Take my message, crow |
Fly straight to my fairy lord, |
My exile need end. ||
This great art was by MichelleMarie Antell, and I have added a haiku inspired by her gorgeous forest fairy maiden. I hope you like our collaboration. Warmly, Brenda
Tag Archives: fairy tale
Happy Thanksgivukkah Haībun
Turkey with Yarmulke
The leaves have fallen, and New England has weathered its first winter storm, with howling winds and temperatures 20 below freezing. We are all preparing to celebrate the gateway to winter, thankful for shelter, food and good company. This year our Thanksgiving feast will have an added spice, a warming blanket of older meaning.
Whatever you celebrate this November 28, Jews across the United States will be celebrating Thanksgivukkah with culinary imagination and joyful lighting of candles to celebrate the festival of lights.
festival of lights
pumpkin bisque, apple latkes
rarely converging
Some rabbinical sources have calculated the next convergence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah will not be for 70,000 years!! Even our trees may not survive that long. But, according to the New York Times, “the last time the two holidays overlapped was in 1918, when Jews lit one menorah candle on Thanksgiving night, and it won’t happen again until Nov. 27, 2070.” Others chime in with other dates!
Mathematicians disagree with both the religious sources and the New York Times, and they assert this particular convergence has never happened before (except maybe once in 1888 before they made Thanksgiving the 4th Thursday of November) and may never happen again, and that’s because Hanukkah is a day earlier than the New York Times article provides, given that the first day will be celebrated the night before Thanksgiving. That means Hanukkah starts before Thanksgiving! Whew!
once in a lifetime
celebrate the convergence
remember the past
This fairy tale writer doesn’t know who to believe, the rabbis, the New York Times or the mathematicians. Whether you believe it will happen again in 57 years or maybe never, why not light some candles, roast some turkey with challah stuffing, fry up some potato pancakes, and celebrate a rarer occurrence than a comet sighting or a lunar eclipse.
I may not live long enough to see the next round of Yarmulke-wearing Turkeys (especially if it never happens again), but if I do, what a fairy tale that would be. We should all be so lucky!
Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Turkey Day, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Thanksgivukkah! Each year after this, as the leaves flame up and fall, crisped and brown, I will remember this special gateway to winter, the first Thanksgiving of my blogging days.
A few recipe ideas for a creative Thanksgiving and Hanukkah feast:
Turkey with Pomegranate and Walnuts
Pumpkin and Saffron Soup
Cheddar cheese mashed potatoes
Apple Latkes
cooking for hours
table groans with fall delights
eaten in minutes
Warmly, Brenda
Note: a haībun is prose followed by a poem, often a haiku. Sometimes haiku or other poems are also used as transitions between paragraphs. Usually I write from a prompt, and I always enjoy that, but this week I wanted to celebrate outside the prompt. I may go back and write another haībun for the prompt, if I can squeeze out the time.
Awarded Blog of the Year Among Other Blessings!!
I never imagined the response I have gotten to my fairy tales, here on Friendly Fairy Tales. I originally put up stories for family to be able to read them without my providing everyone copies. (I have a BIG family.)
The warmth of community I have found has been a fairy tale come true for me. I love all the comments. I love hearing that others love fairy tales, and even more, that others love my stories. And all the awards make me happy, more on that below…
Thanks to everyone who visits, who likes, who comments or even just enjoys my stories, my photographs and my poetry. For all of you, I have made an underwater visual fairy tale (a new video!!), called Fairy Fish Tails, which has an original score composed by my oldest son.
The video was a long time in the works, and as a result, I have been slow to pass along thanks for awards, but here goes:
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
Winter and Jack Frost
A good friend has written a delightful fairy tale about Jack Frost, partly inspired by my lit-tree photos, and I am honored to share it with you. I hope you like it, and it sparks some wonder on a cold autumn night. 🙂 Cheers, Brenda
There were only shadows and silhouettes when the little sprite-like
one awoke from his long, extended nap. The seasons had changed
while he slept and he looked around, not seeing his special ‘touch’
upon the land yet. He stretched his arms out and shrugged his thin
shoulders, shaking out his stiff joints, while wrapping his coat closely
around him.
