Steve Shilstone's Blog, page 9

oh, my dearie, have a care

be not captured by her stare

feathered leggings does she wear

beyond the mist, you’ll find her there

These words were sung in a creaky voice by the ancient beggar seated on a great boulder near the road. They made no sense at all to Mabel, the potter’s daughter, who was headed to the castle market hauling a cart filled with her father’s newly fired and gaudily painted clay gourds. She ignored the song, but not the singer. For you see, her heart ached for the elderly confused woman in rags. Mabel’s own grandmother had not fared well in her final years. So Mabel stopped and gave water to the old one. She said, ‘I’ll return when my father’s wares are sold and carry you in the cart to our home by the banks of clay.’ The old woman lowered her head, trembling with gratitude, speechless, and she smiled a crooked smile.

Mabel went on her way, sold all of her father’s gaudy clay gourds, bought a bolt of bright blue cloth, and set off toward home. When she drew within sight of the great boulder by the path, Mabel discovered that the old beggar woman was nowhere to be seen. The potter’s daughter hurried to the boulder and walked a careful circle around it. Then she stood for a moment in the road. She heard a gentle hissing, and mist wafted up in lazy twining spires from the ground all around as far as she could see. Soon she could not see the boulder. Soon she could not see her cart. Soon she could see only white, dense and silent. The words of the old woman’s song sounded in her head, but not in a creaky voice this time, but rather wafted in the softest of chimes.

oh, my dearie, have a care

be not captured by her stare

feathered leggings does she wear

beyond the mist, you’ll find her there

Mabel walked forward, her hands thrust out in front of her. And after the passage of time and a half, the mist thinned, and then raced in swift swirls completely away. Mabel found herself in the middle of a field of stubble. A lone white hen with feathered leggings stared at her. Mabel, taking no chances, avoided the hen’s gaze.

‘I am the Harvest Hen. You are a young maiden. You do not look at me. You have been given the gift.’

The mist returned. The mist retreated. Mabel stood in the road next to her cart. In the cart were a bolt of blue cloth and a red velvet pouch filled with emeralds.

Marla slid onto her chair at the kitchen table and announced, ‘I’ve almost decided what I want to be for Halloween.’

Marla’s mother, busy at the stove, seemed not to hear.

‘Mama, I said I’ve almost decided what I want to be for Halloween.’

‘I heard you. I just have to count stirs,’ said Marla’s mother.

‘It’s between owl, cat and triceratops. Cat I did last year, I know, but it was good being twins with Pie,’ said Marla, reaching down to rub the head of purring Pie. ‘But I guess I want to do something new. So it’s owl or triceratops.’

’28, 29, 30. There, done. Well, honey, choose something so I’ll have time to work on it,’ said Marla’s mother.

‘Triceratops! That’s it. Triceratops. I’ll be a triceratops,’ said Marla.

‘Triceratops? That will be a challenge, but let me think,’ said Marla’s mother, and she got a notepad and a pen from a drawer and tapped the pen on her upper lip as she thought.

Marla’s mother wrote down several items on the pad, tore the sheet off, and said, ‘Here. Take this list to grandmother and bring back all she gives you. Triceratops. This might be fun.’

Marla took the list from her mother, went to her room, put on her pointy black hat, picked up her broom, and flew out the window toward her grandmother’s cottage deep in the wood.

In the time of castles a sad queen slipped into the woods on a blue moon midnight. She hurried along the glow of a path lighting up in front of her as she muttered over and over again, ‘Never forever.’ When the cottage appeared under a drapery of vines, as she had been told it would, she stopped in her tracks and shuddered. Summoning courage for her child’s sake, she walked forward and resumed repeating, ‘Never forever.’ The cottage door swung open.

‘So here a visitor, is it? What would ye ask of Old Nan, daughter?’ asked a cracked scrape of a voice. ‘Stand still and advance not one more step.’

‘Never forever, never forever,’ repeated the sad queen, standing stock-still.

‘That’s right, my dear. Say it again and again. Ah, I see, but your daughter doesn’t,’ said Old Nan, and she cackled. ‘What reward for a daughter’s sight restored? Hmmm, Old Nan, what do ye need? Not a thing. I have all I want … but wait. I know. A troubadour to sing to me two evenings a week. More would be annoying, that’s true. If ye agree, continue repeating “Never forever.”‘

‘Never forever, never forever,’ repeated the queen with increasing urgency.

Old Nan beckoned. The queen entered the cottage, and was instantly struck blind. Or so she thought. Blackness all around, fear in her heart, nevertheless she continued to say, ‘Never forever.’ Soon a tiny flicker of a flame danced in the blackness in front of the sad queen’s eyes.

‘Never forever, never forever,’ she said, an ember of hope reborn in her soul.

