At first, Kelly can’t believe the news. But when dragons puff angry fire, she knows it’s true. Trick-or-Treating is canceled!
Something must be done.
Monsters need some fun. Continue reading
Halloween is What?!
Category Archives: Young Fairy Tale
Delicious Demon
Eat the delicious demon.
Gobble him up.
Before his chocolate
nose runs
or his raspberry filling
bedevils your brain.
Breathe in that
cinnamon scent:
sweet, spicy, sinister.
He has the molten texture
of dark lava cake.
Sink into the zippy
comfort of way-too-much
sugar-joy, skating like
vengeful Olympians
in your veins.
The worst demons
are the delicious ones.
Resistance is futile.
He’s hiding his fangs?
Wouldn’t you,
if you were delicious, too?
Notes: Artwork is rights reserved to the original artist. This poem was inspired three years ago by comments on a post. Since then, it has lurked in my draft file, biding its time, sighing, despairing, imprisoned. Finally, I set it free. Dig in and enjoy. Have a magical day! Two weeks to Halloween!
Gnome Grown
Sprig Gnome tends his woodland garden. Thistle shears help him prune raspberry canes. He mulches fungus shingles atop his den, waters moss, and collects dinner. Before his basket is full, a shadow darkens the glade. He ducks and dodges but all goes awry. Ida Owl grasps him in her talons, and she lowers her yellow eye.
“I’m done for!” Sprig howls. “Save me!” Will anyone hear him?
“Sprig, save it! I need your help.” Ida Owl grouches. “A splinter in my claw is driving me mad!”
“I see it.” Sprig extracts it with a yank of his thistle shears.
Ida hops side to side, flexing and gyrating. “Oh, what a relief. I must thank you properly. Hop on.”
Is she serious? Can he trust her? Sprig stows his basket. He climbs up her feathers like a ladder.
“That tickles!” Ida giggles. Then she flaps powerful wings. Sprig’s stomach bottoms out as they rise. Winds swirl and flow until Sprig worries that he’s seen his last night. He holds tight. They bank and loop. They hoot and holler. The air smells of crushed apples. He reaches toward stars as if they were snowflakes.
An owl and a gnome make the least-likely of friendships. News travels the meadow like a brush fire. A gnome is riding an owl! Unheard of! Unthinkable! Sequester Squirrel follows, swinging tree limb to ivy vine. Dentbottom Rabbit has to see it with his own rheumy eyes, and his great-granddaughter holds his arm. Dinwald Stag-King brings his large tribe to gape.
When Sprig lands, he feels as if the earth has stopped orbiting the sun. The air is too still. He waves good-bye to Ida, and follows fireflies into his den. His feet find each lump in the maple leaf carpet. His thistledown bed is squashed and untidy. He snips, clips and mixes until his forage stew bubbles and sings. The air fills with the scent of braising brined beetles. But he misses the scent of crushed apples and owl feathers.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: We’ve been enjoying a lovely thaw like spring is visiting February. It makes me wish I could fly. I hope your dreams take you on fun flights of fancy tonight. Warmly, Brenda
Stone Turtle
Bear stopped for raspberries at Kent Pond.
Turtle basked nearby.
“You look delicious,” Bear sniffed. “Yum!”
His claws swept out.
Turtle disappeared, and his shell bounced.
It rolled like a stone.
Bear knew that stones hurt his teeth.
He lumbered away.
Turtle poked out his head, grinning.
“Works every time.”
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Wordle # 5 – The Albatross – Fairy Tale
Georgia has created a delightful, colorful fairy tale that keeps you guessing until the end. I hope you enjoy it!! My kids are on school vacation week this week, so my internet time will be greatly reduced, but I’ll catch up next week. 🙂 Warmly, Brenda
The
musk
scented smell of blood reeked from the willows near my favorite swimming pond, down near the eastern woods. The smell was so in
discordance
with the beauty of the place, full of shade, and flowers. I often imagined that a
coven
of water
nymphs
lived there. Now, the sweet cloying smell of a
wounded
animal
knotted
my stomach and closed my
throat
.
