Saga Kraft

Latest Episodes:

Nature Spirits May 08, 2021

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends, stories comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person, at times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

The Magic of the Staff Apr 28, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Djinn Pt. 2 Apr 21, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Mirrors Apr 07, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Grandparents Mar 24, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Magical Dolls Mar 17, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Dark Moon Mounds Mar 10, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Djinn Pt. 1 Mar 03, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Skaði Feb 24, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training. .

Betsy: Our stories this week are about theNorse goddess, giantess, Skadi, known to be a goddess of winter, known to be a very strong lady deity. she's a ???? goddess. A wild one. I hope you enjoy our stories, and I'm going to begin.

Sleep started out deep and fulfilling. The kind of sleep that occurred after physical exhaustion. The pull to sleep had been enormous, after her body worked hard in the dark of the Northern night for hours. Her birch and bone shovel, carried in on skis along with her pack of provisions, finally lay at rest beside her after helping her dig a cave in the dense snow. Her pack, bottomless, had provided furs to wrap up in after she had cut boughs from a spruce tree to line the bottom of the cave. She had pulled out kindling, and a pan for cooking a stew from creatures of the north. Having eaten reindeer many times, she knew the signature and she had made her body into a reindeer to travel across the snowy landscape. Her senses were so immense and intense in that form, she had felt herself honing into informational fields that guided her. It was compelling enough that only her ability to focus with an almost brutal single mindedness allowed herself to make the wrench that freed her from the reindeer form when she had made it to the mountain of her choice. Or rather the mountain of the the mountain’s choice. It had been calling her for sometime, but exactly why she wasn’t clear. That would come.

For now, she was where she needed to be and it was some undisclosed time of actual night, not just the night of afternoon or morning that is part of the long winter day. She slept again. It could have been for an instant, it could have been for a year, she wasn’t sure and relaxed into not caring.

This was why she was free. So that she could just move through her life and just be. To choose her moments and her days. She listened to the sounds of snow settling over her. It wouldn’t dare to fall in on her, but it did by its nature settle as crystal patterns morphed. She honed in on snow patterns on the surface outside, crystals clear and exquisite. Like her, she thought without vanity. The snow inside the cave was compacted and formidably strong. Also like her. She listened to her blood moving in her body, to the sound of her breath, her digestion also audible as the reindeer stew slowly digested. Not so very long asleep then if she was still digesting. She slept again.

A high pitched sound disturbed her. It was flowing and singing in waves and in her minds eye colours began to form and dance in waves of green edging in cherry red. The aurora was beginning and from the size of the waves would be vast and memorable. She checked in and found the pull to sleep was less and more manageable. She pulled her woollen tunic on and her boots and slid into her fur coat, wrapping a woolen and fur scarf around her sleek blonde hair and her long swan like neck. The cold did’t really bother her, but habits were habits and her furs and wools allowed her to comfortably remain outside for as long as she desired. Again, choosing to have choice.

She exited the cave and gasped at the enormous display of curtains of waving and flowing green banded with cherry colour. Offshoots of silver and gold flowed in other directions and danced into new patterns.

Fierce, exultant love moved in her heart and without thought flowed out of her and joined the colours in the sky. Love flowed form her heart and dictated colours of violet and silver which added new bands and surges melting into the green and cherry. As the colours swelled, so did her heart and more love poured from her. The aurora incorporated her offerings and built in size and intensity and flowed around the mountain in all directions. She began to dance under the sky, singing in a trilling voice, colours spun out of her and her voice shifted the colours to orange and deep red and spinning off into lilac. The aurora listened and sang back and the dancing curtain of moving light and colour began to swirl into a great spiral that spun out stars and spheres of radiance. The sound grew as each colour had its own note, the aurora sang in chords that didn’t harmonize with her voice but instead let her voice sing it into further actualized being.

The mountain itself began to glow, waking up from its drowsy slumber. A halo effect was beginning to shine on the mountain peak, and her voice picked up the deeper notes of the mountain weaving them into a song of sky and earth, of light and stone. The mountain became non-physical and all its slumbering inhabitants either woke and joined or dreamt and joined in the dance. When the mountain began to sing, she could feel the ecstasy in her bones and teeth, in her sinews and her hair. She could feel it in her sacred center as orgasm began in waves of pleasure radiating out from her pelvis. The mountain’s orgasm began, not as an earthquake but as an uplifting of energy that exploded out into the sky and could be seen as silver and golden light flowing into the sky from the mountain’s silhouette. The aurora received the waves from her and the mountain, absorbed them and let itself be seeded and conceived new life.

Bear and fox, marmot and rabbit all received the enlivening of their seed as did the trees and the frozen waters. The elven-kind, radiant in their etherial forms, were glowing in unison with the light dancing in the sky and within and were undulating in forms freer than usual, that fluidity momentarily gifted by the aurora.

As the waves of ecstasy arced, various liminal doorways in the mountain shone with light and then slowly receded as the ecstasy moved to its farthest limits and then gradually faded. The curtains of light began to pale and to flicker and slowly to wink out.

She took one last long breath and sighed in unison with the landscape, made sacred by love and communion.

A movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention. Standing in the eery afterglow was a slight, translucent female figure with an enraptured face still uplifted to the sky.

Skadi’s eyes narrowed as she took in the hamr (the etherial body) of a human woman. Elf-light shone in her, illuminated by the sacred union, so not fully human and gifted enough to be here. No doubt called here as she was by mountain or sky.

She turned back to the night sky, giving space for the woman to have her moments with the wonder of the night and let her self bask in the afterglow. Animals stirred and then snuggled in their dens, drifting back into blessed sleep.

The woman slowly came back to herself in the still glowing night. How she came to be here was a question in her mind that she pushed to the back as she surveyed the scene before her. A very tall and statuesque woman stood before her, with long platinum hair falling in a shining sheet past her waist. She was dressed in furs and standing straight as a lance.

Feeling the scrutiny on her back, Skadi slowly turned, aware the woman was more present now and perhaps as easily spooked as any shy animal.

Seeing her face, the woman dropped to her knees in surprise and a little shock. Skadi’s eyes radiated the eery green light whose match was even now fading in the sky. The green shifted her light blue eyes to turquoise. Clearly not a human woman. The kneeling one reached out her hands to the goddess, palms up and though shivering now, honouring her and accepting.

Skadi looked at her, into her and slowly nodded, aware of the woman’s sleeping body far away to the south. She opened her coat and stepping towards the slight figure, wrapped her in it, and carried her, as easily as a child into the snow cave. Murmuring something in a tongue so ancient that it is rarely spoken aloud anymore, she drew the shivering and clinging woman between the piled furs to dream the night away.

Sea: Who is she?

Betsy: She could be anyone. She could be you. .

Gabriela: I would love to be her. I would love to be carried by Skadi. That was beautiful. The sky... you gave so much life to that sky, and the colors in winter against the snow really have an incredible vibrance, an incredible other worldly dimension in how they're reflected. And I really felt like I was there with those colors in that magic, in that crisp visceral magic of place and the sky. And I love Skadi here too, who was such a part of the landscape, but at the same time, an observer. She was both the observer and the observed, the landscape and the movement. I thought that was just beautiful, and it feels very real and very true of her.

Sea: It was absolutely beautiful. I felt deeply touched and honored. Thank you.

Betsy: I loved having the opportunity to get to know her a little bit more. I'm a winter lover myself, and a person who used to dig snow caves and sleep in them, so I know the feeling of it. I feel very honored to, not so much, write a story about her, but be shown a glimpse of a moment in her life, and to be able to share it, experience and share it, and do whatever justice to it that I could.

Sea: It was fabulous, thank you.

Gabriela: Do you feel like you have a different perspective now? Or do you feel like this is how you've always seen Skadi and this is what you've always known of her?

Betsy: I do feel like as though it's a different, more intimate perspective of her. I felt her wildness. I don't know if I conveyed it, but her confidence was stunning to experience, and her desire to be in the moment, really, really living in the moment, and in the moment making whatever choice is the next choice in the moment. That was actually quite inspirational to me.

Gabriela: Well, it certainly feels so much of her energy was driven by instinct of environment, and her environment is that of cold, snow and wind. So she would really have to know how to master those moments.

Betsy: Yeah, I think that's true.

Gabriela: And I love how her deep awareness of what her level of normal was and what she could withhold, or rather what she could be comfortable in, would not be the same as for a human, and knowing that the woman is so... in that moment, she might just not make it through, and taking her home, taking her back. I love that.

Betsy: Thank you. And now Sea, you have a story about Skadi also.

Sea: When she was as a little girl, she would play for hours in the snow. Her furs wrapped tightly around her tiny frame, with a stick for a sword and a Wolf for a sidekick. She fought and won a lifetime of frosty battles. She championed the frost as the day turned to night and her tiny lips turned blue. Her mother would run out, searching for her wild charge in the depths of frozen nights. When she finally found her, in a mound of snow or the hollow of a tree, her mother would scold her, warning of the cold that would creep into her as she hazarded the dangers of the cold, alone in the mountains. When summer came she would hide in the root cellar, her weapons softer now in their vegetable forms.

When she was nine, lost in a winter war against invisible allies, the sun set and no one came. Her fingers, wound tightly around the branch spear, would not uncurl. She pried them off. Surveyed the darkness. She knew the woods better than her heart. She could track even the most stealthful beast. Her mother could not. As the sun rose she found the older woman's body curled around the remains of a small fire, deep in the wood. She fashioned a sled and pulled her home where her father angrily awaited his breakfast.

And she took that in, the obligation. Three meals a day she prepared for him. Porridge, stew, bread, mead, ale, buttermilk. A young frigid warrior subsumed by emerging duty, her time in the snow lost in penance. Until it was not. This time there was no body in the woods, no remaining relative to cast a demanding eye. Her father went out never to return. If he didn't, why should she? She went back to her snowy forests.

When she came across a man from Asgard, she heard a story of an eagle, a border wall, and a stage incineration. The questions she'd not cared to ask were answered. Another obligation: revenge. Pitching her sled, she headed out.

She arrived on a bright early morning. After losing the wolves, she climbed the thick stone wall, too hurried to search for a gate. She stole from building to building, listening for sounds of life. She came to B???. A party ravaged within. Pulling her spear from her back, she has snuck toward the entryway, then burst into the bustling hall. The Aesir offered her food and drink and gold for the life of her father. She countered, demanding a husband and a laugh, for joy was beyond her. The laugh or was not so simple. No joke could buoy her heart. The trickster put down his light and picked up his shadow. Fishing for her darkness, he hooked it with his pain and drew it screeching from heart through lips.

The husband came easily. Merrily the gods showed their feet. The huntress aimed for the sun, but landed the sea. The shore god married her that night. The silence of the ice shattered his thoughts, the crash of the waves shattered her dreams. She suffered the cold that crept into her as she hazarded the dangers of the warmth, together in the community.

She returned to the comfort of the cold, alone in the woods.

Betsy: Wow. That was beautiful.

Sea: Thank you. It was very unlike yours, but they did fit together somewhat.

Betsy: I think they dovetailed beautifully together. Yours is what went before. You showed a beautiful picture of who she was as a child. How one with the winter landscape she was, even as a young being.

Sea: Yeah. I felt like she was raised by the woods themselves.

Gabriela: That wilderness, I feel like, that grew and grew over time, was there from the beginning. And it's what shaped her. And it's what shaped the landscape that she, in many ways, becomes, and comes in and out of. I feel like so much of her in both of your stories is about going in and out of that landscape of self, and the outside, and that cold and how comforting that is for her, how it's the most intimate part of her. I think you even referenced that, is that how the cold, or the winter, knows her better than she knows herself. That cold knows her better than she knows herself.

Betsy: I was really struck by, and I wonder if you have insight into it Sea, about what prompted her to want a husband after taking care of her father, the way you conveyed that, for so long.

Sea: I have always wondered that as well. Perhaps it was just the sex, because they did remain married. They just didn't live together. Which I have got to say, at my age, sounds really appealing.

Betsy: I will confess to having a moment of thinking about her husband and having her only reaction in it being, well, we both love water, but in such different forms, right?

Sea: In my mind, Njord represents margins, like the margins of ecosystems. And so the shore is one of them, but so is the tree line. To me those are both part of his domain, so I can see where he himself would be torn between them. She is such a creature of the margins, as is he, and I feel like that's their commonality. They're the deities of the margins. The people on the edge who sort of hold the container for the rest in terms of ecosystem.

Gabriela: They both create the danger and contain it. The natural danger, anyway.

Sea: I think of Njord as creating Freyr and Freya.

Gabriela: Certainly gives that another, whole other meaning, but yes, it's out of the, those extremes and out of that coming together of these profound forces of nature, that's something new can be born. And only out of that can something new be born. Well, and with Skadi, just that concept of the freezing, like Isa, the rune that brings everything into present moment, present time and to such focus.

Sea: Yeah. I can really see them that way. So if I think of them both as on the margins, I can really see her as on the margins and slowing things to a close, and him on the margins and opening things from their deep sleep.

Gabriela: That gives me chills. I love that. And the orgasm of the sky in Betsy's story. Once again, it's that bringing life into being, into form, as life longs for itself.

Betsy: Yeah. And for us to consider what forces of nature are actually enlivening parts of us that we're not even aware of , you know, like the human in my story being drawn into it, but in her sleep, which is another, in a way, a metaphor for not really knowing what's going on, but going with it, giving her that.

Gabriela: Right. So then that sleep for her becomes initiatory and she's tended to by the great goddess. Also contained.

Betsy: Well, and I guess if it all comes down to sex, I mean, if you can have sex with the sky and the mountain...

Gabriela: Sounds good to me

Betsy: Or to no one's place as a generative deity, also. To be willing to be called to something, which she put effort into getting there for it, but not knowing, but just knowing it will become clear -er. Well, I think our stories dovetailed together so beautifully, really.

Gabriela: They were perfectly, perfectly matched. They wove beautifully together.

Betsy: Well, I found that my connection with her in that way really made me long for the snow and the night and... the aurora of course is always wonderful.

Gabriela: There's nothing like the aurora borealis. It is completely unique in itself.

Sea: I love the...

Tomtes Pt 2 Feb 17, 2021

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends, stories comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person. At times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end we go where the story takes us, and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical in training.

Love Spells Feb 14, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training. .

Gabriela: Today's stories will be about wanting love, longing for love, having love, losing love, and everything in between. And of course, about magic. We hope you enjoy them. Sea, we would love to hear your story.

Sea: "I don't care!" I yelled down to my mom who asked what I wanted for breakfast.

What I really wanted was to know if Abbey like liked me. I so wanted to kiss the beautiful full lips. We had been hanging out for about a year and we'd gone to the food truck together a couple of days ago. She wouldn't finish her stir fry because it touched by pork bun, but we had fun after we switched from a low budget sci-fi to a superhero movie anyway. But I was still afraid to ask her out, and she was starting to kind of like some other loser. It was time for me to make my move.

My sister said I should ask her witchy friend Claire. I've known Claire since third grade and figured, at worst, I'd get a laugh out of it. My sister called her and then said it was really important that I show respect. Claire had a gift and couldn't give up her homework time to talk to an unbeliever. I should be there at three forty five with a gift for her. She suggested a bunch of shells I had on my window.

So, Claire's mom answered the door, double taking because she forgot to put on the new-agey scarf she promised Claire she'd wear. She quickly pulled it around her head and bowed then offered me a cookie on the way to Claire's room. She knocked three times before opening the door and bowing.

The place was a sea of loud fabric. Claire was on her bed, cross-legged in the middle of a jungle of curtains. I was overwhelmed by the colors and the incense. It felt like an herb garden went gaseous and flowed into my sinuses. Thank God I had my inhaler. After a whiff. I sat down where Claire's mom pointed, on a round pillow on the floor at the foot of the bed. There was a three inch string hanging from the blanket. Claire's mom left, closing the door behind her.

Claire sat on the bed, not looking down on me. She had her eyes closed and hands together like a small child praying, but in front of her chest. She was fuller than I remembered. I nibbled the cookie.

When I'd eaten the whole thing, one crumb at a time, I cleared my throat and she whipped one finger up in a wait sign. I sighed and started pulling at the dangling thread as she dropped her hands. An eternity later the string was about twelve yards long, and Claire startled me when she spoke in an unaturally deep tone that made her voice crack.

"You have come for a spell."

"Uuuh," I responded.

She deployed her silencing finger.

"It is a love spell. What is the name of your beloved?" she asked, dropping her hand to her lap.

"Abbey." I frowned. I live in fairfield, not fairy tale.

"Yes," she announced abruptly "you shall have it. Although," she continued "your guides want you to know that you, too, wield the power of altering destiny.

Great, I thought, I had been approved to make choices. I considered altering destiny right then and there by getting up and leaving. But I'd never hear the end of it from my sister.

"Abbey." she announced, squeezing her eyes shut and beginning to mutter under her breath.

She held her hands like she was spinning an invisible soccer ball .Just then, Claire's mom snuck in, winked, and silently passed me another cookie before leaving again. I wondered if she'd been listening at the door. Claire got quieter and quieter until only her lips were moving, then she stood up making the bed bounce. She threw her arms wide, smacking the curtains.

"You are bound by love." she pronounced.

"So," I asked "that means she'll go out with me?"

Claire opened her eyes and glared down at me.

"Well, she will now. Put your gift on the altar and tell your friends good stuff about me."

She pointed to the top of her radiator where a stone box and plate with half a cookie sat balanced in front of a wall hanging of a goddess. I crawled over and pulled the shells from my pocket. They would have fallen off the radiator, so I put them on the plate then crawled back to the foot of the bed.

Claire stared at me serenely for a minute before saying "We are done."

On the way out her mom thanked me and gave me another cookie. Just then Abbey called. She wanted to do something. I needed to balance out my sugar rush, so I thought we could get burritos for dinner.

I got there first and ordered our usual, a chili Verde with extra sour cream for me and a vegan with black beans for her. I took the overflowing plates to a table by the front window. When she got there and she squeed. She ran up and hugged my arm. She never hugs my arm. She only hugged all of me before, and that was only when something really great or super sad happened. She didn't let go. She just kept clinging to my arm. I had to take her hand and put it on the table before her nails drew blood. And then she was in my face. She even spit a little when she told me excitedly between blinks and giggles about her day, and the night before, and the day before that. And she just kept touching me. Petting my shoulder, holding my hand even when it was covered with meaty burrito juice.

After dinner, she really wanted to go to a movie so I asked if she wanted to come over and watch a low budget scifi, and she did! She even put on lipstick when she was in the bathroom. Her full lips were shining out at me like a beacon. It felt awesome. And she was doing exactly what I would want her to do, but I had a weird, awkward feeling. Still, it was great.

We turned on a movie and sat on the couch. For the first time ever, she sat close. Her thigh was touching mine. It was warmed and soft. It didn't really see the movie at all. There was her thigh, and her arm which brushed up against mine, skin on skin every time she reached for her juice. And her breasts were close, really close, just inches away.

Halfway through I got up to make popcorn just to cool down. Then, when we started again, she fully cuddled. She was so sexy, so warm, so exciting. And just as the film ended, she reached up and pulled me down. I came closer and closer to her beautiful full lips until she kissed me, softly at first, and then with a desperate chaos that felt like it was drawing the life out of me.

"Well, I said, jumping up "thanks for coming over."

She looked at me like I had just killed her puppy. I sat back down and took her hands.

"I like like you." I said "I really like like you. There is no one I can imagine like liking as much as you, but I think we should go on a real date. Could we go to a movie tomorrow.?"

"Sure." she said, happy but confused, "Okay." she followed up as the confusion stepped aside.

I walked her home and we had the best hug anyone has ever had. I headed back feeling proud of my choice to not sort of rape her. My choice to not sort of rape her, I thought. What did Claire say? Something about me wielding the power of destiny?

When I got home I tried searching the internet, but for what? Not love spells, not hate spells, not even anti love spells. Finally I plugged in "possible love but only with freewill" spells, but I only found new spells, or spells that broke relationships. Eventually I looked up how to write spells.

I haven't slept yet, and I need to leave for school again in an hour, but I am finally ready. I'll have to cut class this afternoon to take a nap so I can make it to the movie later, but I'm really happy that we have a date and I've lit a birthday candle. So here it goes:

"All of my love is wielded by me,and your love by you. I set us both free. We make our own choices. We still may succeed. All bindings be gone. So mote it be.

I stomped my foot to end it. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I'm surprised that I really think this will fix stuff, but I do. Still, the box says that my tiny fire will take twenty minutes to burn out, and it's not like I have a miniature sconce.

"Diann, what do you want for breakfast?" my mom calls from the kitchen

"Oatmeal!" I shout down "Lots of it, thick enough to hold up a candle!"

Betsy: I really liked it. I liked the conscience that was there too. What do you think sparked that?

Sea: In my mind this is a teenage boy, it doesn't have to be, and it was also really weird that I felt like I was writing from the perspective of a teenage boy as I have not been one, but he was actually a pretty mature teenage boy. Internally, not externally.

Gabriela: I really enjoyed the story, and I especially enjoyed the point of view from which it was written. It felt very, very real to me, and from what I remember of teenage boys, just that kind of excitement and also one sidedness when it came to a girl they like. Though, I feel like that is across genders in terms of teenagers. That is what happens on the hormonal level, on the emotional level. When you like someone, you like them so much that that is all you think about. They are threaded through everything in your day and night, and that was certainly clear here. But I also love that he, though, really appreciated being liked, had a feeling that something was not exactly as it should be.

Betsy: I liked the witch, too.

Sea: Yes, I did too. And I loved her mom, honestly. I loved her mom supporting her.

Gabriela: Like a mom of a teenage model or child actor, playing her part.

Yeah.

Really what I love about that entire moment and the house is, setting the stage for magic or certain kinds of magic to take form or take space, or place rather. Certain conditions have to be met, and I like how those conditions were present in this story. And without those conditions, the spell wouldn't work.

Betsy: And not just the conditions, but the, the boy's submitting to those conditions, too.

Gabriela: What he was willing to do for love, or like like at least.

Sea: Right, yeah.

Gabriela: I also loved the reality of, during teenage years, how everybody's really involved, not just in the couples life once they're together, but before it even happens. There are so many moving stories, and possibilities, and your friend telling you, Oh yeah he totally likes you, I have no doubt about it. And you going forward and doing something stupid based on that information, which was a lie. Maybe I'm speaking from experience. Anyway, this whole story really brought up so many of those memories for me, it made me smile the whole time.

Sea: So, shall we move on? To Gabriela's fabulous story this evening?

Gabriela: Yes, we can move on. I really enjoyed your story. Mine is a little different, but maybe not, and it is called The Fox Wife.

The day Kyoko's wedding was the happiest of her life. It was springtime. The cherry blossoms were blooming filling the air with the promise of sweetness Kyoko's wedding Komono was made of exquisite silk with painted sakura branches. It was the most beautiful and expensive piece of clothing she had ever owned.

Shinji, her beloved, was a simple but hardworking and kind man. Most importantly, he adored Kyoko and was deeply devoted to her. The way he looked at her that day made her feel like the most beautiful woman in all of Japan. Even though Kyoko's family didn't entirely approved of the couple's engagement, over time they saw that the two were very much in love and allowed the union.

People talked about the strange weather during the ceremony, for, even though it was sunny, it rained a little. Fox weather, they whispered, exchanging meaningful looks. But Kyoko didn't mind. She thought it was a magical and auspicious occurrence, a blessing for her and Shinji's lives together.

The first few years of their marriage were very happy. Shinji got a job at a factory in town, and Kyoko sewed beautiful dolls from old kimonos to make a little extra money to save and have when they would be able to grow their family.

Many years passed in this way and the couple built their lives together, but no children blessed their home. Disappointment and sadness slowly crept into their hearts, changing them and changing the love between them. For Kyoko it was mostly sadness that filled her, as she so longed to have children. Shinji's heart, however, grew bitter and cold, and every time he looked at Kyoko he saw her sorrow and couldn't help but blame himself for her unhappiness. He grew colder and more distanced towards his wife, and with time, cruel even.

The man Kyoko married years ago was no longer recognizable to her, and this broke her heart more than anything else. He never even looked at her anymore. The day of their wedding, when his eyes were so full of admiration for her, seemed like a long gone dream of the past. Shinji spent more and more time away from home, drinking and gambling, spending what little money they had on his addictions. He even started to visit the beds of other women, those he would meet on his night adventures away from his wife. The only time he came home was to take what few items they had of value left to sell.

Kyoko worked days, and sometimes long nights, sewing dolls she could sell at the market so she could buy food. She dreaded the times when Shinji would come home, for he yelled and swore at her as she tried to keep away from him the remaining of their household belongings. The last thing Shinji could sell was Kyoko's wedding kimono, which was her most prized possession. She hugged the fabric to herself, trying to protect it from his greedy grasp, but Shinji pulled and pulled so hard that she fell backwards against the wall and watched him storm out of the house with the fabric. Hot tears ran down her face and a bitter angry fire burned insider. She wished she had never met Shinji. She wished they never married. She wished that she would never have to see him again so she could forget him and the unhappiness he brought her.

The next day, Kyoko headed for the market to sell more dolls she had made, hoping she would find more buyers than the day before. It was a long walk through the woods that led to town, and heavy snow had begun to fall, as it was a brisk winter day. She saw that a figure watched her from a few paces away. Due to the thick falling snow, she couldn't really make out who the figure was. All she could see was the color of cream, orange, and hints of red in the distance, human shaped. As she got closer she found that the snow blurred what she was seeing, for who she came upon was an old crouched woman, cloaked and a thick brown shawl, a piece of long silver white hair danced around the woman's small wrinkled face, while her black almond shaped eyes observed Kyoko curiously.

"What is it that you carry?" the old woman asked, and Kyoko, who assumed she was referring to her basket, revealed what had held.

"Dolls for sale. I hope I sell more today than yesterday." Kyoko said with a deep sigh.

"That is not what I mean." the old woman replied, "what burdens do you carry? They must be heavy for I can feel their pull darken these woods." she said

surprised, Kyoko took a closer look at the old woman, slowly realizing this was no ordinary meeting. She felt that she was given an opportunity to open up, to share and to unburden herself in the presence of this inquiring stranger. Tears filled Kyoko's eyes before she could speak. Her tale flowed out of her like an untamed river, each loss and pain she recalled swelled high like wild water around a rock, foaming and angry, or like a storm that has been hiding behind a mountain, now raging and free leaving no tree unturned. The snow whirled wildly around, responding to Kyoko's tale.

The woman listened without much expression on her face, except for the strange fire that sparkled in her eyes. She stood quietly for some time, moving slightly against the wind that was whistling around them.

"What is it that you want?" she asked plainly

"I want to live in peace. I want to forget about the happiness I once felt, for it is tearing my heart to bits." Kyoko answered

"Easy enough." the old woman said, "And what will you give me an exchange?"

Without hesitation, Kyoko reached into her basket of dolls and pulled out the best one she had, one made of the remnants of Shinji's well worn silk shirt, which she was able to save in parts to sew with. The old woman stretched out one milky white, long, and ??? Looking hand, to take the doll, which she held to her nose and sniffed deeply.

"This will do." she said, took one more look at Kyoko, turned around, and walked off the path and deep into the forest.

Kyoko watched as the figure blurred with the snow and changed in the distance, glimpses of cream, orange, and red dancing through the trees and eventually disappearing.

That day at the market kyoko sold more dolls than she had ever before. She was able to stock up on rice, dried fish, spices, and even tea. She walked home with her spirits renewed, even as the snow fell heavily on her path. When she got home she started a fire, heated up some tea, and with a full belly she slept better than she had in years. In the morning, she had forgotten all about Shinji, their wedding day, and everything thereafter.

She spent her time sewing beautiful dolls, which became so popular that she sold out every time, and brought her enough income to afford good food, tea, and everything she needed to make a comfortable home. Days and months went by. Kyoko lived by herself happily and in peace.

One day a factory worker came knocking on her door. He said he was worried about her husband who had gone missing months ago after he was seen departing...

Tomtes Pt. 1 Feb 10, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical in training.

Imbolc Feb 03, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical in training.

Initiations Jan 26, 2021

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical in training.

Gabriela: The stories that we are about to share with you today contain some intense descriptions and material, so, if you are feeling in any way sensitive, perhaps this may not be the stories to listen to at this time.

Today, we are excited to share stories about initiation, and the forms they take. How they change us and our world. And we invite the blessing of Saga, the blessing of Story, and the blessing of change at the right time, and especially the blessing of a graceful change whenever possible.

Betsy: I also want to honor the listener, because what is a story without a listener, and so, may our stories in this new season land with you in a way that interests you or amazes you, or intrigues you, or challenge you.

Sea: And I also want to honor saga and all the helpers.

Betsy: And I'd love to begin if that's all right with you two.

Gabriela: That would be lovely, thank you Betsy.

Betsy: So, my story is called Morvoren.

The sea has always held mysteries and treasure. Though ocean and coastal currents may be habitual, how things move about in the sea and where they ended up cannot always be explained. Water carries emotion and sound. It can imprint with experience and intention. It's always subject to magic.

I've always trusted the goddess Sirona, and that's why I'm now floating in the sea, nailed into a barrel, being carried away by the outgoing tide Goello, my betrayer, was watching me with beetled brows and smiling in an odious way as his men nailed me into the barrel with just enough of an opening for the sea to enter.

Now his ship sails away from me. I suppose I should feel the shame that has been heaped onto me, but I'm furious. Not at the goddess, after all, she said I would be facing trials, but at my parents for being swayed by my betrothed to cast me off. Casting me off was their idea. He wanted me stoned. As if the stones of Brittany would even allow that. Instead I'm floating away in what everyone hopes will be the end of me. I am resolved to live.

I don't quite know how that's going to happen, but I will not let them kill me and my baby. Time was, not so long ago, that my decision to consummate my love with Grannus would have been celebrated with a feast and gifts, not worries about what a foreign god would think about it. It's a confusing time when priests of the new god are trying to diminish the goddess and her place in my country. Confusing because my parents have to consider this god, because almost no country will trade with us while we are considered pagans.

They planned on my marriage to a christian princeling Goello. I've always known marriage was my duty, but never to him. Sirona intervened. She merged my path with a man who was made for me as though he was my other half. Grannus of the black hair and white skin, whose breadth of shoulder is matched by the vastness of his heart. He's now locked away and won't be freed until I've been swept away. I hope he is praying and not despairing, for I need his prayers.

Serona of the waters, send me a rescuer. Please deliver me from the ocean. Two days have passed and I've been becalmed in unseasonable heat. I feel I'm going nowhere, but still a current carries me far from land. Is this a reprieve from death? Or am I in the vestibule of death even now, and don't know? I dream of Grannus and how in his arms, Sirona's voice came into my head with light and love, saying through me to Grannus: my love, my heart, my husband. In that moment I melted into love, but now hungry, thirsting, and bobbing in a reaking barrel, I wonder what came over me.

No. I cannot allow myself to think like this. Sirona, as your waters meet the sea, may it send prayers to the sea god to help me. The ocean swells are growing bigger and the sky darkens. My barrel, which I've named Indomitable, is tossed about.

My prayer is now a plea straight from my soul, without words. I dose, too wretched to think or feel. There's a blinding light in the darkness. The voice of Sirona saying "Trust.", and soon, as if in a dream, I'm aware of slim white arms reaching through into the darkness where I sit huddled, and a soft and melodic voice saying "It's a lady in here."

The arms withdraw, and then there's a sensation of the barrel steadying. I am somehow no longer at the mercy of the waves, bearing steadily in some direction. I sleep, and wake to this heavenly sound of voices singing. These voices sang of the beauty of the sea, of treasure, of love. Sometimes they sang in a language I've never heard, but will always long for. The voices are pure, melodic, eerie.

I think we traveled like this for hours, maybe days. A cup of water was passed to me, and the most delicious fish. I ate and drank and slept again.

The barrel was pushed onto land and strong arms lever the lid off. The male faces disappeared and a lovely female face, haloed with blonde hair and twined with pearls, peeked over the edge of the barrel.

"We've brought you to Cornwall in Pendour Bay. Ahead is Zennor village. You and your baby will be safe here. We've put you into the hands of a trusted friend. Here, these are for any need you have."

A necklace of priceless pearls was put into my hand. The trusted friend and his wife came and freed me from my barrel and took me to their home where they cared for me. The local priest came to me to discover more about my story, and all I could do is rave about the light around the golden head, the voice, the white arms. And before I knew it, I was declared a christian miracle. Saint Senara, saved for some purpose by an angel. It was most disconcerting, but I accepted it, for what else could I do?

I sought Sirona's advice. In the village was one of the old stone monuments and a sacred well. There, Sirona and I spoke. "Trust." she said again. I was witnessed glowing with her light and trying to sing those enchanting songs that were sung to me while in my barrel. I cannot stop trying to sing them. I know they were full of love and protection, and that is what I imbue my songs with, though I can never quite get the melody right.

Eventually word came to this village of the princess who was cast to her death in a barrel across the sea. Here, where I was washed ashore, in this most christian village of Zennor, I regained my status and eventually my love. Grannus found me. I was duly baptized, along with my son Budock and my husband, into the celtic church.

I used my pearls to build a small castle and a church, which took my name later. I built a few more churches nearby, which were also dedicated to St. Senara, but to me, they were to Sirona. Here I lived out my life.

Part Two

The humans have no idea how strongly sound carries underwater. When I became of an age to have my own household, I looked around my family's domain of the Irish sea and the North Atlantic coastal region. I was always attracted to the sunken village Lyoness, with its great bells, but I settled on the nearby bay of Pendour in Cornwall.

There used to be a princess, partly fairy but sadly mortal, who's singing lured me to build my home in the bay off shore, that I might hear her voice for as many years as she would be able to sing her spell songs. Her life passed and the castle felt to ruin, but the bay continued to be a home for me. When L. my father or M. my brother chided me about my choice, with a whole ocean open to me, I remain steadfast. But now for another reason. I stayed in my home in Pendour because I took up where the princess left off.

Her songs were meant to support the lives of those who lived in her lands. She did not know that her domain was actually mine. No matter, I found myself inspired by her concern and have kept to her decision to infuse this region with magic for the betterment of all. The songs of the long dead princess were intended to foster protection, generosity, goodwill, and good behavior. I understand she had suffered from bad behavior. Easy enough to continue in that way.

