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:

Posted by

Brenda Davis Harsham

Posted on

October 26, 2013

Posted under

Holiday, Tales for Kids of All Ages, Young Fairy Tale

Comments

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.