Storytelling Week 12: Semester's End Madness

My eyes burned from staring at the screen for so long and my legs begged to be stretched. Sighing, I pushed myself away from my computer and stood up to stretch with an over-exaggerated yawn. After working on my capstone paper for the past ten hours I felt it was time to go out and get a breath of fresh air to gather my senses.

It was evening when I walked out of my apartment and headed to the nearby trail which went through a humble patch of woods. The evening air was damp and chillier than usual as I trodded down the familiar dirt path and under the trees which were finally beginning to show signs of life again with the return of spring.

Maybe I hadn't noticed it before, but fog had seemingly come out of nowhere and now filled the whole forest. Had this ever happened before? I pulled my jacket tighter around me to fight off the chill of fog and resisted the urge to look behind to see if someone or something was following me.

Foggy Woods by adeimantus on DeviantArt

Suddenly I found myself in a clearing without the spooky mist that permeated the forest. Where had this clearing come from? I couldn’t remember ever coming across it before.

A light to my left caught my eye and I turned to see a small fire and a person with bloodshot eyes feeding papers to the dying flames. His clothes were disheveled and he looked as if he hadn’t bathed in a week. I figured he was homeless and, shrugging it off, continued down the path.

I came to a stream of black running water and grimaced. Was there a pollution spill from upstream? I searched for some sizable rocks and threw them in the stream to form a path to get to the other side. After some haphazard balancing I made it across and turned to look at both the stream and the homeless man with his papers. What was going on?

“I’ve been working on that paper for too long…” I murmured, rubbing my eyes as I continued walking. I’d turn back around soon before it got too dark.

I opened my eyes and saw for a fleeting glimpse a shrouded figure with a cap gliding away from me down the path. Okay, now that was really creepy. Shuddering, I turned around and made my way back across the stream, away from the crazy person, and back to my apartment.

Once safely inside I turned on the light and yelped. The head of my department was relaxing on my sofa!

“Um…. can I offer you some tea?” I stammered, unsure of what to do. I had definitely been working too hard. These hallucinations were getting ridiculous, but I might as well run with them since I had obviously gone insane.

“Certainly.” He smiled pleasantly, standing to extend his hand to me. I took it, shaking his hand with nervous enthusiasm.

I put on the kettle and brought out a variety of different teabags on a tray and brought it out to the coffee table.

“So, er, Dr. Mickey…. what brings you here today?” I asked uncertainly.

“Well, I wanted to see how you were doing with your Capstone paper and project. I like to check on all my students this close to graduation to make sure they’re still doing alright,” he replied cheerfully, selecting a bag of Earl Grey tea.

“Uh-huh…” I said, retreating to the kitchen to pour two cups of boiling water. I brought the cups back and gave him the one I reserved for guests - a plain green ceramic mug. I kept the Nightmare Before Christmas mug for myself.

“I’m particularly concerned about my students’ mental health.” Dr. Mickey stated bluntly, steeping his tea. I gulped. Did my craziness shine like a beacon for the whole world to see?

“Is that so? Is there anything concerning about me?” I asked, opening a packet of Jasmine Green tea.

“Well, after the sights you came across in those woods, I was hoping you could tell me,” he replied cheerfully, a congenial grin on his face.

All cordiality dropped from my demeanor. “How do you know about that?” I asked, startled.

He chuckled good-heartedly, blowing the steam off from his mug before carefully sipping the tea. “Be honest with me, now. Hasn’t this semester taken quite the toll on you?”

I bit my lip and remained silent. Then I sighed and held my head in my hands. “Yes sir, it has. I’ve been trying my hardest, but sometimes it seems like I’m never going to get all this work done and that I’m never going to graduate.”

I heard another slurp from the mug. “I’m glad you’re finally being honest with yourself. For those visions you saw while out on your walk were none other than your repressed feelings about this semester. The dishevelled figure feeding papers to a dying fire was your own passion slowly dwindling with each paper you’ve churned out. That black stream was none other than the gallons of coffee you’ve consumed this semester in order to get through your assignments. And the shrouded figure was what you fear is running away from you - your graduated self.”

I stared at him in disbelief, stunned. “Well, Dr. Mickey, does this mean I’m not going to graduate at all? Are those visions four years of accumulating failure?”

“Quite the contrary,” he grinned. “You’ve admitted the truth to me, as scary as it was. For your honesty and determination, I will give you this. Use it wisely.”

I held out my hand and felt the smooth paper of my diploma slip into my palm….

… and then I awoke in my chair, the dim rays of dawn filtering in through the blinds.

I looked at my computer screen and sighed, rubbing my fingers to try and remember the silky feel of that diploma.

Oh well. Guess it's time for another pot of coffee.

Author's Note: 

This is a much more modern (and college-ized) version of 'How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery.' In the original story, King Cormac trades his family for a magic bough that brings happiness to all when it is shaken. After a while he misses his family so dearly that he goes off into the mists to find them. The mists transport him to Faery, where he beholds many curious sites of strange things and people doing stranger things. Eventually he comes to the dwelling of the King and Queen of Faery and, after telling him why he has come, they praise his honesty and give him his family back, along with a few other goodies such as a cow that produces lots of milk and a pig that regenerates its meat if its bones are kept after eating. 

Graduation for me is fast approaching and I feel that after so much toil, so much hard work and tears, that I have earned my diploma more than anything. Of course, I didn't use the real name of the head of my department, but I felt the interaction I portrayed of the story with him was much like Cormac's interaction with the King - and hopefully my honesty will be met with due reward, too. 