And so on many a night, I'm am to be heard singing my own songs. I've traveled up and down the coast, and I'm quite sure of the difference between a protected cove and one unprotected. You've only to hear the harsh words and the sounds of beatings and sobs of humans who are left to their own tendencies. Bear in mind, these are smuggler's waters, were French brandy comes to shore, stripping away any semblance of good intentions.

It's said that not only is Pendour Cove and the village of Zennor home to good people, but also to the sweetest singers. I expect they learned to sing from me, singing for generations near them., but perhaps it's also a side effect of the spells of the princess saint.

In any case, one villager surpasses them all. This lad can be heard singing in the church of an evening after a long day's work. I'm mesmerized by his voice and his heart, which can be heard as he sings his hymns. I can hear him less well when he sings at his chores, but it's the sweetest sound nonetheless.

I'm not sure when the idea came to me, but once it did it stayed until I began to transform myself to human girl and slip into the back of the church of Saint Senara on most evenings to see him, as well as hear him up close. The old ladies of the village saw me right off, for I am inhumanly lovely and quite well dressed.

I knew I was taking a risk showing up like this, but my village people are good people and I don't fear them. I didn't reckon their curiosity, for apparently young well dressed women don't simply go where they want to. Oh well. I also didn't reckon on seeing a lad whose personal beauty matched that of his almost unearthly voice. I made a stir with my own voice as well, so much so that he eventually came to meet me, though I forestalled him on this because I made it a habit to slip away first thing.

I came back year after year, until he was a fine man. One day my longing to see him even closer, made me a little slow and he caught up with me. I gave him the gift of my name, M.M. He was not to know what a gift it was for quite some time. His name is Matthew Penwalla. Masquerading as humans slowed things down for us, but added spice to it. After all, I do have more time than he does.

After spending many hours together, it was clear that it was love. The villagers saw us together, deeply engrossed in one another. He was warned that nothing good could come of being with a woman who never ages. He didn't fear it. Time came when he left the land and entered the sea with me. I let his people know he was not drowned, but alive with me and our children.

When a ship anchored in front of the door to my home, I surfaced and stood on the water and called out to the ship captain

" Kind, sir, please lift your anchor and move. I can not get home to my husband, Matthew Penwalla, with your anchor in front of my door, please, my children are hungry and I must feed them."

I made sure that his people on land prospered. If ever danger came to this coast, together we would ring warning bells in the under sea church of drowned Lyonesse.

Gabriela: Thank you for that. I'm really moved by the songs, and the power of song in these stories, both of them. And really there are so many things here to nibble beautifully. They were both so wonderfully written and so rich. I think what strikes me more than anything is the beauty of magic and the beauty of hope. Especially in the first story, since I really connected with the princess and her gnosis, her awareness, and her commitment to life more than anything. That she was so committed to life that no matter what happened, she would be found. And she was. It was absolutely lovely. Both stories were absolutely lovely.

Betsy: Thank you.

Sea: Yes, they were very beautiful, and I love all the details and the richness. And the bells. I love the bells, and of course the water. And I have to admit that simultaneously, that I was so pulled into them. Like I felt like I was just in the story itself and swept away with the tide of the story. And so it was quite beautiful. And I wasn't following the structure as much as I was following the feeling. Does that make sense? So, I felt completely, not consumed by, but as if I was floating in it, which is a very, very beautiful thing for me. Thank you.

Betsy: Well, thank you.

Gabriela: I absolutely have to agree with Sea. The first one for me, especially, had the swept away feeling. I felt so swept away by it and really in it, in it in every aspect, every detail and, yeah, I'm still in it. I'm quite taken by all the magic of it and the water. Love the water.

Betsy: Thank you. For myself, I was just struck how one story initiated another story. And it gave me a different perspective on initiation than I previously had. So, for that I'm super grateful.

Sea: I mean this in the nicest way, so this is a good thing, I feel I have to say up front, but I felt like I was seeing two aspects or two perspectives on initiation that on one hand filled me with a sense of wonder and power, and on the other hand made me feel a little bit cross-eyed because I was trying to hold two visions as one. So, the feeling of it was very complete and very whole and very beautiful, and simultaneously the details became, not irrelevant... because they were so beautiful, so they were contributing to my lived experience, but they were not static or concrete in the way that details in a story usually are for me, because they were more contributing to my holistic experience, which held the two. I am one who loves to be lost in things and I often can't get into things in the way that I wish I could, and so I felt completely held by this double vision.

Gabriela: I feel that that's the power of the story, and the power of initiation. That we really don't know what's happening, sometimes for a long time. And the parallel and the connection, and even the changing of front or the changing of name, of this becomes that. The power of a place or the power of something, or someone, doesn't disappear, but can be absorbed into something else. And sometimes it's unknown what the underlying light or power is, but it remains and it's sustainable and it's eternal. So that's how I felt. Both these stories held that. They fed each other. One came from another, or maybe not. It was this eternal binding, this eternal flow, this eternal truth of something beautiful that would carry you forever. Did you enjoy these stories, Betsy? Did you enjoy being with these beautiful magical beings?

Betsy: Oh yes. They felt so different and yet they felt so entwined together too. I was really quite taken with the princess saints and, and just that single word from her goddess of "trust" and just go with it. Now she's a christian miracle and a christian saint in her lifetime

Gabriela: Which really did happen.

Betsy: And which apparently really did happen to her too. Yeah. I loved her discipline in her trust, also. Of how the mind can wander in a direction, but her discipline kept bringing it back. And that, especially that place she was in of praying without words, just praying straight from the soul that really touched me.

Gabriela: Those are probably the most powerful prayers because they reach gods of different languages, and spirits that maybe do not speak as we would speak.

Betsy: I think also, one of the other aspects of initiation that I loved was how the singing initiated her in some way and inspired her in the ways that were described, but also, that left her with that longing to be able to create that music that she heard. And and my sense of it was her devoting her life, not only to the intentions of her songs , but in trying to re- not even so much recapture, but to sing in that way, I find very moving and inspirational, also.

Gabriela: Honoring her lifeline.

Betsy: Yeah, well thank you.

Sea: Thank you.

Gabriela: Thank you for that story. Thank you. I suppose that means I should go next.

Sea: And Gabriela

Gabriela: my story of initiation is called Night Hound.

Every death is terrifying. But the birth is just as so, if not more. With birth you have to keep going. You have to emerge, while death can be a gift, the solution, like the last drop of sweet honey wine that lingers on your lips.

I am walking through complete darkness, unable to see a thing, feeling around me for pathways, my feet determining the firmness of ground underneath. Serpent like roots seem to be moving against my bare feet, tangling them and making it difficult to walk, but I must keep walking because this darkness is full of hunger, insatiable, terrible, and wanting my blood. I can hear and smell it's predatory longing reaching for my face.

The sky is empty of moon or stars. Perhaps it's not a sky at all. But a vast sea, a thick black matter, moving like a beast inside a beast, somewhere in the distance. I sense a change, a thinning of this black veil, and when I focus my eyes, I see a glimmer of the faintest light and head towards it as fast as the serpent roots beneath will allow, it is urgent that I get to the light. I do not know why, but I lean on what my deep heart is pushing me towards, or rather, out of.

Finally I arrive at an entrance into a mountain with steps leading underground and I slowly follow them down as the light that brought me here grows brighter, illuminating the stone walls, and I can make out the reddish stains and symbols, some still wet, as my hand glides on them to steady my descent down.

I know I'm not alone. On these...

Dragons Jan 20, 2021

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends, stories comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person, at times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go where the story takes us, and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical berries in training.

Sea: Welcome to the world of dragons.

Betsy: My story is the dragon of Provence.

Different worlds were created at the same time by the creator. No one world was more important or better than another. These worlds were not nesting one within another like Russian dolls, but were each equal to one another with one right next to the other. Between worlds were thin places where inhabitants from one world might find their way to cross through and enter another world, for their own reasons. There are many reasons to cross and all are dependent on what sort of person is entering into another world.

This state of affairs was not obvious to most inhabitants of the worlds. These inhabitants were in pursuit of their daily life, trying to make a living and succeeding at it, or not. Where once they may have lived in smaller groups or bands, over time each prominent species found their way, whether it was to live in a town or a city, or to become a single hunter.

Drak the Hunter was a sorcerer dragon in the dragon world, who considered himself to be at the top of the top. He had lived a very long time and realized that, though he never really needed to fear any greater predator because there wasn't one, his chief and only enemy was boredom.

At first he became a collector, as dragons are prone to do, and then he developed into a philosopher. Philosophy became his chief pursuit and he delved into the mysteries of every world he could enter, and they were many. He learned many languages and hoarded rare texts and artifacts. Without realizing it, he became a bit of an intellectual aesthete.

It may have transmitted to him partially through osmosis., because the thin place that allowed him to enter the human realm was located in a very beautiful part of France. Here, castles abounded, built on top of mountains and the Rhône river flowed fast and deep.

He found a cave under the river in the bottom of a mountain valley, and here he learned this river was the home of sorceress water fairies who claimed alliance with him and who felt themselves to be immune from his hunting. They convinced him that they were not to be eaten. He respected their wishes, not because their logic compelled him, but because they were the closest thing to being interesting that he had found for a long while.

He focused on hunting humans who were alone, and for more pleasure, he hunted in the marketplaces of various towns, where he concealed himself in visibility and waited for a strange child or a man relieving himself in an alley after a big meal and a lot of ale.

He had something of a soft spot for human women. In this region, the fairies made many amorous conquest, and he did not want to eat a hybrid fairy and human woman. When it was necessary from time to time to consort with his own kind, a mercifully rare event, he found himself becoming quickly irritated and desiring retreat. Not in defeat, but because of boredom. Over time he could think of no great reason to connect with another dragon because they were so tedious.

He lived this way for a long while growing, ever more precise and opinionated. In the spring of his world and those closest to his, a longing grew in him that was so unexpected. It made no sense to him for quite some time. Eventually the thought came to him in full clarity.

I want a child now.

To sire offspring required consorting with a lady dragon. Like any well set up intellectual bachelor, he began to make lists of the dragon Queens. He knew, and of their principle characteristics, which might be passed to their offspring. With this unromantic list in hand, he narrowed his choices and began his round of investigation designed as courtship.

The Balkan queen was rejected for her extremely robust, but very dark, humor. The English queen seemed very dull and without conversation. The Danish queen was too recently widowed to be interested. The Scottish queen was strong and fiery and steeped in Highland magic. He chose her.

She let him know that she had her own domain and would not be joining him in his, though a visit in a great while might be possible. He agreed, with relief and together they waited until the autumn to join each other and to mate.

Two eggs came from this union. One was taken back to Scotland by the queen. He took his egg to his cave under the river Rhône, where he would be a brood father, close to good hunting.

Months passed in this way. The dragon, Drak, studied, hunted, and meditated on what his offspring would be like. He hoped that it would have the invisibility powers that were part of his magical traits. The Highland magic was yet a mystery in how it would manifest.

In due course the egg showed signs that hatching time was near. Drak began a different kind of hunt. He went invisible and watched in the marketplace of the sunny village of B????. He saw a few women that met his needs. He stalked them all.

One felt his presence and was very afraid. Another felt him nearby but, though she looked over her shoulder, she did not scuttle home like the others. He decided on her. He drank in her scent so that he could find her anywhere and watch, waiting for his moment.

It came. She went to the river to wash clothes on the banks of the fast running Rhône. Her new baby, a tast, looking morsel, was in a basket on the bank, well away from the water's edge. Unseen, Drak was in the water, and he held a golden goblet glinting with gems, just out of her reach. The water fairies watched with interest. The bank was steep and a little treacherous. She reached out towards the shining cup. It seemed to move a little farther away. She braced herself and stretched her arm even farther and overbalanced and went right into the water. Her last image in her mind before she fainted in fright was of her crying baby and the family's clothes left on the river bank. The Rhône engulfed her.

She woke to find herself dripping wet and in a crystal cave, with a pair of large emerald eyes watching her. Shuddering and fright, she saw they belonged to an enormous scaly bronze colored dragon. The glimmering cup was there between them.

Her panic increased, and she nearly fainted again. A palpable energy emanated from those emerald eyes and she found her panic subsiding. She watched as her memories of her family, her sun splashed village, and her whitewashed house began to fade and disappear like scattered dreams in the light of dawn.

She heard the voice of Drak in her head, humming and soothing her. He just turned to an egg, enthroned on a pile of velvet cushions. His humming song, his emerald eyes, and the glinting watery light of the crystal cave all were lulling her into a sense of calmness, and somehow of purpose. He wove the emotions and love that he found within her for her baby, and drew them to the egg with his intentions. With his voice and eyes and the heat spiraling from his body he wove a spell that touched her heart and mind and bound her to the egg.,the leathery looking oblong egg, which was rocking back and forth, back and forth, hatching.

When the little and fragile dragon emerged from the broken shell, Drak felt the most enormous love. The dragonling was iridescent and mewling. Drak gestured to the woman and she obeyed his unspoken command to pick up and cuddle the dragon. The voice of the dragonling had its own power over her. She bared her breast and began to nurse her new child.

Gabriela: Betsy, that was absolutely lovely. Thank you so much.

Sea: Yeah, that was very fun.

Betsy: Thank you. A very well-known dragon in his region of Provence. Sometimes shows up as a female.

Gabriela: See, would you like to share your story? Your dragon story?

Sea: Sure, thank you.

I just really need to pee. I'm curled up, guarding my hoard for nigh on to an eon without a scheduled potty break. Gerdy, my compliment, is held up on the other side. Some liminals are exhibiting bad behavior in an attempt to protest the passing of time, just as some carnates are protesting the agreements that deter them from tearing down our magical forest to build a community of mud houses.

I know she'll be here as soon as she can, but I am getting a little anxious. It's several miles to the protected glacier nearby. Exhibitionism is not my thing, as it were.

I usually enjoy my incarnate shifts, after all I just lay about and watch for requesters then administer the appropriate tests. Are they courageous? Are they cunning? Are they chivalrous? Then I set up a scenario in which their failings are teachings, and they get another chance, up to a point.Some succeed and are called heroes. A few, as few as I can manage, need a little bit more time. They're called bad examples, a kind of martyr, if you will. After their failed tests, they go through a magical initiation process, much like an enchanted version of your baptism, and spend a millennia or so in a liminal form, taking on challenges and lessons to ensure their successful completion of the questing process.

It was not permanent of course. Nothing is,hence all the protesting. Eventually the initiates are returned to their current forms, though, by that time they find themselves many generations further up the branches of their family trees.

So here I am, legs crossed thinking dry thoughts and hoping for a swift, peaceful resolution on the other side. I'm asking the wind to let Gerdy know that I'd really like to see her sooner rather than later, when the knight comes crashing through the trees. He is wearing silver armor and jewels and stands with a dignity he could not possibly have earned. He thinks he's here to prove something. I know he's here to learn something. No one approaches like this and goes away the same.

He leaps from his horse, loosens his spear, and charges at me without so much as a hello. Clearly, he is an eldest son, and I am in no mood. I don't want to get up until I can make it to the glacier. So I tightened my thighs and bat him away with my wings, sending him flying into his horse.

This is intentional. Horses are soft compared to rocks and trees, which are his other options. The horse turns to offer a soft belly, then neighs. The knight bounces to a stop before leaping up and charging at me again. I find the faster they charg, the slower they learn. I spit a little well-named fire at him, just enough to melt the sword and scorched the beautiful sheen off his armor. I'm hoping it will distract him and he'll spend a moment or two buffing it out, but no.

He attempts to bellow "Die, you beast!" Even he knows the effect is lessened by his coughing as he fans away the smoke.

He puffs himself up to almost a sisteenth of my size and strikes a dramatic pose. I look around searching for a beast.

"Me?" I asked pointedly, trying to feign my usual easygoing nature while the pressure rises in my bladder and I put out another, more urgent, call to Gerdy.

At that he looks around, suspecting that it came from elsewhere. On second thought he may be a middle son.

"Me?" I say again, more assertively this time, pointing at my chest to help him reconcile. "Did you call me a beast after you eschewed all social niceties and greeted me with a charge?"

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" he thoughtfully replied, retrieving a spear from his horse and heaving it at me. I like the horse. Maybe she'll help with the training.

I deflect again, this time with my tail, but the movement threatens leakage. Thankfully, I feel Gerdy just on the other side of the scribe.

"One moment" I say "I believe we can come to an arrangement. I invite you to look at my hoard. Window shop for your future boon, while I excuse myself for a moment. My colleague will arrive promptly to assist you. Agreed?"

"I shall reign down upon you as an eternal blight, foul demon!" he passionately replies.

My brain reels. So many places to go. By foul, is he making a speciesist reference to my wings? To the domesticated airborne lines of my extended family? And demon? Is the rustic youth honoring me as the inter realm creature that I am, or inferring the vilified representation of the christian god shadow? Is blight meant as an allusion to the magical forest creeping invasion of suburbia?

But the word that wraps my attention, breaking through the confusion, is rain. I leap from my seated position directly into the air, desperately clenching my pelvic muscles as I begin not so subtly spewing a torrent of bodily fluids directly into the misguided and inadvertent initiates.

I shall not share the details of this unfortunate event again, suffice to say that now Gerdy and I have a new charge. He is doing well in that he lives and breathes, but he is not yet what one would call teachable. He will be in time. They all are. Look for him in about two thousand years.

Betsy: I love the Dragon's point of view, thank you.

Gabriela: I would love to be friends with this dragon. I believe I would be friends with this dragon.

Betsy: And now, your dragon story, Gabriela.

Gabriela: I'd be delighted to share it.

Some people will claim that the sharing of the story I am about to tell you is forbidden. I am breaking all kinds of oaths by speaking some of the names and secrets that were kept for so long. Knowing all this, I must tell the story, for it as a story of where I came from, of my people and of a great power that still binds many destinies together to this day.

My name is Darisi and I was born in a small fishing village on the coast of the Black Sea, in a land which was then called Thracia. I never knew my mother, for she died bringing me into this world and my father never forgave me for it.

He was a blacksmith. The best in the village, from what I was told, but that was long before I was born. He had lost all hope for work and life after my mother's death and was in no condition to care for a child. I was raised by my grandmother who was a stern and superstitious woman, but did her duty and raising me the best she could.

She, just like my father, never spoke of my mother. Only to say when I grew a little older that I looked just like her and that my eyes shined with the same strange golden fire. When she spoke of this it was not with admiration, but with a sense of dread. I could tell she did not care for my mother or for my amber colored eyes.

Some people said that my mother was a sorceress from a far away land, who'd be witched my father so she could become pregnant and have a child. Other say that when she came to our village she was already with child, seduced my father and made him believe that I was his. I still don't know which was true, but I always felt deep in my bones that my mother came with a great magical power. This great power and magic also lived in me and what I dreamed at night. I could hear a voice calling me from across the land. Comforting me, telling me to wait, telling me that somebody was coming for me, somebody great.

A few days before my ninth birthday, a strange traveling woman came to our village. I knew the moment I saw her that my life was about to be forever changed. She demanded to speak to my family, and after a short deliberation, my grandmother shared with me the news of my fate. She seemed relieved to tell me that I would go away to live with my mother's people, far from here. I didn't resist or cry, even though I was leaving the only home I've ever known. I heard my father's heavy sobs in the next room as the strange woman wrapped her cloak over me and led me out. He didn't come out to say goodbye. And I have not thought about this until just now, remembering that day.

The woman who came to claim me was Zaskia. And she was the oldest of the dragon priestesses, sacred fire keepers from S.,as my people called it, or middle mountain. My mother was also a fire keeper of this order. Her name was Kaya and she was the first oathbreaker of our sacred ways, but her reasons for doing it were more important than the oath itself.

Zaskia shared with me the story of and the nine fires. The story was the most forbidden to share because it's also the one that is true. For thousands of years are people worship the night skies and the stars, long before they knew that some of those stars were dragons. They built blazing fires on top of mountains and on sea shores, to announce to the great ones above that they were paying attention, looking for signs, and interpreting them accordingly.

One day, one of the younger star dragons felt a great curiosity for the earth and dove down to meet the ground for the first time. This dragon was the youngest daughter of an ancient and powerful dragon who came into being long before people did. The dragon child was found by a young peasant woman who was sleeping at the edge of the forest nearby when she heard a strange piercing scream. She came upon the dragon in the field by the forest, and knew right away that she was destined to either die in that moment or become somebody new altogether, somebody great.

She cared for the dragon child and fed her, even though her arms would blister from the fire the dragon breathed and her lungs would be thick with smoke. She knew she had to do it, for the dragon child was not able to care for itself on earth and would perish in this unknown world. She also knew that she had to hide the dragon, for if found, it would be bound and enslaved for its great power, so she led it to a cave to keep her safe.

Azdaha, the young ones mother, watched from above. She was surprised to see a human risk her life to care for one of her own, and she decided she would reward the human in gratitude. She offered the peasant woman the gift of the nine fires. This was no small gift, and even though it was a great blessing never before offered to a human, there had to be an exchange in order to contain the gift without destroying the receiver.

The nine fires needed nine hosts. Nine women who would commit to this honor entirely for as long as they lived. These fires also came with other gifts and strengths, like a very long life, health, abundance, and great luck, and as long as they were used for good and shared with others in balance, they could keep them.

The peasant woman, and first carrier of the fire, was the same woman who has come for me, and the woman who initiated my mother into the priesthood. By the time she came to find me, she was over one thousand years old. As the first, she held the fire of lineage and had the power to find and...

Spinning Jan 13, 2021

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends. Stories comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person. At times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end we go where the story takes us, and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Gabriela: Today, we will be sharing stories about spinning. The magic of spinning, the goddesses of spinning, and how threads come together. How connections come together. So, we invite the blessed spinners to be with us today. The blessing threads, the connections, the wisdom, of those threads and everything in between. And we invite saga.

My story is called The Dream Thread.

My younger sister Kasia was lagging behind as usual. Her short, chubby legs made very little effort to keep up, but stumbled clumsily down the hill towards the river where I was heading, carrying a basket of clothes for washing.

I didn't mind this chore at all. I enjoy the walk through the village and down the big white hill and the river was always pleasant, at least into spring and summer seasons. If it wasn't for Kasia slowing me down, I would be done with the washing in half the time and could spend the rest of the afternoon stretched out by the river, daydreaming while listening to the breeze and soothing flow of fast moving water.

I wish mother would let me come here by myself once in a while, without Kasia. I don't see why she couldn't stay home with mother and learn how to make herself useful. I couldn't help but resent her at times, and how much she got away with, or rather how little. By the time I was six, I knew how to sweep the kitchen and front porch, feed the chickens, prepare and trim fresh herbs for supper, and mix the flour for baking.

For Kasia, a very different set of rules was in place. But then again, there was a reason for that. The year Kasia was born was a really difficult one for our family, and nothing seemed the same since. Everything was threaded with a tinge of sadness.

It was the year that Granny died suddenly and without any warning. We had no time to prepare and barely got to say goodbye. My mother, eight months pregnant, fell into a deep sorrow and barely survived the labor, which came a moon too early and caused great stress to her body and soul. The midwife and a couple of other older women from our village came to our cottage and stayed for nights, tending to my mother. Heating water, preparing herbs, teas, and washes, and saying prayers, whispering under their breath and exchanging concerned glances.

My mother, delirious, cried out for Granny, whose hands delivered me into the world, but sadly not this new child that was arriving. The women had to remind her gently over and over that her mother was gone, but they would stay with her and would take care of her and the baby, and everything would be alright.

I was a little over three years old, but I remember those few days so vividly. I didn't understand fully what was happening, but I could feel the severity of each moment that stretched painfully, and it was filled with my mother's moans at a pitch I have never heard before. My father paced outside on the porch, distant and cold with worry, unable to provide me with any solace at all. At times like these, Granny would be the one who held her apron open to receive me with an embrace, or a corner of a soft handkerchief to wipe my tears with. Granny was the only person who could have made this moment bearable for me, and she was gone.

Craving her warmth and security, I crawled into bed with her favorite shawl wrapped around me. The gentle smell of lavender and honey clung to the cloth and soothed my spirit. My hand traced the raised patterns of flowers, so lovingly embroidered by Granny's hand. Almost as if she was holding my small hand in her own through the threads and textures, comforting me still, just like she always did, and as my tired eyes closed and the scent of lavender guided me into sleep, I remembered Granny's words, which she shared with me not long before she died:

"You are the strong thread in the family, my Anushka, you must help your mother, and your sister when she comes, so they stay alive. You must keep their spirits strong so they are not pulled to the other world that calls for me soon now. I wish I had more time to teach you all the things you almost already know."

I remember hearing her words, and other words and images throughout the night as I drifted in and out of sleep. I was awakened by a rising sound of women's voices, and through my grogginess, it seemed like more than three women were in the room. It sounded like a dozen chanting voices rose higher and higher to a crescendo of a single powerful plea, which was followed by a silence, an openness of space and time.

And then I heard the midwife say with great relief "It's a girl, thank you Goddess, she is alive."

And a raspy, tired, but defiant cry filled the cottage. That was the night. My sister Kasia was born. Small and fragile, but eager to fight and stay alive. Mother, also weak and fragile, with a little less eagerness for life, needed a lot more help and protection, as women often did after giving birth.

The first year of Kasia's life and that of my mother's was certainly a year of in between. With death and despair looming in the doorway of her cottage, Zotia, the village wise woman, came by a couple of times a week to check on us, to prepare milk producing herbs for my mother, to talk with her, and to sit with my baby sister.

I watched closely under the kitchen table, peering through the embroidered birds on the lace tablecloth.

"I see you, Anushka. I see you. Come help me grind these blessed thistle herbs. Say a prayer over them. It will make them work better. There you go." she coached me gently, guiding my small hand over the bowl, the herbs responding to our combined efforts, a strong smell of the plant rising into the air.

"See your sister grow plump and strong and your mother healed from sorrow." she said, while swirling the herbs around and around. I enjoyed this time with the old woman, for she reminded me of Granny and made my missing her a little lighter.

Kasia and my mother made it through the year. Once introduced to food and fresh pastry so lovingly baked by the village women and my mother, once she got stronger, little Kasia ate and ate and ate like she could never get enough. Her small body filling in fast, her hands and legs plump with rolls and her once pale cheeks became pink, like summer apples.

As I look at her now watching me ring out and fold the damp clothes, her big sweet eyes gazing into mine with such a calm content stillness, my heart melts, as all my previous resentments of her always wanting to be near me and slowing me down. I am so happy that she came into the world, my world and has fought so hard to stay in it, and now is so fully alive and present.

"You are doing it again, Anya, you are looking past me. It's like you are asleep, but awake at the same time." she exclaimed gladly.

And she was right. I was so easily lost in the moments of memory, fragments of time, that deepened fully into my recalling every detail, sound, and texture. So vibrantly alive again. I stopped the folding and used a corner of my apron to wipe the powdered sugar from her lips, leftover from the soft roll she'd enjoyed on the way to the river. She squirms a little, but doesn't resist, trusting me to make her face look a little more presentable.

With the folding done and the sun still high in the sky, we head back. Kasia runs ahead when I remind her about the fried potato cakes mother would make for us when we get home.

Our house is the farthest from the river at the edge of the village, and closest to the woods. Whitewashed walls, ornately painted window sills, like eyes looking out into the surroundings, and crisp embroidered curtains in the windows. As always, our mothers face peering through the curtains to watch for us coming down the path as we usually would midday. Inside smells like baked bread, spices, and freshly peeled potatoes.

"I'm hungry, Mama" Kasia announces loudly, breathlessly, as she runs into the kitchen and immediately wraps herself around her mother's waist, like sticky dough.

" Go and help her sister hang up the clothes outside while the sun is still up." mother says, and by helping, she means for Kasia to leave her alone and not cling to her so she can get the cooking done in peace.

Sighing heavily, Kasia follows me out into the yard where the drying ropes were strung. Carefully, I lift each shirt, apron, and tablecloth out of the basket and fold and pin it to the stretched line, smoothing out the wrinkles, straightening out the colors and trims so they would dry flat. The sun so graciously dancing on the red, black, yellow, and white linen threads illuminating the birds trees and women figures with hands up or down that were sewn into the borders and hems of the fabric, like stories of our lives and our family, threaded with the linen spun by our Granny and embroidered by her, and her mother before that. The love and care of their fine stitching, still crips after all these years.

"Anya, Mama is calling" I am reminded by Kasia as she tugs at my skirt. I must've drifted off again, gotten lost in the shapes and memories of birds and flowers that were being kissed by the late afternoon sun.

Later that evening, after supper, I watch my mother embroider a new handkerchief for Kasia. I notice how thin the embroidery motifs are, how much space was left open between the patterns my mother was creating. I couldn't help but compare how full and intricate the patterns were on some of our older tapestries and shirts.

"Why are the flowers so small, Mama?" I inquired.

"So I use less thread, Anya." she said, and added as she saw my confusion, "Your granny was the spinner of our family, she blessed the flax and spun it into thread so we could embroider with it. Since she died, no new thread has been spun."

" What happens when the thread ends?" I asked mother, pointing at Granny's spinning wheel and the staff that stood, sad and abandoned, in the corner by the window.

"I don't know. It's never happened before." she replied sadly, her eyes reddening with tears a little. "We have never been without the family thread. We must make the leftover batch last a very long time, until you are a little older and can learn to spin. It would have been your Granny who was supposed to teach you, but maybe when the wise woman Zotia has some time she can show you. In a year or two. She knows the way."

" Why can't you teach me Mama?"

" Because I am of childbearing age. Too much interference and daily concern would cloud my vision and disturb our fate if I tried to spin, as your Granny would say." She smiled softly and touched my cheek, seeing the sadness in my eyes. As I thought about her last words, she said, "This is nothing for you to worry about. You are too young to think about such things"

Only I wasn't too young. I was always thinking about such things. Ever since Granny told me I was the strong thread in the family and had to keep things together. I was always observing, paying attention, looking between moments that seem to open up for me more and more as I've gotten older. I didn't know what she really meant by that.,But today Granny's words seemed to come into sharper focus. For me, thread was very important, and our family was running out of it.

I laid awake late into the night. Long after mama and Papa went to bed. With little Kasia snoring peacefully next to me, I couldn't help but think how sparse the threads were on the hems of her clothing now. Before they were so rich and full, thick with story. Now, like sad shadows of our colorful past.

I had to do something. I didn't know what exactly, but the situation, it felt so heavy. I crept out of bed and went into the main room where the spinning wheel and distaff were. The Distaff, wrapped in a white cloth and red ribbon, stood tallest at the side of the wheel, almost like a person. A few loose strands of flax exposed on the bottom. Nobody has touched the distaff or the wheel since Granny's death. I remember the wise woman Zotia who attended her death, covering the distaff with great care after Granny's body our her home, her wrinkled hands making careful knots over the cloth containing our family treasure.

Remembering this moment so vividly makes me nervous now to stand so close to the spinning wheel, which seems to be taking on a new life in the moonlight. The strands of flax moving gently as I breathed in and out. Hypnotized, I reach out to touch the distaff, to feel the ribbon and the bulky flax bundle underneath.

As my fingers barely glide over the bundle.,the distaff jumps off its hinge and to my bewilderment ends up in my arms. Instantly I'm flooded with emotions, memories, and visions, so strong that my head spins and I'm forced to sit down. Birds flowers, trees, intricate patterns and reds and whites whirl before my eyes, coming together and growing apart into bigger swirls and movements. I see rolling hills, our forest and river coming out of the shapes and colors, all so alive. I had to keep my eyes closed to stay on the ground, and stay on the ground to let them all settle.

After some time I opened my eyes slowly. The visions fading a little, but still feeling dizzy. I dragged myself to bed and crawl under the covers, the distaff still in my arms. I fall asleep right away.

I thought I heard the sound of the wheel spinning in the next room, it's rhythm taking me deeper and deeper into the dreamland summoned earlier at the wheel. In the dream I was sitting at the wheel, distaff in hand with my own hands gently pulling the strands of the thick flax bundle into a single thread, strong, smooth, and just the right thickness. Glistening with the magic of hope and possibility. I couldn't believe that I was spinning and it was so easy. Then I remembered, I didn't know how to spin and that I was only dreaming.

And that's when I heard the voice of a woman and she said "Just keep going , Anya, just breathe and keep going. Nothing to think about here. Just open to the flow of the dream. This is what spinning is. Remembering and dreaming. I will guide your hand, just like I guided the hand of your grandmother and her grandmother before her."

I didn't know who this woman was, but surely she knew me, and her voice was the most beautiful, comforting sound I've ever heard, and I trusted her without abandon.

I didn't see her exactly, but for a glimpse here and there of a long braided hair like golden wheat, eyes as light as the summer sky. The hem of her dress red like blood and ripe berries, and she was everywhere. She was as big as our cottage, even bigger. Stretched up to the sky, with fine spider thin threads of light, moving all around her and connecting them all into a living tapestry.

In this tapestry I saw Granny, and I saw myself too, and the Kasia and mama. We were all together, woven into breathing lines and symbols. And she spoke to me through these symbols, moments and textures. She spoke to me in the first language, the language of the goddess.

This was the first time Mokosh came to me in a dream. The first, but certainly not the last, for the goddess holds her daughters, mothers, sisters, and grandmothers in a tapestry together. Always helping them find each other, always strengthening the bonds and threads between them and I, as my grandmother told me, was one of these threads, and I would pick up the distaff at waking time tomorrow and take up my place behind the spinning wheel.

The, end for now.

Sea: Very beautiful. Thank you so much. I loved it.

Betsy: What was it like for you to do this story, as it was unfolding?

Gabriela: It was really nice. It was really... it was really comforting. It was easy. And it certainly took me to a time that I long for it. Being in the present time and being so much in that present would capture the past and the future at the same time, through hope and memory, and just embroidery itself, and especially folk embroideries as families would do. Each their own motif, or one that was familiar to them, is such a sacred place for the divine. And especially for the goddess. And I do feel like there is this hidden language of the continuity of that love and that protection and embellishment of what we wear, whether it's something that's for a special occasion, or for daily wear like an apron. And within that, the secret is contained, and that language is contained and, it's a safe place for it because people will not really take it apart or look at it as an old way. Because it's just temporary, but there is so much there. And I know that there are lots of studies done about this by scholars. You know, that the goddess, there's really little written about the goddess, but she's everywhere. She's in the textiles. She never left. And women contained her and kept her spirit alive, and I feel like she guided them.

Betsy: I was going to say, and possibly the women were kept alive, not just alive alive, but alive in their souls. Work that could become drudgery becomes something that you've put something inspirational into that has that connection to her. That's what I've found really beautiful in your story.

