I woke to a surprise this morning when I discovered that the Maven of freestyle, the Mistress of the breaststroke, and the Madam of fictioneering, Rochelle, had slipped in a prompt photo I took out in the wilds of my daughter and son-in-law’s west Texas grange.
Click on the remnants of the greenhouse to spread over to Rochelle’s blog camp so you can grow your own stories of 100-word micro-fiction.
Click on my prompt photo to go to Rochelle’s page with all the fixin’s.
Genre: Horticultural Fiction
Title: Greenman Phish-heads
Word Count: 100
***
What happened here?
The well-water went bad years back. The plants died. Now it’s only what grows naturally: mesquite, cactus, and other wild things. The Green Man makes his home in there now.
What’s over there?
That’s Uncle Billy’s Phish Camp. That’s Julie’s cat house over to the left, and that big building is the main house.
Green Man isn’t real.
He’s real. Come back next Spring and you’ll see his magic. It’s beautiful. Get in the truck and I’ll show you the business end of the Greenman rebirth. Maybe you’ll meet him. It’ll make you a believer forever.
***
Look both ways and learn to grow new beginnings.
Mind the gaps as you turn tragedy to treasure.
Greenman is all thumbs.
It’s never too late.
Click on Billy or Julie (in the current Greenman Nursery) to read other fantastic stories inspired by the prompt photo.
Click on the west Texas Green Man to learn more than you ever wanted to know about him.
Let’s roll out monsters, goblins, ghouls, and all the fantastic creatures that existed in the minds of men and women from before anyone could write until the present day. Fantasy is not fake when we believe it; and we have for over 100,000 years of human imagination from which to draw. Unfortunately, writing is only about five or six thousand years old. But going way back in time, our innate human ability to imagine is phenomenal. That is my reveal: fantasy creatures displayed front and center.
From angels to zombies, I will select fantastic creatures from legend, fairy tales, fables, and myth. From poems, books, and stories, and from cultures around the world; I will package up those delectably stunning and enchanting fantasy life forms and bring them to you in words and forms.
During April we all do a lot of reading and writing. If you count taxes, arithmetic too. It is a busy, but fun-filled month. I shall attempt brevity and will only present one or two creatures per day beginning with “A” on Sunday, the first day of April, for the 2018 A to Z Blog Challenge.
As my trailer here, I present two Celtic kings: The Forest King, better known as the Oak King or sometimes as Green Man, along with his nemesis, The Holly King, often depicted as a woodsy version of Santa Clause.
The Forest or Oak KingThe Holly King
Semiannually, these two battle and fight to the death for supremacy. One time per year, each defeats the other. Depending on the culture and beliefs, a final battle is on summer and winter solstices, or, and more logically, at the time of the Fall or Spring equinoxes. During summer, the Oak King reigns. The Holly King kills the Oak King and reigns in the winter. It is the classic holly vs. ivy symbolic battle called out in King Henry VIII’s, Green Groweth The Holly.
The Oak and Holly Kings Battle
The battle is also echoed many times in other myth and folklore such as the fights between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Lugh and Balor in Celtic legend. In all cases, one must die for the other to triumph.
Regarding such battles and the killing of one king, god, or man, George Frazer wrote,”But we have seen that the very value attached to the life of the man-god necessitates his violent death as the only means of preserving it from the inevitable decay of age.” They are two essential parts of the whole (seasonal reality) that battle all year long. Despite being enemies, without one, the other would no longer exist. Sort of reminds one of yin and yang, doesn’t it?
Look both ways in all seasons of life. Mind well the gaps.
Note: I will be participating in the National Poetry Writing Month challenge separately. Those poems will be identified as NaPoWriMo. This means that during April “Our Literary Journey” will have two posts each day, and one on Sundays after the first.
Our Literary Journey 