Gagging I searched through the thickets and found a mound of old mouldering tangerine skins. These were kind of disgusting, but didn’t explain that particular odor. Then a strange sight met my eyes! An albatross lay wounded, dying with an arrow in its wing. I couldn’t have been more surprised had I met up with a Polaris missile in my backyard, this pool was so far from where any albatross should be.
It’s eyes seemed to be two mendicants begging for surcease from…
View original post 236 more words
Dancing Memento
My young daughter’s first ballet class,
Awash in swirly pink,
Young girls,
Hair tidied in a looking glass,
Stopping for a quick drink,
spins, twirls.
Fingers together in ballet,
with correct attitude,
Balance.
Raising her arms in grand plié
A graceful interlude,
Warm glance.
My heart was sore to see her there
Leaving me to learn dance,
Wide grin
In place, twinkling eyes full of cheer,
And with a graceful stance,
leap, spin.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Inspired by the Paint the World with Words poetry prompt, which was to write a Memento, a style with 6-line stanzas, composed of patterned counts of 8/6/4/8/6/4 syllables and with a/b/c/a/b/c rhyming.
I Want to be a Fairy
Painting by Brenda Davis Harsham
A lovely blogger named Line at Paths of the Spirit wrote this beautiful poem in honor of my daughter’s fifth birthday, and gave it to her as a gift. How sweet is that? I painted a tiny fairy for it and put them together here for all fairy tale lovers who also want to be fairies:
I want to be a fairy
Beautiful and wee
I want to fly with fairy wings
And live inside a tree
I want to be a fairy
Beautiful and wee
I want to play with fairy things
And sleep inside a leaf
I want to be a fairy
Beautiful and wee
I want to eat the fairies’ cakes
And drink the fairies’ tea
I want to be a fairy
Beautiful and wee
I want to have some fairy friends
Who’ll come and play with me
I want to be a fairy
Beautiful and wee
But I am just a little girl
With lots of fairy dreams
Thank you, Line, you are an angel! Warmly, Brenda
Fairy Garden Joy
Happy Birthday to you!!
Fairies came from far and near
To celebrate a birthday dear.
Some pictures here do show
That love, joy and cheer did flow.
My daughter’s face did shine
When on fairy cake her friends did dine.
After dancing, the day was done,
All Fairy guests had lots of fun.
We hope your day is magic, too.
For if it isn’t fun for you, then who?
Now my fairy tale is all told,
Soon other magic may unfold.
The Dragon and the Phoenix
Yangshao never knew what woke him from his thousand year sleep under the frozen taiga. His muscular, golden legs and long limber back snapped and creaked. His lungs filled with crisp, clean air, as he emerged from deep under the ice. Brilliant lights at the far horizon drew his sharp dragon eyes south. The night sky filled with swirling reds, yellows and oranges, and these colors reminded him of his best friend, Xin-Yin, the Phoenix. Brilliant blue star shapes expanded, filling the sky as the other colors faded.
Yangshao’s back rippled side to side like a snake as he flew up and over the larch and birch forest, his vertebrae cracking like saplings in an ice storm. His golden claws clenched and released, easing their stiffness, then reached up to itch between his horns. His whiskers trembled in the cold wind, and he started to feel alive, his senses filling with the forest fragrance. He brushed the tips of snow-laden spruce trees for the joy the showering powder gave him. He felt his magic renewed from his long years of slumber.
His senses expanded over the lands searching for Xin-Yin. Where was she? Continue reading
Red Mushroom Mansion
Used Courtesy of Postaldeliveries
Maybelle had often admired the red mushrooms mansions, where she imagined only the very luckiest of fae could live. She liked to imagine the quiet with only a few neighbors. She had been living in a fungus highrise since she was born, surrounded by constant noise and banter.
Sylphanya, her sprite-mother, was hardly ever home and wanted different things than Maybelle. Her mother cared only for painting autumn leaves whereas Maybelle was drawn to water blossoms. Her mother seemed to like having a hundred neighbors, singing out happy hellos to everyone.
Maybelle knew the other fae-children thought she was a bit odd. Her near-neighbor Jamus called her a loner that morning because she hardly ever joined him and his sister, Dolpha, for nectar in the berry bar.
Maybelle was sad all day, not even the rainbow tints of a new lotus bloom cheered her. Maybelle decided to find her mother. Continue reading
Published Fairy Tale, Part 2
On October 22, Friendly Fairy Tales announced the publication of a new, previously-unpublished story, The Day the Dragon Flew up the Chimney, on The Paperbook Collective October 2013 Issue 3.