Gabriela: It was a very, very fun story to be in.

Betsy: Feels like you were really in it as you wrote it too. That definitely comes across.

Gabriela: Thank you. I could feel a deep love for all of the characters and perhaps it's a call to you to embroider, too. That call has been coming. It certainly has. So I think now that I'm saying it out into the world, I'll have to do it, but I want to do it. I want to do it. Though I'm much more like Kasia, wanting the buns and the cakes.

Betsy: I think we do want those things until we feel the touch of the divine. And then we're gently nudged into another pathway, or an inclusive pathway, including the cakes and the buns...Were you going to say something, Sea?

Sea: Oh, that same thing. Why choose.... Why choose? Cakes, buns, and embroidery. It threw me back to my grandmother, so my grandmother did all that. And I remember being so humiliated actually, because we were to take home our PE uniform in the sixth grade and to have our name put on them, and everybody else wrote their name on their PE uniform in marker and my grandmother and embroidered mine. It just felt so strange.

Gabriela: I had the same grandmother. She taught herself to... so at nine her parents bought her a sewing machine. They couldn't figure out how to use it, and she, one day when they...

Wolf Mothers Jan 06, 2021

Sea: Welcome to Saga craft. Myths, fairytales, legends. Stories comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person, at times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go where the story takes us, and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Gabriela: Tonight, we will be honoring the wolf mother, and mother wolf, and the liminal spaces that bring her into being, into our lives. We ask for her blessing, for connection to her, and we ask for the blessing of Saga as well.

Betsy: Do you want me to go first? Okay. My story, Wolf Mother, takes place in what's now Britain, a long time ago.

Struggling to keep her horse moving forward through the densely falling snow. Wenna tried to remember the story that her two days old husband had told her on their wedding day. She kept one arm wrapped around the limp figure of his sister, one ear cocked to the rising howl of the wind, listening for another sound. The light was fading and all landmarks were disappearing in the snow. She had a good sense of direction and kept her horse moving northward, as instructed.

She thought back to their wedding day, with its haste, and the story that her husband Bran had shared with her in their nuptial privacy. He'd spent his precious few hours of leave from the battlefront impressing upon her the importance of his clan's story, and delaying the inevitable bedding ceremony. It was a time of war and her young husband a battle hardened commander. Marrying for convenience and the getting of an heir on a royal woman meant that meeting, contracting, and marrying all happened in one long confusing day.

Listening intently to the story he was telling, while nervously anticipating the intimacy to follow, had caused Bran to clasp her forearm and say "Focus please, Wenna" to her, much as he would to a raw recruit. He continued telling her the story of the king wolf and the elder queen wolf, stressing that he and his sister Alene were children of the old queen.

Clan stories were sacred, and while some parts of them were known by the general public, others were kept secret by the initiated descendants. She knew the horse stories inside and out, and the importance, so she had pushed her worries back and focused on the story and how it fit together. Bran's voice, low and steady, the calm look in his eyes as he shared the story, and the words themselves had soon woven their magic. The complex story of rival wolf clans, kept secret in this level of detail, revealed the deeper origins of the war that had been going on for a decade.

Bran was asking her, as his wife and now clan partner, to keep his sister safe, for her importance to the clan of the wolf queen.

"It's through her, that our clan will prosper and her child could be the next queen of the land."

Well, she could say the same thing. She was also a daughter from a royal lineage. Kings were not determined by the male line, but by the female line. The wolf king wanted to change all that by either taking Aline as his wife, or killing her. Bran wanted Wenna to protect Aline and herself at all costs.

When asked if she had any questions, she pondered for a moment, and then I asked evenly "Haven't you just endangered me now, as well as your sister, by linking us together? The wolf king could kill us both, or take us both and become that much closer to the Throne of Arn."

Bran hesitated and said "There is a prophecy of the wolf and the horse uniting. It's ambiguous, and yet precise. Through marriage do the two queens of the land hold back the grip of the king wolf, and draw him into their snare to face his death. Under the wolf moon in the shoe of the great horse, the daughters stand for the land and wolves decide by the death right. I will provide the snare, and his death to follow."

"And are we the bait? Are you so sure? And why me as a wife, because I'm a daughter of Epona the horse?"

"You and Aline both are the agents of the wolf king's demise. I'll help with that. You play a vital role in keeping the land secure from him and his ravages. And Wenna, I desired marriage with you because of your reputation for cleverness, competency, and courage, all in the guise of a quiet and thoughtful young woman. I saw at once that what is said of your character is true. You have strength and loyalty in every fiber of your being. And you're said to be skilled in arms. Remember, I'll help with this. The Wolf is three months away. Keep training, keep quiet because we do not know who spies may be, and keep close to Aline."

"Does she know all of this?"

Yes, she's ready for her part. I wish I could say that I'm sorry to draw you into this, but your fate was determined long before. What I can do is care for you as a wife, my wife, and lend you my strength. When I saw you I knew that my heart could be yours. Let me show you that, come, wife."

He departed the next dawn and that was the last she had seen of him. Word came from time to time accompanied by small gifts, all of these gifts she had on her person, sewn into her clothing as talismans.

She heard the sound she'd been dreading. The long eerie howl, followed by yips and more howling. The wolves were on her trail, but were they the right wolves? She knew she had a difficult journey ahead in the snow before she reached the Horseshoe Canyon, where the horse clan rights were held. She breathed in deeply and called out to her horse grandmothers, seeing Epona in her mind and asking for strength for her and her horse Cloud, and Aline.

Aline stirred in her arms and said "I've been dreaming, and now I see the mother is coming. She's great in her power under this moon. And she's coming."

Wenna felt additional chills at these words." Is that a good thing or a bad thing, Aline?"

"I don't know, just that she's coming and it will all unfold."

"Is your brother there in the canyon, do you think? He will have had to be guided by my clan to get there."

"They guide him because of you." Aline said simply.

Wenna's horse moved steadily through the snow storm. She guided it by feel an inner knowledge of the canyon's presence drawing her. An increasing sense of disorientation was happening. She began to hear snatches of words and sentences, some threatening, some encouraging, and shrill laughter. She heard the wolves again, closer now, and pushed her horse forward.

She knew this trail by heart but was so confused by the shapes from the snow, by the disturbing voices and even more disturbing howls of the stalking wolves, that she found it impossible to gauge exactly where they were.Alene was effected in her own way. Seeing, rather than hearing ,the pursuers in her mind's eye, she kept a running commentary going that Wenna could barely hear, but did not find encouraging. She shivered continually.

Wenna was looking from side to side as she brushed accumulated snow off of their cloaks and the shoulders and head of her horse. It's dapple gray markings caused it to disappear in the luminous half flight of the snowstorm, leaving the girls to look like apparitions floating through the snow. She shook off that thought and redoubled her attention.

"Focus." she could hear Bran saying

"Oh, please be there, Bran.." she prayed.

She did not let her mind worry about whether this was the right thing, or even sane thing, to do. She was well past that, and there was nothing to do now except keep moving forward.

She was surprised when Aline clutched her arm and said "She's there. Ahead of us."

Something with wide spaced blue eyes was on the path ahead. The figure, untouched by the snow, wavered between that of the tall white haired woman and enormous silver white wolf.

Satisfied that it had the attention of both girls, in wolf form. It turned from the main trail and veered off, turning back once to look at them and then moving on.

"We should follow her" said Aline

"We could get very lost." said Wenna

"I think we've been found, and it's likely this isn't the horse canyon anymore."

"What do you mean?" Wenna said sharply poised at the wolf's trail.

" I think we're in the other world now. We must follow her. She leads us to where we need to be."

Over the months they'd spent together, waiting for the wolf moon, Aline had proved to be resourceful, practical, and kind, with strong gifts of seeing which she tried to hide. Much of that seeing came in dreams, but sometimes in waking visions. She was surprisingly stubborn as well, for all her dreamy ways.

"Keep us moving, Wenna, we can't lose her now."

" Oh goddess Epona, oh, grandmother, show me, help me with what is right."

She turned the horse, picking her way among the snow shrouded vegetation. The wolf hadn't left footsteps, but there was a sort of shine that marked the passage of the wolf. If she didn't think about it much, she could see the path or a few meters ahead.

The howling came closer and the wind picked up the added intensity had them both hunched over Cloud. Her praying intensified, wordless now, just entreaty from her soul. Not for her own safety, but for success in bearing out what she had to do.

A little further on, she heard the sound of horse's hooves flanking them on the right,and now the wolves sounded a little further away. A big mountain face loomed ahead. Wenna knew they must be in the other world because no such space existed in the terrain of the horse. She looked ahead and tried to see definition in the swirling snow and half light. It looked even more like an actual face with a mouth gaping open.

Aline, pointing to the mouth said "Head there. It's a cave."

As they approached the mouth, Wenna saw that they would need to dismount to enter the cave. She glimpsed eerie white figures, indistinct but tall, around her. All of them bowed slightly to the snow covered trio. Despite the wind pulling and pushing simultaneously at them with it's skirling wail, Wenna felt that they were moving towards a place of calmness. Sliding off the horse and keeping a distance from the indistinct figures, Wenna and Aline entered the cave, leading cloud behind. It was quiet in here and large enough to allow the horse to shelter from the storm. Another opening was apparent at the back of this chamber.

Taking moments of precious time, for the sense of moving towards her fate was growing stronger by the minute, Wenna hesitated to pull off Cloud's saddles, but contended herself in giving some oats to the horse from her pocket and rubbing the inch or two of snow from the bulk of the horse.

"I'll be back." she wispered

"Ready?" said Aline

Together they entered the second cavern through the tall narrow passageway. This cave was dimly lit by glowing mushrooms scattered along the sidewalls. Ochre and black paintings were on the walls, depicting wolves, and partial wolf and humans, and humans.

Aline clutched her again. "We're in the cave of the mother. I've dreamt this."

"What happens next?"

"We meet her."

They could smell wood smoke and something herbal in the air. It was a fresh, not stale, odor. They moved towards the second doorway, this one lower and wider. Stepping through required hunching over, but they emerged into a more or less circular room with a fire burning in the center. At the fire was the white haired woman, dressed in gray with necklaces of wool's teeth and amber, wrapped in fur, watching them with eerie blue eyes. Wenna noticed another smell, that of wet dogs. No, wet wolves. She could see two wolves flanking this woman, but laying on their sides near the fire.

"Come closer." said the woman, her light eyes compelling them.

Alene moved forward and gracefully bowed a full courtly gesture.

"Daughter," said the woman "sit here."

She indicated a place by one of the wolves,who seemed to be dreaming.

"Mother of my granddaughter." She said to Wenna

Wenna put her hands to her womb in surprise, a gesture that revealed its truth.

"Sit here." She pointed to the open place by the other wolf. "A battle happens now and we must guide it. Take off your wet cloaks and wrap these around you."

She handed them huge furs, which surely must be those of the near mythical dire wolves.

"We'll be here for a long while. Drink this." She handed them earthen mugs of some herbal drink.

Wenna found herself drinking without comment. What they were doing seemed like the only thing that could be done. And in a dreamlike compliance, she wrapped the rug around herself, seeing that there was enough of it to cover the dreaming wolf as well.

" Close your eyes and link with us." said the woman

She found herself in an eerie landscape. Alike, but different from the snowy place she and Alene had been traveling in. Here, the sound of the wind was gone. The snow continued to fall and four women stood waiting for her to get her bearings. One being Aline, and the other the wolf mother. They moved quickly through the landscape, followed by the ghostly figures of wolves, with all their many colors. Doomed.

They were back on the trail, moving fast, leading to the Horseshoe Canyon. They could see many footprints in the trampled snow, of horse, men and wolves. Next they saw blood on the snow, which glowed with shocking vibrancy in the dim landscape.

"Call your people." the wolf mother commanded

Wenna opened her arms to the sky and wind filled her lungs and she trumpeted like a mare in battle.

Behind her she could feel the pressure of the turn of the fast moving herd of spirit horses, changing directions and trumpeting back to her. The horses began to circle around. The dark wolves ringed around, and harrying, the men and women in those shield formation who had been backed up against the Horseshoe Canyon wall from deeper in the Canyon. The actual horses came, led by an old and feral mare with one remaining eye and a huge star blaze over her heart.

"Mother!" cried Wenna

The mare gave her a transmission of so much emotion and information that Wenna nearly fell under the weight of it, then as the power and strength of the transmission took hold, Wenna felt and saw what the mare did. That this battle, now raging between dark wolves and horse, white spirit wolves and foreign men, and foreign men and her people, was happening in more realms than merely mortal, and it would be a defining battle for the outcome of humans and the other world. She also saw two radiant spirit roads, white horse and white Wolf, converging into a node of power.

She saw Bran at the center of the battle and focused all of her strength to him, for making its way to him was a figure that flashed from wolf to man and back, and who was huge in both aspects. Bran was well aware of him and also somehow of her, for his center, a shaft of love and steadiness that shone like a god ray and reached to her heart.

"I carry your wolf." she told him.

This struck him like lightning, and he seemed to double in size. As he moved forwards to face the dark wolf, he moved fast, blades flashing, clearing a path to him, the wolf, and keeping him always in his line of view. He fought with two swords, which she prayed would be enough against the teeth and sword of the wolf shifter. He fought with a fury that she knew was exaltation and not battle haze.

Aline's power merged with hers, and they merged with the mare and with the white wolf mother. The spirit wolves were held by the two other wolf women who kept the dark pack at bay, not letting them join their master.

That was the last clear image that went ahead before she found herself coming to a reluctant consciousness in the cave. The last impression that she had had was of a blood covered Bran slicing off the head of the shape-shifting wolf. The head itself was a Wolf when separating from the body, but landed as that of a man with a snarl still on his face. Her last memory was the stench of battle.

She woke in the cave, smelling herbs, fur and smoke. Awakened by the inadvertent kick of the near wolf as it rolled to get up from under the dire wolf pelt. It nudged her with it's nose and whined. She got up muzzily and saw the fire needed tending. The wolf let her know through mind images that heating up a different tea would be restorative for them all.

When it was made she awakened the wolf mother, who first clasped her in her arms with a blessing, and then took the offered cup. Alene simply put out her arms for help into a sitting position and wept softly into her tea. The two wolves drank thirstily from a big earthen bowl .

Aline pointed to the wall behind Wenna. Gazing slowly around the cave, Wenna saw that the entire battle was freshly depicted on the walls. Wenna turned and saw the white one eyed mare inscribed on the wall behind her, with her heart blazing, fighting side by side with the Wolf mother.

Gabriela: "Thank you, Betsy. That was incrediblly beautiful.

Sea: Thank you. I just love your descriptors. I was so lost in the snow and in the beauty of the surrounding, and the warmth of the fire. It was very real for me and i'm very grateful.

Betsy: Thank you.

Gabriela: And I felt like it wasn't only the descriptors. It was the, the layers that were being peeled to reveal the truth of the story as it's happening. Now, I really felt that even though it was a long, long time ago, that time is somehow irrelevant. By the bridging of the clans and the ancient beasts that roam the worlds of the living and the dead and beyond. Worlds, we may not even know, yet seems so familiar and so important. I feel like with each word and with each description, very much like that painting that was appearing on the cave, I was seeing it in full radius. It was amazing. Very powerful. Thank you.

Sea: I was intrigued by the liminal crossovers too. I felt like we kept crossing and I kept trying to get my bearings, which is unusual. Usually I don't try to get my bearings. I just go with things, and so it was really interesting to me to know that I was wanting to locate myself in liminal space, if that's even a possible thing. I think what I was wanting to know is if we had left liminal space, that's what it was. Because I feel far more secure in the liminal space. Am I safe here?

Betsy: I think the snow really supported those easy transitions too. As the story was coming through, for me, it felt as though the snow is so important, this couldn't have happened... so, the wolf month is in January in many calendars, and so it's the bitter winter in that climate. And so the snow is the ally also.

Gabriela: What was it like to bring the story through for you? It just seems like such a truth.

Betsy:...

Elves Dec 30, 2020

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends. Stories comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times it may be one story told by one person. At times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go where the story takes us, and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Betsy: Our stories today are about elves and elf land. We hope you enjoy them.

Sea: I will go if it's okay.

Once upon a time, there was an elf who wanted to fly and every night he would dream of soaring through the air. One morning, after such a dream, he was brushing his teeth and just out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a horrible blackness rotting away at his teeth in the back.

He jumped up and gasped, first choking on then spitting his toothpaste. After rinsing out his mouth and changing his shirt he went to see his grandparent, as one never knows the gender of the elves in his family until one sees him or her, since they change it. Well today he was a grandfather. The elf told him what happened.

"Not to worry," the grandfather said "it was a waking dream. They happen to the best of us."

So the next day the elf had his teeth cleaned and everything was fine. But, a while later, the elf was looking into the mirror again when he thought he saw a king galloping up behind him. To be clear, the king himself was not galloping. The horse he was riding on was. In any event, the elf went running to his neighbor and excitedly told her about it. "What a nice dream!" The neighbor exclaimed, and called to some friends passing by. She told them all about the elves vision of a King coming through town. They laughed and cajoled. Someone brought a cake and they all told tales of the beautiful things they wished would happen, and on the way home, the elf made a game of walking through the fresh hoof prints that led through town, laughing at himself because he actually thought he might see a king .

And one season turned into the next before the elf was fixing his hair, when he saw a golden pen in the mirror. He recognized it as the prize at the elvin poetry contest. He was so excited that he immediately went running to his grandparents' house. "Grandmother!" He said to the old elf who was feeling feminine, but then stopped. "I hope you are doing well today. I just wanted to thank you for the other day. My teeth are great."

" That's wonderful, but did you really come all that way to tell me that?" The old elf asked.

"I just thought it would be nice to see you" the young elf said, as he scurried home to write a few poems, which he immediately entered into the contest.

On the day of the poetry reading the elf stared deeply into the mirror, hoping to see the golden pen, but nothing appeared. He went to the contes ,and, when it was his turn, hesitantly took the stage. He read his poem about flying and falling and flying again. In the end, he probably took first place, but writing poems about flying wasn't the same as actually doing it.

The next day, the elf looked into the mirror and searched out of the corner of his eye for an image of flight. He tried jumping up, suddenly and erratically twisting in the air, attempting to create a flight like image. When it wasn't working, he tried flicking his hair back and forth to see if he could create a flying scene with that.

No luck. Finally, in desperation, he drew a picture of flight onto the mirror itself. Then he went into his craft area and began to sew himself a set of wings. He had to make them perfect. Both potentially wind altering, he billowed the fabric in the air to test this ,and beautiful. He drew intricate lacy feathers on the wings.

When he finally had them perfected, he crept into the forest telling no one. There, he climbed up onto a large boulder. He avoided the cliffs as he was not a fool, and gently put them on. He looked like a blow up of a normal bird on a reasonable sized stone, only huge. Thinking of the mirror and psyching himself up into his most bird likes state of mind, he took a flight inducing leap off the rock and plummeted into the soft dirt and leaves below, significantly muddying his beautiful new wings.

Bitterly, he returned home and began to scream at his mirror.

"I did everything!" He said." Everything I could to fly!"

but as he was yelling, a bird flew by his window and cast a shadow onto the top of the mirror. Straightening himself up, he smiled and went to work.

The earth took a trip and a half around the sun before he tested passed, and earned his elven pilot license.

Gabriela: Thank you, Sea. That was absolutely lovely.

Sea: Thank you.

Gabriela: I'm very curious about the teeth.

Sea: About the teeth?

Gabriela: About the teeth. What were the teeth? Or his illusion of the teeth? Something that was a place setting for a different shift in reality for him? I don't know. It just really struck me, like, the teeth scared me because there's such an entrance into communication, or into that sort of other worldliness. Or losing something of this world to gain something of another.

Sea: I think that you're right. So, to be honest, this is the first time I am thinking about the teeth, but I absolutely think you're right. To me, the teeth mean, you know, to sink one's teeth into something or to be willing to defend and protect. And yeah, I think the teeth were a call for him to show up to something that was calling out to him.

Betsy: I was struck by him seeing the darkness in the mirror around the teeth, too. And then just seeing that that became a mirror that allowed him to get information or to perceive something. And so, was he seeing that mirror as kind of a magic mirror that gave him direction?

Sea: Yes, he was, he was seeing it as a magic mirror. And in fact, I had that line in it and I read it differently.

Betsy: The gender changing aspects of the elves too, and that type of fluidity, that could be part of their transformational abilities.

Sea: Yeah. Strangely on the transformative note, I was so aware that it was not my voice. I was so aware that the voice I was speaking in was so not my own voice.

Gabriela: Yeah, to me, the whole story, it was so beautifully written and it felt like such a riddle. Like, it felt from beginning to end that this process that the elf was going through and the earning, the yearning to fly, you know, and I caught myself thinking, are elves, supposed to fly? Can they fly? Why does he want to fly? You know, it was so multilayered and I realized that so much lore, and just the nature of elves, is about magic and being able to manifest anything out of nothing. So he was trying to do something that has already been done. Because him yearning for it, if we're thinking in elf language and magic language, flight has already happened, he was already able to do it.

Sea: Right. Yeah, I liked that he had to sort of tell the story of it before he could actually begin to encounter it, too.

Betsy: And also gaining that confidence in seeing that he could enter that contest and win the contest, I think possibly built his confidence into, you know, that step by step of what it takes to actually transform and change. Not only our capabilities, but what we think is really possible too. So, that was a lovely touch.

Sea: Yeah, both in the story and at least in my life, it feels like the, the middle things are off topic. Like I want this thing and then I'd have to go do these weird things. And then I get that thing I wanted. And it feels like it was a total different journey, but still a necessary one.

Gabriela: I have to say, I secretly appreciate the fact that he had to brush his teeth.

Sea: There just aren't enough tooth brushing stories, right?

Gabriela: It certainly brings the magic into our world. And we try to separate our mundane from the non mundane realities, but it is all together. It exists together. So I appreciate that very much.

Betsy: Well and it helps us to understand more things about elves, that they have some of the similar things that we have in life, that they must deal with. But what else is possible? Flight, apparently. Thank you.

Sea: Next step?

Betsy: I'll do it. My story about the elves is a continuation also of a story about Tess and the goblin cat.

Tess and the goblin cat were settling in together. She was still finding it hard to discover the true name of the cat. She called it a different name every few days. She had received a lot of advice from her relatives about the cat. The first advice was to find out whether it was male or female. The next, was to give it some time to discover its temperament. It's temperament didn't change much though. It was devoted to her, suspicious of her mother, and seemed to watch everything with the cynical air.

It wasn't going to let anyone but Tess touch it. Tess supposed that may have been the result of living with goblins for the first weeks of its life, and tried to make up to the cat for that.

"Oh cat, I wish the goblin boy hadn't kicked you so hard."

Then there was the problem of its long leggedness, that had necessitated a visit to her great aunt Hulda. Hulda, an aged, bent, crone of a lady, with sharp but faded blue eyes, had laughed one loud "HAHA" when she saw the cat.

" I haven't seen one of these since I was a child."

She touched cat on the head with a gnarled finger, pulling it onto her aprons lap. To Tess's surprise, the cat went limp, curling in her lap and purring.

"I'll work on its size and legs" Hulda said, while stroking the cat. "Gudrun is in the kitchen making tea, Gudrun!" She called

Tess's relative Gudrun came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a nearly identical apron. Her hair was in platinum braids. Her eyes a violet blue and her cheeks rosy. Her smile lit up the room.

" Come into the kitchen and have tea and let Hulda do her work."

Her accent was Scandinavian and lilting. Tess followed her into the kitchen.

"Sit down and eat" said Gudrun, " I will join you. Your mother will assist Hulda.".

She sat Tess down in the window embrasure seat and the two girls drank tea and ate sublime pastries. Tess could feel herself relaxing and realizing the weeks with Cat had been wonderful. To finally have a familiar, after looking for it for years, but stressful because the cat was not usual in any sort of way.

"What do you suppose she's doing to it?" Tess asked Gudrun.

"She's concealing its appearance so it can pass for normal." Gudrun said matter of factly. "Shape-shifting is a gift."

" Oh, I'd love to watch that."

" She won't let you. Your presence would pull the cat's awareness to you. Best to let them do their work in peace. Drink, eat," She said with Icelandic persistence " then I will tell you a story. Hulda says I'm to practice my storytelling with you."

"I'd love that!" Tess was fascinated by her older cousin.

"Good, would you rather hear about the trolls of stickies, or Hildr the queen of the elves?"

"Hildr, please."

"All right. A long time ago in a part of Iceland, that was part pasture and part mountains, lived an unmarried farmer named Lars. He had quite a few workers to help with the farm, and they were all cared for by a young woman named Hildr, who was quiet, fastidious and hardworking. She kept to herself and worked from dawn long into the evening.

Though a prosperous farm, Lars had a hard time keeping herdsman for his sheep because, for the past years, on each Christmas morning, his herdsman would be found dead in his bed, having died in the night. The farmer and other workers would spend Christmas Eve at the local church as was the custom. The herdsman would not attend because gathering the sheep took so much time in the early dark of the afternoon that the herdsman would have to stay at the house. Hildr also refrained from going to the church. She had to make the food for Christmas day dinner, when everyone returned.

For a time, the farmer tried to manage without a herdsman, losing sheep and income, but at least not losing any more human lives. The herdsmen had all died without a mark on them, so no suspicion fell on anyone at the farm. It was a troubling situation and a dark blot on the farm.

Then a day came when a man came knocking, asking for the job of herdsman. He was strong, bold, somewhat handsome, and quite full of self-confidence. The farmer didn't want to hire him and told him why. The man said he wasn't afraid, and he needed the job and a place to live. The man added that fear of what might happen wouldn't interfere with him doing his job and he would take good care of the sheep. Reluctantly, the farmer hired him, which was an answer to the man's urgent prayer and need, for he had skills, but nowhere to live and needed the work. He was a hard worker that everyone came to like, and the farm began to feel almost like normal.

Then the days before Christmas came. The farmer told the man he could come to church with them and let the sheep fend for themselves in the night. The man declined, saying he wasn't afraid and would do his job. The party of workers and the farmer left in the daylight hours to get to the church for the all night Christmas Eve vigil. The farmer left with a heavy heart fearing, the worst.

Hildr, finishing her preparations for tomorrow's dinner, fed the man his supper, who went right to bed afterwards. The man was tired, but he knew he could only sleep lightly as he remembered what had happened to all those other herdsman who had been as desperate as he for work. He resolved to stay awake, but found a strange drowsiness coming over him. Fighting this worrying sleepiness, he resolved to stay awake.

He was half dozing when he heard the door to his room open and quiet steps coming towards his bed, he saw through the dark of the room that it was Hildr. Her small warm hand touched his face, inserting something into his mouth, which he instinctively knew was a magic bridle. With the bridal attached, he was powerless to resist as Hildr dragged him from the bed to the front door and out into the snowy night. She climbed onto his back and, twitching the rein, she caused him to rise into the air and rode him through the dark winter night under the stars, under the snow, until they came to a high mountain which had a yawning cavernous opening.

She dismounted, tied the reins to the rock, and leaped into the opening. The herdsman tried to move, not wanting to stay tied out in the cold of the night. He couldn't move at all , until he finally struggled three from the bridle. When he leaped into the cavern opening following Hildr, he found himself falling, falling, falling into another world, and eventually landing in a landscape unlike the snowy one he had left behind. Green meadows with flowers were all around him.

He saw Hildr moving swiftly in a direction and he followed as fast as he could. He knew now she was not an ordinary mortal and, for protection, he pulled a magic star stone from his pouch given to him by his grandmother long ago. The stone kept him invisible and he followed Hildr until he could see a lovely building in the distance with a great crowd of people waiting in front. Hildr made her way there, straight into the arms of a man who seemed to be the king of this place. Two small children were there with him. Hildr, her face glowing, smiling with happiness, scooped up the children, holding them close to her heart.

The whole crowd swept in through the gates of the building and made their way to the banqueting hall where a vast feast was laid out. The festivities, which had nothing to do with Christmas, commenced, with music and speeches of welcome, when Hildr entered, now dressed in silks and golden jewels. This great welcome was for Hildr, ,their queen, able to be home for this one night only.

She sat on the high seat with her husband and presided over the feast. Everyone was happy to see her except one. This one sat like a dark toad in the corner glaring at her. The banquet continued merrily. The herdsman, invisible thanks to his magic stone, stayed hidden under the table in front of the high seat. He was trying to take in everything at once, determined to survive this night and not knowing where danger lay. Though longing to taste the food and drink, he held back. At one point, the two children growing tired, began to fret, and Hildr took off her rings and bangles and let the smaller child play with their golden jingling beauty.

One ring fell to the floor and the herdsman quickly scooped it up into his pouch. The children and the servants looked for it, but to no avail. The herdsman remained undetected. Hours passed this way, and then suddenly Hildr hugged her family, said goodbye to the throngs of people and swiftly left the home.

The herdsman hurried out, passing her as she was saying her goodbyes. Just before she'd change back into her ordinary clothes, he was able to hurry across the meadows and up the sides of the cavern with the help of his magic ring and thus was waiting, bridle on, when Hildr came. She mounted him, riding him back to the farm, where Hildr placed him back in bed, removing the bridle and retiring to her own chamber.

The man slept. The next morning, the farmer came home, expecting the herdsmen to be dead. He was amazed to find the man still sleeping, still breathing and praise god for his deliverance. At length, the man woke and the farmer asked him if anything untoward had happened.

The herdsman said " Well, I had a strange dream."

And he told the farmer what had happened with Hildr, and the people that he now knew where elves. All of the residents of the farmstead were gathered around this sitting, including Hildr.

At the end of his story Hildr said hotly, "I declare you a liar. I will only believe you if you can prove it as true."

The man, not in the least fearful of her, picked up his pouch from the pile of discarded clothes and pulled out the golden ring.

" I pick this ring up from the floor when your child dropped it at the banquet, don't you recognize it, Queen Hilder?"

" It is my ring. Thank you. You have broken the spell put on me by my husband's horrid mother. May you prosper all the days of your life. You have released me from the awful yoke of murder, which was the only way that I could spend one day a year with my husband and children. I was cursed that...

Yule Dec 23, 2020

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends. Stories comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we're open to the story and it's unfolding. At times, it may be one story told by one person. At times it's the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Gabriela: Today's stories will be about this time of the year. Winter time, Yule time, the winter solstice. So many traditions, sacred traditions around this time. So many customs. We want to honor the sacred time with our stories today and share with you the stories of Yule time. And we hope that they bring blessing to you and that they sooth you during the season.

My story is called the secret supper.

The wind was unusually wild this year, Jania thought, while glancing out the window before she pulled out the final batch of Christmas Eve rolls out of the oven. The gusts of snow whirled and danced joyfully outside against the blue- black winter backdrop. How nice it was to watch it from the safety of a warm home, she thought, smiling. It was almost time for their feast. As soon as the first star of the evening was spotted by one of her grandchildren they could sit down and start the festivities.

As usual Jania spent the last few days cooking and getting the home celebration ready for her and her family. The winter holiday, and especially Christmas season, was very important. It was the most magical and sacred time. And she was so lucky to have a big family to share it with, and a warm home and a table full of food. This was a great blessing.

"I see it! I see the star!" Cried out excited Tomek, the oldest of her grandchildren, which encouraged the younger sister and cousin to cry out with excitement.

"All right everybody, let's gather together." Announced Stefan, after checking with Jania to make sure everything was ready.

He was always happy to help her, but Yanya rarely took him up on the offer. The kitchen was her domain and he knew better than to interfere. Besides, their two daughters circled around her effortlessly. The three of them moved with grace and precision and created dishes that smelled and looked heavenly. After all, they have been making these dishes together for many, many years. Since it was time, Stefan turned off the electric lights and lit candles to aluminate their evening in a more intimate way.

"Ahh, this is more like it," Jania sighed gratefully as she entered the family room. Now they could truly start.

They shared the Christmas wafer with each other, an old tradition of offering good wishes to each family member while eating delicate bread. The oldest couple would always start first. They would share with each other, then their children and grandchildren. Kind words and simple blessings were exchanged.

"In the coming year, I wish you happiness and good health. That is most important." Stefan said to Jania

" And I wish that your arthritis will ease up so that we can enjoy more walks together like we used to." Jania said.

The younger couples wished each other success at work, ease in their marriage and happiness. The children mimicked the words they heard from the adults and made their own sweet, heartfelt wishes to the family. Siblings promised not to argue and to help parents around the home. Even at a young age, they took the sharing of wishes seriously. They could see and feel how important these exchanges were for their family and how open everybody's hearts were.

Twelve dishes, no more, nor less, were served. Vegetarian and fish dishes only. No roasted red meats or poultry could be consumed tonight. Red borscht with dumplings, fried carp, pickled herring, cabbage stew, mushroom noodles, fried potato cakes, poppy seed rolls, and a variety of breads and gorgeous rolls and ginger cookies, which were shaped like stars, deer, canes, and evergreen trees. The family ate, sang songs - carols - shared stories, and laughed for hours. Their bellies full and faces warmed by joy and the soft glow of candles on the table and all around. And as always an empty seat and plate we're left at the table, the chair decorated with extra ribbons and a beautifully embroidered cushion on the seat.

Little Gosia, the youngest of the children, admired the cushion and seat with curiosity. "Who will sit there? Are we waiting for somebody?" She inquired, while reaching out for another sugar glazed bun.

" It's the seat for the wandering guests. Don't you remember? You asked about it last year, too." Her mother Maryla answered smiling.

The young girl pinched her face in fierce concentration and shook her head.

"No, I don't remember. Who is the wandering guest and why haven't they arrived yet?"

"Nobody knows who it is until they arrive, and often they don't arrive at all." Her grandfather told her, smiling under his mustache, knowing that this will make her ponder even more. "But whoever it is, no matter how strange or unfamiliar, there must always be a seat ready for them at the table. They can not be turned away. Not on this night." He added, glancing at his wife Jania lovingly, who looked at the empty plate and smiled.

"Yes, tonight is a true test of hospitality, communion, and relationship. I learned this from Father Foka Szumej a long time ago." she said

"Who is Father Foka Szumej? Is he coming? Is the plate for him?" Now all the children were curious.

Jania's eyes softened and fixed outside the window, where the whirling snow gave form to beasts and creatures of the mountain nearby. She could almost hear their songs from far away.

" Who is Foka Szumej, you ask. In order to tell you that, you must hear the whole story." Jania said, and settled more comfortably in a chair near the fireplace with little Gosia climbing onto her lap, excited to hear another one of granny's tales.

