Fairy Stories & Other Tales

A witch stood at the edge of an Enchanted Forest and cackled.             It was a pristine moment; a moment destined to go down in the fairytale archives forever and ever and a day.   And perfectly designed.   For the witch figured that if she gave a good cackle right out in public where enchanted creatures could hear, all would assume she had become the evil witch of tales and, quite frankly, leave her alone.             She was a tired witch, having spent many long years slaving away helping others.   If she had settled down anywhere else, instead of this particular enchanted wood, she really could have done anything she wanted—and had a great deal more free time.   But such a place is rather a needy spot as far as the world of enchantments goes, because of all the heroes adventuring, and princesses getting lost, and pre-witches going on quests to earn their real witch status.   That meant a lot of scratches to be bandaged, dragon fire burns to cure, and water to administer to t

There is a restless torment that never ceases.   An unsettling that must be satisfied before it lays down to rest—but it is never satisfied, and so it never rests.             It must wake, and when it does, it yearns.   The weight of it beats within itself as though a heart, for it is a kind of life blood.   And when it eats, it devours—it cannot help it—until nothing is left, save itself; a glowing torrent that aches, turns, and is as brutal as the most tenacious current.             Some say the fairies put it there—and lit the match that made it burst.   Some say it was the gods, put in place with keen desire so that the frantic depth they themselves could not escape would dwell in others.   And some say the gods are fairies, doomed to grow ever smaller, as their place in the world diminishes.   But what ignites it matters not; for it grows ever more possessing.             A double-edged sword for the fae-gods, for they diminish from its very existence, but cannot be apart

There was once a little boy whose name was Nathan and more than anything in the world he loved to dance.   If they had let him, he would have danced until dawn every night—but, of course, they said he had to go to bed.             One day Nathan was walking through the forest, a jig springing from his feet with each step, a whistle on his lips, and his greatest desire to dance until dawn on his mind, when he found that he had jigged into the center of a circle of mushrooms.   Too late he remembered that such a ring is not what it appears, and before he could blink, his body was no longer in the mortal world.             And so it was that Nathan found himself a prisoner in Fairyland.             The fairies had been wickedly clever—the boy’s capture had not been by chance.   For there is nothing the fairies like better than to be entertained in their nightly revels by dancing.             The boy was not their only prisoner.   An elephant had stepped wrongly while on tour w

I felt magic that day, in the waking dream, when once I felt my mind break open into a thousand pieces.   How could it have been otherwise, for as I sat, I dreamed of the making of the world.   It happened with a care so painstaking it balanced on infinite points, all a knife’s edge, all precarious—where had I been the artist, I would have wept with the aching slowness of it all.   Of what matter, I dreamed of nothing but light entwined with darkness.   The one about the other, part of the languid pace.   Until, all at once, the light burst.   It shattered the darkness, and with it came a thousand pieces of a thousand thoughts, and my mind was filled until it could hold no more. What purpose in such a dream, I wondered, my mind raw and aching as I woke from my wide-eyed slumber.   Perhaps nothing more than this: there is blessing in the slow, and the light will always shatter the dark.

There was once a woman who was ever-weeping.   By day she wept, and by night.   She wept with joy, and with sorrow.   She wept because the clouds were high, and because they lay low.   She wept when the sun shone bright, and when the rain poured down.   But most of all she wept because it seemed to her that there were no more surprises left in the world.             There were few places where she could do her weeping in peace, for those she came across found her ceaseless tears unbearable after a time.   And so, when her feet could no longer carry her from place to place and the time had come for her to find a home, she sat beside a river under the cover of willow branches and found herself in perfect company for her tears.             Thus she sat and cried her tears until the river daughter, astonished by the sudden swell in her river, tread from within the swift current and surfaced to see the face of the weeping one.   Then the river daughter asked, ‘Sister, why do you cry