Old Nan cackled. The queen awoke in her chamber. Her daughter, the princess, rushed in singing, ‘I can see! I can see!’

Here are Dorothy and the Scarecrow discovering a long row of giant Oz books.

The Quadling owl may be found in the hilly country of the southernmost region of Oz. It nests exclusively in red lemon trees. It dines on red scones dipped in red marmalade. Nothing else suits its fancy. Oh, to be sure, now and again it has tried pancakes and blue Munchkin almonds and several varieties of wheat and corn, but always after one unsatisfying bite, the Quadling owl flies off to its favorite red scone tree and a happy dinner of scone and marmalade. I forgot to say that the red marmalade is dipped from a well located precisely in the center of the red lemon tree grove. The Quadling owl is sometimes seen over canyons soaring just for the fun of it. It never speaks unless spoken to, but once spoken to, it has a hard time shutting up. So it’s best to nod politely at the owl and to refrain from saying, ‘Hello.’ And finally, let me emphasize this point with the greatest urgency, do not ever get caught up in a staring contest with the Quadling owl. You will lose, and what’s more, several days will have passed. In summary, the Quadling owl is a most remarkable bird.

The village baker, dusted in flour head to toe, waved his rolling pin over his head and shouted orders. The Queen had decreed two dozen walnut cookies to be delivered that afternoon in time for a gathering of regal importance. The baker’s wife and daughter raced here and there, down to the cellar, out to the pasture, over to the well, scurrying in frantic glee, for they did enjoy doing a job and doing it well.

‘Bring only the best and fattest!’ screamed the baker at his daughter, Felice.

Knowing precisely what he meant, Felice raced to the nut bin in the corner and flung off its round wooden cover. She began digging around in search of the best, the finest, the most beautiful walnuts. She muttered ‘Here’, ‘Here’, ‘Here’ as she plucked up and arranged in a row the most perfect specimens. When the row of nuts was two dozen long, she hurriedly gathered them in her apron and ran to her father.

‘Well? Crack ’em!’ shrieked the baker, and he directed his gaze at the ceiling before adding, ‘Do I have to think of everything?’

‘Oh, right,’ said Felice, and she ran to fetch the nutcracker.

She was oh so careful in cracking the shells, intent on keeping the nut treasures inside unbroken. And so she came to the most splendid of the walnuts, the one she had saved for last. Into the jaws of the nutcracker she placed it. She pressed down on the lever, steady and sure.

crack

‘Finally,’ said a tiny voice, and a very small woman dressed in pink, blue and yellow finery pushed out of the broken walnut shell. ‘Boy oh boy, that was some curse, I’ll tell you. Whew. Glad that’s over. Now. A wish. You deserve a reward, I suppose. What is it? Hurry up. I’ve got places to go and things to do.’

The baker and his wife and Felice, stunned for the moment to stillness, recovered and hurried to huddle together. After much fierce whispering and waving of hands, they stepped apart.

‘We want a new, bigger oven,’ said Felice.

‘Whatever,’ said the tiny lady, and she raised a hand and moved it in a complicated manner, wiggling her fingers all the while. Then she flew off out the window.

The baker and his wife and daughter hurried around, happily preparing the cookies, and every so often they glanced with pride  at their new oven.

Following the death of L. Frank Baum, Ruth Plumly Thompson was asked by the publishers of the Oz books to continue the series with new stories. She accepted the honor of becoming the 2nd Royal Historian of Oz by producing one Oz book each year through the 1920s and 1930s. My own particular favorite of hers, The Gnome King of Oz, was the Oz book for 1927. It boasts an impressive mound of humor, wordplay and imagination. For instance, the Quilties of Patch make quilts, and their Queen, Cross Patch the 6th, falls to pieces one day. This, however, is no cause for alarm, because, as Ruth explains:

When a Quilty goes to pieces, his relatives or friends sweep up the scraps and put them away in a tidy scrap-bag and in ten years or so he comes out of the bag as good as ever.

Ruth loved adverbs and peppered and salted her prose with them. Some examples:

Giant fish wallowed desperately…

‘Blunderoo!’ breathed Peter softly.

‘Come on! Come on!’ wheezed the old Gnome King frantically.

…a golden haired mermaid plunged boldly from the window of a coral castle…

mumbled dizzily – scowling terribly – brushed rudely – nodded gloomily – yawning tremendously – answered saucily – and so on and so forth and 5th and 6th and 7th.

Why did she love adverbs so much? She couldn’t help it. After all, her middle name was Plumly.

And so, in honor of Ruth Plumly Thompson, 2nd Royal Historian of Oz, I am pleased to announce that the character narrating my next new story is to be called Plumly.