"It was a long, long time ago. I was just a girl that older than you, Gosi, and the night was Christmas Eve. Very much like it is now, cold and windy and snowy. My father, mother, and I were traveling around the mountain to visit my great parents, your great grandparents, who lived one village over. We had a basket full of sheep cheese and honey to share with them as well as some freshly baked ginger cookies.

We left a little later in the day than we had hoped, and a blizzard came out of nowhere and caught us by surprise. Papa knew that we were taking a small risk of venturing so late in the evening in December, but since he knew the side of the mountain so well and we didn't have a long way to travel, he thought we would be able to avoid any mishaps. But the weather fates had a different plan.

The road we normally took was blocked by a massive tree, and we had to go around a north side of the wood to the more treacherous side of the mountain to get to town where their family was waiting for us. The winds were sharp and cold, and the snow obscured our vision and it was very difficult to walk.

"Oh sweet Lord, help us find our way, help us find shelter." Mama whispered under her breath while holding me close to her. I could tell she was anxious.

She was not from these parts. She married the handsome shepherd, my Papa, and settled in with him in the hills of the Carpathian mountains, near the town of Alicia. She often complained a little about how wild and untamed the winds were in these parts, and how the people connected to the winds and trees in a non-Christian way. Papa, even though he was familiar with this land and the non-Christian ways, was beginning to grow nervous too. We wandered in circles unable to find our way safely to the path we needed to be in, and the wind only grew stronger.

My father turned to my mother and said, "We have no choice. We must head to the north side of the mountain where the old man Foka Szumej lives, if he still lives. My grandfather used to tell me stories about the man, and other people talked of him, too. He is a hermit, a guardian of the mountain.A weather worker, among other things. He lives alone and is not fond of people, but right now his dwelling is our closest safety, and I know the way."

My mother nodded, understanding the dire situation we were in. She trusted Papa and had faith that God and this Foka Szumej would offer them shelter and save them from the cold. Smiling tightly at me to console me, she held me closer and followed Papa around the other side of the mountain, which appeared more ominous and treacherous than where we just came from. The trees swayed and bowed intensely, almost as if they were ready to lift off the ground and start walking. The wind sounded like harsh whispers, but we kept going.

Father seemed driven by an invisible force. Forward and onward, looking back to make sure we were close by, he kept going. How did he know where he was going? I don't know. It was impossible to see anything, and the winds only danced stronger as we went up, the dense snow beating our faces sharply. Suddenly Papa stopped ahead and mentioned for us to stay back.

"Who goes there? A loud booming voice rose above, seeming to be coming from all around as if the wind itself was questioning us.

We saw the beast first. A white/gray wolf dog charging towards us at great speed. Then we heard a loud, sharp whistle and the creature stopped just a foot away from where we were. And then the wind stopped, too. Suddenly. Abruptly. Freezing a moment in time so I could hear my mother's heart beating as I clutched to her belly. We heard thundering footsteps, and a staff driven into thick snow with a thud.

" Who goes there?" the booming voice asked again, much closer this time. But now the voice seemed to be coming from one direction. I turned my head and saw a figure of a man and a big hat with a tall walking stick looming over us.

My father took off his cap in a greeting gesture and said "We were caught in a blizzard and have lost our way Father Foka Szumej we seek shelter for the night. We don't mean to disturb you this evening, but we are desperate and cold. I will gladly repay you however I can."

The old man pulled his wolf dog closer to him as the creature was restless and still unsure whether we were friends or foe, ready to strike on us at the slightest nod from his master.

"Put your hat back on. Only a fool would take it off in such weather, and only a fool would travel in such a night." the old man grumbled, as he eyed our family with dismay.

My father put his hat back on immediately. My mother crossed herself discretely, though not unnoticeably. His icy blue eyes settled on me, as I was staring right at him, hypnotized by his electric blue eyes peering like cold fire from under his hat.

"Come, follow me quickly while the wind is still, which won't be long." he said, as he turned around and began to hike back up towards the house, expecting us to keep up, which we did just barely.

The man was incredibly fast for his age. The uphill slope didn't slow his pace at all. At times he appeared to fly up in steps, his cane and feet above ground more than on it. My mother, gripping my hand, tightly, her eyes wide in mild horror. But we followed him. What choice did we have?

After some time we arrived, shivering and breathless at the front porch of his cottage. Old man Foka Szumej knocked the snow off his boots while the Wolf dog shook vigorously. Foka Szumej didn't invite us in exactly, but left the door open, so we followed him inside, grateful for the warmth of the hearth fire and the shelter. We took a few moments to slow our breaths and shake off the freezing cold which we came from. After a few minutes, Papa addressed our host who seemed preoccupied and indifferent with what we were doing.

"We are in your debt, Father Foka Szumej we don't want to be a bother. We can just sleep in the corner of the room." Papa said, while pointing to a humble side of the house.

" You will do no such thing." Foka Szumej said sharply." You will take my bed chamber and stay out of my way. You have stumbled here on a most auspicious night. My guests will soon arrive and you can not get in the way of my custom. You will remain behind closed doors, unheard and unseen." he said in a tone that meant no negotiation.

"Guests?" I wondered, "He was expecting guests? "

I looked around the room and saw a sturdy wooden table with rustic plates and wooden spoons upon it. Winter berries, nuts and dried meats, as well as cups of golden liquid were laid out carefully. Mama looked confused, but Papa had a strange tight look on his face as he slowly took in the table setting.

"The secret supper." he whispered.

"Yes, it is tonight. And you will not interfere." Foka Szumej said clearly. He could hear across rooms as well as make his eyes glow in a blue fire.

Father reached out into our basket and pulled out a round package of fresh sheep cheese and jar of honey.

" Please, for your feast. May it appease your guests." he said, while offering it to Foka Szumej

the old man didn't refuse.

"Set it on the table and to go retire to my bed chambers. Close the door. I don't want to see you at all for the rest of the night. No matter what you hear out here, stay in that room." he said, and added while looking right at me, " and you, under no circumstances, can make a sound. Understood.?"

I nodded in agreement, stunned and amazed by the events of this night under strange and terrifying hosts. Without further discussion, the three of us went to the room and closed the door as Foka Szumej demanded. In the privacy of the room, Mama and I had all kinds of questions.

"What is the secret supper? This sounds very unchristian." Mama whispered, concerned.

"It's an old custom, very old. I didn't know anybody practiced it anymore. I've heard about it from my grandparents. It happens on this night. It's a sacred night to more than just us Christian folk." Papa told her

"Are there people really coming here? Why can't we see them and sit with them?" Mama asked

"They're not exactly people. Remember, these ways are different from what we know and remember, and much older. Better we just get some rest. At least we are not out there in the snow with whatever creatures roam the night." Papa said, which caused Mama to cross herself again.

" Who is coming? Who is coming to the feast of Papa? I asked desperately curious.

" Nobody we know, Jania, and they are no friends of ours, but that is the way. Just keep quiet and go to sleep. Tomorrow will be Christmas morning and we will safely find our way home, I promise you." he said, while bringing me and mama closer to him and towards the big bed.

With me snuggled safely next to them, and them so exhausted, they fell asleep shortly. But not me. I could not and would not sleep, not with such a mysterious feast soon to occur in the next room. The winds howled wildly outside and the tree branches tapped on the cottage windows and roofs so loudly. Wolves close by howled, as did other creatures, making noises I have never heard before. I listened to all of the sounds wide-eyed in the darkness of the room, with my parents sleeping soundly huddled together.

Through the wind and cracking branches, I heard a loud knock. I snuck out of bed and crept up to the door, which was old and rough, with some of the tree knots holes just big enough for me to spy through. I promised Father Foka Szumej to be quiet, but I didn't promise not to look. I pressed my eye against one of the small wood holes and could see the main room and Foka Szumej at the table and the arrival of his first guest, a frail man, in wet clothing, shivering, his skin and bluish hue.

"Welcome brother. Come in and warm yourself and eat" Foka Szumej told the man, who entered without a word and took a seat at the table, leaving a pool of water in the place where he sat.

Another knock and another guest arrived. A woman, snow clinging to her cloak. She had blue lips and frost bitten hands and held a bundle at her breast.

"Welcome sister, come in and warm yourself and your child. Sit at the table near the fire."

The woman entered quietly and took a seat closest to the fire. More guests kept arriving, all looking ghastly, pale or haggard. Some couldn't even walk very well. Some were so transparent that they were barely visible, like wisps of smoke setting into form one by one. They took their seats at the table quietly, not looking at the other guests or even Foka Szumej serene, their faces slowly shifting color and even shape as they ate.

And as if they were in strange enough, other guests came too. F. opened the door to anyone that arrived.

"Welcome, Brother Bear, come and feed. Nourish yourself for the long winter." he said to the bear, who entered the cottage and took a seat at the table, the chair cracking under its weight.

"Welcome Brother Fox. Welcome Sister Wolf. Tonight you are most welcome." Foka Szumej said as these wild beasts arrived.

Other beasts and creatures that I've never seen before came, too. Strange and terrible, with large hooves, human faces, and antlers, black wings and goat tails. All knocked and all were welcomed. Together they sat in quiet company while the wind howled outside and snow whirled in a frenzy.

Foka Szumej honored each guest equally. To some, he whispered words which I couldn't hear, but could see the faces of those he talked to softening lightning. Even those that had most grave expressions and looked scary. They stayed all night. Or at least I think they did, for I fell asleep at the door at some point, exhausted by the day's events.

When I woke up it was still dark, but the darkness was more blue now and hinted at the dawn soon to come. The gusts were gone. Foka Szumej sat in a rocking chair by the fire, smoking a pipe. A look of calmness on his face. He blew rings of smoke and all kinds of creatures formed in that smoke and drifted around the room. He gazed at these shapes. What he saw interpreted, I do not know, but it seems important. He nodded and spoke to himself about what he was seeing, waving his hands at some shapes, beckoning others in like a symphony of signs and messages he was the conductor of. One of the shapes was a stag, which seemed to surprise him a bit because of its size, and the fact that the shape turned and headed right in my direction.

I gasped loudly and Foka Szumej looked at the door, his electric fire blue eyes burning through the door, seeing into my own. I, pressed against it. Slowly without turning away and still looking at me, he smiled and blew a huge gust of smoke with such force that it entered through the crack in the door and filled the bed chamber and caused me to fall asleep again.

That was the last I saw of Foka Szumej, for in the morning he was gone, and my parents and I safely found our way back to our side of the...

Magical Weapons Dec 16, 2020

Sea: Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends. Stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share stories, both old and new. More than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding. At times, it may be one story told by one person. At times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow.

I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

Betsy: I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

Gabriela: I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

Saga Kraft: We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Betsy: I'd like to start out by welcoming Saga, and our stories today are about magical weapons.

The white chalk horse gleamed in the Moonlight on the late fall evening. The wind blew from the South making its way through the rolling hills and ruffling the leaves of the hedge rows, The sound of a lone horse cart, clopping, hoofs, and wooden wheel rims, creaking harness and the puffing of a horses breath could be heard from the ridge top road down in the homes in the small village.

Wives put their shawls over their ears. Husbands started fiddling with their pipes and tossing more logs on the fire. Children pulled the covers over their heads, tucked three and four to a bed. The huge man sitting lazily on the seat of the cart, pulled it to a stop once the road was level and jumped down, giving the horse a rest from pulling the combined weight of firewood, his blacksmithing gear, and himself.

He put his hands behind him, stretching out the muscles of his back and his broad chest Talking gently to his horse, a companion for many years, he checked its hooves for stones and offered a handful of oats. Almost there. Boy, my fine fellow, almost there. The horse grunted stomping, one hoof to the ground, indicating that he'd prefer to move on and get out of the wind.

The man laughed and pulled the reins to the front. Leading the horse and stretching out his long muscular legs for an ambling mile or so. Several miles later, having climbed back on the card, the wagon pulled to a stop by an ancient long barrow. The mystery of this place was perceptible. Trees, having lost their leaves, provided something of a windbreak around the ancient stones.

Wayland unhitched the horse, throwing a warm blanket over him for the time being. It would soon be hot enough. He jumped up into the wagon, hoisted up the anvile and tossed it to the ground in the direction of the long stone structure. The moon was coming on full and gleaming above the far off Hills in the distance across fields, lying fallow.

Wayland stood in the Moonlight, looking around and sensing for the closest living creatures. None very close, he thought satisfied. He had private things to do, and this was the best place that he could do them. He didn't like to be spied on. This barrow was one that was avoided by humans because it led into an opening into the realm of the old ones.

On top of that, the white horse gleaming in the distance was part of the province of the horse goddess Epona No one would dare to be out in the night here. After setting up the anvil in a place where the wind could reach it, the furnace was pulled to the cart's edge and heaved to the ground. He set that up in the windbreak area adjacent, humming to himself.

He conjured the fire with wood from nine different kinds of trees. He pulled out a great bellows and set to work some hours later with molten metal and the fierce firelight casting shadows on the sculpted planes of his face. He was sweating and smiling with satisfaction. Whatever came out of this night's work, it would be something very fine, he thought. He moved around to do his blacksmithing work, finding strength from the earth, and different qualities available at different times of the year.This place was accessible to old magic to Epona's strength and to the old ones. Unlike other blacksmiths, he didn't plan anything ahead of time.

He just felt the need to be in a particular place at a particular time,and some weapon or tool came out of that. Somehow the one it was made for always found him. He wasn't particularly interested in making that easy since he'd once been captured and forced to create. Now, trust didn't come easily and he preferred to keep moving.

Getting into the rhythm of making had its own reward. He pulled deeply from the earth working the old magic into the iron. He pulled down moonlight and incorporated the wind. The iron rods were piling up and he kept working. Whatever it was going to be, it was going to be big. A sword most likely, but what kind of sword and for whom.

Unlike other times, he had no clear sense of the requirements for this blade. Shrugging, he decided pattern welding would be ideal and set to work. He was at the moment where the long blade was beginning to take form when he felt a prickling between his shoulder blades.The sounds of his elvin blacksmith's hammer, beating the sword into shape, nearly muffled the arrival sounds of the lean woman on a dapple gray horse. Securing her magnificent steed near the blacksmith's apparently older cob, she observed wryly that the horses were likely to get along more easily than she and the surly Wayland.

Continuing his rhythmic beat on the anvil, he called out. "who's there?" Not a fae, not Epona, not human. Sky born? He edged around the anvil, massive hammer, still striking and rhythm. He saw her first out of the corner of his eye.

She stood, like a blade herself, absolutely still and lethal with cold smoke gray eyes looking out of a stylized winged helmet. Elvin manufacture, he thought automatically, but not an elf.

Certain of herself, but not of her welcome, she said "blacksmith, I have a need of you, or rather, of your help.", She amended when she saw his curling lip. She was heavily armed with a sword belt, two swords: one long, one short, and knives strapped in her iron shod boots. Not a fae. Her tabard, over gleaning mail coat, showed a vast tree with swans circling below on a pond. Valkyrie.

Wayland felt hot anger and cold loss looking at her and remembering nine years with a Valkyrie, who simply left one day, never to return. She looked impatient as she saw the shifting story moving across his face and in his eyes, and the abrupt silence when he stopped swinging the hammer.

"You dare?", he said coldly. "Or, are you here for me?". Another realization flashing across his face. "

"Of course, I'm here for you. But not to take you in any sense of the word, blacksmith." She said evenly. "I'm not here about what happened before. I'm here about what happens now and what unfolds in the future."

"Do you dare come here as a Valkyrie after all she put me through?"

" He asked scathingly Well, I'm a Valkyrie, but in truth I came here for a sword"

" from you?" She hesitated and then let her guard down Infinitesimally.

"I would love one of your swords, who wouldn't? But as you see, I'm armed with sky metal. No, I want a sword for a hero yet to be."

" At your own request? Or here at the will of the Allfather?" He asked, deciding the best path forward was to get down to business and get her gone.

"As the will of the Allfather, blacksmith. As you have never understood, or you would have cherished your Valkyrie and then let her go."

She had several tense moments of conversation with the blacksmith, understandable under the circumstances, before he nodded curtly in agreement. He resumed the pounding and beating of the sword. Already a pattern welded while she drew out her own hammer and instruments. He shaped the sword, working quickly and with consummate skill. She poured a flask of water into the cooling barrel, which changed the texture and color of the water, shifting it to luminous pale fire blue. When the sword gleamed silver, proud and deadly, he put it back into the flame and heated it up again. When it was malleable, but still holding its form , he pulled it out of the flames and onto the anvil. She took up her own hammer, shaped like a mini Mjölnir, and moved into place over the sword and began a complicated incantation in an ancient tongue while stamping cuts onto the length of the blade. Eerie currents swirled from the ground below wrapping her in a dark glow.

Occasionally peering over her shoulder and letting her know when the sword needed to go in the fire again, Wayland watched as letters appeared in what looked to be an ancient language. He knew not to interrupt her as she worked, but tried to puzzle out what she was writing. Hard to tell as it kept changing.

It seemed what she was doing was repeated three times in three different languages. When she finally completed what looked like a line of runes, she pulled another instrument out of the fire. This stamping tool allowed for less fine script. And with this, she hammered what were clearly large runes onto the blade that were bigger than the condensed and very fine script.

These runes glowed with an Eldridge light and Wayland recognized the victory rune of the god Tyr. She put the blade back into the fire and pulled out her boot knife, slashing her forearm and dropping her blood onto the blade. Magic poured from her voice, which grew loud and harsh, and magic flowed from her hands into the blade until the script glowed and the larger runes blossomed with fire.

Eventually satisfied, she passed the blade back to him and said "Sign it with your mark."

He complied adding his own charm in an elvin tongue and passed it back to her after flipping it from side to side, to see it in its entirety. She intoned another chanted charm and plunged it into the luminous water.

The rune script and solo runes all glowed, as did Wayland's Mark, and then went out, leaving the blades silver and quiet. She pulled a large crystal bead, carved with spirals and strung on a leather thong, from her belt purse. Wrapping the leather cord around the hilt of the sword, she breathed more charms over the crystal.

"Awaken, lifestone" where the only words that Wayland understood.

She looked up into Wayland's eyes and said "It's done."

"What happens now?" asked Wayland.

"We share some mead and I give you a bag of gold and a special gift. The gift is sky metal, which I saw fall to earth long ago. I thank you for your skill Wayland."

" Thank you for allowing me to watch your skill, Valkyrie. And the sky metal is appreciated as much as the gift of knowing the Allfather's will. What's your name?"

"Sigrdrífa" she answered.

"Lovely. Do you take this to your would be hero now?"

" Oh no. Now I throw it into the river to be found in a thousand years

Gabriela: Thank you, Betsy. That was really extraordinary and totally caught me by surprise too. The end really caught me by surprise. I love so many things about it. Just so many things. Especially the tension. The tension to make something is there just through the elements, but the tension of those two talents coming together and meeting in this way and how that infused the sword into something even more powerful. I love that. Thank you.

Sea: I also love the resistance Maybe I identify with the resistance. And of course, all of the descriptions were amazingly beautiful.

Gabriela: I love how, in some way we can look at these as opposing forces or complicated relationships between powerful beings. Powerful people, at certain times, have to work together for greater purpose. Which shows such a high level of consciousness and responsibility and duty.

Betsy: I was inspired, with the ending, by a real sword that was found, I think in the Thames, did have the entire runes carved into it. Having heard about that, I've always wondered how did it end there? What's the story of that sword?

Gabriela: And today we find out. I think, any sword that ends up in the Lake for that many years, for hundreds, thousands of you know, or a thousand years is, is magic.

Sea: I also love the idea that there's always something that we need to bow to the willingness to give over one's gifts. And there's something about wanting to show up and be in integrity. And do one's best while also negotiating what best is for others.

Betsy: One thing I liked about this Valkyrie is that she just had a superb command of herself and maybe by reaping all these different warriors over the years or decades or hundreds of years, thousands of years who knows, she could talk to a powerful creature like Wayland, who's also known as Woland as well. And for those who maybe have heard of him that way, the long barrow actually exists, as does the white horse. And that long barrow is known as Wayland's Smithy.

Sea: And what does her name mean?

Betsy: Victory.

Gabriela: Do you find yourself Betsy, resonating with Wayland or Woland, or with the Valkyrie herself or both in a particular way.

Betsy: I think with both, I love the feel of, of Wayland being untrusting because of having been captured before, um, to be on the move. But I loved his going where the impulses took him for the creations. That there was just such a sense of things flowing through him. And while he put his great skill towards things, he let the forces move him around too. And so, as you were saying for him to then find himself in this tense situation, I felt like it was good for him.

Sea: Yeah. It totally felt like it was good for him from listening. Yes.

Betsy: Good. I'm glad to hear that.

Gabriela: Well, it felt like it was a triumph for him to be seen, to be witnessed and to be unbound, but to be asked for his great work. So it feels like there's an element of liberation for him on some level, much needed healing and liberation.

Sea: Well, it feels significantly more vulgar. I think he was also liberated from the chafing thing that he was experiencing against his own ego.

Betsy: That feels true as well.

Yeah. Well, thank

you very much for listening.

Sea: Thank you.

Betsy: And now, Sea's story.

Sea: I have no magic weapon to bring to council today. I'm not sure what I was thinking I was content, or at least I thought so, ruling over the community, the land. Standing on solid ground. The moment changed, that much is clear. I forgot myself, tripping over my own dream. That in itself is a forgetting. I'm not usually one for dreaming.

It's my sister's department and she needs no help. I handle the waking world. I can only chalk it up to twilight. Or Dawn. It was both. A twilight that burst the day. So problem was in skipping the night, allowing myself to dream under the sun instead of the moon. I didn't intend to sit there. I went for counsel, guidance, but it wasn't there.

No one was there. How hard could it be? I didn't think. And in the absence of thought, absence of intention, I climbed the steps and sat down. Beauty. So much beauty. As soon as I saw it, I thought I should stop, but I couldn't, it wasn't so much that I lacked will, as that some unconscious part of myself had will had willed itself into action. an action, I could not take back. There she was in all her glory. A goddess of the liminal. She danced between the realms. I didn't know her then. I only knew I wanted her. It was and was not shallow. Clearly she was beautiful, but it was more than that. She compelled me in ways I could not describe, as if some part of my psyche had manifested her. That is within my power. Perhaps unthinkingly I believed that it did. That she and I were a foregone conclusion. When I think of it, I feel stuck.

I told my father and my friend, no, my not-a-friend, that I loved her. I didn't love her. I recognized her. They're different. Now I love her, but I built myself a prison of paradox, and I can't find a way out. Or, we've built us in prison paradox. I wish to give her credit, but not blame. The blame is mine. The credit hurts. I asked my, not-a-friend to go to her and propose. Impress he I said, bring her back. I said, she will love me, I didn't think. he'd asked for my sword. So I gave it to him. I thought he was going to offer it to her. No! No! He rendered a magical item, enchanted, to balance the essence of the upper and lower worlds while holding a stable and strong in the middle world. Worthless. He couldn't access it's power. He carried it around for a while, doing nothing more than impressing potential lovers. Then he lost it. He lost it.

I have been avoiding the council, but today I must go. I am needed for a judgment. I will have to tell them, explain that our downfall is, will be , my fault. That when the final battle ensues, I will be empty handed. But she will be with me on the battlefield. I hope she will. No. I know she will. I only hope she wants to. I would rather lose knowing she wants to be there than win having never known her. Or maybe it's that I would rather lose knowing the part of myself she awakened, then win, never having been fully me. For what can I know of her more than what she means to me?

My not-a -riend went, and returned, with her promise. Her promise to meet me in the forest in nine days. I've asked her what she did with those nine days many times. She will not tell me. The first time she lied, afraid not to answer. It was the dawn of my comprehension. I thought she came willingly, but she had not, I offered her her freedom of course, but she was afraid to take it. It was not me who had cursed her. It was not me who can reverse her curse. She has to stay with me, which means she can never want to. In sending him to fetch her, I rigged the game against myself. It pulled her from the numinous into the concrete, imprisoning her fluidity in my earthly stone. She is brilliant, pragmatic and strong. There are none with more rigor, strength or determination. To say she is beautiful is ludicrous, as beauty itself pales in comparison to her spirit. She can alter time, raise mountains and rule kingdoms, but can she forgive me? Can I?

And the council. The hall is lit up in a dim haze, mid...

Stars Dec 09, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share stories, both old and new, more than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm Sea a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical fairy godmothers in training today, we will be talking about stars, star lore, and star beings.

And as we talk about them, we want to invite all kinds of star lore here and the wisdom of the stars and the wisdom of the ancient stars and the ancient people who gazed at the sky and divined asked for blessing followed natural cycles. So we invite all of that here today and give, thanks for those cycles.

Give thanks for the time we have under the sky. One of those constants that maybe we take for granted that there's this beautiful tapestry of twinkling lights above us, no matter where we go, we give thanks for that. And we hope that these stories find you well and bring whatever it is that you need from the day.

So we give thanks to the stars, the star lore. And to saga, I want to give thanks also to everyone who dreams of the stars and the amazing inspiration that they bring to it. And I'm wanting to honor the way the stars have guided people, as well as the different transits of the planet, the sun and moon.

I'm very aware of the power of the, not just the heavenly bodies, but the sky beings that are associated with those heavenly bodies. This is a time when we have had several comments in the sky and meteor showers that have been sharing their light with us and reminding us in this time that light comes from many different directions.

It's beautiful. Betsy, would you like to share your story? That'd be honored too. My story is a story that is related to the countries of Finland and Estonia. And the name of my story is the astral veil of Lindo. In autumn when the sky begins to darken after a summer of endless light is when I think wistfully of Linda, do I think of her as light itself, which is perhaps why she comes into my mind and my heart, when it finally becomes dark here in the North.

I gaze up into the night sky, looking at the gossamer belt of stars that shines above that is where she went. I feel sad that I cannot yet follow her someday. I will then do. His father is echo. We call him old man behind his back. This is not an insult. This is our reverence for him as our elder God of the sky.

Who came from a time before there was any earth at all his breath, his presence is all power. When we pray, we think of him on his sky power and ask that he brings our prayers to life. When strife has happened, we ask him to use his golden hammer and make thunder to clarify and cleanse. When he thinks we need something cleared, pay brings wild storms.

And our world has changed when we lose a beloved mother, husband, or child. He takes them in his chariot, into the sky. So then do was the answer to his own prayers. He had longed for and tried to make a child with his wife Rovena. They couldn't do it. Despite his healing power and her verbal skills. Gluco found a concert, a fertility goddess who conceived the flax inherited into.

She was such a treasure to have go when born that Rob now came to accept and love her too. That was Linda's gift. People loved her. She was a creature of the sky and the land and water because of this. She was gifted with her own kingdom on the shores of the Baltic sea. I lived here as well as her friend and as a member of the Swan tribe here, we played and learned and grew.

We grew into womanhood together. And I watched her become the sovereign queen of her own lens. She was known as the queen of the birds living amongst her Wingard subjects. She knew all of her birds in their many tribes and anticipated their arrival and watched their departures. She was strong minded, much like her father.

And she tried to get her birds to follow particular routes and their migrations through the skies. They didn't know as listen or understand why it was so important to her. She didn't want any of them to become lost or to lose each other. Many men wanted her for a wife to connect him through wedlock to our greatest God go.

The princes of the air descended to gaze upon her and to meet her. And one by one asked her to become their bride. She was the most beautiful creature they had ever seen once they saw her. All of these men wanted her for herself because she was simply the beautiful and graceful Lindor. And Linda was aware of their regard and viewed it with ride humor.

They don't know me at all. It's not about me. Lynn do it's about my beauty and my father that they see, she would say, as we would look upon yet, another suitor, Linda was always respectful to these young men. I never more so than when she was saying no to them. When sun with hair, the color of golden egg yolk came to court, her.

She acknowledged the honor, he bestowed on her and said no. When silver haired, moon and bolded by her refusal of son came to see her. She said no to him as well in the kindest way possible her stepmother, Matt asked her what she was looking for. If neither of these two very suitable luminaries appealed to her after being wed to the somewhat stormy.

Volatile and not very faithful would go. She thought that sun or moon were good, reliable prospects for marriage. Mama they're too reliable. Sun follows the same course every day, moon. Oh, as follows his own cycle. We know where he is. Every moment Robin I've reminded her that following the same course was what she, Linda was trying to get her birds to do.

I'm not a bird. She said laughing. I'm Lynn do queen of the birds. I want more, the midnight haired polar star came courting Buco and Robinah both agreed that this was a son-in-law that they could cherish. He had intense and mesmerizing dark eyes that met her eyes, gray, like her fathers. She felt her blood Quicken and could almost see a life with him.

She held off his proposal though, asking that they spend time getting to know each other. To me, she said his own was in the same place, not even a pathway that he follows, but exactly the same. Can I do that? I don't know. Then do Hey will be a good husband. I confided to her. I would very much like him as a husband, but in Linda's presence, no man ever looked twice at me.

I know it would, but I'm not sure. I think that I will know my husband, when I see him Northern light came calling, he was ravishing and his green and red luminous light. He knew it too. His clothes reflected his transitory nature, shimmering and iridescent then fell in love with his beauty and with his shining splendor.

Before he ever uttered a word, he was very charming, too charming. I thought then do was sure that he was the one that she had waited for. Luca was very grumpy and emitting little cracks of thunder when the nuptials were agreed upon. Northern light cause simmering with smiles. So, you know, it couldn't tolerate daylight.

So he asked for and received the midnight land as the engagement and dowery gift. He appeared delighted in an indolent way, which irritated even more. The wedding date was set. I'm Northern light, agreed to come back ahead of that date. He left charming and glamorous tendril of light curling after him that soon utterly disappeared.

Buco fumed and he'd great size, et cetera, little swirling winds and motion. Linda was so happy. Russia had never bothered with a Trousseau and wedding clothes. Now she focused on them and earnest frost provided the most beautiful and delicate lace for her veil. The swans provided the softest and warmest of feathers for a gown worthy of the queen of the birds and bride of Northern light.

All her bird folk offered what they could to help her have the most splendid bride clothes that a bride could dream of. We worked and worked to finish up preparations before Northern light returned. Linda spoke about him, constantly, her happiness overflowing sun moon, and polar star retired from the list, not able to court her anymore.

I looked forward to seeing polar star then does wedding Northern light ever in constant in his nature? And with this engagement, dowery gift of the midnight lens already in hand, never returned. Linda watched the skies constantly, still trusting that he would come on the wedding day, then do dressed in her amazing down in Vail and waited and waited and never came desperate, sad, and upset.

Linda started crying and wasn't able to stop. She cried so much. Her dress became completely wet. She continued to cry, losing all sense of herself. She forgot to direct her birds and truly didn't care. If they could find their proper path, she wept. And as she did, she became more insubstantial and eventually started floating in the air, still crying, courteously.

was at first angry. And then as her crying and sadness continued, he became very alarmed. He asked the greatest of the wins to come and to bear her a loft into the sky so that she could escape her sorrow and remembrance of betrayal by her despicable suitor. He asked her to come into the skies and rain in the heavens with him.

Unable to say yes or no. She just cried. He took her into the sky with him or upwards by the great winds, higher and higher. Her trailing Lacy frost veil turned into millions of shining stars. This veil of stars became the night path called the path of the birds, the Milky way lovingly held in the sky realm.

Linda's soon remembered herself, the true Lindo. And she remembered her birds. When her voice ceased it's crying. She used it to sing rune songs for her birds to recognize this immense star path that we call her Astro Vale. The birds incorporated her songs into their navigation and now never lose their way.

On very rare nights, raining in the sky. As a queen Linder sees Northern light shining in the distance and wonders. How could she ever have wanted to be with him?

That was beautiful. Beautiful. Well, my story, maybe I'm a little more humorous. But it wants to be told than it is the story of the Zaria core of the Slavic lands. They are the three sisters, the three sisters, and that also rain over day, evening and night. My eldest sister Zaria was nagging at me again, wake up Sasha.

You're late. The sun is ready to ride and you have not opened the gate yet. Her annoyed voice piercing through my dreams sharply already. It can't be time yet. It's so early in the spring, I still have another hour. At least it's daylight savings. We talked about this last week, one less hour of sleep for you.

And I am a robbed of an hour of my precious night work. I don't know how I'm supposed to distract all of those nightmares or send them off to the children who behave badly and deserve them. The nightmares won't distract themselves, you know? I really hate daylight, light savings, Zuri, a mumbled, disgruntled Lee, as she so often did.

And yes, I was certainly hating daylight savings right now, too, as my head spend with grogginess and a vague recollection of another boring times and cycles meetings a few days ago. Not that I dislike cycles, that's not it at all. I just dislike the meetings about the cycles and my sister's giving me grief for being late and spending too much time with smuggle.

Somebody has to do it. Somebody has to keep the beast happy. So he won't grow to restless. And it's not my fault that he likes me most. I'm the only one who lets him out of his chains. So he could make a few laps around the Milky way to tire himself out. I don't dare tell my sisters those for, they would surely disapprove or fear that the hound will not return.

And then as they say, whoever they are. All hell would break loose, no pressure, but the truth is the hound always comes back for now, at least. And I always feed him with the best of the day stories so he can fall asleep peacefully. I don't know if I'm supposed to, but I cherish smart goal. Great lot. And I feel bad for him.

Unlike us, who are the beloved Zaria sisters of our people? He is feared mostly because he is misunderstood. But he is as much part of the sacred cycles and keeping them as we are maybe even more for his, the compass. And he can feel when things are out of balance and when a great change might have to come, just like us, he is part of what our people see and believe when they look up to, as we stretched across the sky, my people see me as the youngest sister, because I arrive in the morning.

I am Zaria Donna and I opened the Gates for the sun chariot to run and for the sun to come because I am the first to arise. I bring hope and possibility to the day men would take off their hats at Dawn and greet me, asking that I blessed her day Lester work, and I am happy to do so with my arrival and the break of night.

Children's fears dissolve just like the morning fog. I dispersed with my waking. My sisters will say that I am the people's favorite. And maybe for some of them that is true for other people. There's a great thread for the coming day because they don't love their work or their lives, and would rather stay deep in slumber.

I shine on them as brightly as I can hoping that they will feel my glow and be warmed by the potential of a new day. But they simply don't look at me like they used to. So I'm unable to help as much. My older sister arrives in the evening to close the Gates. After the sun, when the sky begins to darken, she summons the soft veil of dusk that reminds people that it's time to head home from a hard day's work alerts to birds, to soften their voices and find their sleeping nests.

