Myth

Long, long ago, when the gods still walked the earth and many heroes wrought mighty deeds throughout the Lands, the night sky was pitch black. No stars shone in the heavens.

In those days in the Far West, a young girl met a young boy and the two fell in love. Happy they were, and for many a day they grew in affection and wisdom together. But things do not often stay good and sweet without interruption.

The gap-toothed Mistress of the Far West cursed them out of deep jealousy to be apart from one another. The spell could only be broken if they accomplished the two six-and-one great labours. To be together, they had to pluck the six-and-one flowers from each of the Six-and-one Mountain Peaks and draw a droplet from each of the Six-and-one Valley Springs.

And so, out of their great love for one another, the two lovers went their separate ways, the girl to collect the flowers and the boy to collect the droplets.

Through many great and terrible trials they went. For six-and-one long years they laboured throughout the Lands with sweat and tears, yearning for one another. Time passed slowly. Too slow, it seemed to them. The girl became a woman and the boy became a man as they looked forward to the life they would once more have together when the deed was done.

And yet they were not alone in their loneliness even though they were absent in the flesh. For not only were they present with one another in spirit, they made countless friends along their journeys who walked with them, laughed with them, laboured with them, wept with them, sung with them, fought with them, danced with them, and adventured with them. And this story is also about these friends. A great many tales are told about the adventures the two of them experienced with these many faithful companions and the great love that continued to develop between the two lovers. But these are for another time.

And so they laboured on, the woman and the man and their friends until at last, the final flower was plucked and the final droplet was drawn. The curse was broken and the gap-toothed Mistress of the Far West was forced to release them.

With great laughter and joy the two lovers planned their wedding day and sent invites far and wide to all parts across the Lands to all their many friends they had made along the way.

A year passed and the long-awaited day finally came. What a wonderful day it was. They and all their friends danced and sung and shouted for joy until midnight.

When the great celebration drew to an end, and it was indeed great, the heroes’ friends formed two long lines outside the door of the wedding hall so that the bride and groom could pass between. Each guest was given a handful of glitter to cast into the air for when their now-at-long-last married friends passed by them.

And as they passed, each guest threw their handful a little higher than the guest before them, so as to make a double glittering crescendo of increasing height that stretched as far as the long double line of friends.

And because the woman and man had made so, so many friends on their journeys, the final pair of guests threw their glitter so high up that it stuck to the sky.

That is why we see stars shining in the night.
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02.05.2020, Sydney, Australia. First written in my head when I wandered a field alone under the starry night sky while couples danced inside the nearby village hall in celebration of a friend's wedding not too far from Oxford. Dedicated to Andi Wang, a kindred spirit and one of my closest friends made along my own long journey.

Once upon a time, there was a wood. You might wonder if it was a magical wood, but if you’ve ever been to one, you’ll know that every wood is magical. It was, however, a particularly dark and dense wood, and many a traveller had gone into the woods, never to be seen again.

One day, a fine young man was in a dreadful hurry to get from one side of the wood to the other. He was late for a date, you see, with a fine young woman that he was very much in love with and who very much loved him. So he plucked up his courage and set foot on the path that wound its way through the trees. Whereupon he stumbled into a clearing in the middle of the wood and in the middle of the clearing was a pond. It was a peculiar pond, much deeper than it was wide and the water seemed no shallower at its boundary than in the middle, rather like a well that you might draw water from. The path wound around the edge of the pond so that for the young man to get to the other side of the unnaturally quiet clearing, he had to pass uncomfortably close to the water. As he went by the pond, the young man was filled with apprehension.

Whoosh! There was a tremendous rush of water and right out of the water’s edge, there arose a beautiful girl. She was the most beautiful woman the man had ever seen before. Maddeningly beautiful. And yet the beauty she possessed was not a normal beauty. There was something about her that hinted at the wild, the magical, the other. Especially in the eyes. Intense they were, bright and piercing, yet full of sorrow. She appeared to be standing on the surface of the water and fish of black and white and red and gold swam and danced in swirls beneath her feet.

The young man rubbed his eyes in disbelief, speechless with surprise.

‘My dear!’ she cried. ‘Come, kiss me!’

The young man thought his heart would explode at her words, for they dripped with honey and she was beautiful. Almost instinctively, he began to reach for her face but as he did so, he suddenly remembered the fine young woman on the other side of the wood. He paused. ‘I can’t,’ he stammered. ‘I don’t even know you.’

‘To save me, you must!’ she cried. ‘I have long waited for you.’

Her eyes were wet. Was it pond water? Or tears?

