Isaz
*
… Merlin’s bonds were loosed and he was told
that if he explained his laughter in the city streets
he would be free to return to the forests of Caledonia.
*
“The door-keeper was dressed poorly
and beseeched the passers-by for money to buy clothes,
yet buried under him was a pile of gold coins.”
*
“You must dig beneath the door-keeper to unearth a long lost treasure.”
*
“The youth buying patches for his worn out shoes made me laugh
because he was destined never to use them.”
*
“Even now that youth is drowned in the waves of the sea
and his body is floating lifeless towards the shore.”
*
King Rhydderch immediately sent his men to test these sayings…
*
The King’s Men returned after finding a dead body on a waste patch of sand
on the shore, along with a horde of hidden treasure
which they had dug up from the ground beneath the door-keeper.
May I ask why the title of Fire and Ice? That’s what caught my eye first, simply because I had used a very similar title in my most recent post. I wondered if that’s why WordPress kicked your article in my direction? (I have no comprehension of how those behind-the-scene metrics work.)
I did like your piece, though I had to read it twice to get that Merlin was reciting all of the quoted lines. I am not as adept at getting attribution when there isn’t a pattern to follow or a ‘Merlin said’ thrown in here or there. I need more exposure to flash fiction, I think.
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The Northmen regarded fire and ice as the two poles of existence within which life was contained. The rune which heads this piece is ‘ice’… Merlin has clearly contacted his inner fire which is allowing him to see beyond the physicality of things. There are deeper ramifications to all this but as a surface introduction the title suffices… 😉
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Lovely. I think I inadvertently stole it from R.R. Martin for my piece which was lamenting melting snowmen, global warming, and the fires in Australia.
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Reblogged this on Where Genres Collide Traci Kenworth YA Author & Book Blogger and commented:
Loving the Merlin stories!
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Thanks for sharing, Traci… 😉
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You’re welcome, Stuart!
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