She is the lover's lamp and most intimate witness to the vows they make to each other. I rarely get to see these intimate moments between lovers since they tend to be occupied with other things. When I'm on watch, I have asked, do you have your charter that many times to share some of their delightful stories, but she is so secretive and greedy with her observations and it will not share anything with me.

Not fair. In my opinion, her time sounds so romantic and enchanting. My eldest sister is Zodiac and she comes at midnight. Some people fear her greatly. Certainly some children do because her dark arrival can bring nightmares and bad dreams and other dangerous creatures who feel safe to come out disguised by the full darkness.

Others honor her great power and magic making spells most potent at her time. Well safely hidden in the night. She is also the one who carries the body of the resting sun to rise again. Our people will say that the sun dies every night and is reborn at Dawn with me. But in fact, the son just like us is beyond life and death.

And there's really no human word that could name what really happens during his daily journey. And since our people tend to be a little dramatic, they've always said that the son dies because they like to talk about doom, death, and dying. No wonder that the little ones have so many nightmares. My poor sisters already have pulled notes.

Now stays very busy during slumber time to keep them all safe from dreams about doom, death, and dying. And they don't even know that she protects them. They think she's the one who brings the nightmares. No wonder. She's always so cranky. I love my sisters dearly, even though we tend to bicker amongst ourselves more so now than ever before.

In truth, all three of us have had to work much harder than we used to. We still love and care about our people, but they have very much changed and we worry about them and their world. As much as ours times of day are blended together. Now, people don't honor the times of work, play and sleep. They don't honor their dreams.

They extend themselves working into the evenings and not resting fully, not allowing us to tend to them appropriately. The nights are so bright, too bright. Lit up by strange lamps that make our eldest sister almost invisible in some parts of the land, which is so sad for she is so vibrant, most beautiful of all of us, I might say.

And poor smuggle feeling all of the restlessness and her tiredness and the blending of times and cycles as people stopped honoring them. I don't know how much longer I can tell him stories that will satisfy him. He loves to hear about adventures, quests travel. He loves the sound of people's laughter.

As they gather around the fire and share dreams with each other. If you are hearing the story, maybe this is a story just for you. Even if your people had different names for the stars, surely they gazed upon them. And upon us with wonder, with hope with longing. And this is how we look at you now with longing.

We want you and long for you to be happy to live fully, to gaze and dream and dare to honor the precious cycles within us and within you. Because even though we don't know where we came from, we have always been here and hope to always be here for you to shine and guide your path.

Oh, I loved that. I loved it. The engaging quality of this particular Zaria and to find out more about what her sisters do. Thank you very much. It was a fun story to write. I loved her character really. I've just really enjoyed honoring her voice and, and seeing her perspective on the other sisters as well.

For, she would have the closest perspective. And that's what I like too, is that she would have insight into things that people might miss. So it seems like she acts like a bridge maybe between her sisters and the ones that they are shining over. I think so. And I think in some way, All of the sisters would be a bridge to each other in a different way based on what their relationship is to each other.

I'm sure her relationship with her older sister is very different than with the eldest. So there may be more stories about these three. I don't know, because I'm curious about that. I would imagine when it comes to amazing sisters like this, there must be a number of stories and stories that are seen from each of their viewpoints too.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I have always loved the sisters. And so I'm super excited that you actually chose them. That is fantastic for me. I totally want to hear more. Oh, good. No pressure

on, are there cycles as they want to appear? And that's the, I absolutely loved your story. Absolutely. And chanted by it. And I love that out of the sorrow comes this great gift and even bigger resetting of direction. And. Just the stretching of protective. I see it as these great big webs and pathways in the sky.

Better unbreakable, no birds can be lost now because of this. I loved it too. I loved that. She fell in love with the one that was ever changing because I knew immediately when he entered the scene, that that also was the one I would fall in love with, but it would last about 10 minutes. So I totally loved the character, but I also loved her respectful.

No. And it's so felt like her coming into her own power or to be that she got to create that thing. You know, the cycles, the berms, and the creating that, and going through the grief and taking back the projection of beauty that she put on this other feature, she sort of removed it and put it back into herself and made it manifest in the world and made her own pallor.

And I loved that. I see it very much that way, too, that she was even more than do after she had been through this broken hearted experience. And I loved the father's love for her. I mean, from the...

Merlin Dec 02, 2020

Thank you for joining us!

Forest Folk Nov 25, 2020

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical bear in training today. We're talking about green people and forest spirits.

This is Betsy, and I definitely want to. Invite and invoke and evoke the green man, the green God himself with gratitude. And I want to thank all of the spirits that support this God also. And I'm grateful for the week that I spent with this God and I invite saga to be present as well. And thank you for these stories.

And this is Gabriela. And I would like to invite the spirit of the old way, send the spirit of the wild and the blessings of the wild and to forest and the trees and for the balance and the nurturing that came with those times. And even though we may feel disconnected from those times, I think we can bring them through in our stories and in our devotions.

So I'm very grateful to have also spent it. A week with the being that I'll be speaking about. And I give thanks to that being and to other beings from this land. And I give thanks to saga and the two other storytellers I'm with today, this was C and I would like to thank everyone and, uh, really appreciate and dedicate this to.

Relationship all of our relationships with one another, maybe globally be well even more than globally. Can they wait, cosmologically be in perfect right. Relationship compassionately treating one another.

So, um, my story is about the green man and the location of the stories in some unspecified. Kind of Celtic British or Britannic proton landscape, the small family of three left their village just after first light, neatly dressed. Two of them were carrying maiden baskets. The third held the hands of the older two.

They maintained a presence of decorum walking at a measured pace nodding to other early rising villagers as they made their way along the single track road heading towards the forest. All of them were silent as they passed the graveyard in the early morning, gray shadow nearby. The first rays of the rising sun lit the equal armed cross on a pedestal in the church yard.

Spinning light rays in all directions. The young man looked at his partner, Ellen in the suddenly vivid light with a flicker of anxiety. She smiled reassuringly and said, it's a blessing in audit and then smiled at the small girl between them as she took a couple of skipping steps at the word blessing.

Nearing the end of the village out on the open road, they were completely illuminated in sunlight. They Quicken their pace. I had lay the smaller road that led into the great forest is fast track. The forest had been a source of life for the villagers, for the entire lifespan of the village. It provided would have many kinds for furniture and homes as well as firewood and charcoal.

Hunters found game animals, birds, and even river fish in the forest. Why is Vogue like Ellen went to the forest for several reasons, including plants from medicinal and culinary purposes. So nominally Christian, for some time, Ellen went to the forest to honor the green man of the forest as her ancestors had done for centuries.

She thought of the green man is one of her ancestors for that matter as had her mother before her, until lately the village had kept its connection to the old ways and customs long held in this part of the world. The advance of Christianity was changing. That belting fires were still that in many areas, but fewer belting babies were born.

Nine months later, Ellen herself was one of these children. It was not a secret. Her daughter Sotia was also a child of Belton, but this was a secret. Her generous and kindly new husband UN had agreed to claim Sasha as his own child from previous visit to the village. He was returned to the village. Years later, had reunited them and made an honest woman of her.

The villagers said it gladly claimed both wife and daughter, this visit into the great and ancient wood was one of Thanksgiving for the scenario. Ellen had explained to him that it was no villager that had impregnated her, but the green God himself, she told him this before she wed him, giving him a chance to back out her mother, the wisest stuff, the wise folk had looked you in the eye and said, this is our way.

This is absolutely true. And for us, it is a blessing. It was well past bell belting. They walked for some hours, going from sparkling early summer sunlight to send Apple trees to shade, the voids, they loosen the ties and fastenings of their clothing letting down their hair and becoming freer and more relaxed.

All of them felt the changes around them as they moved deeper into the forest. Bird sounds, lessons, leaves, rustled, and branches move slightly. The light changed and changed again. Helen began to speak out loud to small folk who were unseen, but becoming more obvious in their own ways were coming to him with thanks.

We wish to enter the sacred Grove. We bring all of you offerings. Let us enter please. It's Ellen soar, Shah, and UN prayed silently for some time holding firmly to both you and on her daughter sorta felt fluttering in her heart and in her tummy. She had begun to notice the changes. As soon as she entered the forest, this was her first time to be so deep in the bast woods, the light was changing all around her, becoming a deep and water agreeing she could hear her heart drumming in her ears and felt it beating in her chest.

As she gazed around, she could feel her eyes sliding sideways, or was it the forest that had just moved sideways? Her mother heaped, a great sign and letting go of each of them, give them a little push forward. We're allowed to enter. Do you accepting, but nervous surprise a path appear that wound around a little pool that he knew had not been there a moment before the water bubble, gently smooth rocks minded.

And before he knew it, he was kneeling like the others as they wash faces, hands and hearts. Ellen drew out a bundle wrapped in cloth and removed a little cake from it. She placed this on one of the rocks by the pool with Def precision and a murmur prayer. Don't look in the pool too long. She said to them, you might see something.

If you do you and lifted his case, Sosa's eyes widened. She had seen something. Her mother gave a little shake of her head, gesturing her to go forwards. C'mon she said. They walked three times around the little pool and continued on the path, going deeper into the woods. Do you feel started Ewing? Yes. Set Ellen quickly cutting him off.

She inclined her head Sorscher with a little shake feel. What said sore? HSA. I feel fluttery. We do to set her mother, but she and UN felt was a bit different than that. Desire stirred sharply in them. Elon's cheeks became Rosie and UN's face began to show a little bit of the strain as he concentrated on walking path forward.

Sasha slippery from them. Skipping ahead on the path, Ellen, and you and wrap their arms around each other. Is this the God whispered you in? Yes, this is his gift. Eventually they entered a Glade in the wood. Nothing was manmade here to indicate a place of holiness. The living plants and trees in the Glade woke together a feeling of Hallows and peace.

The Glade was empty, but not empty. It was hard to tell if something had just happened here or was about to Ellen felt the twin powers of love and lust as an almost anguish. So piercing where they in her core. Sasha. I'm going to put out this rug for you to sit on and this basket holds the picnic lunch for you to enjoy your new Papa.

And I are going into the wood together, stay here and don't wander. We'll be in earshot of you if you call and we won't be gone long, she kissed Sotia on the head. She pulled you in and a blanket with her further into the forest steps and eventually into a shady Bauer together. They knelt. And then lay on the ground, branches rustled around them and stone sank into the earth would need them to give them a soft bed in the Glade social began to set out her lunch.

She looked around and went to a plant nearby with big glossy leaves. She made a little curtsy to it. As she had been taught. May I have a few of your leaves, please? I'll use them as dishes. The plant leaves released and felt easily into her hands. She gasped and then smiled many thanks and blessings for sharing your goodness.

She took the leaves, setting them on a pattern on the rug and set out some bread and cheese. One of these places is for you. My green God. She called out, come and join me. She pulled a jug from a basket and Uncorked it pouring a little meat into small cups. Me to mellow your heart and fill it with song.

She plays berries out red for the blood of all life ritual words, spoken ritual response. I will little Sotia. The voice was deep and mellow and a bit agent sounding the green God appeared before her looming over her small form and then seeming to learn less. So. He was the deep green of forest with the Oak and Tanya Browns of wood.

His hair was curling and wild as was the look in one of his golden eyes has other Iowa's serene and glowing like liquid honey. He was tall and well-made those spare and how to skin a little light leather. This is a feast. He said, my mother and I made it for you. Her eyes Shaw. Um, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to appear and to share this meal for you with thanks for my new Papa and for the goodness that life has brought to us with your help.

As he sat with her, the little blanket group, big enough to accommodate him, he took the cup of need, which first looked quite little in his large ham and then seemed to be just right. He drying. His eyes they're golden. And he smiled at the child. Plus at me, it is a valuable gift. He ate the berries from the green leaf is curling hair waved as leaves and vines of different types grew out of his wild Maine.

As he ate the bread and cheese, the products of good farming blended with green prosperity. As flesh grew young and supple looking the oaky wooden colors shifted to a light. Clearer green, your love renews me, my daughter and your company delights. He reached into his green robes and drew out a glistening golden object.

It was an Oak leaf, broach, cunningly, and lovingly shaped. He pinned it onto her dress at the shoulder and then took her little hand. She felt the humming of his blood. Through her hand, she was aware of the forest floor, the sky beyond the canopy of trees and always the green. She saw the seasons unfold spring to summer, summer to autumn thrifting and dying leaves of autumn to winter, the ice and cold bareness of winter, making it slow way to spring.

Again, she saw the tireless service of this God in his births, deaths and rebirths. She felt total trust that continued to eat and to talk though, she did not later remember much of what they spoke about. What she did remember was that she began to see images and stories of girls like her and women like her mother, many girls, many women, some boys, some men, and always the green God, this family of his one after another.

Aging and dying and his descent with them into the earth only to rise again. She saw his sadness and his Joyce and his total trust. It seemed like it was an age that they spent together. It seemed like it was quite a moment. She knew that she had been one of those little girls, one of those women, again and again.

She knew that just as he was about in service. So was she, the sun had barely moved in the sky before Ellen and UN Rebecca relaxed and soft faced from love. The shaded green Bower had held them and provided them a privacy outside of time. They stepped from that space back into the Glade and saw him. You, his eyes grew big at the side of the green God in all his levy splendor come and meet him.

My love said Ellen, they stepped into the clearing and bowed low before the God. The God looked on them kindly as Ellen introduced her husband, be welcomed to my family, said the God, and then gesturing to Soraya. He said she has renewed me. Whatever this life holds for her prosperity is hers and yours.

Dear Ellen at one, and the same time, all but you and raised their hands and made a sign of the circle in the air. So it is, and so it always up

and now they'll hear from seeing. It all began with the seed, a small thing that holds infinite power. My great-grandmother had a name. It has long since been forgotten, replaced by a thousand monitors. My grandmother had a name, it washed away suspended in drops of eternity. My mother had a name. It sunk into the earth echoed in ancient caves.

I have a name for now. My great-grandmother lived in eon alone, dreaming of her mother's heartbeat, contracting, expanding, circulating undisturbed until one day. When a butterfly on a planet whose name cannot be spoken in a human voice, flapped her wings and seated this world. And my great-grandmother held space.

So my grandmother could ascend. She earned her place at the eternal table. My grandmother exuded raw power tossing and turning her dream lucid when limitless options for all creation. Until one day when one grain of sand fell in love with another, and they built a life together and my grandmother held space.

So my mother could ascend. She earned her place at the eternal table. My mother stood still having awakened. She lived her life as an ascetic, quiet and strong, solid earth in a storm until one day. When a fallen star lit up, her world penetrating her unmoving ground and the globe shook with their union and my mother held space.

So I could ascend, she earned her place at the eternal table, my downs with my sisters alive and engaged. I thought myself past sleep past dreams connected. Until one day when two flowers tumbled together, spinning and twirling as they fell and they vowed to remain in freedom and relationship moving around the domain, untethered and I held space.

So you could ascend. I have earned my place at the eternal table. Life is not a given a birthright or a destination. Life is the reception of the unexpected and embracing of the same so that a new world can be born. And when it is, you must move over. You must hold space. So your children can ascend you too.

Must earn your place at the eternal table. It will begin with the seed, a small thing, a thing that holds infinite power. That was one

once upon a time, there was a void and every day, this void would ebb and flow dreaming of its mother's heartbeat until one day, when a butterfly on a planet whose name cannot be spoken in a human voice, flapped her wings and seeded this world. Because of that, the tides began to roll and mountains began to ascend as the internal fire of earth burst forth because of that forest screw to their current expression, where we birthed the liminal is one of whom made his way through the mirror.

And on that day, humans learned to deny death, deny life afraid of the being who can only be seen from the corners of their eyes. But one day, one day soon, another seed will grow and next Gabriela, thank you both for such beautiful stories. My story is about an old forest in Poland, where some of the oldest forests of the world still roam.

This is his story. I do not know who first came into being me or this forest. I can not remember existing outside of it, nor can I imagine not feeling every sound, creature or tree that gave the forest life. I have been known by many names, even though I come from a time long before naming, I come from a time when everything was connected.

Hundreds of voices blending together to form one song. Even humans were as much part of the song as any other bird or tree, but this is a story of another world long gone from a more recent memory that humans could enter my forest feared and respected me wise. Women intently listening to my whispers would come together, healing and poisonous plants for their remedies.

Hunters and gatherers brought me offerings in exchange for a successful hunt, bountiful, Berry harvest, or protection from wild beasts. If they lost their path. And tonight they knew me as the terror or the great blessing, the story of gifts. And we lived in harmony for centuries, centuries, past that people changed.

They didn't know, always bring me offerings and their demands grew higher and more driven by greed than hunger. They stopped fearing me. They brought a new priest who claimed to dominate over nature and cut down ancient blessing trees and contaminated healing, streams, fools. They thought they could take from me as they pleased without honor or understanding of balance.

So I hid the beast from them. I covered patches of berries and mushrooms from their reach and infested all paths with Hornets and pests to keep them from returning. And this was a welcome departure. Our relationship was no longer in balance. The names they called me changed. Also, I did not care for these new names for, they did not match the truth of my being or my power, but that is the cycle of the old and the new one dissolves to contain the other.

And as people's beliefs changed, my power also shifted to respond to a different rhythm. An older, deeper presence where I could safely reside. I was able to retrieve deeply into the overgrown forest cooling and creeks and ageless Moss blending with my lush surroundings. I disappeared for years and years falling into a blissful slumber.

Oh, how I love to sleep. One day I was awakened by a most piercing high-pitched scream. It was a dangerous scream. An impending death cry. Alarming me to rattle the trees and roll the earth and response only a human could make such a sound. And I would only hear it. If the impending death was met with an equal force to resist it and called a higher forces of nature and destiny to challenge the sentence.

I extended my gaze to show me all parts of the wood, to share with me the birds and what they were seeing and where the source of the cry was. I saw human child, a girl. She was crouched down in a clearing, covering something even smaller than herself. While a pack of young wolves surrounded her greedily.

I focused on my census on the situation until it was clear. The girl was holding onto a small Brown rabbit. It's heart beating wildly in her protective grasp. The wolves were not hungry, but bored and enticed by the smell of fear from a human. A creature they have never seen before, and I couldn't blame them, but because devouring, this child was not part of keeping them fed or alive.

I was well within reason to intervene with one swoop of my will. I drove a powerful wind to move one of the biggest branches into the clearing to swing wildly over the pack. This Helling wind was so loud and sudden that it scattered dozens of birds across the sky. Darkening it for a brief moment. The Wolf's ears perked up.

They stopped their advancing the child immediately. The pack leader, sensing my presence and my intention abandoned his feral pursuit and left the clearing quickly. And his brothers followed the girl watched wide-eyed. She didn't pass out from fright at the horrific sound I made, she released her hold on the Brown rabbit and set him down on the grass.

The creature didn't take any time, acknowledging its protector and darted for the bushes.

Wild Hunt Nov 18, 2020

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical fairy godmothers in training today, we will be sharing stories about the wild hunt.

And all the magic and wildness and blessing that comes with those times. And the adventures, fires first lit for grandfathers. Feasts are still burning. They burned for a long time and these parts, not just for the one even into morning, but for the many nights that follow after. The days are short and the nights are long and getting longer yet heading into the deepest autumn, the autumn that strips the trees bare and freezes the ground solid and closed.

Preparing for winter, many souls and spirits wonder in this cold landscape and howling winds finding their way home through the thin veils of the dark season, finding their way towards their loved ones.

Those offerings and feasts are not for me. They're not for me. No feast can fill my hunger or quench my thirst. No, honey can sweeten the bitterness that burns me songs and prayers can be heard. Messages revealed between the living and the dead, a sacred time that living lean softly to hear the whispers and blessings of their loved ones.

What omens, what was done? What do they bring for the coming year? The songs they sing or not? For me, they're not for me. And no one wants to hear my cries, my house or my rage. I am the keeper of the place where the unwanted go, the banished, the wicked and the wild here they come. And I contain them. Keep them still keep them quiet and far away from the living and from the fires until this time comes when the earth stirs and a wins world.

And I can no longer keep from howling, a thousand cries and the cold wind blows from all sides. There's nowhere to run, no place to hide. This wind might find me after all, take me over, push me further out. I will be free at last free at last. But I will not go into the night. I have my rage. I have my thousand cries.

I will not be banished. I must keep guard. Ah, here they come. Hundreds of writers and to beasts and ghouls by ground and by air, they ride so many faces, flared, nostrils, and fierce eyes, tumbling and crying like one being onward and forward the ride unstoppable on confined. Oh, how wonderful it would be to ride with them to whirl and fly, to be free, to be undone.

But I cannot, I cannot ride. I must remain. I must guard. I have my rage. I have my thousand cries. It is my duty. And Diane bound, the black writer arrives. I meet his eyes. Your time has come guardian. You must ride. But I cannot for, I am bound and I hold a thousand cries. Give me your cries. He demands. I give him one and onward.

He rides the red rider arrives. I meet his eyes. Your time has come guardian. You must ride. I still cannot fry him bound. And with the rage of a thousand, I, how give me a rage. He demands. I give him one. And onward. He rides the white writer arrives. I dare not meet his eyes. He cannot see me. I must hide, but he can see all and there's nowhere to go, no place to hide.

And I still hold the thousand cries inside. I've come for you, guardian. Your time is now another rider comes to take your place to keep the edge, to keep the banished and the wicked and the wild. I cannot leave. I cannot ride. I have a thousand howling voices inside a thousand rages and a thousand cries.

Those are not yours. Those are no mine. I have come for them. So you can ride your time has come white writer go forth and ride. It is my turn to guard the land at this time. And so I ride. I take the thousand house with me and the cries I dissolve with the wind as do the cries and the rage. And we howl with such vigor, such force and joy that nobody will be left behind.

Noah will wander. No one will be bound free at last free. At last we are undone. We ride. I love that. That was so powerful. Thank you. It was fun to write. I loved that. What felt to me like dichotomous nature, the first lack, and then the, the engagement rather belonging in a totally different way. It's nature was a big part of it, nature and time.

And that everything belongs in the right order, even if it's part of disorder and chaos.

For those spirits and those souls. Yes. Until the new ones start coming. New elements that have been cast aside are sent off to that place far, far away, wherever that may be. I loved all the descriptions. I always love all your descriptions. Thank you for me. The dedication and it too. I mean, just the acceptance of what was.

And the adherence to some kind of code or some kind of an agreement and the necessity of having beings, people of some sort who will do those jobs, who will do that intense work and a lovely, very vigorous portrayal of the hunt itself too. That's great. They like the release, not just of those who are fully gone, but the idea that parts of ourselves could be offered up and can be released with that as well.

And the demonstration of how to let go and the reassurance that when we let go of something, it is in fact carried on and repurposed. And it makes me think too, of what happens when people are dying, that the things that they've been carrying often pass on to the living, and to know that there's some recourse for those who've inherited these kinds of rages or emotions or feelings.

And to know that they too can move on and be taken at certain times of the year, intense and uplifting. Thank you both for listening and having such beautiful things to say, I'm quite fond of some of these words in here. I might even incorporate them into something else because I do feel like the words came from this code and from this place of lung and wanting to be released.

And also knowing that once they've come to the edge, they're the only ones holding it back. And the trust that whatever's after can sustain it can sustain the edge when they're the last one standing. And that was the reason why they're still standing. And I like that when this voice first started coming, they really were showing me the warm places and the acceptable places that people gather or create for their ancestors and how some are simply not welcome for very good reason, because they're part of a landscape that upholds the bigger structure of it all.

And there are forces wild and free that really understand those situations. And those feelings and the illnesses and the things that must be kept at Bay to contain a balance. So I appreciate how that voice came through with the warmth and with the wilderness of the cold. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And now C has a story.

On all hallows' Eve at midnight, their time 7:00 PM mine. The sound of distant hooves echoes through the air with a company when the lost dog sniffs his way from tree to tree smelling the stories of a million other dogs before him, the wind begins to hell low and mournful. At first, then whipping up into a high pitch scream has the worst per where group of sense.

What does one call a group of courses of flock heard elite bizarre for practical purposes, they're done eating. So one would think that satisfied would be inappropriate term it there anything, but I will call them the one thing. As soon as they land, they splinter off into subgroups, grounding the forest.

Is it hurting? It's lack of occupants. Filling the air with their Hells and screams the pounding of Koons, the whipping of brands, their leader, a tall man and a taller hat gestures in the air. As of conducting the cacophony, he gallops between the foreboding trees are full-speed unafraid wielding a spear wildly.

And with abandon in doubt, he remembers what it is or who he is then again, why would he need to, he's only playing his part. He is what we have made him just as way or what he has made us. Well, memory is selective. Anyway, it's just about who gets to select in the wee hours of the morning. They happen upon a man tucked into this victim sleeping bag and bivy sack the tall man knobs in three of the wanting, surround to the camper and begin to chant.

He goes on sleeping as a heavy rider within strands and long thinning hair, hoist the camper still cuddled into his waterproof cocoon over his shoulder before mounting his horse. Again, the two Gallup chaotically into the night. So only one of them knows it as they approach the waterfall their leader makes.

But I can only describe as a sound that isn't so much curd as experienced. It rips through the worlds, creating a jagged tear in the fabric of understanding the self appeals behind them, leaving a slight energetics in tag it's equally as appealing. They arrive at the Elvin court and after a few faint niceties present the snoring bundle to the King, his smiles, then gestures to them to dump it into the corner.

Circular tables that lie in the hall are covered with food steaming, loaves of bread and cauldrons and soup yams and soy juries have as well as those marginally burnt sausage, there was like so much, there are desert and crystal carrots of Mead ale and wine. In addition to a stunning variety of Elvin alcohols in a rainbow of colors.

All sit down to enjoy the mail. Enjoy being aware of that is utterly misleading. So they have no need of physical substance. So wanting sucked down, enormous quantities of food and drinks so quickly. I can't imagine they actually taste them. And with no sign of enjoyment whatsoever, they're not done eating.

Although their bodies no longer require that when they finished what I can retrieve of serving stones. They began licking the platters in a desperate fever, the King taps on his crystal glass with the end of the sport to call attention as the final drops is squeezed from the crafts and the squat is of the wanting licks, the final dollop of yam from the central cauldron tonight's entertainment.

The King announces gesturing to the unconscious lump of human in the corner. Three Elvis hoist him upright and pry him from his bivy sack was surprising. Grace. To hold him upright, whose head drooping forward and to the left, the third, a younger elephant exquisite dress. First fingerprints then search it's him handing the driver's license to the King who reigns the name and address John Dickinson core 28 East pine allowed Mullins later, the younger L pants that came to iPads when displaying a personal file had one showing a social media page.

The King snorts, this mouse suddenly on a half smile. Good job folks. He comments, it looks like this. One's told his fiance. He's spending time alone in the woods and called in sick at work sound eruption the room as the snicker and the wanting does a full round of high fives. Everyone in hand pulls out a camera except for the younger ELLs.

So momentarily hugs the camper then slowly shift shifts into his form, like wax melting and solidifying again. That's the wave of the King's hand, the disco ball descends from the ceiling and music clubs, the room, the doppelganger leaves a Congo line as the other snap pictures next to you, does a strip tease draping the band's plaid flannel over his sprightly, feminine L looking her cheek, other ships shift into animal form and pose literally as often as not while still more guests, documentary dimensions.

The party ratios for hours until daylight threatens to shatter the night and the elephant King rings his glass. Once again, the group slowly quiet, another successfully evening, he announces tomorrow. The tall later of the one-time suggest you bring the entertainment. We'll provide the food. The Elvin King announces is the wanting head off to return the camper to the woods while his younger elf, a friend uploads all the images in social media account.

That's amazing. What a story you painted with your words. Thank you. I love the feast. I really felt like I was there with all of your descriptions of it and the food and the Mead. And I love how mischievous everybody is and so funny. And there's that element of not feeling quite safe, ever. Which I think is an important part of these kinds of adventures.

And really this time, this time of the year, and being with these magical beings, even if they blend in somehow into present time, there's that element of the uncanny and the unknown and that anything could happen and we could be snatched away at any moment. Right. And forever changed. And I think we've lost so much lore about it, that people perhaps at this time of year, really put themselves at risk as well.

Which might not have happened in previous times where people were aware of what the potential dangers might be. And I liked the collaboration between the different kinds of beings as well, and sort of the routine that they've worked out together. Otherworldly networking

and staying on top of what's happening in the mortal world, as well as incorporating it to their own delight. What was it like to spend time with this story? I actually very much enjoyed it. I really enjoyed all of them. I guess to me it rings very true that sometimes the world can be a combination of sort of not malicious, but not safe.

Either that area of gray, where you're like, well, that's not ideal and it is kind of entertaining, but, uh, you can do it that, yeah. All right. Watch your back, I guess. Yeah. Did you have a favorite. I know you love Dell of the people in it. Did you feel especially close to one or another? The two liters? Yeah.

Well, and I guess the camper I really felt for the camper. It's true. I was quite fond of them as well.

It was delightful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Test's worried that Hilder, the goblin cat was not having an easy time with her newly transmogrified shape gone where her extra long legs now shortened by several inches. She had five toes on each pod rather than seven, and she no longer had the head to tail big line of extra stiffer along her spine.

She didn't look completely normal, but a lot of cats have that distinction. She seemed to be in a little bit of shock after the change, which great aunt hold us side was entirely natural. Give known yourself one way. And now you aren't that anymore. That's what it would feel like her great aunt had taken her by the hand, when she'd finished with her work and said, we'll take Hilder a little time to get used to this.

She may be a little clumsy, whatever she does. Don't laugh. Test promised her solidly that she wouldn't laugh, but it turned out to be harder than she thought because Hilda couldn't judge distances in her new configuration, lurching and tumbling around, which hurt her dignity more than her body. Over a little time, Hilder, the cat regained her poise and her confidence.

Tessa's mother agreed. Tessa's familiar, looked as much like a normal cat as possible under the circumstances of coming from the goblin world. And now seemed in control of her body. One fine day. It was decided that tests and Hilder could go outside together on a day that was cold and clear tests took Hilder outside for the first time.

She shot through the open door and took a great leap into the pile of leaves in the front yard test, followed and jumped into the leaves herself, twirling, happily in the wrestling red leaves. Feeling delight and awakening. Tendrils of power. She twirled first sunwise and then widdershins she did tensions.

She hadn't even been aware of reeled off of her. And she felt pure happiness. Hilter seemed to be in a similar mood and she left and gambled and generally acted like a kitten. Tess was glad she could play. She thought Hilder had been trying awfully hard to be good. And while it came naturally to tests, it seemed to take a real effort for him filter test his mother, busy in the kitchen, checked on them from time to time and seem to be satisfied by what she saw for.

She left them to it. A little wind had sprung up and move through the last of the hanging leaves on the nearest tree. A fall of autumn colored leaves snowed down on them. The little wind riffled through the pile of leaves, lifting some and flattening others, a small twister of dry leaves formed and spiraled high heels are pounced on the Juul red spiral of leaves, which lifted up off the ground above her, frustrating, her intent, a twist formed again, dancing closer to the cat and then pulling away.

The cat slunked down and stocked at her eyes. Gleaming intently, the wind twisted out of reach justice, Hilder pounced again, and missed tail twitching. Hilda became even more focused and as the wind teasing the approached Hilder pounds to the left of it, neatly landing on it, no in it as the wind twisted that direction.

Tufts saw Hilder's mouth stretched wide wider than it should be able to. And then Hilda growled and grabbed the wind with her teeth. The wind struggled furiously, but he'll just grip on. It was strong with a big gulp. She swallowed it whole, the spiraling swirl of red leaves suspended in the air, dropped abruptly to the ground.

Hilder dropped to her belly. The wind continued to struggle inside of her Hilder kept your teeth together. Hissing and arching as the wind tried to fling her from side to side. Oh, no test cried. What have you done? Tests ran her aid as Hilder scooted along the ground, moving forward and hunching up every few feet, grabbing the cat who thrashed furiously tests and treated her.

Let go of it.

She rocked from side to side as the furious wind tried to force its way out of her. When it bashed her into a chair like at the kitchen table, a little bit of the wind escaped, flowing her mother's piled papers off the table in a small gun. What on earth visit her mother asked watching intently. She swallowed a wind and she won't let it go.

What can we do old or her mother's sudden dealing by the lurching cat. Her mother was struggling with laughter and vexation. She put her hands on either side of Hilder's back, trying to feel what was happening inside the cat. As she moved her hands from her back towards her belly, the cat hissed, as well as she could through her teeth.

It was both awarding his and to help me kind of hiss the wind, which I've been rocking, killed her side to side immediately pressed for advantage changed direction and pummeling her internally from head to tail and back. Surprising Hilder who squeaked a little wind erupted from her mouth smelling of leaves on the far North and from her rear end, releasing a fart only a distressed goblin cat could make, Oh my gosh, that's terrible.

So that her mother, as Hilda catapulted out of her arms, leaving her in a noxious cloud test, tried not to giggle call auntie Holda. She'll know what to do test. As mother said, waving her arms. Test called her praying. She would be there to answer Hilda. Didn't bother saying hello. And she picked up merely saying, what did she do?

Oh, auntie she swallowed a wind surprise silence. And then cackling. Laughter auntie you told me not to laugh at her. I didn't say I couldn't laugh. Her great aunt said wiping streaming tears from her face. Where there apron, how did it happen? We were playing in the leaves and a little wind twister appeared Hilter pounced and swallowed it.

It's trying to get out of her, but she won't let it, let me talk to your mother Sibyl. Can you tell me which direction the wind is from? I think it's a...

Ghosts Nov 11, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share stories, both old and new, more than anything, we're open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm Sea, a writer, artist, and storyteller.

I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm

Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical fairy godmothers

in training.

I invoked sacred ground:

with thanks to Saga.

For the inspirations that you offer to Saga Kraft and to us. And I'm very grateful for this thin time of the year for all that this thin time has to offer the fin time offers opportunity for ghosts to be more present than usual, which can be a good thing or not a good thing, but it's always interesting.

And I look forward to hearing your stories. Sea, thank you.

What do you also think everyone? And I think particularly am some students not, well, I'm not quite to exclude physical ancestors, but also all the people from the past, since I've written about some of them.

It is Halloween, 1978, and all my friends are coming over to get costumed up for the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have noticed, but not contemplated. The fact that every house I've lived in has been haunted one by one. My friends arrive in t-shirts and jeans, carrying bags of satin sequence, feather, boas, and theatrical makeup. Our only living room furniture is a single reclining chair that resembles an upholster boat on a sea of orange and Brown.