‘Save you from what? I am sorry, I cannot,’ he stammered again. ‘And anyway, it hardly seems safe to kiss a strange woman.’

‘You are cruel,’ she cried. ‘Why will you not help me? I love you.’

Tears were shining in her eyes and the young man thought his heart would burst. Those bright clear eyes, full of sorrow, called to him. He began to falter and she sensed his faltering. She smiled a sad smile through her tears and he thought his entire being would melt.

‘Do not hesitate any longer my love,’ she cried. ‘Kiss me and save me!’

Once more he began to reach for her face, desperate to save this beautiful girl from whatever she needed saving from, but once more he remembered the fine young woman on the other side of the wood.

‘I… I can’t,’ he stammered. ‘I have a woman waiting for me on the other side of the wood.’

She looked at him with a mournful face and tears streamed down her face. Beautiful and sorrowful was her gaze. And then she was gone, with nary a splash. All that remained was the faint sound of sobbing, the sound of tears that seemed to come from beneath the water. It was a sound that tore at the young man’s heart.

The young man collapsed on the path, utterly shaken and utterly confused. He could still hear the sobbing, though no sight of the girl could be found anywhere in the pond. But the colourful fish, koi they were, remained.  They were still swimming and dancing in wonderful patterns beneath the surface of the water.

On impulse, he reached in and tried to pick up one of the koi. Upon touching one, a memory burst into his mind. Someone else’s memory.

A memory of being a young man and of walking through the woods. A memory of the clearing and the pond. A memory of the beautiful woman and her cries of love. A memory of heeding her and kissing her. A memory of a fell and terrible madness. A memory of leaping from the path and into the water. A memory of drowning and breath failing… and then returning. A memory of swimming and dancing. An endless memory. An endless memory.

In shock, the young man pulled his hand out of the water. He realised now what the koi were. Foolish men who had listened to the terrible pond witch, driven by enchanted kisses into the water, and turned into fish as punishment for their lack of sense. He shuddered at the fate he had narrowly avoided, picked himself up, and ran through the woods.

After he left the wood, he headed for the spot where he was to meet the fine young woman. It was some ways away from the wood in a small hamlet where she lived. When he got there, she was standing there waiting. He threw himself into her embrace.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ she said. ‘And you’re late.’

‘I went through the wood to save time,’ he said. ‘But instead of saving time, I almost lost my life.’

‘You went through the woods?’ she asked. ‘How silly of you. And what do you mean you almost lost your life?’

Breathlessly and honestly, he told her everything that had happened. He told her about the beautiful woman in the pond and he told her about the memory of the poor man trapped within the koi. He told her about how close he had been to being caught by that awful pond witch. ‘Who knows what diabolical purposes she uses the trapped souls for? What an evil woman,’ he cried.

To his surprise, the fine young woman shook her head. ‘Did you say she looked sorrowful?’ she asked. ‘And that she asked for help?’

‘Yes, but that’s surely part of her trap,’ he replied.

‘But you heard the sobbing continue after when she was gone?’ she asked.

‘I guess so,’ he replied.

‘And it sounded true and pure?’ she asked.

‘Yes. It tore my heart,’ he replied. ‘Even though my heart belongs to you.’

‘I have heard stories,’ she said. ‘Stories about the wood. Stories about a cursed dragon who longs to be free from her curse.’

‘Dragon?’ he asked. ‘There are no dragons in this part of the world.’

‘But the fish you describe, the koi, they do not belong here either,’ she replied.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And she did look different from the women of our land. There’s more going on here. Maybe the pond witch isn’t from around here.’

‘I don’t even think she’s a witch,’ she replied. ‘If the stories have any truth in them.’

‘What do the stories say?’ he asked.

‘No one even knows where the stories originate from as they’re said to be a thousand years old,’ she replied. ‘In these stories, there’s a great she-dragon, absolutely magnificent and able to take the form of a beautiful woman. And she lived in the ancient times, back when the terrible Old Gods were still worshipped and powerful. She offended the Heavenlies, so the stories go, and she was caught and punished, bound by a flightless curse to a place far away from the lands she used to fly over. No one now worships the Old Gods, so that their power is mostly gone and they have mostly faded away. But many a curse continues to have a terrible power over the curse-bearer, even long after the curse-speaker is gone. And so according to the stories, this curse endures and the dragon remains bound.’

‘So are you saying that the witch could be the dragon?’ the young man asked.

‘Who knows,’ the fine young woman replied.

‘And what about the men trapped within the koi?’ he asked.

‘Who knows. I certainly don’t,’ she replied. ‘The stories don’t mention them. Or even what the curse specifically was. Perhaps we should find the dragon and ask her.’

