair village lass of humble beginnings who caught the eye of a prince.   So in love with Eldra was the prince, that he carried her off on his horse one afternoon, to the delight of gossiping tongues in the village and the horror and sorrow of her mother.             Though Eldra’s mother had creases round her eyes and though each step she took caused great pain, she followed the prince in hopes of gaining her daughter’s freedom.   But her steps were as slow as the prince’s ho