In my memory, it bobs as if drifting on the waves of shag carpet under the sun of a bizarrely placed chandelier. In my mind, my brother is always in the chair and I wonder if, in his, I am. My best friend has brought in our single stool and is sitting on it, painting the white pumps she just brought it the salvation army, black.

I loved her then. I wonder if some part of me always will, I will call her Daphne because it is so wrong,.

My neighbor Ted is there. I'm assigning him that name because years later, when I see Keanu Reeves in bill and Ted. I will think that's who Ted would have been if he hadn't been so damaged, definitely.

Who was selling the attractive in that Nordic way has an unfortunate crush on Ted who was gay. The boy I have a crush on, we'll be meeting us at the theater. Thank God. He isn't going to see my house. There are three or four others there, but they're hazy in my memory was soft. Malleable features, David like ghost.

I wish them well, as I wonder how they became a backdrop in my life, my mom who rarely visits the house has heard that my friends are coming over. So it was making her sole attempt at being parental. She offers dates stuffed with peanut butter because that's what seventies, teenagers month in her mind.

There's a realm declines, then she scuttles back to her room to hide until they'd gone. And she can flee the house again after a few requests for things I don't know, like mirrors and cares. The conversation turns to Halloween. I love ghosts. I say, and as I do, so the chandelier begins to flash on and off.

How did you do that? Tell us what, what I said, make the lights flash. Ghosts I say, and the lights flash again, Ted starts to look around. When I walk around at night, the street lights turn off deaf name remarks. Ted looks distressed. It's true. I verify every time, just like me and ghosts I add. And the chandelier flashes again.

Ted has begun to look like a caged animal as he searches the room is usually how did you do it? He asked his voice raising in pitch. Really I say, I just said, ghost, the shadow confirms I didn't do anything. That's like me with the streetlights. Right. She freaked out her white blonde hair and she has her foot in now black pumps on the stool, displaying the inside of her bear and very long leg.

She applies bright red lipstick and kisses. The air for coverage. Yeah, I agree. Wires, Ted concludes. There's first starting about then focusing on a place where the chandelier meets the ceiling. Where are the wires? Every time definitely continues. It's such a pain to always have to walk in the dark because streetlights just won't stay on.

She rolls her eyes before checking to see the impression she's made on Ted. Nothing. He's busy walking around the edges of the room. Now, checking for switches. They have to be here. He murmurs as the translucent friends who have skipped the concrete of my memory, encourage him to let it go do it again. He commands me and stares as if he can see through me.

Oh, I say to flickering lights definitely rolls her eyes size and puts both feet on the floor. Deflated, then Hawks and spits on the floor. As my mom returns, having worked up the courage to offer more peanut butter dates. Someone says, Stephanie, I'm sorry. She responds blushing. As my mom looks on and distress, Ted runs over to me and begins to fondle the thick shag by my feet, following some invisible line.

He is willed into being to the wall where he begins to pry up the carpet. My mom watches for a moment altering pooping. He will stop. When he does not. And a few inches have been peeled back. She clears her throat before tentatively suggesting, please don't rip up the carpet. This is a rental tabs. This is the carpet uninstalling, and begins to feel around the baseboards.

As the final touches of makeup. Go on the grill. There has to be a wire. He explains, but you don't have to find it. A voice comes from behind the veil reluctantly. He abandons his mission and we all pile into the station wagon where I think the very first time that is not my house is haunted.

I really want to be part of this entourage going out to see the Rocky horror picture

show.

I know, I feel like I have been part of that entourage. So that was a great memory. Thank you.

It's a great story. And I love that the ghost is present as a ghost of unknown origin, but also that all the people in it are somewhat ghost because it's a memory of what happened yet. Everything's a little shifted and it's like a snapshot in time, which often ghosts capture that they appear as snapshots in time.

Right. They were alive to me. Then that was what was notable to me writing it. They were so alive to me then, but they're not anymore. If they did, they get faded, just like a ghost. I don't even know their names anymore

and don't know the features on their faces,

but once they really mattered to me,

So, what is that about the street lights going off?

Yeah, it really did happen every time she walked under a street light, it went off. I don't know why it was just like me and goes, yeah, I don't know. She had a street light thing.

I think we've all had that friend. I'm not the person that the lights happen with, but I've had a friend or two in my life that it really did happen.

I've had it happen for me when I was a certain age. And then with a certain friend, it happens a lot. We speculated that we were light so that the light didn't need to be on, but that was also just a hope, I think, too. Who knows? Hmm. Well, I love your characterization of everyone in this story. And even the ghost, I liked that very much.

I wonder if the mom is a ghost and how nice she is to the kids. I cannot imagine my mother being nice to kids.

Everyone terrifies me. It was surprising that she came out of her room.

The thing about some kind of an event like that is that it's a confluence so often. Of the particular energies that host or allow those kinds of events to occur too.

Sometimes they're for everyone, but sometimes there may be just for one person or another, but in this instance, I could just feel all those forces and all those personalities and energies coming together. So you did a great job of conveying that.

Yes. Thank you. I really enjoyed the story. It made me smile.

And it really honored this time of the year and just the excitement that Halloween or Sal and brings of like-minded people, seeking adventure and mystery,

the fun being able to for a night, present yourself as something completely different or reveal something different about yourself, which really maybe got it so happen here.

I think that that was a gift of Rocky horror.

Indeed. Don't dream it. Be it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Betsy.

So a little bit later than so, and in the year, but still in the dark time of year. Laila homeless for longer than she could remember walked through the city neighborhood in search of something, nourishing the rod December when blue trash and a few snowflakes in swirls around her. She could smell the snow on its way.

She felt empty unbothered by the cold lost in her thoughts. And yet somehow hopeful. Sometimes in her travels, she had the sensation of walking towards something important yet, nearly forgotten. She felt that way. Now the icy wind sweeping up from the Thames buffeted Laila, as she trailed a group of well-dressed Londoners chattering amongst themselves, they headed towards the large hotel complex from which complicated culinary sense emerged.

The cold night and the brisk when sharpened her faculty of smell inexplicably because the hotel appeared very English since from her home country, we're emanating out into the night. She imagined them wafting out of the hotel restaurant like smoke from Aladdin's lamp, smiling and Blahnik little smile at the thought of the lamp.

Following an unexplainable urge, Laila followed the group into the hotel and out of the wind, she entered the foyer of the hotel. The ceilings were high and arched the beige carpet thick beneath her feet. The immediate feeling of warmth was a little stunning causing her to pause, looking around in this way.

She found herself in the middle of a small group of people flowing around her. And heading towards a banqueting room, an anticipatory throng of people waited to be let through the doorway into the banquet hall. She let herself be part of the group carried along with them into the dimly lit room, much larger than a restaurant and made her do was directing people to large round tables, draped in white linen.

Moving waiters, uniformed in black and white guided her and the small group. She lingered near to a table midway back, whenever any one of the small group looked in her direction. She smiled shyly half concealing her face. She adjusted her long scarf over her hair, straightened her back sliding from the unseen to the scene.

Allowing her movements to become graceful, subtly proud around her. People were dressed for an evening of entertainment and food. The women in flashy, sequined, or silky evening wear and the men more somber, but smelling strongly of cologne. She subtly shifted herself again, her head scarf now gleamed with metallic threads.

She laughed internally. If she smelled unclean, she knew the strong cologne would cover it up in front of the room was a raised stage set up for a large band of some sort. There were no chairs, merely cushions in an array of instruments set up in front of microphones. There was to be entertainment. This promise to be a better evening than she anticipated.

The room filled and waiters moved around with trays of drinks and bottles of wine. Accepting a glass of crisp white wine. She enjoyed the suns, but left it on tasted a large group of musicians and singers entered the room, all dressed in white, except the apparently revered lead singer. Is the short, older and stout man in a long dark gray coat entered the majority of the people in the room.

Rose honoring him a group of black haired men and evening dress helped him solicitously to his seat on the stage musicians, rearrange the tableaus and harmoniums to suit themselves like a flock of birds fluttering into their natural pecking order. The pattern they eventually settled into seem to be one of long establishment and I'm stood between the guests and the stage asking for a warm welcome for new Strat fatter Ali Khan, and spoke briefly about this well-known singer achieving the pinnacle of koala, a form of Sufi, Islamic, devotional music.

He spoken both Urdu and English. Mr Khan had won an award for his music, a notoriously bad boy of rock music was invited up to present the award. This man in suit jacket, and brocaded vest came nimbly to the stage and offered the golden album just to the older man accepting it gracefully the quality singer class fit briefly to his heart and then passed it off to another.

Closing his eyes in prayer. He nodded to his group and the music began soon. The entire room was clapping, swaying and layer. Upon layer of voices were singing the ancient songs of spiritual poets. Linda looked around the room, noting an international array of guests from the Northern Indian sub-continent, as well as many Londoners born and bred.

She noticed to her side, just out of reach for her to look comfortably a beautiful young man with dark lash, soulful eyes, not a Londoner. When she dared, she looked again at him, noting the waving black hair, the live body, less like a dancer and more like a tiger. So he sat, swinging and timed to the music as gracefully as a gazelle.

He caught her, looking at him and smiled, showing sharp teeth, his eyes glinting orange for a second before restoring to a melting chocolate Brown. When the lead singer began to sing something indefinable shifted in the music, rollicking, Mary and joyful before now, pathos, and something akin to a halo of light entered into the song.

As the names of saints were invoked and prayer. Some Laila saw spirals of light forming on the stage. No one else seemed to be aware of them. Well, except the beautiful young man, he was caught just as she was by what was trying to form by what was emerging out of the swing singers and the passionate voice of the lead singer.

The music invoked the Saint whose prayer. This was. Amir, it called up the Saint to rework the prayer centuries later, bullet Shaw, the layers within the music were complex. And so were her memories. Amir, Amir. She thought I wanted you to save me, but you were caught up in this prayer for which you are now long remembered.

The spiral of light on the stage before her was building forming, her gaze was pulled to the young man. His mouth was open, his eyes were closed. Listening body taught against the palpable and magnetic pull of the sentiment and the melody of the music. What appeared to be a grimace was forming on his face.

Another soundtrack could be heard in the room. Where was it coming from? Jen, Jen, your power is useless here. Laughter and insidious grace. I'm not so sure about that. The gin was inciting desire now in the room, dancing couples caught the edge of that desire and began to dance more centrally with each other, to the hissing of older Indian women, trying to school, their sons, the sun dance with sex.

Guilt and the divine inextricably tied together, the intently listening rockstar known for getting no satisfaction, felt that very dissatisfaction mounting within him, hearing the ecstatic vocals and feeling the sensation of gateways opening in the room. How do you do that? He thought, but I ever be able to do that.

The participants who were focused on him were swept along with his frustration rockstars model wife, untouchable in her beauty incited, the jealousy of the young and older women in the crowd, the tension in the room mounted as the singer wailed his voice, allowing Amir to become more fully present. Myla felt pinned, exposed, frightened, and joyful all at once.

She felt the bonds that had been deep within her revealed now and shining deli in the spectral and liminal light release me never was the reply. The eyes of the quality singer were open, but unfocused so lost. Was he in the prayer? He was singing, standing on him. Anchored in him was Amir. The words he's saying came from the singer's mouth, but from the Saint's heart Lilah, come to me, commanded a mere can I, she asked breathless, Oh yes.

Spirals of light reach for her coiled around her. The spectral light reached for her too. If never been with me forever, she cried with her mind, not trying to slip out of the gins bindings, but wrapping them more completely around her. Amir cried, beloved and pulled her to him. The gin flew forwards from the back of the room.

And the second portal held by bullish Shaw opened for the gin. The crowd roared as they were taken up by the mounting ecstasy as a singer's voice spiraled higher Amir, she cried as she went into his arms, beloved cried, Amir, love it, cried bullish Shaw as the graceful Virgin flew into his arms through him and was gone.

Can we hear more please? That was amazing. That was absolutely profound and full of magic and full of liberation. It was a liberation love ghost story,

but there was a lot of beauty in as well as a feeling of

nakedness. Yeah. The sense of Laila's travels through a time and across continents to this moment, we're very much a part of it for me.

The question is who are the ghosts?

Right?

There's certainly more than

one.

And it was to me, their intent of still shrouded, if not,

well, it makes me wonder if the living and possibly the dead who witnessed that event, if it was not their time to go, if they. Had set in their mind, the level at which they would agree to go.

That would be as beautiful as this one. I love the multilayered presence of the saints and the devote T who by rewriting the song or infusing the song with his own devotion, brought another strength in it. So another portal could be opened. I think that was just brilliant.

Thank you.

What was it like for you Betsy, to spend this time with Laila, but also with the saints and the power of those songs?

I've always particularly, they'd love this song and the story was inspired by a video that one can see on YouTube. And some of the players that I mentioned in the story were definitely on the scene, but to be with Lyla was very interesting because there was power with her. There was irony with her.

There was sort of, uh, being acclimated to her. Fate was the sense of it. But also almost a world wariness about, even when she felt that feeling like something important was going to happen, she would go with it, but it felt like this journey had been so long for her that it was hard for her to even invest in it.

And so would it felt in this banqueting hall? That there was just a very favorable confluence of events that occurred that required a lot to come together and makes me want to know more of her story, but I'm also happy for her release as well.

I think that was conveyed beautifully the way it was set up from the beginning.

Just her sense of feeling lost and feeling thrown away and forgotten. And when that smell opened up, it's almost like it just drew her to her own destiny. Her reluctance was not important because it was already on its way.

I think that's very true. I liked the chin. Also.

I liked the gin also too.

I'm happy.

He was there as well. I feel like the dimension he gave and offered to that world and all the people in it living and beyond, I think he just added a spice that was really needed without which maybe none of this could have happened.

That was probably very true again, that sort of all these different threads coming together and also...

Thin Places by Gabriela Nov 04, 2020

Thin Places.

Thin Places by Betsy Oct 28, 2020

Thin places (more coming soon).

Familiars Oct 21, 2020

Welcome to saga craft myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and no more than anything. We're open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical in training today. We'll be exploring the world of the familiar and this reality.

And another reality that's married to ours. The familiar, the fetch, the animal co Walker, and here are three different takes on that. I mean, it start. So this is my story. Tess's unfamiliar, familiar tests, sobbed quietly in her bed. The sounds muffled by her tear. Drenched quilt. Her scalp still smarted from the brisk and somewhat angry hair brushing that her mother had given her before tucking her under the covers and snapping off the light test.

This curly hair always seemed to take the brunt of her mother's anger or disapproval. When her footsteps proceeded down the stairs, tests, tears had begun. She wasn't crying about her hair, though. It did still hurt. What had happened earlier that day in the pet store was where her misery, because the worst part, it was that she had been so certain that the little Lafayette rabbit was the pet that she'd been looking for.

She'd been searching for a few years. Her mother had told her each time she fell head over heels in love with an animal, a tropical bird or a snake at the pet store that it was not appropriate for her. The way she said it with a tight lip look of disapproval made her own disappointment feels so much worse.

The pet store owner always looked at tests with a little worry line between his brows. When this happened, she knew, he felt sorry for her and would try to comfort her by letting her help with some of the small tasks of maintaining and caring for the animals. When tests was there by herself. He was very careful to be non-committal when tests would exclaim in rapture over a new arrival, we'll see when your mother comes, he would say kindly, he didn't want to make it any worse for the little girl.

He had his suspicions about her mother, but keeping out of people's business is what had kept him in business in this little town. As test as tears continue the memory of the soft and warm little rabbit body with the extra long ears began to fade her dreams of the rabbit, Hutch and basket filled with doll sized quilts for the bunny to snuggle and also faded.

Eventually as your tears slowed down, she heard the wind moving through the trees and the bare branches beginning to tap on her bedroom window tops that were very clear. Now that the leaves had all the dropped away, the clouds rushed past in a sky with a nearly full moon. Sometimes shading it, then revealing the moons, luminous or shape.

The branch tapping continue sometimes random, sometimes seeming to be in the pattern of a little song, sleep little one's sleep. She could almost hear the wind singing to her sleep. Sweethearted girl you're waiting is almost over sleep. Little one's sleep. The tapping the wind. They almost heard some load tests into a comfortable drowsiness and then into a dream that began with her wanting to rise up out of her bed and open the window without fear or concern.

She did this as though it was entirely natural at the open window. The cool air and windy night prompted her to put on her Willie robe and slippers. She climbed up onto the windows, so leaned out and then fell. For just a moment then to her delight, she caught the wind and with her rope, billowing, just a little, she began to glide as light as this'll down into the night.

A tiny part of her knew she was dreaming. The rest of her was in the adventure that this dream offered her, escaping her room and it's layers of loneliness. Taking one last look at where she had been at the house with a gabled roof and the few lights still shining in the windows. She turned and looked resolutely forward.

She felt free. The wind carried her for some time until she found herself in one of the clouds scuttling across the face of the moon. She felt the damp Misty cloud all around her as the wind began, twirling her in a big and slowly descending spiral. Widdershins she thought somewhat giggling. She landed and felt both soft earth and rock beneath her.

She could see that she was somewhere she had never been before the moon. Now glowing silver revealed that there was no little town and no lights at all. Shining in the Erie moonlit landscape. A small mountain was before her trees were all around and the little winding paths, Shaun in the Moonlight, she walked along the path, trying to walk as quietly as she could in her slippers.

She could feel that she was not alone. A hooting from a nearby tree, caused her a stumble and a quick turn to see a great owl looking at her on a branch, above her owl, Bob to one side. And then the other regarding her test felt the owl was satisfied by what it saw when it left its perch on the tree and glided on the path ahead, test followed zigged and zagged, and she heard it to keep up and to keep the owl in that Al abruptly swerved to one side of the path and dove into the trees, tests, instinctively followed.

She was glad she did for as soon as she caught her breath after the dash, along the path, she could hear footsteps in the night and voices talking as they came closer, she could hear the separate voices of those speaking. One shrill, one gruff, and one whining. I don't want to go in there. Set the whining voice.

It's past time that you pulled your own weights and the growth voice you have to, we have to, and you're old enough, listen to your father said the show voice it's so dark in there so that the whining voice test could hear the sound of a small rock being kicked roughly off the path. You have to go into the dark to get your eyes used to it.

Set the gruff voice. You'll be able to see soon enough. We want to find out if you have any of the gifts, that will be a big help to us. If you do think about, if you can see gold veins said the shrill voice, think what lovely things we can get. If you do that, even silver would be good. Seeing any orders would be good, Southern gruff voice.

What kind of things could I get? So the whining voice, the first sounds of eagerness now, audible in his tone. Tests could see through the shrubs that it was a he, but, uh, he, what she wasn't sure the three were not much bigger than she and carrying pickaxes slung over their small, but burly shoulders. One was clearly an older male, one, some kind of a younger female, but the smallest with a whiny voice was clearly the youngest and a boy, the moon, which had been clouded a bit now bloomed clear as the odd trio pasture.

She crouched lower in fright. As she saw there, oddly shaped heads, glowing animal like eyes, and that the ones speaking have very sharp and pointed teeth, she could have sworn that they were greenish in color or were the gray. It was hard to tell. She was very sure that she didn't want them to see her.

She hoped fervently that they did not have an extra sharp sense of smell along with an ability to see in the dark. Just when she feared that they would see her in the Moonlight, in her green rope, a small sound came from behind them came a plaintiff cry.

Damn that cat. So the gruff one, I told you to put it away for the night. He didn't have time wine. The boy. The boy turned and gave the small forum trotting behind him, attempting to nuzzle his knee, a sharp kick that made the animal fly backwards in the night with a whale of distress, it tumbled into the bushes test, nearly leaped out onto the path to go to the cat's aid.

But the fury in the female's eyes glaring at the small boys stopped her cold. She crouched down lowers sending out warm thoughts to the cat. And hoping that this trio whom she was beginning to suspect were goblins would pass her by the older male cuff, the goblin boy on the side of the head and dragged him forward on the path.

The boy rubbing his ear cried. I probably can't see nothing now. Thanks to being hit so hard. You'll see. All right, set the show voice. We just have to get you into the mind. Something might eat my cat wine. The boy. Serves it right. Set the gruff boys. No, thanks to you to test as relief. The strange trior disappeared around a bend in the path she waited until she could no longer hear their arguing voices before she crept cautiously out of the bushes.

Whereas before she'd been able to hear a little piteous mewling from the animal. Now she could hear nothing. She went back along the path and its direction and stopped a little distance from where she thought it was. I'm so sorry that you were kicked and that you are now left behind. I'll help you poor little thing.

And it sounded young, but looked a little bigger than that. She kept talking softly to it, but our glided overhead landing in a nearby tree. You're not helping. She scalded the owl. The cat will be afraid of you. That I will seem to make a sound that was close to her. She heard it was a small and cautious sound.

She moved in that direction and there in the bushes, she saw two slanting green eyes looking up at her. Very LAR you beauty. She breathed. She extended her hand slowly. Like the pet store man had taught her the cat coward and lowered his body closer to the earth. Okay. She crooned, it raised its head. She knows to pick up the cat as she felt.

It's been little body it's bony ribs, something melted in her heart. The carrots stared into her eyes. And it seemed like an asked her a question. Oh yes. She said, yes, the cat stood up. So its body was small. Like a young cat, its legs were the longest that she had ever seen almost twice as long as they should be.

Oh dear. You're a goblin cat. She braid. The cat bleeps slowly out her, nevermind. I'm taking you home with me. You like that? She asked, I blinked again and made a little jumping into her arms. She wrapped up, sit up warmly in the front of her bro. Set her shoulders in a resonant fashion. I have the feeling that most there is going to have to accept you.

Checon cited. The owl solidly watching her. And bobbed from side to side, as if committing the side of her with this cat to its memory, it launched itself off the tree and began to fly along the path back in the original direction from which they had come. She jogged along behind the cat may have little mewing sounds from time to time and then became them in her arms, falling asleep.

She began to feel sleepy as well, even though she was moving as fast as she dared, she could feel intense drowsiness coming over her. Maybe we can just rest a little. She thought once I see the owl on the path for some distance, and that was her last thought before she fell asleep, she woke with morning sun coming in the window.

She felt tired and a little sore in her body. She was just starting to think what a funny dream. When she heard a soft rumble and felt a weight along her leg, she sat up startling, the dark gray and black Brindle creature on the covers standing on absurdly long legs. And he seemed it wasn't looking at her, but beyond her to the door where her mother stood a mug of weak Milky tea in hand.

The cat stared at her mother and her mother stared back the cat's whiskers, bunched up as it showed long sharp teeth, a slow smile began to grow on her. Mother's face. I told you that we'd know it when we saw it, but I never imagined that you're familiar with look like this. She said with a shaky laugh, putting the tea down on the bedside table.

She came closer and sat on the bed, not looming over the girl and crouching cat, but gentling herself down beside them, both the cat glared then turned it and began to look it's extraordinary. Front leg. Welcome Kat. She said formally to the creature of the state assume you're a cat. This is your new home to her daughter with a look of pride and love in her eyes.

She said, Tell me everything from the beginning.

My story is about the Ben and Donte nine months before I was born the village Sierra Sophia dreamt of me coming into the world. My grandfather used to tell me that all people are born with precious gifts, which are needed in order for communities to thrive. Some of these gifts are visible, practical, and useful in life.

Like a trade or ability to do something really well, just like your father or mother did before. Other people are born with different kinds of gifts, which are closer to the other invisible world and it's magic, but also very important to the physical wellbeing of the waking world. People who could see the future heal and talk with the spirits were the holders of these other gifts.

Which were also passed down to them from their fathers and mothers who came before. The woman who dreamt of me was one of those people. And she told my parents about my arrival and the gift that has not been seen for many years. By the time I was born, our view of reality had held only a trace of some of the invisible gifts that came from the other world and time when people be since spirits lift together, The gifts that were now openly cherished and recognized were those useful and visible ones like being a tailor, a cobbler or a beekeeper, the other gifts though, still recognized by some people kept quiet about not wanting everybody to know, especially not those who have turned their hearts against magic because of the fewer and fewer people were born with the unseen gifts or maybe.

If the gifts were there, they were hidden, kept secret. The night's Sophia, the, or dreamt of me was a night of a great storm rain winds, and lightning rattled. Our village into nobody slept a wink, Sophia rushed over to my parents' house so she could share the vision from her dream. She didn't know how my family would receive the news, but it was her duty to tell them she arrived at their cottage drenched in rain, shivering under her thick cloak.

Then on Donte, she whispered while holding my mother's hand and reaching out to touch her belly, my mother gasped, she was brought up remembering the old ways and knew what this word meant. An undone auntie good Walker was a person of great, magical power who could fly in their dreams, riding with animal companions, to battle malevolent forces that try to interfere with good weather and with the fertility of the land.

Nobody has heard of the Ben and Donte for many, many years, nobody living could even remember one only stories were left at this time. My father wanted to hear none of this. He was a good church going man, and didn't want this kind of attention or curse on his family. He forbade my mother to speak of this, to anybody and threw Lucia out into the rain, calling her a heretic.

And those days words were powerful and dangerous. And even if you spoke of certain things or were accused of something without cause forever, your family had to live with the burden of such a name. Sophia tried to explain to him then good walkers were a huge blessing to the community that they could negotiate the weather for the entire village to ensure good crops that will last years and years, but he refused to listen.

He acted boast, unusually that night for he was a gentle and kind man. He made my mother promise that she would keep quiet and ridiculed her for believing such nonsense. Nine months later was born. There was a great storm that night, thunder and rain rattled. My parents smoke cottage, my grandma, mother, and great aunt attended to my mother's labor into the early morning hours, a Dawn, the sky cleared my mother's labor ended and I ordered my first freaking cry.

My night travels are the first memories I have. I remember flying in my sleep and an invisible world above our own while being surrounded by beasts and creatures, I would awaken in a sweat most nights, startled and bewildered to when my mother would come to wake me from a restless turning in my cradle.

She told me I never cried though. When she would wake me, not the way other children cry with night terrors. But I would stare at her intently, unable to share what I had seen in the other world since I was not able to talk. Not yet. When I was six, I told my parents about one of my night Grames. I'd finally had the words to describe it.

My father became furious with an anger I've never seen in him before fueled with rage and fear. He forbade me to ever speak of me, dreams out loud again. A great storm had gathered above us that night, dark and terrifying, like the power should summit to bind me from talking about my night adventures. I know his true desire was to keep me from night writing, but that was a power.

Nobody could stop the closest to it was him keeping quiet, which he succeeded on when he bound my tongue for, I didn't speak at all after that night. Seeing what his rage had done to me and torn by grief. My father fell into a deep sleep from which no one could wake him a dark cloud hovered in the sky.

And a great drought came to our village shortly after I spoke of my first night, writing farmers feared the worst and the end of the hot summer lack of rain could cause a devastating loss of crop and likely famine people went to the closest church and offered what few coins they had to petition for rain.

They prayed on saying and worked in the fields harder than ever, but no rain came. My father continued to sleep, which seemed to be devouring, something inside him for, he appeared to be withering away day by day. As I watched silently beside my mother who up day and night, this was a dark time for us all and I couldn't help, but I feel that I had brought it all on that.

I was to blame. My grandmother begged the old Sierra Sophia to please come and look into the other world to find a remedy. The woman though treated badly by my father. Didn't hesitate to come out to our aid, seeing my father in his state and me bound by guilt and silence. She embraced me and whispered in my ears as I covered her cloak and my tears.

Dear one, do not weep and do not fear your gift. It is not too late. But you must ride on your beast farm to this battle. You must choose a writer tonight, commit to her, and she will show you all. You need to know. She will take you to the white stag and remember your father is not who he seems. And by all means he must be saved.

The writer Sophia spoke of where the many beasts I would see during my night journeys. Sometimes I would fly by myself, but I was still small, so I couldn't fly as fast, or as far as some of the other creatures, remembering Sophia's words upon falling asleep, I had gathered all of my intentions and strength and focus them into the thick clouds and movements I was entering in the dream world.

This was the first time I had ever felt so aware and conscious in my dream. Usually I let the adventure take me and I would drift in and out of awareness. And it would be more of an observer in my travels this time, everything was different. The clouds were darker, faster, more creatures and beasts were present.

Some with weapons I've never seen before tonight was like a real battle. And I felt nowhere near ready, but I knew I had to be a great bear, flew, close and glared at me intently who comes here. I didn't back away. I held my gaze. I have come from my writer. I said, But here, I still had a voice. The bear flew aside and then a Wolf came, who comes here.

I have come from my writer. I answered, he...

Merpeople Oct 14, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft

Anubis Oct 07, 2020

Welcome to saga craft myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share stories, both old and new than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical buried in training tonight. We're talking about a Anubus, the gatekeeper of the dead in the Japan mythology.

Here's his story. Would you like to start the prayer then? Okay. I invoke all in only the 100% compassionate and perfect supportive of alignment with the sanctity of sovereignty and success, the very highest blessing protection and wellbeing of us and ours in each moment throughout our lives. If we can keep up with Andre, keeping all others out.

And ask that they be respectfully compassionately, appreciatively, fully, completely, and wholly squirted out at this time. But those of you who I specifically invite, I particularly welcome here to the West, North East, South father, sky, mother earth and grace period. The elements from the mentals, God, the ancestors, all who we love and who love us.

Particularly, I suppose.

Thanks. And if this is family saga who maybe freak, maybe not. That's a question we can find out another time maybe, but I want to invite the primordial cells. Those beings that really set things in, they themselves were set in motion and then they set things in motion and in motion things still. But I, it does primordial is not only to be here in this session, but to be here in witness of your hand in creation also, and where creation is going with it.

Give, thanks to our time together. I give things to the space of story and saga and space in which the gods can tell their stories through our eyes. I hope those stories carry us, teach us, embrace us and move us forward. And I give great thanks to A, as well as the many other powerful, beautiful gods of Egypt.

And I honor that magic and that land. I also honor all of the people who are our listeners, who may find some sort of inspiration, this story, or some sense of wonder, or be interested in knowing more about Anubus. And may you prosper

many gods of Egypt to live this humans until the early years of adolescence. It was important for us to experience the range of human feelings, fears, and emotions. How else would we be able to interpret or negotiate the fates of mankind and guide them through life, death, and resurrection? At the appropriate time, we would surrender the human life and would take on the Natera God form the time and nature of the surrender was most important for it opened the door to our full embodied power.

When or human life ended and the God would take over the day of mine, the terror initiation, my mother never gathered the appropriate flowers from her garden and ordered the hem, the tear priests to prepare a special bath for me, the top layer of the water was covered with blue Lotus and Cypress flowers.

And the bath chamber air was thick with the intoxicating scent of burning store acts. I saw my mother coming through the incense to air so much like smoke and shadow herself, shifting between steps into her many luminous forms when she was close. And she reached out her arms towards me. She took on her most human forms.

So we could touch at the age of 12. I was still in many ways a human child. So it was natural for me to crave and feel her affection. Her dark Azore tinted. I spearing into mine intently. I could tell by her gaze that this was the last time we could be together in this way. After tonight, I would no longer be a child or a man.

The darkening sky alerted the priest to Quicken their final preparations. They combed and braided my hair, anointed me with oils and secured my sandals there whispered Hinz of in vocation awakening, an ancient power and calling inside me. At times it was difficult to retain my current form as this wild rattle began to rise in my center is still my son hold off a little longer.

My mother whispered, laying her hand on my chest and containing the rising thunder, her ability to enforce such a request still fully at her command. You must enter the desert as a boy. Not a God. She kissed me on both cheeks, lips, and forehead then turned and beckoned to the priest. He is ready, bring his staff and dim the fires at the temple Gates, Neptune petitioned.

Her brother set the great God of storms to calm the desert winds for that Eve, the air was electric with a strange, unusual stillness. The dimmed fires at the temple disappearing quickly behind me leaving nothing to eliminate my path. But darkness did not scare me. And I walked steadily into the night, surrendering to whatever other power waited me out there.

I don't know or recall how long I walked and it's not important. What's important is the moment when I sensed that I was being watched on my journey. Curious, not afraid I sniffed the air for there was no seeing of any kind and whatever creature was near me might be disguised in illusion. The gentle wind carried the scent of Musk earth and decay, a rather pleasant and familiar smell.

I kept walking, knowing that my stalker would be close to my heels. I know you are there. Who are you? I asked response came in the form of a growling. Laughter. You should know you are the one who called to me and have come here to find me a flash of an eye edge of an ear. Quick touch a fur on my skin.

The Jackal and he has allowed himself to be seen. He circled around me, intimately, close his warmth and sent, blurring my senses. I wanted to fight him to hold him, to devour him or be devoured by him altogether more than anything has presence awakening, the same vibrating storm deep inside, which was brought on earlier by the priest and vocations at the temple.

Only this time, it was much more powerful and I could not contain it. The Jackal smelled me through my shroud assessing my level of anxiousness testing. My courage can you, it was not him. I feared, but the descending madness of me beginning to lose control over my body occurrence inside my veins like rivers, quickening, the flow of my blood, which now moved in waves strong enough to knock me onto the ground where I'd hoped for brief moment.

The laws of gravity would keep me together a little longer gravity, no match for this power. And the change continued flashes of light superior to beneath my skin. Yeah, rising like Hara glyphs with a fiery urge, blending my flesh into the night, lighter and brighter. I became fighting the urge to dissolve as my body shifted from one dimension to another, I reached for the Jackal, hoping his firmness would help you maintain my shape.

He was my shelter, my witness, my initiator, and I knew, and to the very depths of my soul, that he would not abandoned me to this moment. This form. So dark, so vast, no looming over me, Deming the blinding brightness, soothing my spirit against the crescendo of exploding fires. As I focus on his head. Massive, perfect sharp against the illuminated night.

I remember him. And more importantly, I remember his name, which was my only salvation weapon. I cried out my voice, right. An eight, a deeply warping, the shape of color and air around me. I have arrived. He answered with his mouth close to mine, but who are you? That calls to me. I felt the last layers of my head, physical self dissolved now, and through this dissolution, I could see my name.

I could hear it, but I fared out with this loss of form. My voice would no longer be able to carry it forward. And yet I had to, I had to gather all that remained or I would be lost forever with the tumbling speed lights and strange symbol swirling within me. I drew what was most likely my last breath.

And with this breath, I delivered my name and myself, my breath carried me out of the formless lights and into the open mouth of weapon, sweat, which became a deep, long tunnel. Cool and comforting place. I felt I could stay forever, but I could not. I had to keep going and I had to carry my name in this darkness without a body, without sight.

