Nerds Club

“I object,” Melissa states with a devilish smile.

“What? Already? We’ve just started,” I say.

Thalia and Jini giggle.

I have called together the first meeting of the Fairy-Tale Nerds Club, whose first order of business is to discuss The Battle of the Birds. A week ago, Duckworth and I wandered around Hyde Park, I telling him about this tale and promising to talk about it further.

Actually, I fed them first: Melissa, the girls, Duckworth, and Augustus. Melissa is a vegetarian, and Jini is Hindu, so I made fettuccine alfredo—always a crowd pleaser—with a side salad. I paired it with a couple of bottles of chardonnay. Thalia and Jini shared a bottle of ginger ale, although I suspect Thalia took a sip of mine when I was not looking. Afterwards, we retired to the study with drinks and a plate of shortbread cookies.

The first order of business was for Thalia to read The Battle of the Birds to refresh our memories. Thalia finished, and that is when Melissa objected.

“What can you be objecting to?” I continue.

“You had Thalia read Lang’s version of the tale. I prefer Jacobs’ version.”

“Is there that much difference?” Duckworth queries. “They start and end the same, don’t they?”

“No, they don’t,” Melissa warms to her cause. “Oh, not substantially, but different. Jacobs’ version starts out with a conflict between a wren and a mouse, which escalates. Lang simply says there was a war between the creatures of the earth and the creatures of the sky, and not what led up to it.”

“OK,” Duckworth nods, nibbling on a shortbread.

Melissa is not done. “When the cook’s and the butler’s sons are substituted for the prince in the Lang version—and here we are talking about Leonora, who edited the collection, and not Andrew, her husband—the giant returns the sons to their mothers and demands the real prince. In Jacobs’ version, the giant bashes out their brains before returning to the court.”

“Eeww!” Jini’s nose wrinkles.

Melissa takes a sip of her wine. “Then we come to the magpie eggs. Lang has the giant’s daughter levitating, placing her finger on the tree trunk to give the prince purchase to climb. In Jacobs, the giant’s daughter—identified as Auburn Mary—insists the prince kill her and separate her bones from her body, explaining that the bones would attach themselves to the trunk, allowing him to climb. In reverse, he needed to collect the bones on his way down and reassemble her body, and she would revive. Clumsily, he loses her little finger bone.”

Jini is looking aghast and a bit pale. Thalia chuckles at her friend’s distress.

“And I am not done,” Melissa goes on. “As much as I prefer Jacobs’ version, he does edit out the section where the giant’s daughter cuckolds her suitors.

“And lastly,” she says, “what I don’t find understandable is Leonora’s butchering of the golden pigeon/silver pigeon event. She refers to the golden pigeon with the pronoun ‘he’ when, in Jacobs, it is much clearer that the golden pigeon is a manifestation of Auburn Mary, and the silver pigeon is that of the prince, who benefited from her sacrifices and came close to abandoning her.”

I raise my cup in salute.  “I take particular note that the pigeons rose up in flames out of a wine glass.”

Part Two

Greek Maybe

“Well,” declares Augustus, “I appoint myself as president of this club.”

“Oh! And how’s that?” Melissa challenges, but with a humorous glimmer in her eyes.

“Because I am the nerdiest of us all. I’ve read John Francis Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands, from which Lang and Jacobs drew their versions.”

Melissa raises her glass before taking another sip. “I will bow to your authority.”

Augustus takes a sip of his wine and commences. “Lang and Jacobs had at their disposal the eight variants of this tale that Campbell collected.”

“Ah!” we chorus.

Melissa frowns. “Was he like Francis James Child and his exhaustive research for The English and Scottish Popular Ballads?”

Augustus pauses. “Campbell was thorough, but his four-volume work, as opposed to Child’s ten volumes, is far more readable.

“Both Lang and Jacobs cherry-picked what they wanted from the variations. I will also say they took editorial license at times but mostly remained true to one or another of Campbell’s versions.”

“All well and good.” Duckworth raises his glass. “But I have a question. You committed nerds go on about motifs. I get the thing about three. There are three tasks, three sisters, and three obstructions during the flight. But what is this getting kissed by a dog all about?”

“Technically, it’s called ‘The Kiss of Oblivion,'” Augustus clarifies. “Which usually follows ‘The Magical Flight’ and is connected with ‘The Forgotten Bride.’ It’s not always a dog. The heroine puts a—let’s call it a geis—upon the hero when he returns home after a long adventure. The hero inadvertently breaks the geis, and as the heroine warned, he forgets his bride.”

Duckworth waggles his head. “Why this device? What is it supposed to represent?”

Augustus rotates the glass in his hand.He really has not drunk much. “I can only speculate. There are scholars who believe the tale relates to Jason and Medea. Medea, a sorceress, aids Jason in his tasks. However, Jason ‘forgets’ her and marries someone else. Unlike our tale, Medea poisons Jason’s wife and also kills their children.”

Jini is appalled. Nonetheless, he continues.

“I really don’t see that there is much of a connection. My thoughts turn toward the status of marriage in the early medieval era, a period during which these tales were incubating. At that time, marriage was not sanctioned by the church, and unions were more tenuous. The marriage vows were made on the church steps. The ceremony did not move into the sanctuary for a few more centuries. I wonder if wives did not, at times, have to go looking for their husbands who may have strayed.

“Still, I have not answered your question about ‘The Kiss of Oblivion’ and the dog. It may not be anything more than a charming image. We expect a parent to try to kiss the hero, but no, it’s the old greyhound that remembers the long-departed hero and greets him.”

“OK, I’ll buy that.” Duckworth reaches for another shortbread. “But I did notice that the task of cleaning the barn comes directly out of the Hercules story. I’m not too quick to discount this as coming out of Greek legend.”

Part Three

The Weeds

I lift a finger in the air to indicate I have a question. “I see this tale as a masterful combination of various motifs. We have the prince visiting the houses of the three sisters in succession. I have read that before or something similar. We have the hero performing three nearly impossible tasks, usually with the aid of a helper or helpers. Nothing new. The magical flight, well, that is an all-time favorite chase, ending in the destruction of the pursuer. Very satisfying.

“But in this story, there is the loss of the little finger of Auburn Mary. Setting aside the fact   that the giant’s daughter has a name, in this case, unusual in itself, I have never come across this notion before.”

“Nor I,” Melissa agrees. “Oh, there is the severing of limbs as in The Maiden Without Hands, the cutting out of body parts in The Three Army Surgeons, and many ‘three drops of blood,’ but a missing little finger I’ve not seen.’

I notice Jini being the definition of squeamish.

“What I want to know,” Thalia chimes in, “is why isn’t a giant’s daughter herself a giant? She doesn’t look like one in either Lang’s or Jacob’s story illustration.”

I see she is scrolling on her phone.

“Oh, goodness,” Melissa grins, “I like that question, although we are getting a little scientific if we get into genetics.”

I decide to come to the rescue. “The fairy tales do not play by our rules. I am thinking of the Nordic god Loki’s birthing of an eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, genetics be damned. We should note that the giant’s daughter was magical; if not a shapeshifter like Loki, she does inherit some magic from her father.

“Got it,” she says, pulling the shortbread plate away from Duckworth and taking one. “So, what about the weird name of Tethertown? It doesn’t sound like the name of a kingdom.”

“The origins of that might be lost in the mists of time,” I suggest.