Click to read Part 1. As promised, here is the Final Part:
Henry decided he’d better keep an eye on the dragon, so he followed it closely. The dragon was flitting from chair leg to chair leg. He would hop up onto chair arms or tables and eat the food right off people’s plates and drink the tea right out of people’s cups. Everyone was so busy talking that no one noticed a thing.
Then the miller’s wife reached for one of her cookies, only to find that it had disappeared. “That’s odd,” she said.
“Miss Miller, Ma’am,” said Henry. “A dragon has eaten your cookies.” Meanwhile the dragon had moved on to Phileas Farmer’s plate.
“Henry!” scolded his mother. “Stop telling fibs and don’t filch people’s cookies. Now for the last time, go and play. Honestly.”
“But Mama,” protested Henry. Sadly, his mother just shook her head at him and waggled her finger. If his mother wouldn’t believe him, who would? Henry watched as the tiny dragon plundered the room of its teacakes, its cookies, its biscuits and its tea with cream. A hum of conversation arose as more and more villagers were puzzled to discover empty plates and cups. Henry wondered how such a tiny dragon could eat so much.
Then the dragon had the temerity to steal from his father’s plate, and that was more than Henry could bear. “Daddy, Daddy,” cried Henry. “The dragon is stealing your biscuits!” The whole room stopped to stare at Henry. Henry’s father seemed very embarrassed.
“Henry, I told you not to fib!” cried his mother, standing up.
“But I’m not!” Henry replied.
“Then where is the dragon,” asked the mayor with one last laugh. Henry pointed at the hearth where the dragon perched, fickety-mickety finishing up the last chocolate from the plate of Mrs. Farmer. The fire had died down a little, but he was still clearly visible against the glow.
When the dragon noticed everyone staring at him, he gulped down the cookie and flew straight up the chimney.
Everyone gave a gasp, and the mayor and several aldermen raced over to try to look up the chimney. No one could see anything for the fire and the smoke.
Henry’s mother and father came and gave him hugs and apologized for doubting him. The villagers all patted his shoulders and told him how brave he had been. He was the village hero thereafter. And when Henry grew up, they elected him mayor. To this day they tell stories of the day the dragon flew up the chimney.
THE END
Copyright Brenda Davis Harsham April 1, 2005
Crankypot Halloween
Friendly Fairy Tales is pleased to offer a Halloween story for Adventurous Fairy Tale readers, Crankypot Halloween. Here is an excerpt:
Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire;
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And this ditty, after me,
Sing, and dance it, trippingly.
First rehearse your song by rote,
To each word a warbling note:
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.
— William Shakespeare
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene II)
The gray-haired man sat tapping his fingers on his knee, without noticing tiny flickering lights under drooping dahlias, but he was aware of the darkening sky. He did not notice three raven nests in the tree across the street. A little girl followed the flickering lights, crying the whole way, closer and closer to where the man sat in the dark.
He heard her weeping by the gate, and shouted “Take your tricks elsewhere! No treats here!” He had been guarding his yard from the pitch-black of his porch for 25 years, not letting any trick-or-treaters through the gate, all lights off.
The crying got louder. “Go away, you can’t trick me!” He shouted again, unable to see anything with the sun sinking fast. He heard hiccups, then even louder wailing. He flipped the floodlights on, against his usual policy entirely. In the wash of yellow light, all the flickering twilight fairies hid, and the ravens called out, restless.
He sighed and approached the gate for the first time in 25 years on Halloween. In the light from his floodlights, he saw a little girl with blonde curls stuck to her wet cheeks. Tears were rolling down from her eyes, and dangling on the strands of her hair like dew. The straps of her pink butterfly wings had slid off her shoulders, and she clutched a pillow case tightly in a fist. She looked just like his daughter, Ella Mae, all those years ago when he caught her sneaking out to trick-or-treat behind his back. He had yelled at Ella Mae, and now she lived on the opposite side of the country.
“What’s the matter, girl?” He asked gruffly.
To find out what happens, whether tricks or treats, please click on Crankpot Halloween.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Friendly Fairy Tales 