‘Are you mad?’ he cried. ‘I’m not going in there again.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she replied. ‘And don’t you want to help the poor dragon and lift the curse?’

‘I do,’ he cried. ‘But I still don’t know if it’s not all a trap. We can’t be sure based on a few old stories of whether or not she’s the dragon. And who’s to say, even if she is the dragon of the stories, that she won’t kill us anyway? Isn’t she cursed for a reason? I still think she might be a witch.’

‘The Old Gods were petty and vindictive. That is why they are no longer worshipped and are largely forgotten. And your instincts say that the girl’s sobbing was pure,’ the fine young woman replied. ‘In any case, I for one want to see if this girl is really as beautiful as you claim anyway.’ And with that, she took her lover’s hand and away they went back into the dark wood.

The young man and woman soon arrived at the clearing and there in the middle was the well-like pond within which the colourful koi swam and danced.

‘What an odd pond this is indeed,’ said the fine young woman. ‘But where is the strange girl?’

‘I do not know,’ replied the young man. ‘We should call her. Strange woman, where are you hiding? Are you a witch?’ 

There was no response.

‘Why would she answer to that!’ said the fine young woman. ‘Oh dragon, are you there? We want to talk to you and know you!’

Again there was silence. 

‘Please, dragon,’ said the man. ‘We want to help you if you are in trouble. If you are actually the dragon…’

A damp head slowly emerged from the water. It was the beautiful girl. Her body was still submerged as she spoke and water was streaming down her face, a mixture of salt and fresh water. ‘Why have you come back? You refused to help me last time. And this time you have even brought back a lover to taunt me with. Go away.’

‘Please dragon,’ said the fine young woman. ‘We do want to help. But we have no idea how we can or even what ails you!’

The girl in the pond sobbed wordlessly for a while before speaking again. ‘You cannot help me. The Old Gods cursed me a thousand years ago. Only the purest kiss of true love can release me. And I rather think that will not be coming from either of you.’ 

‘What is the curse?’ the young man asked. ‘And why have you tortured all those poor men by trapping their souls within the fish?’

A flash of anger came into the dragon girl’s eyes. Beautiful she is, admitted the fine young woman at that, albeit a tad grudgingly. ‘I have not tortured them,’ the girl in the pond cried indignantly. ‘They got caught up in my curse and I saved them from drowning.

‘I was cursed because the Moon was jealous of my beauty and of the attention the Sun gave to me. I did not want his attention, but the Old Gods did to us as they pleased. Hell has no fury like a Goddess scorned. And so the Moon saw fit to curse me by tying my essence to this pond in this wood faraway from the lands I once knew. I am unable to leave this pond. Only the purest kiss of true love can release me. But I am doubly cursed to fall in love with any man who passes by this pond and irresistibly drawn to call them to me. Every man who passes by cannot pass me by. Except you. And then they too are drawn into my curse for if they kiss me with a kiss that is not the purest kiss of true love, then they are struck with a madness that throws them into the pond and drowns them. The Moon did this so that I must watch the man I fall in love with perish, adding grief after grief to my hopelessness and despair. This happened for many hundreds of years.

‘When the Old Gods began to fade, some of my native magic returned. Not a lot. Though the curse held as firm as ever, I was able to save the lives of men who were drowning because of me by turning them into enchanted koi – the fish of my land. And though I grieve that because of me they have lost their lives as human men, I am comforted by the beautiful patterns they now make. And I hope that one day, if the curse is broken, I can return them to human form, alive and well.’

‘I had no idea,’ stammered the fine young man in response. ‘And I am sorry, both for thinking you an evil witch and for my complete inability to help you now.’

‘I too am sorry,’ said the fine young woman. ‘I do not know where we could find you the purest kiss of true love.’

‘I thought as much,’ cried the dragon. ‘But at the very least, do not forget me after you leave. Remember me and tell the whole story. I have been cursed, for no fault of my own. And warn others not to come into this wood. I have had enough of false hope and the taking away of livelihoods.’

‘We will not forget you,’ said the young man.

‘No,’ said the fine young woman. ‘We shall do better than that. We will come to visit you often, and keep you company.’

And so the pair of young lovers did visit the poor dragon every month. Eventually the three of them became good friends. Eventually the fine young man and his fine young woman got married. And they continued to visit the poor dragon. Eventually the couple had a child, a little baby boy born of true love. And still they continued to visit the poor dragon.