“I haven’t a clue,” Melissa confesses.

“There was something in Campbell’s note about that,” Augustus muses.

“I’ll check it out.” Thalia’s phone is still in her hand, and she mumbles something into it.

I offer to freshen everyone’s glasses. Augustus still hasn’t drunk much of his, but my other adult friends are lushes like myself.

“OK,” says Thalia, “my buddy ChatGPT says that Campbell gives the Gaelic name of Tethertown as Baile An Teudair. ‘Baile’ means ‘town,’ ‘an’ means ‘of the,’ ‘Teud’ means ‘string’ or ‘rope’ or ‘cord,’ and ‘air’ is ‘one who does something.’ Therefore, ‘Teudair’ means ‘rope-man’ or ‘string-maker,’ possibly ‘tether.’ The name can be easily anglicized into ‘Tethertown.'”

My buddy ChatGPT? Well, so much for my romantic-sounding “lost in the mists of time” comment.

“Hmm,” Melissa has a playful smile. “Being the prince of Baile An Teudair does have a better ring to it than Tethertown.”

“Wait,” Jini protests. “Do we have to go into the weeds? Must we tear it to ribbons? Can’t we enjoy how it makes us feel in the moment?”

“Noo!” wails Thalia. ‘What’s the fun in that? We need to know what it means.”

Jini rolls her eyes.

“Hmm,” I say. “Feeling verses meaning. I will contemplate that.”

And I drain my glass.

Your thoughts?

The Writing Affliction

As a writer, I have decided writing is an affliction, a state of being that, nonetheless, can be contagious.

I started writing short stories while in high school, through my college years, and into my pre-marriage years. I never once thought about publishing. During the trials of parenthood, while driving the kids from one place to another, my daughter would demand I tell her a story, but it had to be original. 

I did have a ready-made cast of characters—all cats—named Whitie, Blackie, Orange Juice, and Dumptruck. Eventually, there was a fifth character. As I was telling a story, we approached a railroad crossing as the gate came down. Emily said, “Oow, train!” Being a short train, soon the last car passed us, and she said, “Caboose.”  Thirty seconds later, the new character in the story bore the name “Oowtraincabosse.”

Those car stories became the seeds for my first two novels, A Vacant Throne and Sword of Trueterra, Trueterra being a world populated by cats and their nemesis, the squirrels. (Rats and mice do not appear in the stories, having long ago been eaten.)

I like to think that the car stories and the fact that my wife, Jolene, and I read to our children from the time they could sit up without falling over are why Emily now holds her master’s in creative writing and is the author of Great Divide, published by Unsolicited Press.

As a teenager, she had a “nickel” bet with me as to who would get published first. She won handily when the magazine Merlyn’s Pen published her story Peach Trees, which won a prize in the magazine’s contest.

As proof of her skills as a writer, I submit to you her one-sentence short story On The House.

My son, Kevin, took a different path to express his creativity: music and video. So, while I am bragging about my children, here is some of his work.  He has been experimenting with AI’s ability to help create images. The music is entirely his own. I will give two examples. The first is so dystopian that I wanted you to know he has a lighter side. Years ago, during the Q&A of one of his screenings, someone asked if he ever had a “bright spot” in his life. His humor can be dark. You may need to move your cursor to the top of the screen to turn on the sound. Each piece is around a minute long. Hand over the Waterand Processional.

I mentioned at the start of this piece that I see writing as an affliction and contagious. My wife of more than forty years is now writing her first novel. The process involves physical writing, dictating to her phone, and editing on her Chromebook.

Technically, this is not her first book. Years ago, when she and Emily were participating in competitive horse shows, during the long drives, they entertained themselves by reinventing Christmas carols with horse-related verses. She compiled them with vintage illustrations, mostly Christmas postcards, into a work called We Wish You a Mare-y Christmas, the intent of which was to raise money for horse rescue. Why our family created so much content while driving in cars, I cannot say. Simply passing the time, I guess.

All that said, she is writing with “the door closed,” so I only know hints and pieces. You need to imagine her sitting in a comfy chair, phone in hand, and a blanket across her lap with a cat sleeping on it. I’ve taken to doing all of the cooking and cleaning the kitty litter box.

Oh, and Emily’s son, Theo, is demanding “made-up stories.” The affliction continues, and that’s a good thing.

A Walk

Duckworth rings me up. “Listen, this is the time of year we hunker down and become inactive. We need to make a special effort to keep going.”

I agree with him.

“Let me suggest,’ he says, “we participate in the Serpentine Swimming Club.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an inclusive, community organization that’s given permission to swim in the Serpentine between the hours of 5:30 am and 9:00 am all during the winter.”

“Duckworth, I am not a polar bear, if a bit rotund. Let me suggest a group in Devon who run around carrying flaming barrels over their heads. At least they have a source of warmth.”

We settle on a walk in Hyde Park, where we can view the Serpentine Lake, but we need not enter it.

We now stride by the Italian Gardens on our way to the Peter Pan statue.

“Well,” says Duckworth, “what story has Thalia read to all of you of late?”

I think for a second. “Ah, yes, The Battle of the Birds. A Scottish tale, a concoction of motifs, but like a good cocktail, it’s the ingredients that count, and this story is a pleasant mixture.”

“Tell on.” We have hit on a leisurely pace.

There was a battle between the creatures of the earth and the creatures of the sky to see who should be king. The prince of Tethertown came to witness the battle.”

“Tethertown? Where’s that?” Duckworth frowns.

“The story does not say.”

“Of course, this is a fairy tale. Sorry I interrupted.”

The prince nearly missed the entire battle and arrived when the last combatants—a snake and a raven—were having at each other. The snake had the upper hand. (The wordplay is mine and intended.)

After Duckworth rolls his eyes, I continue.

The prince interceded and cut off the snake’s head. In gratitude, the raven flies the prince off to his sister’s home to be feasted. When the feasting was over, the raven had turned into a young man who gave the prince a bundle.

“A bundle of what?”

“You’ll see.”

The young man instructs the prince not to open the bundle until he is in the place where he wants to live. Of course, curiosity got the better of him.

“Of course,” Duckworth sighs.

The lad untied the bundle, and out popped a castle surrounded by an orchard. Immediately, a giant appeared and offered to put the castle and orchard back in the bundle in exchange for the prince’s firstborn son when the lad reaches seven years of age. The prince agreed.

Duckworth raises an index finger in the air. “Ah, the firstborn motif I recognize.”

“Quite right.”

When the castle was properly situated, the prince found it came with a beautiful woman, whom he married.

“Now there’s a real-estate deal.” Duckworth’s eyebrow arches.

Seven years later, the giant showed up for his payment.

“Oops.”

We approach the Peter Pan statue and spend a good bit of time admiring its delights before moving on.

The prince and his wife tried to substitute other children, but each time the giant asked the child about his father, which revealed who the real father was. The giant raised the boy as his own son but kept the existence of his three daughters a secret from the lad until it was time for marriage.

Before that happened, the lad, drawn in by her harp playing, discovered the giant’s youngest daughter. She explained that she was betrothed to the son of the king of the Green City, whom she did not want to marry.

“Whoa, wait, son of the king of the Green City. Where . . . no, never mind.”

“Right.”

They conspired that when the giant offered the lad one of the elder sisters for marriage, he was to insist on the youngest.

Duckworth turns his head towards me. “Is this a long story?”

