Sky giant smiling;
His backstroke breaks cloud cover,
Watches autumn shine.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Tag Archives: fairy tale
Tricks or Treats?!
Happy Halloween, and to all my fabulous fellow fairy tale lovers, here are some treats (I’ll leave the tricks to the fae tonight):
Thanks to the blogs I visit, who have filled tonight’s cauldron with treats of many kinds. Some of my favorites, I got again and again! I love when that happens! 🙂
Thanks to Dear Kitty or Petrel41 for the Reader Appreciation Award!! Love her lore, wide-ranging from animals to current events to women’s issues. Hope you get a chance to visit her. 🙂
Thanks to lifebeinggirly for the Versatile Blogger Award. She is adorable, and I love that she is flying the girly flag high. We all need to love who we are, because we are pretty darn terrific!! Painttheworldwithwords then chimed in with another Versatile Blogger Award. Amreen is a poet, a designer and a talented blogger with a penchant for beauty. Here is a lovely poem by him:
The soul of my poems
define the tune of my life
singing my presence.
~~~
Amreen Shaikh
Thanks to In My Hands for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award! If you can’t get enough of black and white cat pictures and Chekhov, then you must check her out. Cats and great literature. Who can resist that? Then Bullying Prevention came in with another nomination for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award! He is doing god’s work, trying to make the world a better place for all. I’m delighted to see posts from both, they are always food for thought and very moving.
And a new and different icon for the Versatile Blogger Award from Chronicles of a Public Transit User. Oddly enough, we both almost died when we were four. We also both love Halloween. Kudos for a great award posting, too, worth a visit!!
I can’t tell you all how important all of you have become to me. I love to hear your comments, to see your likes, and to read your posts. I’m still here, spinning my stories, pairing photographs and verse, and trying to express my inner voice. Something crucial has changed, though. I feel more connected and less alone than I ever have in my life.
Together, through our words, I believe we can change the world forever. Make it a place where it’s okay to be yourself. I don’t have to look like Angelina Jolie (hey, I wouldn’t turn it down…) to write a good story. We don’t all have to be writing the same things. Viva la difference!! I cherish all of you, and I hope you all have fruitful, productive and glorious Novembers. Special hugs to those of you starting Nanowrimo, you go!!
I nominate these special trick or treaters to share my loot, please reach a hand in the cauldron and take any treats you like (or none if you don’t have a sweet tooth):
aCuriousGal
Tails from Paris
antilandcaper
Persecution of Mildred Dunlap
Dully Pepper
And some Halloween pictures to thank my readers and fairy tale lovers everywhere:
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
For Caregivers on Halloween: Grandmother Tree
Young maples trees blossom with hectic autumn color
Where they shelter under the high arching limbs
Of the deep-rooted grandmother tree.
Lovely, steady grandmother tree, slow to change,
Thick bark insulates and shields her from the cold,
Only showing golden and claret touches high up.
One by one, her bright leaves sigh and let go,
Lightly drifting down to caress her young for a moment.
Finally on the earth, their leaves mingle and embrace.
This Halloween, be like the grandmother tree.
Gather the rain, slow the wind, your roots entwined.
Let your children bloom and thrive, safe in your care.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Boston Strong in Five Haiku
Elated fans cheer
Balm for a Battered Boston
Thank you Red Sox team!!!
Bushy beards, bald heads
Psychological mind games
Cast iron focus
Outfield solid state
John Lackey dominated
Closer’s glove held high
Yeah Red Sox Nation
First World Series Fenway win
since 1918
Your day will come, too
Great Saint Louis Cardinals
All New England glows…
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Hello Kitty Halloween Haiku
silent, flickering
the spirit of halloween
glowing in the dark
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Two Trees Haiku
Years long past we two,
Racing to grow fast, taller,
Siblings of the heart.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Spellbook Haībun
“And then there are the times when the wolves are silent and the moon is howling.”