Bibliography:
Title: How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery
Book: More Celtic Faery Tales
Author: Joseph Jacobs
Year: 1895

Reading Week B: Still More Celtic Fairy Tales!

In the second part of this section is where I see the stories that I usually associate with fairy tales - light-hearted, with children begin whisked off away into the land of Faery or other strange dimensions and playing with the Fair Folk. Such a tale is seen in ‘Elidore,’ where a little boy, escaping the wrath of the monks who are trying to train him, is led by a pair of pygmies through a cave into a magical land with no sun and moon, only clouds.

There, Elidore spends time playing with the King’s son and keeping him company rather than try his hand at the arduous task of reading and writing. All is well for a time, and then he longs to see humans like himself, along with his mother.

So the King, benevolent as he is, agrees to let Elidore go. His mother is very happy to see him, though distraught (understandably) and begs him to stay. He stays for a while but returns to the happy land to play. So this goes for a few months, maybe years.

Eventually, his mom coerces him into bringing her one of the yellow balls he plays with (convinced that it’s gold), and he’s caught sneaking one out by the pygmies. Since then he can never find his way back to that magical land.

Elidore becomes a monk, but mourns the days when he would play with the little fair people. St. David tries to find out where these little people come from and based on what Elidore tells them of their language, deduces that they must be Greek. How? I don’t understand. I’m not even sure there are fairies in Greek mythology, but there’s a very good chance I’m wrong. 

Looks like it could be the glittering land of Faery to me. 

Image: Flickriver

Another great story, How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery, shows the value of truth and maybe even of love. In this story, the King Cormac trades his wife and two children for a magical fairy branch which takes away the sorrows and pain of any who are lulled to sleep by its sweet music. After a year goes by and his citizens are lulled into happiness, he decides to go out and seek his family.

Something I found very interesting about his journey - it is said he wanders down a magical path and then mists rise around him and all of a sudden he’s in Faery! Myself, I’m reading ‘The Mists of Avalon’ at the moment and keep trying to find correlations between the myths of Faery along with how those myths are upheld in the book. It excites me every time I find even the tiniest correlation, like the mists rising to reveal the land of Faery!

Anyway, he eventually is reunited with his family after seeing many strange things, such as a man who brings wood to a fire, but it’s burned as soon as he goes out for more (much like a Sisyphusian paradox if you ask me), and a hog that is quartered and cooked under a quarter of a log once a truth is told.



Cormac, for telling the truth that he is out seeking his family, is gifted a hog who regenerates overnight when his bones are in the sty, seven cows that produce an abundance of milk, and his family by Manannan Mac Lir. LIR. Any connection or relation to King Lir, whose children were turned into swans? Curioser and curioser….

Reading A Week 12: Celtic Fairy Tales (2)

This week I chose to read More Celtic Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs. For some reason I keep choosing tales that have something to do with some part of my heritage. Two weeks ago it was Cherokee Folk Tales, now it’s Celtic Fairy Tales for my Irish heritage. I think this class is bringing me closer to my ancestors. :)


The stories in this section are much longer than most of the stories featured in folk or fairy tales, with some taking 3 parts to finish!

The first story featured, ‘The Fate of the Children of Lir’ was rather sad. Typically, when I think of Celtic Fairy Tales, I think of fairy tales - light hearted and fun tales of whimsy and magic. This tale was certainly filled with magic, but more woe than whimsy. Four children are born to a King and his lovely wife, but she soon dies and he takes her sister as his second wife after a time. She becomes jealous of his children, as he dotes on them and gives them more attention than he does her, so she takes them out to a lake to kill them. However, she finds she cannot drown the children, so she instead turns them into beautiful swans, cursing them in these forms for 900 years.

Her plan backfires because the swans can still talk, so they rat her out for being a traitorous sorceress and in she is in turn transformed into an air-demon.

Perhaps the saddest part of the story (I thought) was how even though the children waited 900 years to be transformed back into humans, they did not take the same age as when they were turned into swans. Instead, they all had the forms of withered old men and women and died soon after regaining their human forms due to their decrepitness.

King Lir bemoans the fate of his beloved children. 

Illustration by H. R. Millar

A second story, ‘The Vision of MacConglinney’ is a little more light-hearted, but just as bizarre. A King whose massive hunger is nearly driving his kingdom bankrupt is challenged to fast one night by a young man. Not wanting to look weak, the king obeys and the lad taunts and tempts him by telling him how he once went to a Kingdom in a far-away place made of slatters of bacon, troughs of bread, pots of custard, and rivers of cream. My mouth was watering as I read this, myself!

As he’s doing this, he’s taking savory slices of bacon and passing them just within reach of the King, but not to where he can actually get a bite. Eventually, a small demon is seen climbing out of the King’s mouth, unable to resist the temptation of bacon anymore (and who can blame him? Bacon is delicious!)

And then the demon is thrust into the fire, poof, happily ever after.

More than anything, this story made me think of a similar method I’ve read on how to get rid of tapeworm infections. Very similarly, the afflicted will fast for a night, then hold a very ripe apple in front of their mouth first thing in the morning. Supposedly, the smell will tempt the worm so much that it’s head will come out the mouth, allowing the sick person to pull the worm out. Maybe this story was based off a potential cure for tapeworm infections.