On one of these visits, when the little boy born of true love was around one year of age, the most wonderful thing happened. The child was playing by the water when he accidentally fell in. His parents cried in fear, but in no time at all, the girl in the pond scooped up the boy and lifted him to safety. The child was unharmed and unafraid, gurgling happily. And then to his parents horror, he quite innocently kissed the girl who had saved him on the cheek.

Everyone waited with bated breath, wondering if the child would be seized with madness. But you have probably guessed what happened next. Here was a child born of the truest of true love. And as you also know, there is nothing as pure as a little child’s affection. Here was the purest kiss of true love.

In amazement, the fine young man and the fine young woman watched as their friend stepped out of the pond and onto the land for the first time in a thousand years. She passed the little boy back to his parents and in wonder danced around on the ground. Long she danced, leaping into the air, whirling and twirling. When she finally stopped, her face was radiant and she was more beautiful than ever.

‘Thank you,’ she said. And with a great leap, she launched herself into the air, and transformed into the most magnificent dragon. Long and lithe she was, as she twisted and snaked her way through the air. And then she was gone. Back to the lands she once knew. Free at last.

When the dragon was gone, the fine young man and woman and child turned their gaze from the heavens to the pond. The magic wasn’t over yet. The koi swimming in the pond flopped onto the land out of the water and did indeed turn back into the men that they had been before. Funnily enough, they were mostly dressed in odd clothes, though you would expect that if you thought about it, given the times from which they had come from throughout the last thousand years. The dragon’s spell had indeed kept them safe, and away they went back to the homelands that had long since moved on from them.

There is one last thing worth mentioning. The little boy born of true love grew up to be a fine young man in his own right, or so the other people he knew said. He didn’t remember the details of the dragon particularly well, but he never forgot the wondrous feeling of being held in the arms of magic. And so when he grew up, he did what all people who are touched by magic do - he collected and told stories. He collected the ancient stories about the cursed dragon and he wrote down the story of his family’s encounter with the dragon. He put it all together into a book.

And he tells this story to anyone who will listen. Not least to you.
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16.03.2020, Oxford, England. Suggested edits by Lacey Helmuth.

Once upon a time, in a little town in that part of the world where the sky is grey, lived a little girl called Meg. Meg loved cats. She would always stop to pet any cat she saw and it was her dream to some day have a little kitten of her own.

One year, when it was close to her birthday (Meg LOVED birthdays), she told her parents that she wanted a kitten. Unfortunately, her parents were not all that well off, and so they could not afford to grant her wish.

However, Meg had a fairy godmother, who also happened to be her aunt and she found out about Meg’s birthday wish. When Meg’s birthday came around, her fairy aunt gave to her a magic sketchbook along with a magic pen. Her aunt told her that once she drew the cat of her dreams on any one of the pages of the magic sketchbook using the magic pen, all she had to do was clap her hands three times, kiss the forehead of the cat, and say the magic words (which we can’t reveal here, obviously!) upon which the cat would come to life, step out of the page, and never leave her side.

Meg was, as you might expect, absolutely chuffed. She spent the next few weeks locating all the cats in her town and sketching them in her magic sketchbook while they napped.

But Meg soon encountered two problems. The first was that no cat she found matched her dream image perfectly, though she couldn’t even tell you exactly what her dream cat actually looked like. Either the pattern on the fur wasn’t right, or the colour of the eyes was wrong, or the tail was too long… No matter which cat she found in town, something would not be quite right. The second problem was that whenever Meg tried to ‘fix’ whatever cat she was drawing at the time, she would make a mistake. Part of this surely came down once again to the fact that Meg herself could neither perfectly describe or even perfectly visualise the perfect cat. And so, when one sketch was ruined, she would start a new one on the next page. 

Months passed and Meg became increasingly frustrated. She had already wasted three fifths of the magic sketchbook’s pages and still she had not drawn her dream cat. There were even days when she considered giving up on cats entirely and trying dogs instead! Nonetheless she stuck to it, drawing the cats she saw, making changes to each sketch, failing to perfect it, and then turning the page to begin again in wearied annoyance.

More time passed and eventually Meg could stand it no longer. She woke up one day and went to her desk on which the magic sketchbook lay open at a blank page, one of its final pages. She grabbed her magic pen and began scribbling indiscriminately in wild frustration as she vented her sadness onto the page. GAAAHHH!!!!!! ~|)(^.,/||\\|!~`-`-_-`/.|[vV10/0/||\\oo/~TY_-x=X+-=UYOX.

 And suddenly… suddenly… there in the mass of scribbles, Meg saw the perfect cat.