Without words, only consciousness. I don't know how long I traveled. I traveled until my consciousness became sound and I could see again, I was once again, standing much taller than, and I was before and much changed. I picked up my staff from the coal ground. Suddenly many eyes appeared all around emerging into beings from the velvet night, the great Natero and their embodied animal powers and shapes.

So many of them. Some of them. I felt, I knew others were not familiar, but they all had the same question who comes before us with their most profound certainty. I replied, I am Anubus guardian at the Gates illuminator of pathways, protector of the loss finder of forgotten names. Awesome.

My story is about how Anubus came into being. My name is Anubus. I'm one of the older gods of Egypt. It's easy to tell that because my head is of a Jackal and my body is of the man of all of my senses. It is scent that has always captivated me, possibly because of my Jackal nose. The associations that I have with particular sense, focused me in passionately, or pull me into memories, memories.

The first memory Maria that I have is one that is not really my own. I'm not sure why I have it. The centers of flowers and of longing. The memory belongs to my mother, the divine up this, the centers of blue Lotus and other flowers that are just a breath away from smelling like rot, all of which have been woven into a head dress, a Garland as lovely in its colors.

As in its scent, it had been woven with the Royal insignia of the God of Cyrus who would shortly become my father. Added to the Garland was a small in conspicuous cone of soft bees, wax imbued with scented oils from night blooming flowers grown in my mother's medicinal garden. The scent was cloying complex, glam, burring, and Ambrosia.

She hadn't Oh. Cyrus to a party. The Garland was a party favor, an offer, and given to the guests. This Garland was designed for a Cyrus and was unique. The party I heard was well attended by divinities and near divinities the inclusion of near divinities augers. Well for a successful party, they'll dress up painted and Bejeweled, happy to gather with the elder and more powerful family members, hopeful that power or patronage might spill in their direction.

These brightly rubbed guests reflected the path that evolution was taking most were completely human inform while others had the heads of birds. Reptiles are animals. When I think about the timing of the party, I can see the careful preparation that mother put into the plan. Her magic is often created in layers.

My mother not. This is a master Alchemist herbalist and made her herbal blends. Can sire dynasties inspire warriors, direct the dead to their proper destinations this night. She planned to sexually ensnare with Cyrus, her elder brother and her sister's husband. Her glamorous oils have been prepared over a series of years.

So patient was she in her planning? So strong. Was she in her lungs? My aunt, the actual wife of my father was a way in the South attending a festival in her honor. She was always a little stiff at parties and was just as happy to attend a business. My mother's husband, my stepfather said was also a way on one of his endless war campaigns.

Keith thrives in that kind of chaos. Nope. This had long since stopped accompanying him on these journeys, preferring to stay at home with her guardians and her friends in quiet contemplation of the stars and tending to her elixirs, their marriage had pre childless and barren. This was a great sadness for her one, that she was willing to take drastic steps to change.

She believed that if chaos magic couldn't produce a child life magic could. Her longing for a child, made her a little reckless. I'd heard my granny Newt saying once when she thought I was asleep, she had no idea what her actions were going to create along with a child magic plays out along its own course.

It's one of the first things we learn, but it's easy to forget to explain, brings up another remembered. Scent, that of mud bright new water, marshes, and slime. This was the center of the primordial mound arising from the waters of creation from this was the beginning of my family and of humankind out of the sun came my granny Newt and knew the first beings, three more pairs of divinities Rose from the sun, their appearance match.

The scent for these pairs had the heads of frogs. If they were male or snakes, if female. The males, these primordial males held the code for a transformation in a direction predetermined through time itself. The females were the undifferentiated power that fueled the transformations. That's my mother undifferentiated power, the paired with new in creation.

My grandmother knew it looked for a concert and found gab the land itself just as she was the night sky. My Godfather's shoe provided the space between for them to find each other, to bring their potentiality into creation and to the births of five children, five gods and goddesses, the Cyrus Isis said Nepthsys and horse.

The elder I'm so grateful that new to this is my grandmother. The other female primordial is in there made seem to be focused in an endless, in somewhat tiring dynamism. By mating outside the pattern nudes and gab created the tryout of family out of that. My grandmother and my mother know how to come to rest.

Newt's actions spawn, not just her children, but the patterns that humanity would later embody a Cyrus is a great father. He's a gentle God interested in teaching and learning. He was particularly focused on growing things, especially plants. His explorations in agriculture and brewing were passed onto humans.

He spent time helping humans to become better. More noble, more Cyrus was supported in this by his loving wife, Isis. They had a great marriage spending most of their time together. Nice. This was a pretty straight arrow, very focused on doing what was right. What was expected. Actually, she created what was expected.

She was all about being civilized. So Cyrus attended the party put on by my mother as a very special guest there. He found that he could be inspired to cut loose. The party had the usual musicians, acrobats, dancing, girls and boys, and lovely maidens who would beat tidbits to you while you reclined the heat of the oil lamps, the bodies, the sensuous night air, the food, all conspired to melt that cone of wax on his head, dripping sensuously into his long black hair, intoxicating him good wine and plentiful beer flowed.

He enjoyed himself getting a really good buzz. In the late hour of the night, while the bit tipsy, he found himself in the arms of his wife, Isis not questioning her return, but simply letting himself be pulled into her embrace glamored into perceiving Isis. He was seduced into a night of ecstasy by my mother, the tiny part of his awareness registered that Isis was subtly different.

After all sex with the same person over a long period of time can become a bit routine, but he just went with it. Well, that's how I came into being somehow later, the Garland exposed the deception, but no one will ever tell me the details of that. Maybe the details got lost because of what unintentionally happened.

My mother nup, this is a goddess of putrefaction and decay. My father of Cyrus was a God of life before hooking up with my mother. He was deathless. Once he consorted with Neptune, he was pulled into the realm of death. My mother never stopped grieving about this. No longer being deathless made him vulnerable to set is equal and opposite.

He ended up being abducted, dismembered and destroyed by my stepfather. He could be reassembled. But never could he actually live? So he became the Lord of the underworld of death and of resurrection. My great aunties. The primordial is prone to talking about destinies, shook their heads knowingly and said it was all meant to be not this didn't take it that way.

Seeing what her actions did to her brother meant she grieved through my whole gestation wailing. She rejected me at birth. After all that she abandoned me to die. Exposed. Stallone is a new born in the wilderness. That remembered scent is a bitter aloes bloody after birth stone and grief. Isis was angry and betrayed being hurt.

She dealt with it and it was she who found me. Rather than leave me to die. She took me as her own son and I got to be raised with my father until he disappeared. I will be loyal unto eternity to them. I have long since understood and forgiven Nepsis as a God of the underworld and of embalming. Are you spells magic and incense taught to be my birth mother.

I do it in support of my father. In the course of my work with the dead, I have seen the complex family situations of the deceased worry about as they prepare for judgment. I suspect our dynastic family squabbles became one of the patterns that imprinted on humanity. Well, some things are good and some things are not as good, but in life and the hereafter, you have to take the bad with the good.

That was lovely. No feel doubly inappropriate, but here I go.

Why is listening to one parent talk about having sex with the other so revolting. I thought I would be cool with it. I'm sex positive. I can talk about anything. I'm the gatekeeper for the dead. I look at atrocious sins for a living, but no. I never want to think about my parents having sex. It's disgusting.

I've heard the stories. Of course, first from my aunt Isis, when I was a tween and she's worried that it was Cyrus who might call uncle dad, might've been cheating on her. She trusted him, but was worried that in his significant lust, he might be duped again. Of course between his exposure only to the recently deceased and her possession of the necessary organ.

This isn't going to happen. She really just needed to talk about the sadness and jealousy that she felt when my mom, her sister, no, this disguised herself as anti-racist in order to seduce uncle, dad, he wasn't sad and jealous of the sex. Of course, aside from Hara whose real motives are around respect and honoring commitment.

Immortals are generally not concerned with fidelity. Monogamy is only valuable as a sacrifice of time and experience for the sanctity of intimate depth and fulfillment. When you literally have all the time in the world and can create limitless, depth and fulfillment. It's not so much a sacrifice as pointless deprivation.

And as deity is, we do have obligations to our single worshipers. Plus how jealous can you really be of your sister having sex with your brother? Anyway, the point is she was sad and jealous about potential children or in mom's case me, she had always wanted a child, but uncle dad, Oh, Cyrus was hesitant.

He hadn't had a series of dreams that led him to believe that he wouldn't live long enough to raise one. He didn't want to leave. And I say this as a single parent, it's a lot of work and she already has so much on her plate with her career. She had told him that if push came to shove, she'd be honored to raise his child.

She didn't really believe he would die. He's an immortal and the God of fertility and agriculture. Clearly he will always come back to figured that he was just spending too much time watching the fields and had started to identify with the crows or the crops. Or the crows and the crops, he always

Saga Sep 30, 2020

Welcome to saga craft myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share our stories, both old and new, more than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm Sea a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical fairy godmothers in training. Today, we are talking about our namesake Saga. This is the story that Saga gave me about herself while I was standing in a clearing in the presence of very large trees.

Everywhere you look there is a story. It can be a story brought by the North wind. Stories from the North come from the land of the dead and the ancestors. It can be a story of trees, the story of the wins or a story of those who carry the wins, the great spirits themselves. These stories are mysterious, friendly, improbable, and even impossible.

Somewhere, every story is true. Start with stories of trees, how they support each other with the roots sharing nutrients and what they have trying to keep each other alive and thriving trees are amazing. Examples of currents, how are power and energies that rise up and draw down or. These currents of power are everywhere in this world.

And in all the worlds in the cold worlds, it's the power of ice and frost in the hot worlds. It's the power of fire and heat in those worlds. If there's something that can burn, it will burn. So in these worlds powers are emotional in the world. The veneer, it is the pulse, the heartbeat and life force of the mother and the thrusting thriving energy of the father that creates transformation and fosters life.

It is the magic of the earth and of the green. The world's won't thrive without the DC here, who are the mothers of continuing life. We serve in all the worlds before us. We're the vets here, the earth mothers holding all of these worlds is the great three . This tree still stands because of the Norns, the shapers of destiny who water the roots from the well of origin and apply the glowing white silk that strengthens the tree of life.

The dragon buried in the earth below the tree. Choose the tree roots. This dragon Nidhogg. Align the follows its instincts in the dark as we would, if we never opened our eyes, see what the possibilities are. He is the powerful father of the dragon sickness, which is greed the DC near the nor near the editors.

And grandmothers know that this blind greed is the dragon story. He who is below Electra. Silver will never open his eyes to see new possibilities. In other worlds, dragons have other possibilities, the possibilities of transforming desire into higher qualities. In other worlds, trees have other stories.

They can be life givers and life takers. They require respect, which they are not always given. They perpetuate life. Odin is like that. Odin is like a great tree, a walking tree, a wandering tree Odin can shelter. Odin can give life. Odin can lengthen life and he can take life. Odin is the father tree. It found the life that's trees on the shore and saw in them humans who had nothing who had another life, no breath, no dreams, no context.

His intervention brought them out of nowhere and into somewhere. He gave then as trees can now give so much to us. Ax handles for the ax stuffs for walking or walking between worlds Spears that allow us to hunt man or beast walls and roof to support life with shelter. Furniture to provide comfort for the body and coffins to hold the body.

When that time is right and necessary fuel for the fire. Remember wood without life is fuel for the fire. If you don't become infused with life, you are fuel for the fire. My name is saga. I'm one of the DC here before that, a land vet here and now a friend of Odin at night, I sit with Odin at soak for back by the streaming waterfall.

He tells a story. I tell a story, we create a story together. We drink need. And infuse life in stories. We perpetuate life in this way, in all the worlds some nights, this is so joyful. Our evening conversations might go like this Odin. What are you in need of tonight? The need of poetry. Of ecstasy water from the well of origin or remembrance some nights, he knows exactly what he wants.

Sunlight's I must cook sin because he is so unsettled. It is bound up in his own nature. He's the tree holding up the worlds at heart. He's a wonder Walker of the worlds. He can travel with his spirit, but not with his body because he is bound. He holds up the lives of all the worlds saga. I feel tonight that Nidhogg, the dragon has almost chewed through the roots of the tree.

He has own those freed me. Does he drink from the Wells that are down there with him? Does he remember the other worlds that he will never see? What will he be doing at Ragnar rock? Does he break free? Does he free me? Does he not drink? I wait until the worlds and to walk free Odin, what story? Right. Shall it be of dwarves of elves? Of giants? Of your Ravens ? Or of the Norns, Saga, who shaped the world as much as I did, who laid upon me a desire to be free? We can tell stories of the world shapers or Odin. We could tell a story of a competition. Of poets, Norse Icelander Dane or sphere, which other poetic specialty be mythic, heroic, spiritual.

All right. Saga Norse. And Icelander a poetic competition about a great voyage. The story must begin with the tree in order for them to it'd be a great voyage. There must be shifts in order for there to be ships, the trees must be chosen and asked. Are you willing to become a wanderer? If they are, then those planks will be alive with purpose and with the life force of the tree, those that say no, may still be taken and they become the planks of death.

Trees that say yes are born again into a new life. This will shape the voyage. We tell stories of desire of loss, of heartbreak, of discovery, of heroism. What we don't talk about is creating new worlds for these worlds bind. After the binding is the long, long wait for the unravel, or that is what we do each night.

We wait and we tell stories, our stories shape the worlds world shaping and making is binding. It binds the maker to the world. Saga. What have I done? My freedom? Yes, I would in unusual have it, but not yet. Not tonight. Tonight is another story, which will it be a secret? Is that every world has an avatar of Odin.

It's the only way he can survive being a creator of the worlds. But that is another story. The end. Thank you, Betsy. That was absolutely beautiful. My story is not only about saga, but it's about you and B and all of us. You would think the story is about me saga, but it's more about you and always will be about you and her.

And so many others. It's about our stories and dreams together and how they intercept and flow further down to stream to branch out, to make more dreams and stories for you are the fire. You are the storm. You are the dream that is weighted to be born. Where do you want to go next to my dear saga? That all father asks playfully though, here he is not the all father, but who would be the enjoyer of a fine meat and an even finer story, which I just finished sharing with him.

Is it that time again, I laugh fully aware that it is always time for a new chapter and what part I might play in it. He knows my fondness for me and spirits, as he gazes into the well and search of my new destination, I can feel the water stir and swirl pulling me under their influence as my own desires, arise to the surface and flow together with the waves as petition for something becoming clear.

I don't just want to work at a bar this time. I want to own one. I request as I search my own earnings and part I am to play. And this next story induced by the swishing sounds of the water. Oh, that's a new and interesting ask. Why is that Odin inquires so I can have more control over the drink menu. Of course I reply knowing somehow that is not the only reason I wouldn't lift an eyebrow.

It will be harder to find, but surely something must be available as long as you are not too picky about the name I chuckle. He is right though. Some names simply will not do he gazes deeper into the moving waters? Has I beginning to focus in on something intently? I hear a deep wave in the water and my heart quickens.

He has found it. Uh, the Misty Inn an in and a bar it's on a rainy side of the Northern part of the Appalachian mountains, small town, the bar owners retiring and has wanted to sell for some time, lots of rain, middle of nowhere. I close my eyes as the place he describes, begins to drift into my vision and I can get a sense of it more clearly.

It's perfect. And since it's in the middle of nowhere, I will not go without a horse. Odin winks as you wish. My lady, the clouds begin to shift and swirl, and just like that, my journey down begins. My horse is allowed golden colored motorcycle fast and fear is as good as any horse I've ever had. The pleasure of writing Odin.

Wasn't kidding about the rain. The night of my arrival was as wet as the bottom of the sea and windy too. I, of course didn't mind as it made for a more dramatic entrance worthy of my rank, my thick cloak, like a cloud itself, shielding my now human body from the cold and rain. I was the only overnight guest at the mysteries.

In that night. I slept hard and deep in a soft bed as the rain dance across my window. Quieting steadily. As I drifted into dreams told me what I needed to know about the town, the Inn and the land itself. In the morning I met Misty, the owner or of the bar. She was a hard, but not unkind woman who looked me straight in the eye.

Why would you want to buy a bar here? Pretty young thing. Like you ha if only she knew how old I was. You would do much better somewhere in a bigger city, more customers, better looking customers and even better tips. She went on and on almost trying to talk me out of it, testing my intentions. I am looking to start a new chapter and I don't want lots of customers or tips.

I just want something to call my own for now. And I don't mind the rain I told her and most of those things were true. She looks at me, steadily her wrinkled face, looking into mine, reading my features. I will do right by you. Trust me. I let her hear my thoughts. As I gazed back, she didn't ask any more questions and her mind was made up.

She is yours. Then be good to her. As she has been to me, she said, and sold me the place. The patrons of mysteries in were drifters. Mostly people traveling between one town to another. Their stories mingled together. Like the lines of old wild roads that ran between the mountain ranges. Some of them were running from something or someone, others by some coincidence stuff, shopping by tired of traveling through the bad weather needing to ride.

I listened to their stories intently if they shared them. And there are the regulars to those who lived in town comforted by the familiar setting of miss in old wooden bar and soft lighting caught between longing for a future that is not likely to come. And the past that holds a much brighter hue, the longer it's behind them, their tails, as strong as their favorite drinks, which I craft with as much care and attentiveness that I give to their stories.

No matter how many times I hear them amused by the embellishments and colors added to them at each turn. But then I have something to do with that. Their story slide up differently when they share them with me. I wonder sometimes what they must think about me. If they look deeper, my red hair woven into a long braid, my strange pale blue eyes or my voice with an accent, they can never place, but then they don't really ask.

They feel comfortable at my table. They enjoy the company and the meat, which is the best of its kind of course. Sometimes they do inquire as they cherish the taste of it on their tongue as if trying to recall a long forgotten dream. So familiar. What's the name of the bar you came from again and where you brought the meat from?

I smile slowly knowing that they will not be able to pronounce or remember. So Rebecca that's right. The soggy beard, it's the best meat I've ever had. The soggy beard. Must've been a fine place. They repeat. And I don't correct them. Soggy beard. It is the Misty. Erin is not the fanciest of places, but I cherish these people and their stories as much as any days and months go by.

I grew up comfortable and used to displace, blending more and more with my surroundings as if I was always part of them. And that is when her story begins. I wish I could say there was something special about that day or that I knew she would be arriving, but the truth is it was not the best of days.

For many reasons. Some of them less mundane than others. For one, it rained, which wasn't unusual for this part of the mountain for it was often raining Misty or so overcast that you could pretty much grab the low sweeping clouds, but this rain was relentless with purpose, causing a lot more people to stop in and stay.

The night. The bar was unusually packed that evening earlier in the week, the cook moved out of town and I was left with only the bar back to help with all the work. That morning, the bar back, quit out of nowhere and happy with the extra shifts you had to manage by my side, the front kitchen sink overflowed again and shorthanded.

I had no time to attempt to repair it. Thankfully there was another sink on the other side of the building, which I could only get to by leaving the bar. It was a hassle, but better than not having a sink at all. Just as I was walking towards the front door with a tub of dirty glasses, the door swung open and caught by the wind knocked me off balance enough to send a tub of dirty mugs and glasses flying across the floor.

Swearing under my breath, I bent down to grab some of them are obvious broken pieces away from the clumsy feet of my intoxicated Patriots. When my hand was met by another. Small, but strong hand that intercepted my mood. Wait, watch out. You'll cut yourself. Where do you keep the broom? I looked up to meet the gaze, my cautious new friend, same one who had swung the door open that caught me off balance green eyes, small features, dark hair, dripping with rain.

It's on the other side of the bar. I replied and watched her skip and glide gracefully and quickly through the crowded space. She was back in a flash and proceeded to clean up the glass and spills off the floor. You are very good at cleaning up messes. I noticed good at making them to what my grandma always said.

She replied, I liked her right away, just like that. She caught me off guard, which meant I was able to really notice her, see her before she told me anything about herself. It was a refreshing way to meet someone. You're looking for a bar back. She pointed to the sign and the window trying to hide the desperation in her voice.

And you're looking for a job. I responded not exactly a question. I knew she needed a job and not just any job, but this one, the one I posted about earlier in the window, you're hired. If you can start tonight, what's your name? She told me her name was Finley, but I know that's not the name she had before.

I know it because of how new, the name sounded to her, as she said it out loud and how it lit up her eyes, how she was able to reclaim herself with it. I didn't mind at all. And the name suited her and she was the best bar back I've ever hired. She was strong, hardworking, never complained about the job or the sometimes cranky customers and always ready to listen.

Unlike many other humans I have known, she didn't really say much about her life or herself and certainly not her past. So I didn't pry. I just watched, I knew she held so much more under the surface that wasn't yet meant to be revealed. Even to me, she had a soft spot for young women and kids who are looking for a place to stay for the night and might be short on payment.

She would petition to let them stay and would offer her own pay towards their room fee. I never took her money and I let the women stay for free. It didn't happen often, but enough to let me see that she had a kind heart and a willingness to share what little she had with others. The soft ends me to her more than to any other humans I've ever worked with in the past.

And she became very dear to me. One night. I asked her what her plans were for the future. Surely she didn't want to work at mysteries in most of her youth. There must be other places she'd wished to explore other cities, places, people surely she longed for a new adventure, but surprisingly she didn't being here has been the best part of my life.

I've never felt safer and happier anywhere else. She said, as she reached for my hand, then continued. I always knew that one day my life would change that one day something exceptional would happen and I could be the person I really longed for and nobody would hold me back. Thank you saga for freeing me from the past and giving me the present and the future.

I know now that you are that something exceptional and I owe you so much, you never asked anything of me, but trusted me more than anybody else did. And that saved my life. I wish to be like you someday able to help others. Like you helped me. And I wish to stay here for as long as I can. Sweet child would happen to you.

I asked, moved by her sudden openness and honesty, and by her trust that I could hold her story, which after all this time she was ready to share. She told me about her family, her mother and grandmother, and those that came before them. She told me of their struggles, their sorrows, the hidden secrets and shame that darken their family name and memory, the details blur, the people blur, but she Finley remains a light.

And that tail, a light that long to break out of a pattern and abandon all that she knew to forge a new path for herself. And your destiny that was already waiting for her. And I know now there are sadly many stories like hers of sorrow and heart Blake and Ross, but in this moment only her story mattered for it intercepted with mine.

And she was the reason the wealth stirred and parted to reveal my next destination at the ms. Deason. That night I dreamt of Oden's. Well, I could feel the wave stirring above and whirling wind's whistling at my window. The whispers of the neurons have began as my story fully connected with Finley's. I saw Finley's deepest, longing and dreams woven by her Donte setting all into place, making the necessary adjustments.

I sum my part in the story and my inevitable departure as everything was clear now. I knew I didn't have to leave right away, but my time was soon approaching in the morning. I made the necessary arrangements, not knowing how much more time I had at the besties. And so I wanted to make sure everything was in place.

I will be going away for a while. I said, where, how long will you be gone? Findlay looked surprised as I've never left for more than an evening of riding on a windy day. See an old friend it's long overdue. I told her, will you be able to keep things going without me? Of course, I'd be happy to, but don't stay away too long or I will miss you.

I will not be far. I promise this was partly true. But before I go, I will show you where the meat is. Her eyes lit up. This was the first time I shared with her, the location of the barrels that held our most intoxicating drink. Brought a long ways away from the soggy beer. The next...

Odin Sep 23, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us. As we share our stories, both old and new, more than anything, we are open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical fairy godmothers in training. Well, first of all, I want to give thanks to Odin and Saga.

I wanted to thank all of the, other of the deities and the different beings that are part of Odin's story. I give thanks for the idea of intention, focus, sacrifice, and the creativity that, that unlocks. And I asked that Odin be present with us at this time.

I would call the Norns, too. Thank you so much for your amazing blessing and wisdom. And help me do well by you. I want to honor Yggdrasil and the wisdom of the natural world. And the wisdom of the ancient tree of every culture and how it brings us together through story through mystery, through nourishment, being able to tap into the sacred waters that run underneath and contain us I ask for the presence of healing, of these waters and the presence of the healing of the sacred tree.

As it reaches out to us. As we reach for it, it reaches back. So I honor and thank for this longing and for this exchange. Um, I give thanks to the Valkyries and. The Ravens. And as he said, the natural world, and I also give them thanks for stories that live on, like the story of living so on. And I do ask that in these strange and changing times that we invite also in welcome Saga into our midst and ask her in her craft and her wisdom to support these stories as they go out into the world, these different snapshots of this particular vision. Thank you so much for coming into my life. And I think all of our lives as well, and I'm just greatly thankful I wanted to thank all the liminal. Yeah. I want to thank our sweet, unknown listener.

Whoever you may be.

This is a story about Odin and all the magical beings that gather around his initiation. The three Swan Valkyries glided in over Yvonne holla at sunset. Wearied by nine long years of domestic captivity, they would have shouted with joy to see the shining shields of the einheriors hall still in Swan forum.

All they could do was honk excitedly, coming to a landing by the scarred purchase of Oden's Ravens. They began their transformation back to their womanly forms. One Raven, large as a sheep. Turned its ruffled head from the direction of the few warriors left, fighting on the practice field and said, currently he isn't here.

Don't bother changing back. He wants you to cleanse and ready yourself for duty at Urdu as well. He did know we were there muttered old room whose gift for knowing things had prompted her to say just that repeatedly during their captive years as wives. Of course, he did said the other Raven, Moonen looking interestingly out the three between Heimdall in us.

He knows everything. Why didn't he rescue us then said, hairball Alvita the most contentious of the three, nine years is a long time. Maybe you should have done exactly. As he said, when you said it said hook and gruffly, just because you've been given will doesn't mean you shouldn't use discretion with it.

I just wanted to see if that cowardly warrior could show some nobility before he got a free ride to ball. Holla hairball said defensively. His father's a drinking buddy of the all father said, mooning, check those things out before you make your own decisions. Anyway, you should get going big doings going on and you don't want to have Oden's baleful I am just now right.

Veer off said lack of the Swan white. Thank you for your courtesy. She held onto her dignity. Even during her running waddling, start to flight, the three swans lifted off and circled above the field, looking for the hidden and magnetic pathway to the base of the world tree, where the well was situated, finding a trace of it.

300 meters of the swans pictured the well in their minds and honed in on the proper frequency, engaging with the pathway. They settled into easy flight aided by the magic of the path. Shifting worlds shifting scenery, they merged into a realm where the immense three Yik Dressel dominate the view, making the base of the tree, but it's tangle of roots.

They side a collective sigh of relief. Or does well, a pool, never looking quite the same look, eerily the pool that had attracted them to drop their Swan coats and Bay. After a particularly gruesome battle, it was there that they had their coat stolen by three Elvin hunters, along with their means for transforming back into swans.

Unable to flee without their coats, to their horror. They felt very nature change from imperious Valkyries to docile and adoptive water as they landed beside the well that fatal disability was what they, each hoped would be washed from them in the healing and restorative waters of the ancient well of origin.

There was no sign of the Norns there, but the similar appearance of the pool indicated that the resident northerns were well aware of the Valkyries, even though it's the off others orders that we bathed here said Lagurtha, I think we had best obeyed for days. House rules of only two swans on the pool at a time.

As a Swan's drop there, coats and slid their gleaming bodies into the pool. Cool hair four began to look for a good place by the base of the tree for a restorative nap. As she came closer to the tree, she became aware of a curious energy emanating around the tree. Unlike the dappled sunshine around the pool, dark shadows were present under the tree, the consciousness of the tree, normally benign and somewhat draws a remote.

Felt very present, very awake and even a bit twitchy. She shed her coat, tying it around her womanly waist and noted to her surprise that her battle senses we're opening up what is going on here. She wondered she put some money thought into picturing the rather irascible norm it's clearly in her mind, the destiny goddesses remained stubbornly out of her sight.

I summon you nor, and she said exerting her well, a wavering transparent image of the northerns appearance was spinning a thick rope with, they look like fibers from a gallows news and shredded shrouds from corpses. Scold was cutting symbols that glowed like embers from a fire into the roots of the tree.

And was unrolling tapestries that had already been cut from their looms. As one, they all turned to hair VAR and said, get out. I can set hair for the all fathers sent us the northerns all looked at one another with raised eyebrows and as one shook their heads, then back off and stay out of the ways that Arista and don't bother us again.

You can bathe with them, said for Dawn day over her shoulder, I relaxed my rules for this one day only her final glimpse before the NORNS disappeared from her sight. Rather as though they drew down a shade was a skull pushing some sigils far up into the corner of the tree's trunk. These did not glow.

And as they were pushed disappeared from sight scold murmured, I'll save these for another day. She swung her curved blade with a whistling sound hairball, hurry to the pool and said to her companions, there's something very strange about to happen here. Actually, it has already started. She told them about her interaction with the NORNS as she entered the pool, she said, hurriedly for Donna gave me leave to enter the pool.

Lagurtha thinking it through said. Odin wants us here for something. If our battle senses are awake, we'd best be ready for anything and hope that we are doing his will said all room with a dark look at hair for, come on, let's clean up an armor ourselves. As they said about this plan, they did not yet notice that another had come to the well, this lady glowed and crackled with vitality.

She approached the well and seeing her own luminous beauty of reflected in the well adjusted her golden necklace to best advantage and noticed with a self loving smile that in order to scribe in the well, she would have to dim her own radiance. What is he up to? Why has he summoned me? She asked the well, the pool changed its appearance.

Again, this time to that of a crystal and surface swirling with clouds. As she watched her smile faded and she scrutinized the images. She was shown scene after scene of Odin summoning, the recent dead. Most of these were below gallows, whether punishments or sacrifices, she didn't know. She wants Tim summoning Volvos from there in tomb sleep.

She saw his commands to his bulkers to slay hero after hero army, after army. The death toll mounted. She even saw an image of Odin secretly watching her practice, her arts of side bastard, truth getter. She murmured laughing a little and frowning. She saw him throw his sphere over her people starting the first war, then prowling around the battlefield afterwards, trying to sniff out the magic of her Vanya.

She saw how many, a ruler dedicated the slain in battle to Odin. After that doing, as he did throwing the spear, she felt a stirring at her side and saw that she had been joined at the well by an elder elf, acknowledging Kim with a smile. She noted his quiet serenity. With his presence, the images in the pool changed and she saw elf after elf being summoned from within grave, mounds and questioned by Odin to give to him the secrets of the dead they're in tuned, the wind stirred the light around the trees base darkened.

As the clouds passed over the sun, the trees started creaking and groaning shivering as branches rustled. The all father Odin phase white and set single eye glaring approach. The tree, each movement he made was heavy with his intention. It carried gung near his sphere, a length of white cloth and a sharp iron knife solidly standing before the tree.

He spoke his intent to the tree in a low growl. All the deaths. He had incited, he offered to the tree, filling his lungs. He simultaneously blew out and stab the iron knife into the tree. He placed his spear against the trees, massive trunk. The NORNS appeared instantly behind him, or that came forward and dropped a corpse news around him.

Without turning. He pulled the news down to his ankles from his neck, my way he said, I need my breath Freya moved forward, catching his attention. She nodded to him, hunger to ear. She breathed God of the hangs. She held her fist over her heart and bowed. The Swan, Bob Curry is restored to their militant regalia with Spears and hand step forward and knelt feel Ghia Amenia de Sierra said Odin to them.

Each nodded solemnly the elder elf showed himself Lord of the grave mound about. Ponderously the tree lowered a great branch with much creaking. The Ravens were already perched on the branch. Raven, God, they croaked in unison, schooled, waved her knives saying, Oh, cut you down. When it's time for Don day tourist strip from the white cloth and tied it around his eye and socket.

The branch whipped up scattering, the Ravens and dangling Odin from its high reach, head hanging down where long bridge trailing in this manner. In silence days, past the Swan Valkyries, the Ravens and the northerns kept a vigil for him. The winds came and went sometimes crooning, sometimes shrieking.

Those closest to Odin came and went. Freya came always at dusk, pretty big eyes shining with calm, demeanor, sang to him, beloved Thor a few days later, still armored from whatever battle he'd been in gazed upon his father hanging in extremity and named him victory. God, Loki. Examining the increasing magic circling around the one eyed God called out high one while laughing, Dangler slate near on the eighth day pod.

The urban roots below Odin with three of his age, the legs at dark fall on the ninth day. Magic reaching a nearly unbearable pitch in great suffering. Odin cried out. I sacrifice myself to myself under cracked and rumble lightning split the sky Lagurtha took hold of good near fiercely, launched herself and speared Odin with it through the heart.

Oden's hands immediately clutched the shaft of the spear. Spear God. She cried out to him. Frenzied dying, Odin swung, wildly. Scold through her blade at the corner rope and cut Odin from the tree, riving, screaming, Odin fell and continue to fall into that death. As the roots of when a great hole in the ground, the Valkyries fell to their knees.

Symbols exploded out of the roots and struck Oden's corpse with considerable force, shocking him into an after death life. Blindfold gone, light and power blazed out of the MTI socket. Some of the glowing symbols flashed out onto the onlookers chaotic light and sounds spiraled wildly. Exultant the NORNS cried out, volunteer slaying God equipping to him forces not yet burst into the world.

That would be called runes. Songs of secret knowledge and with them, the vast wisdom and power held by the dead

I'm doing from the norms. It's mostly for Dani, but actually some of it was, they were chiming in together sometimes and have little disagreements before settling on. So there you go. Okay. Sacrifice. There is always a thread hanging that needs to be cut, sacrifice to make sacred, to trim off the old, in order to weave in the new sacrifice death that consecrates life Odin is always discontent.

Can't knowing enough. He has like some of you that way never satisfied. That's the real reason he wanders. He says he needs to recruit people. Really. He just wants to know everything about everyone everywhere. Anyway, on this day he wanted to know that. Yeah. So he did, it looked like a deep purple spot on his tapestry.

Purple is the hardest color for everyone involved. So when earns, spun purple, we all knew it was going to be well interesting. And exhausting purple is exhausting in the best possible way. We were tending to the roots of big drama, feeding her the compost of life, you know, like they expressed emotions, forgiven slights, and reconciled dreams.

When we noticed Odin watching with an obsessive kind of interest, he is always that way, really, either interested or not he was staring and then he pulled out a noose. I remember one of us muttered purple. I'm not sure which one. Now it doesn't matter. In any event, he looked at us as if we might do something, try to talk him down a bit or shoot him or covered him in dried fruit or any one of a million other things that only he would think of when we told him that we hadn't seen the purple, but didn't choose it.