The elfin man crept out from under the bridge, ready to dip his toes
into the chilly stream. He shivered with excitement and knowing it
was TIME.
As the water changed from moving sluggishly, freezing into a sheet of
ice, he tiptoed up the bank and left his tiny, crystalline footprints behind.
He hopped over the rock that led to the grass and he slowed.
He stopped.
He took one big breath IN! His lungs burned with the extremely brittle air.
He let one foggy (water vapored) breath OUT!
He prepared himself.
He took his hand from under his woolen blanket jacket and…
View original post 276 more words
Swinging
We need to hear young voices. I hope you enjoy this view of the world from a very young voice.
A Poem by A.H., age 4
When I’m swinging,
I’m bigger than Mommy and Daddy.
I’m bigger than the trees.
I’m bigger than the wood chips
And the playground.
I’m bigger than everything.
Copyright 2013 Friendly Fairy Tales
[Ian] Pine Cone
Here’s a new friend, publishing magical poems coupled with adorable photographs. Hope you like this little gem as much as I do!! Have a terrific Tuesday!! Brenda
tiny Christmas tree
perfectly sized for pixies
yuletide miniature
Raindrop Haiku
rain gathers into drops
leaves sag with sky’s liquid weight
forming opal tears
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Icy Leaf Haiku
Too early for ice!
Breath comes in steam engine puffs
Leaf caught by winter
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Seasons of the Sun Haībun
When the summer sun shines, blinding me with its full radiance, the pleasure is painfully exquisite. If I bask too long, my sunburn is a long, slow torment, my body retaining the summer’s heat for days. Yet that same hot summer sun provides the energy for all the food we eat, makes the world a vibrant beautiful place.
hot reckless summer
sun provides food for tree leaves
blessed saving shade
In the autumn, the sun’s strength has diminished, and its power to blind and burn has faded with the earth’s turning. The leaves mourn with me, turning all the colors of the earth from the loss of that unrelenting brilliance. A cool morning is made a delight, sitting by the lake, soaking up the remaining heat, with no fear of sunburn.
a bench in the sun
light glints on still lake water
sun warms cold morning
Fall warmth has to last through the dark days of winter, when the sky can turn gray with snow for days in a row. The weak winter sun cannot burn through snow clouds, and instead sends a diffuse light leaking through. After the clouds break, the fresh fallen snow can magnify the sunlight into a thousand knives, piercing my eyes with a painful overload. Crossing a field after a snowfall, the light forces my eyes to thin slits, tears seeping and freezing on my cheeks.
boots sink in new snow
icy wind curls under scarf
eyes shut from white fire
Spring finds moderation again, without the piercing light reflected by the winter white, without the intense burning of the summer sun. The whole world bursts forth in bloom, bulbs shooting forth their starbursts of color and myself shedding clothing layers. Spring sunlight is an invitation, a benediction, a renewing from the universe.
starshine gently falls
magic balm to the cold earth
life springs up dancing
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This post was inspired by the Ligo Haībun challenge by Ese, who offered a Mexican proverb: It is not enough to know how to ride – you must also know how to fall. This proverb reminded me of autumn, the leaves falling after a summer of riding the sunshine; life in its eternal circle; the earth circling; the sun in its seasons.
Golden Path Etheree
Leaf
Falling,
Citrine dream.
Windy swirling,
Gold honey blizzard,
Swirls of a fairy’s cloak.
Restless spirits soar higher
With each dancing leaf falling down
To the shifting, shadowy hemline.
Surfeit of beauty looking at fall’s gown.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This poem is an Etheree, starting with one syllable on the first line and increasing to ten, one syllable per line.
Humongous Fungus
Oh, silly us, we once met a fungus that was simply humongous.
Feeling bilious, we returned home telling tales of delicious bling-bling-gus.
Another day, not far from home, we were quite alone; we chanced to see
Proof that no gargantuan fungus ever would be aloof from my friend or me.
Lest you fear that the last humongous fungus had done for us
We’re pleased to confide (nothing to hide) another rippling dalrymple soon stunned us.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Friendly Fairy Tales 