“Oh, most certainly.”

Part Two

A Stroll

We soon come to the Diana Memorial Fountain. However, a fountain it is not. It is more of a Diana Memorial Flume. I am not objecting to the structure. Really, it is a lot of fun, and running water is a thing pleasurable to the eye. But let us not call it a fountain.

Putting my umbrage aside, I continue my tale for Duckworth’s benefit.

As the youngest daughter predicted, her father was not happy with the lad’s demand and put forth three challenges, the first being to clean the giant’s cattle barn—which had not been done for a hundred years—until a golden apple could be rolled from one end to the other. Otherwise, the lad would pay with his blood.

“Stop,” says Duckworth. “My college English classes now stand me in good stead. That’s one of the tasks of Hercules, who diverted a river to wash out the barn. And golden apples were rolling around in there somewhere, too.”

“Quite so; only here, the lad fails in his labors, and the youngest daughter tells him to go to sleep while she, magically, completes the task.”

The next task was to roof the barn with the feathers of every different type of bird. The lad went off hunting but only killed two blackbirds. Again, the youngest daughter bid him sleep while she did the work.

“Wait again.” Duckworth stops walking. “The lad’s father saved the raven from the snake, yet the lad condones the killing of birds to roof a barn?”

“A valid point, but shut up until we get to the end, and we’ll talk about it.”

“OK. Sorry.”

On we go toward the Serenity.

For the third task, the giant wanted five eggs for his breakfast from a magpie’s nest in a particular fir tree, five hundred feet tall with no branches until the very top. Failing to shinny up the tree, the youngest came to the lad’s aid, putting a finger against the trunk and then another above it. She floated upwards, giving the lad’s feet purchase for each step. The lad achieved the eggs, but on their rapid descent, the youngest’s little finger got caught in a branch, and she was, as the story says, obliged to leave it behind.

Having accomplished the three tasks, the giant had to allow the marriage. Yet, there was a fourth task that the youngest anticipated. The giant had the three sisters dressed identically, with veils inferred, and the lad needed to pick out which was his bride. The youngest told him to look for the one missing her little finger.

This test passed, the marriage proceeded.

“Might that be the end of the story? And they lived happily ever after?” His wicked smile clues me into his intent.

“You know better than that,” I respond as we pass by the admirable Serenity statue.

The youngest more than suspected her father would murder them on their wedding night. She took an apple and divided it into nine pieces. Two she put at the head of their bed, two she put at the foot of their bed, two by the kitchen door, two at the main door, and one outside.

During the night, the giant called out, “Are you asleep?” The apples, in turn, answered that they were not. Meanwhile, the couple fled on a blue-grey mare.

“This is a long tale.”

“I told you so.”

Part Three

An Amble

As we make our way around the Serpentine, we come to the area roped off for swimmers.

“Excuse me a second.” Duckworth goes to the edge of the shore, takes off a glove, and sticks his bare hand in the water. I am sure it is my active imagination, but I see his hand, as well as the tip of his nose, turn a light shade of blue. He dries his hand the best he can and puts his glove back on.

With a shiver, he says, “There’s a kiosk up ahead that sells hot coffee.”

We amble on, purchase coffee, and I continue my tale.

Discovering the ruse, the giant took off after the couple. When the youngest sensed her father getting near, she told the lad to reach into the mare’s ear and throw whatever he found behind them.

Duckworth recoils. “Ick! That sounds—well—unsanitary.”

“It’s another motif,” I say.

Duckworth scowls. “Is ‘motif’ a code word for saying crazy stuff?”

“No, it’s a code word for copying crazy stuff said by other tellers.”

“Ah.”

We pass by Henry Moore’s statue called The Arch without taking much notice, as  I  return to the tale.

The lad found a sloe twig, tossed it behind him, and twenty miles of thornwood sprang up. The giant had to return home for his axe and wood knife in order to get through, but he was soon in pursuit again.

The next time, the lad found a grey splinter of stone that turned into twenty miles of impassable rocks. The giant returned home for his lever and crowbar.

When the giant caught up for the third time, the lad tossed a bladder of water that turned into a loch in which the giant drowned.

I see Duckworth considering. “I’ll bet the story is not over, is it?”

“Nope.”

When they came to the gate of the lad’s father’s castle, the youngest told her husband to enter and warn them that he was returning with a bride. However, he must let no one kiss him, or he would forget all about her. Unfortunately, upon entering the castle, his old greyhound recognized him and leapt up, licking him on the lips.

The youngest waited by a well. When night fell, and he had not returned for her, she climbed into the oak tree that shaded the well. The next morning, a shoemaker’s wife came to the well and saw the youngest’s reflection in the water. Thinking it was her own, she dropped her water pot in surprise, smashing it. The identical thing happened to the daughter, after which the shoemaker discovered the youngest in the oak tree. He invited her to stay with his family and work for him.

When it was announced that the king’s son—the lad—was to be married, the young men of the court came to the shoemaker for new shoes to wear to the wedding.  Three of them took a fancy to the youngest, but, one by one, she tricked them when they came courting. The first got stuck to the well, the second stuck to a door latch, and the third got his foot stuck to the floor. None could move until she released them, and they went off embarrassed.

Duckworth and I return to the other side of the Italian Gardens, settle down in Queen Anne’s Alcove, and finish sipping our coffee and the story.

On the day of the wedding, she and the shoemaker went to the castle to deliver the shoes. She ended up in the banquet hall. When she raised her wine glass, flames shot out. Up rose two pigeons, one gold and the other silver. Three grains of barley fell to the floor. The silver pigeon swooped down and swallowed them, as the gold pigeon reminded the lad of how “I” cleaned the cattle barn. This happened twice more with the reminders of how “I” feathered the roof and how “I” aided with the magpie eggs as the silver pigeon ate the grain.

With that, the lad remembered his wife. Since a wedding had been prepared, they got married a second time.

“Listen,” says Duckworth, there is a meeting I need to get to. Still, I’d like to talk more about this story. That last bit with the pigeons is really odd.”

“We’ll get together again, I’m sure,” I say. “Hmmm, and maybe with some friends.”

An idea pops into my head.

(To be continued.)

Your thoughts?

I’ve been scammed!

Well, OK, I walked into it willingly.

To be honest, I hoped it wasn’t a scam, but I now know I wasted my money. Perhaps a small price to pay for the insight I gained and will pass along to you.

I have conferred with Chat, and it advises me not to name names to avoid legal consequences. Therefore, I will not.

I got an email that charmed me. This person lauded one of my books. Well, let me share part of that email with you.

“Your novel A Vacant Throne: Dreams Of The Sleeping Cat immediately drew me in. Sonny’s journey from a restless house cat to an unlikely hero navigating the medieval realm of Trueterra is both thrilling and endearing. The richly imagined world, the epic quests, and the courage and loyalty of feline companions create a fantastical story that blends adventure, humor, and heart, exactly the type of story our members delight in exploring together.

We would be honored to feature A Vacant Throne at our next (Redacted )event and include it in our (redacted), highlighting authors whose work invites readers into imaginative worlds full of bravery, friendship, and unforgettable characters.

Would you be interested in having A Vacant Throne featured, or learning more about our (redacted) Opportunity?

Warm regards.”

Nice. Right? She obviously looked at my book. Wrong. Chat informed me she more than likely used at the Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature and my own description of the book. I should not think for a second that she actually purchased my book.

