With The Smothing of Dunsop Bridge, I wanted to write a piece of folklore that never existed, but might have. Something rooted closely enough in a real place, and old rural warnings that, for a moment at least, you might wonder whether I had made any of it up. LINK IN COMMENTS #Edvane #Folklore

#vss365 The wizard left his apprentice a single #bequest. Most pages of the book were blank, but each year a new spell appeared. He learned them all.

In the twentieth year, a final spell appeared. Beneath it, his master had written, “Now you are ready. You may bring me back.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 The headsman lowered his axe. “A royal #reprieve,” he announced. The prisoner sagged with relief as the crowd groaned. Then the castle gates opened. An impossibly tall, antlered creature stepped into the square.

“His Majesty has sent a different executioner.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 She carried the smoking bundle through every room, whispering the words as bitter herbs filled the house. “Smoke will #purify what lives here,” the old woman had promised

In the bedroom, the smoke curled around her sleeping husband and turned black. She stared at him... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 The witchfinder raised the torch. “#Renounce the Devil, and God may yet forgive you.” She smiled through broken teeth. “I did, a decade ago.”

Behind him, the church burst into flames, its bell crashing to the ground. His own men seized him.

“Now I work alone,” she said #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 Mother Green took in every orphan girl the village abandoned. “Even the unwanted will flourish with enough #nurture,” she said.

Years later, they carried their wands and weapons to the castle gates.

Mother Green had never wanted daughters.

She wanted an army. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

What if the folklore we think of as ancient was simply invented by somebody who made it stick?

King Arthur became a chough. Children’s rhymes acquired meanings. Writers filled the gaps.

In this post, I say Folklore is up for grabs. It always has been. LINK IN COMMENTS #Edvane #Folklore

#vss365 “I #reckon it fled to the caves,” Fredor said. “A beast that size leaves tracks.” Tanner snorted. “No dice, it’s above us.” The mossy boulder beside them exhaled a hot, sulphuric breath, and two yellow eyes opened. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 When famine arrived, the Fear Gorta came begging at each cottage door. Some shared what little they had. Others cursed his #hunger and drove him back into the cold.

By spring, the generous houses had full larders.

In the others, they were eating the dead. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 A sculptor worked by candlelight, carving his dead wife from black marble. Such was his #passion that every vein, lash and wrinkle returned beneath his hands.

Eventually, the statue opened its eyes. He wept with joy.

Then she whispered, “You buried me alive.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

In Emmie and the Black Orchard, I wanted to use a dark fairy tale to explore the cost of love: sacrificing even the memory of having loved.

It created a nasty paradox. Everyone remembers who they love because Emmie agrees to be the one person who cannot.

LINK IN COMMENTS

#Edvane #FairyTale

#vss365 The SS Chimbayo was due to #embark for Alaska with machinery, lamp oil and winter provisions. She departed on time, but never arrived.

Decades later, she steamed into harbour through January fog. Every man aboard was dead. All of them were frozen upright at their posts. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 On a #stormy crossing, the crew of a steamer sighted another vessel pacing them through the rain. Its decks were crowded with dancing skeletons and drowned men in rotting evening clothes, glasses raised beneath strings of yellow lamps... #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 Baron Ludlow ended the thirty-year #conflict by marrying his daughter to his enemy’s son. The wedding lasted three days, and both houses swore the old hatred was buried.

The next morning, the bride was found hanging from the gate. Pinned to her dress was the treaty #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 On Thursday, the miners broke through into a cavern no map recorded. Inside stood a forest of crystal trees. For hours they wandered in #marvel, touching leaves as cold as winter glass.

Then one man found his own name carved into a trunk, followed by ‘Friday’. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 For a hundred years, a Potioneer kept one brew simmering beneath his tower. On the final night, he took up a silver spoon.

“One stir,” his master’s notes promised, “and the work may #commence.” He stirred. Something beneath grasped the spoon and stirred back. #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 He was strangely #sanguine about the king’s illness. Each morning the fever worsened. A week later, the king died. As the bells began to toll, the physician slipped the empty poison vial back into his case.

“Nothing to fear, Highness,” he said, and bowed to the new king #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 The people feared the old woman’s #esoteric rituals. Once a year, she buried thirteen black candles around the village and warned them never to dig them up. When she died, the priest ordered every candle burned...
#Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 The condemned witch was spared because of her #eloquence. The king freed every prisoner in the dungeons and opened the city gates. The prisoners armed themselves. His enemies marched in.

“I only had to teach you mercy, Majesty. They already knew what to do with it.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy

#vss365 A girl left a bowl of milk outside each night for the terror in the woods, and they mocked her #naivete. Her father laughed hardest. A year later, every house but theirs stood empty. He asked why they had been spared.

“It said you had to be last, Father.” #Edvane #DarkFantasy