You see, unbeknownst to Meg, she had seen and sketched so many different cats these last months that drawing cats had become second nature to her. Not only that, but what she wanted in her dream cat had started to form into a clearer picture within her subconscious mind. I don’t know if you’ve ever played that game of drawing something coherent within a mess of lines given to you. Or perhaps you’ve heard that Michelangelo could see the figure of David within a block of marble. In either case, something similar happened here with Meg.

All these months of failed sketches had not gone to waste. They had prepared her for this moment.

And so she began to draw her dream kitten within the angry mess she had created. Connecting two points here, filling in the space there, her hands so adept at drawing cats worked skilfully to create a lovely little kitten from within the (seemingly) random lines and markings on the paper. 

Almost as quickly as the image had come to her mind, she was done. There, within the lines of her previous frustration, lay the perfect cat of Meg’s dreams.

In excitement, she clapped her hands three times, kissed the forehead of her cat, and spoke the magic words (which we can’t show you here). The cat blinked and a visible tremor passed through the drawing’s body.

Meg squealed in excitement, but then she quickly realised something was wrong. The cat was trapped by the extra lines from the mess which pinned it onto the page and it could not step out of the page. The cat struggled a bit more but couldn’t break free, and then it gave up, though it kept on blinking and a tiny tongue would appear out of its mouth occasionally. 

In desperation, Meg clapped her hands three times again, kissed the cat’s forehead, and once more uttered the magic words (sorry, they must remain hidden). Nothing happened.

And so, quite understandably, Meg cried and cried. Big fat drops of water fell from her eyes, imbued with her longing and grief, and splashed onto the page.

Then, something remarkable happened. The sketchbook was, in case you’d forgotten, magic. And when Meg’s tears splashed onto the page, they began to dissolve the lines on the page that trapped Meg’s kitten. In wonder she watched as the prison of scribbles washed away to leave her perfect kitten on the page.

The cat moved once more, stretched on the page in the way that cats stretch, and put out first one paw, then two, then a head, and quite literally, stepped out of the paper and onto the desk. It meowed once, licked Meg’s tear stained stunned face, jumped down from the desk onto her lap, curled up, and went to sleep, purring softly.

Needless to say, Meg and her kitten became the best of friends and went on all sorts of adventures together. However, the stories that arose out of their companionship and escapades are for another time.

But for now, at that moment, you could not have found a happier little girl with a bigger smile in the whole town, or indeed in that part of the world where the sky is grey, or perhaps even in the whole wide world than Meg.

The End.
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21.10.2019, Oxford, England.

Once upon a time, there was a fisherman's boy who lived in a little fishing village. The town's local tailor had a pretty daughter who was around the boy's age. The boy and girl grew up not knowing one another well until they met properly during the Annual Harbourside Festival one year when they were just under marriageable age. Now the Harbourside Festival always ends with a dance that begins at sunset and ends at sunrise. Fortune, it seemed, brought the boy and girl together for the final dance, and together they did dance. The boy enjoyed himself splendidly and was so enamoured with the girl he told her, 'I could literally dance all night.' But he couldn't, as they eventually got tired and stopped after two hours.

The boy and girl visited one another after that and developed feelings for one another. During one dinner date, the boy greeted the girl outside the tavern door and said, 'I'm so hungry I could literally eat a horse right now.' But he couldn't, as he was bursting to the seams after downing two large bowls of steaming mutton soup and an extra chunky hunk of bread.

Another time the two attended a performance by a travelling bard who sang a long lay about brave knights and terrifying dragons, fair maidens and evil witches. The boy whispered in the girl's ear, 'This is one of my favourite lays, I could literally recite the whole thing.' But he couldn't, for when the bard invited the crowd to sing along to the eighty-ninth verse, the boy forgot the third title bestowed upon the Crimson Knave by the Horned Queen.

Alas, hard times sometimes come upon little fishing villages. And so it was that one year the catch of fish was less than a quarter of the usual catch. And so the boy journeyed to a far away village to earn some money for his family. When he left he told the girl, 'I shall miss you so much that I will literally die.' But he didn't, for he returned two years later with a small fortune (we shan't find out in this tale where his wealth came from).

The girl had waited for him all this time, and upon his return they were delighted to see one another. One fateful evening when the moon was high above the sea, the boy and girl went for an evening walk on the beach next to the lapping waves. The boy got onto one knee and whipped out a ring. 'Will you marry me?' he asked. The girl threw her hands to her mouth and gasped, 'Do you really love me that much?' The boy said, 'I love you so much that I am literally asking you to marry me right now.'

At that, the girl covered her eyes, turned around, and left, weeping into the night.

The end. Literally.
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11.07.2020, Sydney, Australia. Literally wrote this story after thinking it up in the shower an hour ago.