That was followed up, after my request for more information, with this.

“Dear Charles,

Thank you so much for your interest, I’m glad to hear that and yes, I’d love to share more.

For the (redacted), we highlight your book across multiple platforms and reader communities. The goal is to directly increase reader discovery, click-throughs, Kindle page reads, brand trust, and long-term organic sales momentum.

Here is what the (redacted) includes:

(Redacted) where A Vacant Throne is the main focus title for the session on November 18th.

(Redacted) sent to targeted genre readers who engage with fantasy, adventure, cats/animal fantasy, and whimsical quest fiction specifically.

(Redacted) to curated book communities where animal fantasy + whimsical fantasy performs extremely well.

(Redacted) where readers get to discover you as an author, not just the book, which increases long-term interest in future titles or sequels.

Custom graphic mockups + promotional creatives designed for the campaign to visually elevate the title.

This Spotlight is structured to generate increased visibility, more Kindle interest, and higher ongoing reach, not just one-day highlights.

Participation Fee: The participation fee for the (redacted) is $150.

This covers everything involved: design, targeting, campaign build, creative setup, distribution, and the promotional placements.

If you’d like, I can send the simple payment steps next and get you locked in officially for November 18th.

Would you like me to proceed with registration?

Warm regards,”

Making my way through the abundance of red flags, I proceeded.

The timeline for the event was little more than a week, giving the “readers” a slim chance to assess my book. The promotional material she sent me looked free-version assisted. The Facebook event was totally embarrassing.

I suspect these were amateur scammers. The Facebook event took place in one of the  Groups that had been around for a while, but the name was changed recently.  There were around fifteen participants, none of whom were live, only myself. They were all images with names. Not even the host was live. The host had a common name and her picture was of a typical-looking white woman with reddish-brown hair. By her accent, she was obviously Asian. Her connection was terrible, and her audio kept dropping out. One of the other participants took over. He too had a foreign accent, I’ll guess southern Africa. There was a third person asking questions, but I could not place his accent. All the questions were general, not specific to my book.

The whole event had not gone on very long when I saw the message, “Your free access time is nearly expired.”

Subsequent to the event, there was no jump in my book sales.

Chat had some useful suggestions about my mini-disaster and how to avoid another one. I will let Chat end the month’s missive with a summary of what was said.

Why these scams work (even on thoughtful writers).

These offers tend to succeed because they:

• Exploit isolation: writers crave readers, community, and recognition.
• Mimic legitimacy: professional language, testimonials, Zoom events, or “curated audiences.”
• Shift the burden subtly: You pay because it’s “an opportunity,” not a service.
• Trade in hope, not guarantees: “exposure,” “visibility,” “networking,” “promotion”—all unmeasurable.
• Falling for this isn’t stupidity; it’s vulnerability combined with good faith.

Common red flags.

Most of these schemes share traits such as:

• Upfront fees for access to readers, festivals, showcases, or anthologies.
• Vague outcomes (“additional promotion,” “industry exposure”).
• No transparent metrics (who exactly are these readers?).
• Pressure tactics (“limited slots,” “invite-only,” “closing soon”).
• Pay-to-play disguised as honor.
• Most of these use Gmail, not a publisher domain,  a known review outlet, or a verifiable marketing firm.

The Writer’s Scam Smell Test

If an offer lands in your inbox and asks for money, pause and run it through this test. One “yes” doesn’t prove anything. Several should make you step back.

1. Did they find me, or did they find writers?

The message praises your work—but only in general terms. No specific passage. No sign they’ve spent time with the book itself.

“Your writing shows great promise” is not the same as “I read chapter three.”

2. Is the promise made of exposure, not results?

Words like:

• exposure
• visibility
• promotion
• discoverability
• networking

are doing a lot of work—and none of it measurable.

Ask: Who exactly will see my work? How many? Where?

3. Am I paying to be “invited”?

Legitimate opportunities usually:

• pay the writer
• are free to submit to
• or clearly state what the fee covers (editing, printing, venue)
• If the fee is for access, attendance, or consideration, be wary.

4. Is the audience strangely abstract?

“Readers” appear, but never:

• named
• quantified
• described
• verified

A real audience can be described. A fictional one remains conveniently vague.

5. Does urgency replace transparency?

Phrases like:

• “limited slots”
• “closing soon”
• “final opportunity”

appear before you’ve been given enough information to make a calm decision.

Pressure is often a substitute for proof.

6. Could this email vanish tomorrow?

If the sender uses:

• a free email account
• no website you can verify
• no institutional footprint

ask yourself how easily they could disappear once the fee clears.

7. Am I saying yes because I’m tired of waiting?

This is the hardest question.

If the offer appeals because:

• publishing feels slow
• recognition feels distant
• silence feels personal

then it may be feeding on discouragement rather than offering opportunity.

Hope is not gullibility—but it is something people learn to monetize.

Final Rule of Thumb

If an opportunity cannot survive your asking polite, specific questions, it is not an opportunity.

The Quern

The bell above Augustus’s tobacco-shop door announced my arrival. He looks up from his newspaper as he stands behind the counter.

“What will it be? Leprechaun Gold, Old Rinkrank?”

“No, I haven’t had Black Dwarf for some time. I will take two ounces of that.”

“Black Dwarf was the first of my blends you bought, you know. But see here, I’ll not sell it to you until you tell me a story.” Augustus smiled.

“Well, don’t I always? Actually, the girls have decided that on Christmas Eve, after the holiday lasagna at Melissa’s, we all must choose a story to read.”

“Ah, that sounds like the start of a fine tradition. What story will you choose?”

“One I found in Fairy Tales From the Far North.”

“P. C. Asbjornsen,” Augustus fills in.

“Quite. It’s called Quern at the Bottom of the Sea.”

There were two brothers, one rich and one poor. The poor brother came begging on Christmas Eve for food for his family. Ungraciously, the rich brother threw him a ham, saying, “There it is; now go to the devil.”

Hearing this, the poor man went off to find the devil. And he did.

Outside of the devil’s house was an old, bearded man chopping wood, who informed the poor man that the devil was in want of a ham, but the poor man must trade for it and get the quern, the hand mill, stored behind the door.

The devil was reluctant to trade, but eventually he did. The old man explained that the quern would grind out anything he wanted and instructed him on how to stop the quern.

Before midnight of Christmas Eve, the poor man returned home to have the quern produce a feast for his family, complete with a tablecloth and candles. On the third day, he invited all of his friends to feast as well.

The rich brother, jealous of his brother’s good fortune and knowing his brother had nothing to eat a few days before, demanded an explanation. After a bit too much drinking, the poor brother let slip his secret.

The rich brother now demanded that the poor one sell the quern to him. The purchase was put off until harvest, giving the poor brother time to put by all the stores of things he would ever need. When he handed the quern over, he purposely did not tell his brother how to turn it off once started.

The new owner of the quern asked for broth and herrings for breakfast. Dutifully, the quern produced it in abundance. His kitchen soon filled with broth and herrings, and he, shortly, was flushed out of his house on a wave.

If the whole parish was not to be drowned, he needed to go back to the poor brother and beg him to take back the quern. This the poor man did for an additional amount of wealth.