To make this versatile potion, good for invisibility or flight, you will need the following:

1 clarinet

1 steel flagon

3 seeds of any kind (doubt works well)

a blue bowl filled half with water from a roaring cataract and half with empty

2 pinches and 1 poke of dirt

Start by placing the clarinet on the ground. Jump up and down on it until you are tired. Then bash it to pieces with the steel flagon and place the largest bits in the blue bowl. Sweep the smaller bits away, as you will have no need for them, and you wouldn’t want to step on them later with your bare feet. Your feet are bare, aren’t they? Good. That is important. You may now dispose of the steel flagon in any manner you choose, for its role in the recipe has been completed. You now add to the blue bowl with its clarinet bits and water the 2 pinches of dirt. In the poke of dirt plant the 3 seeds. Pour the contents of the bowl over the poke and seeds. Go off into a corner and wait. When the hand of time has strangled a week or more, pluck the strange orange leaf which by now is waving from the poke. Chew it. Spit it out into the palm of your right hand. Smear it across your forehead. Dance around, waving your arms. Don’t be shy. You are now invisible. To fly, simply double the recipe.

Long ago, giants stepped down from the sky and moved into the ice caverns on the snowy peak of the high mountain. There they lived content until one day the giants’ daughter, Bredla, stomped into her parents’ chamber.

‘I’m leaving to go see flowers. Fendak, the falcon, told me about flowers. He says they’re pretty and of many colors. He says there’s a red velvet rose in a palace garden. I’ve never seen a rose or red or a palace garden. All I’ve got here to look at is a stick with shivering gray leaves. And what’s more, I’m sick of eating sleet,’ said Bredla, and she folded her arms and glowered.

Her parents, as always, were helpless before Bredla’s glower and folded arms. So in minutes she was on her way, crashing clumsily down the mountainside, knocking over tall pine trees and accidentally kicking huge boulders into streams. She said ‘Oops’ or ‘Sorry’ at each mishap, being a little more polite when not in the presence of her parents. She reached a grassy meadow and crossed it to a grove of trees where she came upon a woodcutter, who fell to his knees in terror at the sight of Bredla.

‘Please, please, please don’t tear my arms off,’ pleaded the woodcutter.

‘Tear your arms off? Why would I tear your arms off, tiny man? Tell me about flowers. Where are they? And the red one. The velvet. A rose it’s called. If you know where it is, tell me and point the way. Colors. Flowers of color I want to see. Oh, green trees and green grass are all right, a sight better than the whites and grays and storms of the caverns, I assure you. But I’m determined to see this red velvet rose. Where is it?’ said Bredla, and she folded her arms and glowered.

The woodcutter fainted three times. Three times Bredla revived him by flinging water from a nearby creek into his face. At last the woodcutter realized that perhaps the giantess wasn’t going to tear his arms off.

‘The red velvet rose grows in the garden of the Queen’s palace. Follow the path. It will bring you to the village, and from there you’ll be able to see the palace on the hill,’ said the wet woodcutter.

Bredla thanked him and stomped on her way. Her approach to the village caused the earth to shudder. Villagers scattered in panic. Bredla paid them no heed, for her eyes were trained on the distant castle. On reaching it, she tripped and fell into the moat, got up and waded to where she could look over the wall and into the garden.

There on a round bush she saw the single red velvet rose. A tiny Queen, a watering can in her hand and her mouth agape, stood beside it staring up at Bredla.

‘That’s the rose, I’m guessing,’ said Bredla. ‘It’s lovely. Red, too. I’m guessing again. And you are probably the Queen, I suppose, or they give servants nice clothes around here. I am Bredla. I have come to live near the red velvet rose.’

‘Oh,’ said the Queen.

And that is how Bredla, the giantess, came to live in the palace garden and tend lovingly to the flowers, especially the red velvet rose. And whenever she wanted anything at all, she simply folded her arms and glowered.

Once in Egypt when the pyramids were young two royal beetles scuttled at dawn from the palace to the long and lonely road home to the quarry.

‘Well, Eleanor, I tell you, that certainly was a hard day’s night, and that’s a fact,’ said Robert, the larger beetle, and he sheened a most lovely green.

‘I thought it would never end. We worked like dogs, I tell you,’ agreed Eleanor, sheening a green every bit as lovely as Robert’s.

‘Why don’t we give up this royal nonsense, fly across the Nile, and open a magical mystery flavor shop?’ mused Robert.

‘I’m all for it, Robby, my love. Let’s go yesterday and put all our troubles far away. And by the way, just what is a magical mystery flavor shop?’ said Eleanor.

‘Oh, it’ll be wonderful, my precious jewel. I’ve worked it all out in my head. It won’t be long, yeah, it won’t be long,’ said Robert in a dreamy sort of way.

And it wasn’t long before they were across the Nile and settled in their shop. The royal beetles were so glad.

Moral: All you need is love and enough food and adequate shelter.

‘