— George Carlin
Autumn leaves tapped the small windows. Elspeth blew the dust off the book. She knelt amidst generations of clutter and debris in the Martin family attic. She was looking for a costume, because Halloween was that night. On the leather book cover was burnt a full moon surrounded by a five-sided symbol. As the dust settled on old crocheted blankets and old-fashioned high chairs, she opened the book at random.
hidden in the trunk
voice rusty with disuse
still with much to say
“Scarab powder, dash of scaly rot, and ground bat bones sprinkled on seven squashed wolf spiders. Stir widdershins under a howling moon with a finger of oak. Stroke quarter over the main mast and quarter on the crow’s nest. Every particle that remains, seal in wax and burn until gone in the hold. Soon will come to you a strong headwind, fair weather and enemy bane. Beware shoal and reef, but raise proudly your flag, for safe port you will make, wise cargo making your fortune.”
seek the howling moon
sailing toward future fortune
magic within you
Fate had brought her to her ancestor’s spellbook, and fate denied becomes foe. Elspeth decided to be a witch for Halloween. She had no immediate need for a sailing spell, but perhaps it could be adapted for her car. Elspeth embraced the book, and put it back under the crocheted afghans in Grandma Demeter’s favored avocado and pumpkin colors. Grandma Demeter had always seemed to have a charmed life. Now Elspeth knew why.
hold close heritage
its magic will come to you
when fate brings you home
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Prepared from the weekly Līgo Haībun challenge. Please visit them if you want to see some great writing!
gratifying ecstasy
Joint the fae feast, eat berries until your lips are stained gold-red, and don’t forget to dance. Happy harvest! Brenda
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
Cobwebbed Skull Haiku
Silly skull laughing;
Nylon spiders hard at work;
Halloween bones ready.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
New Fairy Tale Published!!
Friendly Fairy Tales is pleased to announce the publication of a new, previously-unpublished story, The Day the Dragon Flew up the Chimney, on The Paperbook Collective October 2013 Issue 3. Thanks to Jayde Ashe for publishing this story!!
Excerpt from The Day the Dragon Flew up the Chimney
One day, the sky was so dark that day seemed like night. No work could be done in the village of Miller’s Bend. All the villagers gathered in the great hall to tell stories and visit with each other.
Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Everyone looked around in wonder. Everyone in the village was already inside the great hall. Whoever was outside must be a stranger.
After another booming knock came, the mayor went to open the door. He looked left and he looked right, but there was no one there. He did not notice a tiny dragon no bigger than a teacup dart into the hall and hide behind a chair leg. Everyone else was looking up at the mayor’s shoulder, and they didn’t see the tiny dragon either. Everyone, that is, except a little boy named Henry who was no more than three.
Now Henry had been playing marbles near the door, and he was just the right height to see the dragon. He went at once to his mother’s knee, but she was talking to the miller’s wife. He pulled at her skirts, but she said, “Henry, I’m talking to Eliza, go and play.”
Henry tried his father next, but his father was talking to the mayor.
‘There was no one there,” said the mayor.
“Isn’t that odd?” responded Henry’s father. Henry tugged on his pant leg.
“Henry, go and play. You can see I’m busy.” Henry’s father did not listen.
Henry decided he’d better keep an eye on the dragon, so he followed it closely.
To find out what happens to Henry, adult readers can download the Paperbook Collective with work by many fabulous writers here or please check back on Friendly Fairy Tales for the rest of the story in a few days…
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Star Fairy Fibonacci Poem
Quick!
Hide!
Deep down,
All alone.
She fled the falcon,
Taking cover in a canyon
Still she could hear it screaming for her to come out now!
Never would a star fairy fear a peregrine falcon, but she was injured and drained.
She sang to her kin, sparkling in twilight air; soon they entangled the bird in a magic web, destroying his concentration, and saving her.
Copyright 2013 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A Fibonacci Poem is one in which each succeeding line is equal in syllable length to the syllable length of the preceding two lines added together, or one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, etc. Usually they are 5 or 6 lines long, but I wanted to see if I could write one 8 lines long.
Friendly Fairy Tales 