With the quern back in his possession, the now-not-so-poor brother put it to better use. He bought a large farm and went so far as to plate the house with gold. That attracted much attention. He was eventually visited by a skipper/merchant who offered him a great sum for the quern. It was sold to him, but again, without much instruction. 

The merchant traded in salt. Instead of travelling to distant lands to buy salt, he simply carried the quern onto his ship and had it grind out salt. Salt soon filled the hull of the ship and every square inch of it until the ship sank.

The quern now sits at the bottom of the sea, churning. That is why the sea is salty.

Augustus nodded his head knowingly.

Part Two

Pourquoi Tale

“A pourquoi tale,” says Augustus. “I didn’t see it coming. But wait, it is ringing a bell in my head.”

Augustus darts upstairs to his library. He is no sooner out of sight than the bell over his door rings. I explain to the customer that Augustus will be back shortly, but might I help him? Well, I know Augustus’s stock pretty well.

I talk him into trying out Elfish Gold, one of my favorites. I am weighing out two ounces when Augustus returns, raising an eyebrow at his new assistant. After the transaction is complete and the customer is gone, we settle in chairs behind the counter.

In his hand is a copy of the Prose Edda, which is at least in part by Snorri Sturluson. “I will guess the origin of your tale is the piece called The Song of Grόtti.

“King Frόŏi bought two enslaved giantesses, Fenja and Menja, and chained them to his magical mill, Grόtti. The king had them grind out gold, peace, and happiness, augmented by their singing.  He gave Fenja and Menja no rest, and in revenge, they sang a different song and ground out an army led by a sea-king named Mysing, who defeated King Frόŏi and seized Grόtti and its two slaves.

“Mysing was no better a master, but now they were on a ship grinding out salt. When the ship sank, Grόtti ended up at the bottom of the sea, run by a whirlpool.”

I fill my pipe with some Fairy’s Favorite that Augustus offers me.

“Hmmm,” I say, “no devil, no brothers, yet obviously the two tales are related.”

“Yes.” Augustus lights his pipe. “The Prose Edda was compiled in the thirteenth century, hundreds of years after Christianity had established itself in the North, but the tales are certainly from pagan times. There is no Christian gloss upon them.”

“You suggest,” I say, “that The Song of Grόtti pre-dates my tale?”

“I’ll wager my meerschaum on it!” he replies, holding up his favorite pipe.

“I won’t challenge you,” I easily concede. “But let me ask, are all fairy tales derivative? Do fairy tales always borrow—no, I’ll say steal—their themes and ideas from myth and legend? I want to say ‘no.’ I’ve always argued that myths, legends, and fairy tales—if inspired by something historical, like King Arthur—really draw from the collective unconscious, our dreams, our group wish/ideal for their content.”

Augustus puffs hard on his pipe, considering the thought. “I must come down on the theft notion. The myths and legends were, I suspect, developed by the bards, or their like: skilled, educated, trained individuals.

“Fairy tales are of the illiterate lower class, told in taverns or around the home hearth to equally uneducated listeners, not people of the court whom the bards entertained.”

“The French court was interested in fairy tales,” I defend.

“Well, of course, Charles Perrault, Madame d’Aulnoy, Henriette-Julie de Murat, but that was an affectation, a fad; it does nothing for your position on fairy-tale origins.”

I really hate it, at times, when he is so much smarter than I am.

Part Three

Purposefully Vague

I do love Melissa’s Christmas lasagna. Paired with garlic toast, it’s a wonderful winter’s repast.

Sated, we now sit in her drawing room—as she likes to call it—Melissa and I with glasses of merlot and the girls with their Cadbury hot chocolate. We have finished reading our stories to each other. Following the tradition of Victorian Christmas “ghost” stories, Melissa favored us with The Cat on the Dovrefjell, Thalia with Gabriel Rider, and Jini with her favorite part of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,it being the visit of the third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Mine had the least to do with Christmas, but they all got to roll their eyes at the ending.

“Wait a minute,” Thalia critiques, “if the devil wanted a ham, why didn’t he ask the quern for one, or a few for that matter?”

I wag my finger at her. “Haven’t I raised and taught you not to apply logic to fairy tales?”

Another rolling of the eyes with a giggle from Jini in the background. “Yes, but this one is a little too much from the start. And why did neither of the brothers ask for gold from the start?”

“Ugh, and herrings for breakfast!” Jini wrinkles her nose.

“Well, they were Norwegians,” I say, my attention drawn to a plate of shortcakes on an occasional table.

Perhaps,” Melissa suggests, “Norwegians think of their stomach before considering other things. However, what I liked in the story was the poor brother’s development. He is presented to us as a simpleton. When his brother tells him to go to the devil, he takes the words at face value, and with the luck of a fool, he finds the devil.

“Later, when the rich brother strong-arms him into selling the quern, the poor brother does not tell the other all that he needs to know. Further into the story, when he resells the quern to the merchants, he obviously anticipates his doubling of profit once more. Things did not happen that way, and now we have a salty sea, but it shows he was thinking.”

“Huh,” I say, “interesting. For me, I thought his character was being inconsistent. He is at first poor and stupid, then, suddenly, clever and rich. I didn’t see a progression.” I nibble another shortcake.

Melissa sips her wine, considering. “The fairy tales are, perhaps purposefully, vague. That might be one of their strengths and not a fault. You see the main character as being inconsistent, and I see him as coming into his own. You and I—and everyone else, present company included—project our notions onto the tales. What I see in the story is not what you see. We are interpreting, just like we interpret our dreams. I am not sure any other genré allows us that much latitude.”

“Wow, I didn’t get any of that.” Jini is looking a little wide-eyed. “I got Thalia’s point after she said it, but I never would have thought of it. I guess I don’t want to analyze the tales. I just want to hear them and let them wash over me. They make me feel happy and sad. I think that is all I want them to do.”

That’s simple enough.

Your thoughts?

A Story for You

The time has come for me to ante up. I said back in July that I would write a story for you. I intended it to be a rewriting of The Fish Knights.  That did not quite happen, as I have explained in my previous blogs. The muses led me to where they willed.

I won’t ramble on more but will let you read the results of my effort. Here is The Vase of the Fish Knights. (About 3400 words.)

From Russia

Thalia has wished me a good night and gone off to bed. Tomorrow is another school day. She’ll be up bright and early while I linger in bed. I enjoy a late-night read.

At random, I have picked Afanasev’s Russian Fairy Tales off the shelf and am settling into my comfy chair. I turn to a tale with the intriguing title, The Feather of Finist, The
Bright Falcon.

I read, “Once there lived. . . Once there lived. . . Once there lived. . .” My eyes will not move beyond the opening words. I am no longer in my comfy chair. Rather, a seat of red velvet.  I am in the front row of an Art Deco theatre, either newly renovated or, in fact, new. I startle to see Melissa sitting next to me in her nightclothes with an identical copy of the book in her lap that is in mine.

She frowns at me. “Is this your fault? I was about to go to bed.”

“So was I,” I lie a little.

Our attention is drawn to the stage as a spotlight shines on a man dressed in the traditional Russian kosovorotka, who says to us, “Once there lived. . .” and proceeds to tell us the tale of Finist.

“A man who has three daughters is in the habit of bringing them gifts when he returns from a journey to town. But all that his youngest daughter asks for is a feather of Finist the Bright Falcon. Whether by fate or by fortune, the father comes across an old man carrying a little box, inside of which is a feather of Finist.

“In her bedroom, the youngest opens the box, and the feather transforms into a handsome prince. She seeks to hide him by releasing him to fly about all day as a falcon and come to her at night. The sisters discover the ruse and put knives and needles at her window.

“The falcon is injured and flees, telling the girl, in a dream, that if she wishes to find him, she must wear out three pairs of iron shoes, break three iron staffs, and gnaw away three stone wafers in her search for him.”

Although I have not looked away, the man has transformed into a young maid wearing a sarafan.

When did that happen?

“In the morning, she sees the blood on the windowsill and starts off to seek her beloved.

After wearing out the first set of iron shoes, breaking an iron staff, and gnawing away a stone wafer, she comes across the hut of an old woman who proves to be a witch but aids the heroine. She gives the girl a silver spinning wheel and a golden spindle that spins flax into gold thread. Also, a ball to follow to the witch’s sister’s house.

“After wearing away the second pair of iron shoes, staff, and stone wafer, she comes to the second witch’s house, where she gets a silver plate and a golden egg, which, when rolled around on the plate, hatches more gold eggs.”

I now see the young maid has become a hag with a large mortar and pestle, as well as a broom, beside her.

“When the third set of iron and stone is worn away, the ball rolls to the third witch’s hut. There, the girl gets a golden embroidery frame and a magical needle that embroiders by itself. The witch also explains that Finist is now married to a wafer baker’s daughter, and that the girl needs to become a servant in the household if she wishes to win her beloved back again.

“She finds that Finist is still in bird form by day and a man by night and does not recognize her. “

I now see a being on stage that is half man and half bird.

“The girl sells the three gifts from the witches for three nights with the husband, but each time the wife drugs him. It is not until the third night that a tear falls on his cheek and awakens him.

“They flee and return to the girl’s home, where, again, she tries to keep him hidden in his feather form. Nonetheless, they attend church disguised as a prince and princess until, this time, the father discovers their trick. The couple is immediately married with a grand wedding.”

The spotlight goes out, and we are in the dark.

Part Two

Maybe Russian

As my eyes adjust, I find myself back in my study. However, Melissa is still with me, sitting in the other comfy chair.

“Oh, what am I doing here!” Melissa is scandalized. Her nightgown is rather sheer. I wander off to find a blanket, pillow, bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and two glasses. I assume she will spend the night here. The couch in my study is large and comfortable.

I strike up a fire in the hearth to warm the room as Melissa settles on the couch, modestly covered by the blanket, and cradles her glass of wine.

“I am sure,” she says, “we chanced to be reading the same story, the sort of thing you and I tend to do, and the story took over.”

“And, I am sure,” I say, “the story expects us to talk about it.”

“I,” says she, “will honor the request, although it has inconvenienced me.”

We both smile.

“My first thought,” Melissa sips her wine, “turns towards Beauty and the Beast, as well as East of the Sun and West of the Moon. However, there is no ‘beast’ involved in our tale, although Finist is still an animal husband. There are three sisters in these three examples, who do the youngest no favors. What I am saying is that the youngest sister commands Finist rather than being abducted by him, at least until she loses him.

“There is no pleading to visit her family, as in the other variants. Rather, she dons the iron shoes and tramps off to reclaim her beloved.”

“That,” I say, “is where my mind turns to A Sprig of Rosemary. The heroine loses her husband and travels to the sun, moon, and wind, who give her the gifts needed, which she sells to the bride for three nights with the groom before she can awaken him.”

“Except,” Melissa takes another sip, “it is the three Baba Yagas that hand out the gifts.”

“Wait!” I tap my glass. “Isn’t there only one Baba Yaga, who rides around in a mortar and pestle with a broom, owning a house that walks around on chicken legs?”

Melissa wags her head. “Not really. Not for Russians. For example, a babushka is a scarf that every grandmother wears. Every grandmother becomes a babushka. Babushka means ‘grandmother.’”

“So, every witch is a Baba Yaga,” I come to understand.

“At least in Russia.”

“The Daughter of the Earl of Mars pops into my head as well,” I observe. “In that tale, the male lover is a bird as well. It flees when the king threatens to wring its neck but returns with a flock of birds to defeat him.”

Melissa nods. “Not to mention Cinderella,where she goes to the ball—or in some versions the church—three times in disguise.”

I stoke our fire a bit more. “I can’t call this tale a variant of another story. It appears to be made up from pieces of other tales and yet does not feel pieced together.”

“Or,” Melissa contemplates, “is it the original, and have other tales borrowed from it?”

“Or,” I complicate the matter, “is there another original that all of these are drawing from?”
“I don’t know the answer,” she says, “but I know where the answer is.”

I look at her curiously.

“Lost in the mist of time,” she responds.

I must agree.

Part Three

Maybe Not

Melissa rubs her finger around the rim of her glass, causing it to ring. “I know I harp on feminism when it appears or doesn’t appear in the tales—I hope I don’t bore you with it—but there is another underlying theme in this one.”

“Which is?” I inquire.

“I will call it Christianity being questioned.”

“Oh, that comes up in the Grimm stories as well,” I say. “In fact, as time wore on, Wilhelm edited out some of the less-than-Christian elements and introduced angels into the tales.”

“Yes,” Melissa hesitates. “The brothers were Calvinist, but that has little to do with my thinking.”

“And your thoughts are?” I sip my wine.

Melissa takes a deep breath. I am obsessing over the wafers.”

“The wafers?”

“Yes.” She gives me an apologetic smile. “Allow me to get deep into the weeds.

“First of all, wafers are unleavened bread. Unleavened bread is used for the Eucharist. That the heroine gnaws on a stone wafer as part of her ordeal, and the woman who stole her lover was the daughter of the wafer baker, suggests some sort of parallel between the two.”

“And what might that be?” She is onto something.

Melissa sets her wine glass aside and thinks out loud.

“I don’t need to tell you that we are not dealing with logical events. She cannot wear down three sets of iron shoes in a lifetime. Nor will she break three iron staffs. Gnawing on three stone wafers? Three sets of iron teeth are not part of the deal.

“These challenges are symbolic, of course. The shoes and staffs demonstrate the physicality of her effort and imply the lengths to which she is willing to go.

“The stone wafers are a different matter. Was she sustaining herself on the unsustainable? Was that meant to be as difficult as wearing out iron shoes? Does she move beyond the impossible? Or is there another implication?”

“Such as?” I goad her on.

“Does the story ask us if the Eucharist should not be an ordeal and not simply a wafer that dissolves easily in the mouth?  This brings to my mind the Flagellants.’

“The who?”

“The Flagellants, monks who wandered around during the Plague Years, whipping themselves—sinners that they were—praying aloud all in the spirit of penitence. Their religion was not a convenience for them. Gnawing on store wafers was not a convenience either for our heroine, but rather a show of devotion. 

“In both cases, whether determination or devotion, we are left to compare the rigors of the heroine consuming stone wafers to the easy life of the wafer baker’s daughter.”

“I think,” I say, “that is an intriguing argument.”

Unexpectedly, Melissa scowls to herself. “Except that I’m wrong. I know a little about the Russian Orthodox, who would be the majority of Christians in Russia at the time, and they used leavened bread in their communion, unlike most other Christian churches. My argument about this Russian story’s relationship to the Eucharist falls apart. Oh well, another harebrained idea discredited.”

We fall silent for a bit.

“Ah!” I say, proud of my revelation. “There was a substantial number of Jews in parts of Russia. The Passover feast demanded the bread be unleavened. Could this be a Jewish tale, making its reference to the Passover bread instead of the Eucharist?”

Melissa is asleep, her wine half drunk, its glass sitting on the table beside the couch. What will Thalia think when she sees this in the morning?

Your thoughts?

This month, I promised to write about my critique group, known to ourselves as Tres Amigos, although neither Chris, Dan, nor I have Spanish descendants.  Boiled down from a larger group that met at a community college, the three of us have met monthly at each other’s homes since 2015. After a decade, we have gotten to know each other’s work pretty well.

I have written about this critique group before (Writer’s Journey, April 2025) and will not bore you with the details again. You may want to refer back to it, if only for the Gado Gado recipe, which is included.

I will be very specific by giving an example. The storyline might be a little hard to follow since it is being taken out of context. Below is a piece of the story I submitted to Dan and Chris.

Before the sun set on the day, the twin approached the Black Castle. He saw his brother’s horse—riderless—grazing. He left his horse to graze with his brother’s and made for the castle on foot. He blew his horn, the sound of which echoed, then he lowered his visor. The grated window soon slid open, then closed, and the gate creaked open.

“I am the Lady Berberisca,” said the witch. “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?”

Now the twin raised his visor. Upon seeing the face of the knight she had just murdered, she turned to flee, but his sword pierced her back before she took another step.

“What have you done with my brother, cruel hag?” he demanded.

“Brother… Restore me, and I will show you.”

“Restore you?” He laughed bitterly. “How might I do that?”

“Easily, with flowers from the plants Everlasting and Dragon’s Blood in my garden, boiled in a cauldron.”

Dan suggested the word “foraging” instead of the word “grazing” since the word “graze” appears in the next sentence. (Yes, that is how granular we get, and why it takes us an hour to cover ten pages.) Nonetheless, I am going to stay with “grazing.” It is the right word. Horses do not forage. I could have substituted “munching grass,” but that sounds a little silly to me.

Chris caught me on the witch introducing herself. It was out of character and totally unlike her introduction to his brother earlier in the story. Both Chris and Dan were thrown off by the line, “Brother… Restore me, and I will show you.” They took it that she was addressing him as “brother.” My intent was that she suddenly recognized that he was the brother of the knight she had just murdered. When both your critique partners don’t get it, you need to fix it.

They both agreed I needed another beat in the paragraph describing the knight stabbing the witch. Also, I had not given quite enough detail about the operation of the magic healing potion.

Below is my rewrite following their suggestions.

Before the sun set on the day, the twin approached the Black Castle. He saw his brother’s steed—riderless—grazing. He left his own horse to graze with his brother’s and made for the castle on foot. He blew his horn, the sound of which echoed, then he lowered his visor. The grated window soon slid open.

“Another pesky knight? Why does your kind keep bothering an old woman?”

The window closed, and the gate creaked open.

“Whom do I have the honor of addressing?” Her voice held sarcasm.

Now the twin raised his visor. Upon seeing the face of the knight she had just murdered, she screamed, “No, you’re dead!” and turned to flee, but his sword pierced her back before she took another step.

“What have you done with my brother, cruel hag?” he demanded.

“Brother? I see,” she groaned. “Restore me, and I will show you.”

“Restore you?” He laughed bitterly. “How might I do that?”

“Easily, with the purple flowers from the plants Everlasting and Dragon’s Blood in my garden. Boil them in a cauldron. When the water cools, lower me into the potion.”

I hope this illustrates why I think you should be in a critique group. It is too easy to be blind to missteps in your writing.  Of course, it needs to be a group you feel you can trust. A decade of working together will do.

Jini’s Diwali

It is the fourth day of Diwali, and Jini and Thalia have brought the festival into my study. Melissa is here as well to join in the Celebration of Lights.

Thalia stayed with Jini’s family on the third day of Diwali, which is the most important of the five. Thalia showed me videos on her phone of the complicated, ceremonial dancing in Trafalgar Square, the Lakshmi Puja—the prayers to the goddess Lakshmi—and the evening fireworks.

The girls showed up here early in the morning and have taken over the kitchen once again. I managed some tea and a scone. I didn’t mind, and I am saving my appetite for this evening’s feast. I know potato samosas are part of it.

Jini has placed small lamps all around the perimeter of the room: on shelves, tables, and windowsills. We are surrounded by the light of these little lamps, rather like votive candles. Jini sits in the largest comfy chair, holding a copy of Joseph Jacobs’ Indian Fairy Tales, with Johannes on her lap, and the fairy on her shoulder—they adore her—and she begins to read aloud to us.

“Punchkin.”

A raja had seven daughters, but when their mother died, a widow, through trickery and clever words, worked her way into the raja’s good graces and became the ranee. Wishing to promote her own daughter, she schemed against the seven sisters.

First, she tried to starve them to death, but they prayed at their mother’s tomb for help. From the grave grew a pomelo tree, and the girls ate the pomelos until the ranee had it cut down. Then the grave produced creamy white cakes until the ranee had the tomb torn down.

The ranee pretended an illness that only the blood of the seven sisters could cure. The raja, not wanting to kill his daughters, left them in the jungle and killed a deer for its blood. The seven sisters were found by the seven sons of another raja who were out hunting. The seven were soon married, the oldest to the oldest and the youngest to the youngest.

After a year, the youngest sister, Balna, had a son and was the only one among her sisters to ever have a child. As he was the only child in the family, all adored him. One day, Balna’s husband went out hunting and did not return. His six brothers searched for him, but they too did not return. Soon, a magician named Punchkin stole Balna away, leaving her son to be raised by his widowed aunts.

When the boy reached the age of fourteen, the aunts told him of his history, and he decided to go search for his parents and uncles. He eventually came to a land of rocks, stones, and trees, where stood a large palace with a high tower. Nearby, the youth found the house of the palace’s gardener, and the wife gave him shelter.

From her, he learned that the palace was the home of the magician Punchkin, and the stones and trees around them were people transformed by the magician. She described events that led him to know his father and uncles were among these stones, but that his mother was held captive in the tower until she agreed to marry Punchkin.

Disguised as the gardener’s daughter, he lingered around the palace grounds until Punchkin, thinking him a girl, sent him to deliver flowers to the beautiful lady who lived in the tower. With a golden ring that Balna had given to him, he identified himself to her.

They contrived to have Balna appear to soften her manner to the wizard and appear to consider marriage. She found out that his life was secured in a little green parrot, in a jungle hundreds of thousands of miles away, guarded by a thousand genies.

With the help of eagles that he saved from a serpent, the youth was flown to the distant land, flew over the guard of genies, and captured the green parrot.

On pain of death, the youth convinced Punchkin to restore all the people he had turned to stone and trees before, nonetheless, he ripped the parrot to pieces, ending the life of the magician.

With a smile, Jini snapped the book closed. “And that was the end of that evil.”

Part Two

Diwali Feast

“An appropriate story,” Melissa says. “Good triumphs over evil, one of the themes of Diwali.”

Jini nods in agreement. “As is light over darkness and the hope for prosperity.”

I see Thalia scurry out of the room.

“Here in the west,” I say, “we don’t have five-day holidays. I think that is kind of brilliant.”

Jini smiles with a bit of condescension. “Not so fast. The first day of Diwali is spent cleaning.” She grimaces. “The idea is the goddess Lakshmi might visit, and things had better be clean.

“The second day is spent shopping and preparing for the third day. The third is the best. The fourth and fifth are for visiting friends and family.” She waves her hand to include us.

Thalia returns, balancing plates of food on her hands and arms. We quickly clear stacks of books from one of the tables upon which we intend to dine.

The girls have gone all out. There are the potato samosas I crave, but also pakoras (might be the best thing to do with cauliflower), srichand and pooris (fried dough and yogurt), jalebis (curly, spicy, fried dough), gajar ka halwa (think carrot pudding), and slices of paneer (non-rennet cheese), along with mango lassi to drink and shortbread cookies (made with pistachio, cardamom, and saffron). What a spread!  I notice the fairy, though she lives by the air, sampling the cookies.

Melissa admires the intricate henna tattoos on the backs of the hands and forearms of both Jini and Thalia.

“Oh, my aunt is so good at this,” Jini says. “She did this for us.”

“How is it done?” Melissa wants to know.

“Henna is a paste that she puts on our skin with a cone, kind of like a pastry bag decorating a cake. When it dries, you rub it off, and the pattern is light orange, but hour by hour it gets darker.”

I see that the tattoos are a deep red.

“By tomorrow,” Jini continues, “they will be black, then in a week or two they will fade away.”

“Is there a religious significance to the tattoos?” Melissa asks.

“I don’t think so,’ Jini frowns. “It’s just fun.”

I am surprised by the pakoras; I thought the samosas would be my favorite. The mango drink is tasty, but I want a little alcohol. I wander off to the pantry where I keep the Moscato and return with two glasses for me and Melissa. The conversation has moved on to the story Jini told.

“My least favorite part,” Jini wrinkles her brow again, “is the convenience of the seven sisters being rescued by the seven raja sons. That seemed . . . “ Jini pauses. “not real.”

Oh,” says Melissa, “don’t let that worry you. There is much numerology in the tales, be they eastern or western.”

Jini cocks her head, waiting for more explanation.

Melissa has the stage. “Numbers figure commonly into the fairy tales. Simply look at the titles: The Three Little Pigs, The Six Swans, The Seven Ravens, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.  That list could go on.

“Often, events happen three times. Each of the three pigs builds a house. The king has three sons for whom he sets three tasks. Seven is certainly common enough. Snow White and the seven dwarves. The seven-league boots.

“No, numbers are an integral part of the genré. You can’t get away from them.”

Part Three

Pretty Close

“What I couldn’t help noticing,” Thalia says, finishing off the jalebis, “is that it kept reminding me of other fairy tales.”

“Yeah,” says Jini, “like when the raja leaves his daughters in the jungle and kills a deer and uses its blood to fool the ranee. That’s right out of Snow White.”

“It’s a little different.” Thalia drums her fingers, staring at the ceiling. “There’s no raja or king worth mentioning. It’s an evil queen making her huntsman kill Snow White, and he brings back a boar’s lungs and liver for her to eat.”

“Pretty close,’ says Jini.

“Pretty close,” says Thalia, “but Snow White doesn’t have any sisters. Oh! Wait. There are the seven dwarves.”

They both chorus, “Huh!”

“But . . .” Jini wags her head, “that’s where the similarity ends, I think.”

I am listening while I serve myself more of the pakoras.

“Now I am thinking of . . .” Thalia gets up, leaves the room, but soon returns with a copy of Alexander Afanasyev’s Russian Fairy Tales.

“Ah, Koschei the Deathless, that’s it. Punchkin’s life was in a little parrot, in a jungle, guarded by genies. I think Koschei does him at least one better.”

Thalia reads, “In the sea there is an island, on that island stands an oak, under the oak a coffer is buried, in the coffer is a hare, in the hare is a duck, in the duck is an egg, and in the egg is my death.”

“Wow,” Jini shakes her head. “Similar but different.”

“Then,” Thalia drums her fingers again, “we get to the eagle-transport thing. I know I’ve read more than one tale where an eagle carries the hero to where he needs to be.”

“What jumps to my mind,” Melissa says, sipping her Moscato, “is the Greek folktale Underworld Adventure, where a monstrous bird—not exactly an eagle—helps the protagonist after he saves her chicks from a serpent.”

“Wow,” Jini repeats. “There we are again; similar but different.”

“Let me suggest,” I say, refilling Melissa’s glass, which she has been nursing, “we have dispersion going on. The tropes in this tale show up in tales from Germany, Russia, and Greece in our simple sampling. Some tropes might be universal. What I am suggesting, by using the term ‘dispersion,’ is that these ideas flow back and forth between countries and cultures.

“But the notion that some tropes are universal also suggests that these thoughts might be baked into our brains. This is what some call the collective unconscious, unconscious knowledge that all humans share but only comes to the surface in dreams and fairy tales.”

“Ah! Here it is.” Melissa is scrolling on her phone. She hasn’t been listening to my argument at all.

“The Panchatantra and also the Kathāsaritsāgara, which translates as Ocean of Streams of Stories.”

I will have to trust her pronunciation of that last one.

“The Panchatantra is ancient, and the other is derived from older works, all of which predate our known versions of European tales and contain many of the common motifs with which we are familiar.”

Thalia is thumbing through Jini’s Indian Fairy Tales. “Yeah, Jacobs says, ‘. . .India is the home of the fairy tale, and that all European fairy tales have been brought from thence by crusaders, by Mongol missionaries, by gypsies, by Jews, by traders, by travellers.’”

Jini glows with pride for her India.

I’m going to stick with my back-and-forth dispersion, or the collective unconscious, and not pour Melissa any more Moscato.

Your thoughts?

Last month, I explored my conundrum (and I make no excuses for the sorry pun) of what form to present my tale: first person, third person, omniscient, limited, objective, etc. None of it worked for me, largely because of the shifting point of view in a short piece. I concluded that I needed a character outside of the story to look back on the story to delve into the story’s questions. Hence, the use of the word “conundrum.”

I wrote one of my fantasy novels, Jonathan Clearly (still to be released), mostly in third-person objective, interspersed with Jonathan’s diary entries (first person, unreliable narrator). It occurred to me to do something similar for this short story, which is also not unlike the structure I use for my end-of-month blog, Fairy Tale of the Month.

Falling back on my “pantsering” creative process—in other words, using ideas that come out of the clear blue sky—I conceived of telling the story in third-person objective within the frame of a first-person narrative and actually making the story a physical object, a story vase.

I describe the story vase as a piece of pottery created by a storyteller who recites the tale over and over again as he creates it. The story is infused into the clay, as well as being depicted around the sides of the vase in panels, much like stained-glass windows running along the walls of a cathedral.

My protagonist, a mage of some sort, speaking in first person, is given the obligation of magically reassembling a shattered story vase, with the help of a cat-síth, Johannes, a character from Fairy Tale of the Month (I couldn’t help myself).

As they “heal” the vase, they hear the story. However, with the vase being shattered, they don’t know where to begin. They put it back together, starting at the middle of the story, working their way to the beginning before coming to the end. I took a clue from Picasso’s Guernica about disassembling the image and reconstructing it in a different form. I will use Johannes, the cat-síth, as a non-human to ask my protagonist questions about this complex, human story.

Next month, I will talk about my submission of this tale to my critique group, an important part of my writing process.