It was or log not weird inside with really. I don't know what he thought, but he seemed happy that we weren't going to go rogue on him. Then it was so sweet. He asked us to walk over him. Of course, we told him that's what we're here for. Then climbed up into the tree to help tie the rope. So he couldn't fall prematurely.

We're longest, mostly her department. So we got the news, it's all cinched up and dangling over the, well, he didn't really seem to want the well, but we wanted to be sure that if he fell, he wouldn't hurt himself. More than was necessary anyway, and that he would have access to creation or recreation in his case.

Then he climbed up stabbed himself with gum there, no easy task. I tell you. And there he hung day in and day out for nine days. You can in union brekkie and Gary, they all just sat there with him, guarding him. Pretty was watching him through her scrying pool. She didn't want to add at any pressure. So sweet.

His visitors came and went mostly his ancestors. He brought him some honey cake, but he wasn't in the eating mood. What would the spirit inside? We read? I took the cake and put it on a ledge just inside the weld. You keep it fresh until he was done. Birthday cake. Somebody brought him to me and to magical meet.

Of course you wouldn't give a dying God, just a regular class. Now they call that the meta poetry. But it's really more like the, me to beauty and power for us. That's what poetry is. And he learned the spells and carved the runes. I know the room thing seems strange, but he carved them in himself. You scored them into his heart, mind and soul as he hung there.

Sometimes weeping, sometimes laughing, you know how it is when reality is too big to fit into your body and you waffle between disparate ecstasy. It was like that. At first it was slow. He'd be groaning all morning, then grinning all afternoon, but it's set up as he dangled until at the end of it, it was hard to tell which end of the spectrum he was on.

You suspected both. On the last night, the Valkyrie has stayed with him in a candle light vigil. It was one of the most beautiful things we've ever seen. And we rarely agree on that kind of thing. It was well purchased night, sort of like your Halloween, but without the customs and candy, wild instinctual magic builds up all year and then breaks loose that night only to be reigned in the following day.

Unless of course it is first assumed into the body of a God. And that night it was in the morning has extended fever, broke, broke him, broke his rope, broke his makeshift gallows, and he dropped like a rock. Then like a feather truth be told until the well where he drank and drank and drank. He climbed up and out retrieving then enjoying his birthday cake.

And for one moment, and one moment only Odin was satisfied. Sacrifice releases the past sacrifice, restarts the heart sacrifice reveals the magic.

This part of the story is an honor of the sacred seeker. My first awareness is not of the tree, but of the darkness and stars of unknown origin shimmering in the distance. For nine days. Now, I must have lingered between worlds feeling the rustling of leaves around me. As I reversed myself to embrace myself and to all that have been hidden from me, I've had no food or drink of the living world, but the other world feeds me and quenches.

The thirst of my spirit for the longing of my soul will surely outlast the thirst of the flesh and I shall remain. Not knowing which way is up or down nor of what world I came from. I wait, suspended, reversed, undone, and ecstatic with delirium. By what sorcery have I been bound here? What treacherous winds have stolen my power and left me defenseless.

I hear it. The whistling wind mocking my confusion or is it my own laughter. Rising with the light as my heart beats loudly, like the roaring thunder desperately. I stare into the deep void and darkness around me until I see her true form, which is to my delight, the womb. And in that moment, I know it is I who bound myself to this moment.

It is I who longed for her and all her mystery and was willing to offer myself fully to binds around my feet. Unwind for, they never held me. And my position was always of the one about to fall into the abyss, which has no direction, only the entry, which is now revealed to me in all her glory, like a long lost lover.

I am embraced by her naked and longing. She is taking me in as deeply as I have, let myself surrender my dare to grasp at her swelling movements, but they have no form or move too fast for me to hold on to. Time is different here or rather it does not exist. And neither does the reason. I see so many things, most of which I cannot comprehend the sounds or shapes and shapes or songs vibrate through my very being these shapes, like dancing, like expand and collapse and begin to drift towards me and from the depth as they come closer.

I see that it is a form of a man, these shapes of cloaked. And he is me. And for me,...

Varaha Sep 16, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and no more than anything. We're open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions. I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical buried in training. Tonight's story is about Vishnu, the God of eternity and how he rescues the earth.

Do you want to say a prayer or something? See, yeah, I would like to invoke all and only the absolutely compassionate and perfect support alignment of our health protection, wellbeing, success, and highest grade syndrome. I couldn't keep up a boundary, keeping all of those out and ask if they'd be skirted out at this time.

And that everything that had happened here, beautiful, joyful, compelling, and a blessing for all. That's it.

The enormous weight of ignorance and pettiness plummeted the earth into the primordial sea, especially was watching and was irritated by this. He had absolutely no desire to go handle the earth and dollar problems. At this time, we had enough God business on his plate. However, you really love it to the Vedas.

And he really loved the mystery books. And so disheartened, he decided that he would go save it. And he transformed into a bore called Varaha and dove into the sea all the way to the bottom. Where do you sift into the silt and the Mach until he finally found the earth and grabbed her and began to drag her to the top.

And just as he broke the surface of the water, the earth turned it over him and beamed and said, how many times have you rescued me like this? And as soon as she did, he was madly in love. And she transformed into Excel and the two of them went and hid in the forest where they had lots of piglets and they enjoyed days of bathing in the sun and rolling in the mud and just having a fantastic time.

But then she looks down and was like, what is that about how come Vishnu is still in Vera? Why didn't he come back? And he was really irritated. And so he showed up in front of her. Aha. And there was playing. And she even said, borough, what are you doing there? Oh, God business that you need to handle. You do not have time to take a vacation like this right now.

Get on it, get on it. This is not you. This is not what you need to be. You are developing attachments in this world. It is not all right. Look, we're all hot. I continued slurping down this giant pile of them. Stubbles before rolling around in the mud. And Shiva was very, very distressed at the whole thing.

And he said, you are a God, you are meant to behave like a God, but curled up with his needs and pretended to sleep. Okay. The second that Shiva was gone for all had jumped up and said, we have to leave. We have to go into hiding. And he took his family and they all ran to the top of the mountain and they located another place and they thought they were well hidden there.

Meanwhile, Sheba went to Brahma and said, have you seen this new? He is down there. It was look at him. And the two of them lifted him and she said, can you believe it? He is a pig. It's disgusting. Isn't it disgusting? And Brahmas said, yeah, yeah, kinda disgusting. Got to say that he was like, it has to stop. He has God job duties.

He must be on it. And Brown was like, Yeah, yes, he does have things to do. Then she ever said do something about it. Brian said, okay, I'll handle it. But then as soon as Shiva was gone, Brahma looked down and she went, fish looks so happy. You look so content and they know that he needs to come back, but I'm just going to give him a little more time.

This does not work for Shiva at all. So the minute that Brahma did not respond immediately, she'd go through his Trident. Then she was trying to always have such smart, no matter where they are. So even though he didn't know wherever aha was, this Trident did. And as the try, the entrance steering through her, aha, he fell to the ground and his death throes and he looked up and he thought it's all so beautiful.

The waving of the green grass and the sparkling and the blues scene. And even the glistening red of the blood running out of me, it is so beautiful. And then Shiva appeared having followed his, tried it and said, you stupid more Roddick pig. What is wrong with you? You have forgotten that you are an eternal God of light.

And as Varaha lay dying, he began to dissolve into the God of life than he is. And he began to think, well, I think that might actually be true. But I'm so grateful that the earth is so heavy that she's sure to need me to rescue her again in the future. I'm so in love with the story and with Varaha.

Creation Sep 09, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft. Myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old and new. More than anything, we're open to the story and it's unfolding. At times, it may be one story told by one person, at times, it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us. And we invite you to follow. I'm Sea a writer, artist, and storyteller.

I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery traditions.

I'm Gabriella, an artist and practitioner of folk magic.

We are magical fairy godmothers in training.

Our story today is about creation. I chose the story of creation as told by my people of Slavic lands.

I chose a version that resonated with me. There are a few versions of the story with various gods stepping into a present order and heavenly power. The dark God remains the same. He is called Weles, and later the devil, one who rules over the earth and the underworld. Well, the story has changed throughout time.

It's most current form, as told by old village folk, involves God and the devil creating the world together. But for now I'll remember the story from a pre Christian perspective. At the beginning, there was the earth, the mother, who was founded by great waters from all directions above and below. Eventually a sky appeared and clouds, rod, the ancestral tribal God, and the Zoryas, or the fates.

This God also appeared as the God of the sky and thunder. As the Spotify, God of the sun and fire known as the Smith of the gods. One day got a thunder and order was sailing in a sky boat across the great waters and through his staff down deep, where it hit the bottom and turned into a great out the tree of life.

He took refuge at the great tree rested there for awhile and contemplated. He noticed his loneliness read the little that there were no people to keep him company. Can you, he needed earth for the people to live on and saw that deep under the water was the sand of creation. Puritan looked at his reflection and saw a vision of himself, or maybe not of himself, but another nevertheless, he asked this other to come out of the water and take four.

This was vellus. One of the great depths piano knew that he needed his help to create the world. Velez was the only one who could dive deep to retrieve pieces of this precious sand from the bottom. The sound was very deep beneath, and even with Velez has great knowledge of the dark waters. He couldn't retrieve anything for the first two tries before the third attempt peeled and then Vela spoke the appropriate magical formula.

And finally, Velez came back with a fist full of sand peeled on through the sand, onto the water and created a small patch of land. Barely big enough for him and the Vela to sleep on and rest for the night when peeled and fell asleep, Velez tried to push him into the water. He pushed him East and West than South and North.

But during this act, Peloton just made the land extend into the shape of a cross and created the four sacred directions. Disappointed Velez kept on doing other things yeah. To disrupt the creation process, but an effect more earth formed by his actions. From the sand Velez, hidden his mouth mountains grew in bogs and fields to bake for his mouth to contain.

He had to spit them out. The earth kept growing and growing and peeled and didn't know how to stop it. He began to worry that it would grow over the sky and the water too. Piano and sent a beat to spy on Velez for, he knew that the secrets of containment remained with Velez said, be heard Velez, say that in order to maintain the expansion and Mark of the cross must be made by a wand at the edges or the earth stop pillar in the jail.

Does the be reported angry? Vellus curse the B for spying on a secrets. He said, may he, who sent you to steal my secrets before? So eat your own excrement. Hearing this code and blessed to be with creating honey out of the mud Velez created a Wolf, but people don't gave the Wolf breath and therefore brought him to life from straw and mud.

Fellas created people and to piano and gave them breaths and life. This is why when people die, those go into the sky to POM, but their body and power are absorbed by the depths of the underworld and fellas. Many other creatures came to life by and vellus is active collaboration. When the earth was full, the two gods grew restless and realized that they cannot both rule the world.

They created PO and returns to his heavenly abode, but vellus tries to hide and remain on the earth. He hides in rocks, animals, trees that piled on. Seeing him there strikes down at him with his thunder bolt to make him depart and leave people alone. No matter where Velez would hide protons, Thunderbolt would find him destroy his hiding place and defeat him the only place which was impenetrable by Pelton's lightening bolt was water there.

Velez could hide safely and killed an agreed that this was a fine domain for vellus this watery domain and the roots of the world tree. Velez sits on a golden throne. This world is called Navi and it's a place where the dead go. When we're snakes and birds travel for the winter. Also, it's a place where the sun goes to rest.

After a long days of work, piano was able to ascend to the highest seventh heaven. There he resides in a palace made of most precious and shiny stones stars once in a while when fellas come. Um, so the earth pillow in lights up the sky with a sundae bolt, and then back down again, when there's drought on earth crops grow, people plead with and to create thunder and bring the rain.

They also send out homestead snakes into the field for the messengers of VALIS to ask him not to hoard the water. The forest and fields are believed a secret places where vellus might still appear to help protect people's livestock from wild animals. And to bless the abundance of their crops, Peotone is asked to bring thunder and rain to make the crops grow.

Wild Velez is known to control the underground water currents in collaboration. The two gods continue to create life for people on earth. The middle world. Next for reading. Yes, that was lovely. Thank you. So I have to say, I guess that the thing that stood out for me the most is the idea that life was created through friction when he's alone and everything's going easily, nothing's really going, you know what I mean?

That there's something about. He is turning into complacency, which actually become stagnancy. It's that duality that I have to say, I fight against all the time. I'm like I hate dichotomy. And I think the way it divides us and simultaneously it's the interaction that's creating all the beauty. That's what I thought.

That was lovely. I agree. I love that too. I thought it was a lovely, I love the creation story and I was. Oh, almost suspecting that it was moving into the direction of kind of like a succession, like there's one God, and then there's another God. And so that dynamic tension that ended up between them was really fascinating to me.

I liked it too, that it, that Glen, the magic spell that was collaborative. Um, that was part of creation also. Why do you find this to be such a, a wonderful story for you? For many reasons? Um, the most important one would probably have to be the order in chaos together, creating life and sustaining life.

Those two opposing forces, the light and the dark. Not B, B, B at a time before they were branded as good and evil as one taking over the other. When they are equal forces. That's beautiful. To me, that's powerful to me. That's liberating to me. And also the story still exists in how people say it and how Slavic people tell it.

They, they tell it now as God and the devil. But that relationship is the same. So even though new gods or have taken over that right power structure, their collaboration is still exists. So the fact that there's a story that exists about good and evil working together also makes me happy. And the magic that there is a formula in it that some, some relations of the story, the formula goes something like this it's, you know, by your power and my by God's power and your power.

So it's calling the two names of God, but even that was not the right formula. So ultimately we don't know what the right formula is, which I find very intriguing. Is that somehow, even in this story, this is kept from people that there is this piece of, you know, we're, we're told the story, but there is that one little piece that's left out because it's not for our ears to hear.

I don't know. And I, and I just love how to this day that the God of the underworld, the dark gods still helps people. I find that beautiful because more than piano and he shows up for the people on a daily basis, he's willing to take that chance. He's risking his own. He's breaking his own. Oh, in a sense when he's being called to, to help.

And I love that. It also, as you were telling the story, I was struck by how para went, but Velez wanted to stay in this realm in the middle world. So that connection that he was already demonstrating, um, A desire for then went on to be a source of help to the people I think is really quite beautiful. And then the other thing that I really loved was that image of Peru looking in the water and then the mirror image of fellows coming out of the water.

That's a very fascinating kind of magical aspect as well. I love that too, because it's sort of, it's both identical and opposite. It contains both sort of the projection and exactly what is needed probably. And I don't know if I've tracked properly, but in my understanding, as you were talking, which might be wrong, I heard that bellows, the dark guff was the one who contained the place that was the underworld and had the hibernation in it.

And I thought it was such a lovely, lovely thought to me. I think of, of sort of an underworld God as a place of rest and repair corporation. Like it's not necessarily an eternal thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just a moment to lay down so that you can sort of recuperate and get up again. I thought that was absolutely nothing.

And I always love it about a Pantheon that in the original pantheons, there's not that division them good and bad. There's only appropriate, great or inappropriate. There's a moment, but the director, and there's a moment for the life data and call the right one. It's not that one of them is always evil or always good.

And it strikes me that there's not just the moment, but there's also the placement. There's a place where they're appropriate and a place where they're not appropriate as well as the timing. And then what happens when they step into those inappropriate moments and what occurs and what are the outcomes that happen in perhaps multiple realities as a result of that.

So perhaps it's good and evil doesn't really exist. It's directional. And then the story, the directional is truly in placement of where something is, but also yes, as, as you were saying where it exists in time and went to an appropriate things come together, or rather when two unlikely forces come together, is it through that surprise that new life is born because that's what happened here.

It was new life. It was dreamed. Kildonan had this vision. And yet he somehow always knew he couldn't do it alone. So there's so much going on here in terms of, what's not said what's not seeing that as part of the story that in first to me, the idea of sacrifice too, I always feel very heartbroken that we moved the word sacrifice away from the word sacred, because originally sacrifice was to make something sacred by giving up something else.

And so there's a way that he's giving up his own ears and contentment in order to invest in a relationship, that's going to turn into something that's at least got frictional, if not fully combative at times, in order to make something more beautiful in order to give us life. And I love that idea. And the B I love the story of the B two or that part about the B that, you know, a curse becomes a blessing.

I'm wondering if there are other animals, you know, in different versions of that, the story that are given their gifts by this interaction. That's what I think about applying it to me. I immediately think about the idea of what am I willing to give up. In what ways am I willing to give up my comfort in order to do something that is more powerful or more beautiful in the world.

But I also think of the idea of when is it appropriate for me to rest and how do I, because I tend to over work. How do I acknowledge in the moment? That that's not a failure. It's not that I'm not living up to the life. God image that I'm spending a little moment with the dark guy. This balance is good because we need both energies and the fascinating aspect of the light God Haroun and his vision and his dream expanding so rapidly that it becomes an issue and a difficulty and how that can apply to us where we have a dream that we.

Work for that can then take on a life of its own. And we don't always have until we have the hindsight to see, well, actually, how does this stream fit into the real fabric of my life and how my district be contained in a way that actually gives it more potency rather than just something so vast that it's spread out in a way that makes it smooth it's potency or it's magic as the case may be.

I completely agree with that. The idea of the I should have picked up on, and now it's just so like me not to pick on the boundaries, create boundaries that are up that like actually know where you start. And once again, knowing where the edges, because that's part of it when you know where you want this edge to be, that's when you do it, that's when you create that boundary, even being able to see the edges of dreams or the edges of.

Of something that's expanding beyond where we would even imagine. Yeah, I see the image in my mind of the light shining on the earth. And then what throws that light into high relief are the features of the landscape, the things that get created. And that's when the thing so beautiful about the stories, the many kinds of roles that it plays, both the creation story.

Um, it also gives the reasons for a number of different things about why they are the way that they are. And it also, I think, showed some signs of being able to help humans or people on the earth to know what are proper offerings. As you were saying, what are sacrifices are? What is really sacred? And also that need perhaps to learn how to collaborate, even when we might think that we're right.

One side or the other side, my, when those views come together, how do they interlock and an end up creating more? So it's a very rich myth, very rich story for the people. Thank you. I certainly see it that way. And so beautiful that, um, mean so much power in it that it makes sense that it would survive Christianity too, but even changing little particular aspects of it.

Nevertheless, it's so powerful. I could see that the people that this myth was a part of their heart story, would want to keep it in whatever form that they could. It's a story that keeps on going. I can feel that for myself, how I would want to take this story into the week with me is to just let myself hold in one hand, the light God, and then the other hand, the dark gods, so to speak and just see what happens.

What happens to let them both be. Here knowing that they hold an inherent kind of balance in themselves and what it would be like for me to, to experience that balance and that particular way. I like that idea. That's funny. I was just thinking as a takeaway, I've thought, because we did a lovely job with this and this, this was our myths of the time, um, that I wanted to actually do something to work with it this week, but that's what I'm going to do is the candles like candles around ballot.

That's funny. I don't know if I'm like brave enough right off to go with light and dark because I'm like, but I want to do two that are around balance and around bringing forth what is needed. And thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for letting me share this story with you. It's one of my favorites. It's really beautiful. Thank you.

Special, thanks to the fantastic Zoe Magik for her phenomenal editing.

Midrash Aug 12, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft.

Myths, fairy tales, legends: Stories comfort us, inspire us, and heal us. Please join us as we share stories, both old and new.

More than anything, we are open to the story and its unfolding, At times, it may be one story told by one person. At times, it’s the same story told through three different voices. In the end, we go were the story takes us . . . and we invite you to follow.

Here's this week's story:

God gets an upgrade

God is going about his godly business as one among many Gods. His humans, however, are bickering with the neighbors about property lines. They are starting to talk trash about how great God is and how he’s supreme. At first, he’s flattered. He performs a couple easy miracles, like getting old women pregnant (not exactly a hardship for a male God). But then they push him hard to prove that he’s the end-all-be-all of deities.

Concerned, God looks around. He notices that Dionysus has taken off for the islands and left a power vacuum in Sodom and Gomorrah—a place God’s own people have been bitching about. So he figures he can make an easy stand there.

At first, God thinks he’ll just go impress them with his Godliness. But when he gets there they just laugh. The fact is they are far more sexually experienced than he is, and unimpressed with pregnant women. So he goes away to contemplate a long-term conversion strategy. His followers, however, have no patience and pressure him for a large scale display of power. Eventually God caves; he announces that he will destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

At first, people argue, which is a great relief to God who doesn’t want to do it anyway. God is pleased when they ask if he’ll spare the city if they find 50 good men; he figures he’s off the hook. As far as he can tell, there are thousands of good people there. But he has to put up some kind of a front, so he pushes back. Eventually, he gets them to lower the number, then sends them in to point out some good folks. They come back empty handed. And God wonders how he drew the short straw in followers.

God then sends in his angels. Surely they can find someone. As soon as they arrive, Lot, the kid from the sheep incident, runs out to greet them. God wonders why it never before occurred to him to miss Lot. He should have guessed he was in party-town. God hopes the angels will stay away from that one. But no, they go home with him. God hopes Lot has changed.

That evening, God sees a bunch of people heading to Lot's house for a party. And he gets excited. Maybe Lot has changed; now he has friends! But when they reach the door at the appointed time, Lot sneaks out and whispers that they should leave because he has guests. His friends think he’s joking; of course he has guests—it’s a party. They shove at the door.

God thinks this is his golden opportunity to convert people. They are joyfully gathered. Surely Lot will tell them how great he is. So he shows up in his brilliant, godly glory. Everyone freaks out—people begin to scream. Lot slams the door shut. Startled, God ducks behind a tree.

The party folks calm down and start to pressure Lot, asking him to at least send his new friends out to meet them—maybe have a beer. But he shoves his tween-aged but as-yet-unnamed kids out the door instead yelling “take my daughters. They have never known a man.” This, God thinks, is the Lot I remember.

Lot’s friends, including his daughters’ fiancés, leave in deep disgust. The angels, however, are now convinced that Sodom and Gomorrah truly are corrupt. They lean hard on God to destroy the area in a big show. They want Lot to witness and escape so he can report the display of power to others. God sighs deeply. ‘Well,’ he thinks, ‘I really could use more followers; this might help my image. And Lot is one of my people, so I can save him.’

God tells Lot to head for the hills. Lot refuses. ‘WTF,’ God thinks, ‘I just agreed to save you.' But Lot insists he wants to go live in Zoar. "Whatever," God says. "Just don’t look back," he adds, realizing that he has no stomach for actual killing and will have to sneak the unfortunate residents out during the night.

Lot turns and runs for the hills rather than Zoar, as God thinks ‘what the hell is wrong with that man.' Lot’s wife, however, whose name Lot apparently has never bothered to learn, turns around in front of her husband on the road. 'Shit,’ God responds, as he munches on a fist full of remarkably bland peanuts, 'I have to do something memorable to punish her—quick!.' Thinking fast, God turns her into salt.

Lot and his girls make it up the hill and set up camp. Once there, Lot spends several days getting wasted and impregnating his children then makes up a story to tell the neighbors in Zoar. And God realizes that some people never change, as he wanders off to warn the local sheep.

God Wants to Party

As time goes on, God begins to get comfortable in his promotion to The One True God. There’s been some initial trial and error, of course—these things never go as smoothly as one would like—but God is starting to understand the expectations and demands of ‘His People’, though it’s still hard for him to think of them as that.

God’s not accustomed to the idea of owning a large, migrating, group of humans. They are not only capable, but arguably obsessed with, independent thought. They never go where he sends them, and instead spend ages wandering the desert following each other’s bizarre whims. Sometimes it’s all he can do to keep them fed and watered. And he still feels a bit confused by the idea that he’s The One True God, particularly since it’s common knowledge that there are many such gods and goddesses. But, that’s what they call him, and who is he to argue. He is excited that they are finally creating real relationship! ‘His People’ check in regularly through prayers and dreams and he’s coming to genuinely like a few of them, especially the one’s that smell good. No matter how many times he tells them to bathe, most of them take it as a metaphor or assume he’s talking to someone else.

Recently, God’s been receiving a lot of complaints about a neighboring town: Nineveh. And this is where his current dilemma rears it’s golden bovine head. God wants, really wants, to live up to the expectations of the ‘His People’. But the people of Nineveh are not, strictly speaking, ‘His’, even if he accepts that some are. The Nineveh residents do not go around worshiping him, or even bragging about The One True God. Most of them worship Ishtar.

In truth, God’s always had a thing for Ishtar, a full-figured goddess with long, thick, auburn hair, olive skin, and eyes like embers dancing in a fire. God thinks it’s a shame that she’s in a committed three-way with her sister and Tammuz, even if it is an open relationship. She deserves better. She’s so much more appealing and reasonable than the other gods and goddesses in the region who spend their time goading chubby people into overeating and seducing cattle off cliffs.

In any event, if the people of Nineveh “belong” to anyone, and God remains unconvinced of this, it’s Ishtar. And he’d never want to steal from her or destroy her “things,” if they can be called that. What’s a God to do: Live up to the inappropriate expectations of ‘His People’ and criticize the folks of Nineveh, whom he, frankly, admires for their bohemian flare; or let ‘His People’ down by ignoring their pleas?

God thinks back, remembering the debacle in Sodom and Gomorrah. That was a similar situation and, while it didn’t really go according to plan and God wasn’t wholly happy with the outcome, it had been navigated and certainly had some lessons to be garnered. Reflecting, God realizes his takeaways are thus: choose a decent human who is motivated by things other than alcohol and incest; don’t ask said human to prove anything—just tell him or her what to do and say; demonstrate integrity in said words and deeds; model respect and appreciation for differences rather than bending to demands to condemn others; respect other Gods and Goddesses, while doing his best to serve ‘His People.’ After all, the whole thing might have been avoided if he’d just flown to the islands and consulted with Dionysus directly.

God considers and decides that, as long as he has to do something—and he feels he does—he wants to model good behavior and demonstrate positivity and appreciation for other cultures. After giving it some thought, he realizes that he’d like to work with Jonah. Jonah’s a nice, unattached, young man. He has no immediate obligations, and who knows, he might find himself an exotic wife, like Ishtar, on the trip. Plus, his dad, Ammittai, will be happy to provide the personal resources to travel to Nineveh without undue financial hardship. God will just chat with him in a pleasant dream and everything will be taken care of.

Plus, Jonah smells great. Not only does he bathe regularly, the youth enjoys enhancing his aroma with a sweet smelling substance he harvests off local trees. It’s quite appealing. So God appears before the boy. The youth has harvested some flax leaves and is standing over a well gazing at his reflection while using the cellulose to scrape away the odd bits between his teeth. “Wow,” God thinks. “This one really is a leader in the world of personal hygiene.”

After inhaling deeply to see if the boy’s wearing that sweet sap he likes so much, God bellows “Jonah,” in his deepest booming voice (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.1). It’s important to keep up appearances. Lucky for the young man, his bone-sharp incisor slices through the flax preventing him from ripping his tooth out. He catches himself, unfortunately by the cheek, on the well’s edge then crouches down and looks around, but sees no one. He creeps backwards, away from the well—and shaking in terror—as the skin on his face blooms into a lovely purple flower.

God feels terrible that he’s frightened the poor youth. He wants to put the boy at ease. “Jonah,” God repeats, wanting to get to the point before anything else goes awry. “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness has come before me” (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.2). God always tries to remember to use his ‘professional voice’ when talking with ‘His People.’ God hopes that Jonah will understand that God is not angry; he just wants Jonah to do him a solid.

Jonah, however is in a state of sheer panic. He’s never been one to get on board with the whole ‘God’ thing and is strongly suspecting, with the wee part of his reptilian brain that is still functioning, that he is in imminent danger of becoming completely insane. Taking a few deep breaths, he decides to just roll with it. “Sure,” he responds, “I love a road trip.”

“Great!,” God says. He figures he’s fulfilled his directives: good human; straightforward command. He’s in his integrity and doing his best to serve ‘His People’. Now he just needs to demonstrate appreciation for cultural differences. First, God thinks, he’ll speak with Ishtar to be sure they’re on the up and up and she knows that Jonah’s dropping by for a quick hello. God secretly hopes that Ishtar will throw another awesome dance party like the one she threw last time Tammuz came home. God remembers fondly how, at the end of the evening, they overturned all the tables and made a slippery-slide on the wet dance floor.

God heads to Ishtar’s alter, an intricately formed statue built into a cave. He always feels bad when he thinks about her actual beauty compared with the lumpy ‘likeness’ of her housed in a hillside; It’s not like her at all. But she does respond immediately when he calls to her from there.

Jonah, however, continues to spasm and twitch for about an hour. Eventually, he decides that he may be able to cure his obvious mental illness if he takes a nice, long vacation. Obviously, the strain of puberty has been too much for him, and his aromatherapy is not working the miracles he’d hoped. Jonah goes to his dad whom, having had a powerful dream, agrees that he should take a trip and swiftly hands him lots of cash. So Jonah decides to visit Tarshish, where he used to vacation when he was a child, to reinforce his fragile sanity.

The youth heads first to Joppa to catch a boat (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.3). Unfortunately, having stopped several times to run cool water over his now enormous facial bruise, he arrives an hour too late. He has missed the boat. Jonah hates that thought . . . If only it hadn’t become an expression of failure. At any rate, he is determined to succeed, and the first step is recovering his sanity. He commissions an entire crew, complete with ship, and sets course to Tarshish.

Meanwhile, God is chatting up Ishtar. He called from her alter and she descended immediately. He handed her a bit of sap he’d collected on the way, and encouraged her to spread it behind her ears, as Jonah did. Unfortunately, it smelled a bit sour and acidic. He’d have to remember to ask Jonah what that stuff he used was called. In any event, Ishtar seems thrilled to see him. This, more than anything, makes God feel powerful. She invites him in and suggests that she “slip out of something uncomfortable,” noting that she prefers not to wear clothing during the six months when Tammuz is off with her sister.

Good thing she’s immune to thermal conditions, she remarks, being a Goddess. Her half-husband does his best to ensure frigid weather whenever he’s out of town. Luckily, Tammuz is fairly incompetent when it comes to temperatures and rarely manages frost, despite his significant efforts. It’s difficult to keep things cold above when it’s getting hot for him down below . . . but she doesn’t like to think about that. In any event, she seems glad, very glad, that God has come to call.

“Ishtar,” God says, trying not to do a full body check, “how lovely to see . . . I mean . . . talk with, you.”

“Thank you, God. It’s my pleasure,” Ishtar notes, smoothing the lack of fabric on her thigh. “What can I do for you?”

After a moment of being lost in thought, God remembers why he’s here. “Well, I’m getting a lot of requests these days regarding your people in Nineveh. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how beautiful I find your city: truly one to be proud of. And irrigation! However did you think of it?! I really could not admire your work more. And yet, ‘My People’ seem discontent. They always get that way when they’ve been wandering too long. If only I could somehow get it through their heads to ask for directions . . . ”

“Anyway, I’ve told a lovely young man, named Jonah, to visit Nineveh, and let ‘Your-People’ know that I’ve noticed their admirable lack of inhibitions—I called it wickedness, because I remember that you told me how you like to be wicked” he says, leaning over and casting her a tentative glance while blushing and smiling seductively, “and I approve. If only ‘My People’ would relax and let loose more they might be a bit happier. I want Jonah to let ‘Your People’ know I admire their party atmosphere. And I want to set an example of positively acknowledging other, divergent, cultures. In any event, I just wanted to let you know that he’s on his way . . . If truth be told,” God admits, “I’d absolutely love to throw another fantastic dance party.”

“Why, thank you, God. I’m flattered! And I’d love to have a dance party. I’ll see if “My People’ are into it. But even if they aren’t, I can assure you that I am. And sending ‘your boy’ to compliment our culture is such a thoughtful thing to say and do! I know I’m grateful that you’re so close at hand,” Ishtar replies, taking his hand and clasping it to her chest.

God blushes even deeper and starts fiddling with the edge of his tunic. “I . . . I . . . know . . . I’ve asked before, Ishtar . . . but are you sure you’re not barren?”

“No,” Ishtar replies in a deep, throaty voice, leaning in so close that God is nearly overwhelmed by the acrid scent of the sap he’d brought her, “I’m as fertile as can be. You know, I am a fertility Goddess.” She beams proudly, puffing out her significant chest.

Sighing deeply and dropping his gaze, God thanks Ishtar, kisses her on the hand and departs. He desperately wants to look back, but that would that just would not feel right after the salt thing, so he leaves without seeing her crest fallen look. She’s so perfect, God thinks, if only she were barren . . .

God goes to check on Jonah: to make sure the boy’s not wandering the desert like his ancestors. God cannot believe his eyes when he finds the kid on a boat to Tarshish (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.4). That’s entirely the wrong direction! There has to be a way he can introduce a gene that will stop those people from getting perpetually lost. God feels bad about that thought. He judges his goding harshly. He’s noted that they are ‘His People’ when they’re doing all right, but that he immediately thinks of them as ‘those people’ when they are doing something . . . creative. He vows to work on his own proclivity to judge. It’s important to set a good example.

In an attempt to be helpful, God attempts to turn the boat around. He calls and calls upon the sea, but the best he seems to do is to create a bitter storm. And the humans just row on, paddling ever harder. They are apparently better at moving across the sea than God is. In fairness, he has always been a God of the desert. In any case, God recognizes that he’s out of his element and vows to learn to walk on water as soon as this trip is over so this kind of thing won’t happen again.

Soon the frightened sailors are each crying out to their own gods and flinging their cargo overboard (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.5). God wonders what is up with these people. They will need that cargo. And suddenly all manner of Gods and Goddesses are appearing before him demanding to know what is happening. God explains that it’s just a misunderstanding. His human, Jonah, has commissioned the entire ship, but has it headed it the wrong direction. God wants to correct their course. The other Gods and Goddesses have received prayers explicitly requesting that the boat continue to Tarshish. In time, they all agree that the best course of action for everyone is if Jonah simply takes another vessel back to land while the rest of the group continues, but how to get back to Joppa?

Meanwhile, Jonah has passed out. This is really all too much for him. His desperately-needed vacation has taken a horrible turn. The crew, fighting to stay on course, send their captain down to see if Jonah’s still alive. The poor boy looked peaked at best when he hired the ship and crew, and that fainting can’t be good. The captain shakes Jonah awake and suggests he call upon God for help (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.6). The captain is deeply perplexed when this only distresses Jonah further.

Eventually, the crew draws lots to see who is the cause of this torrential storm, and finds Jonah to be the culprit (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.7). They ask him who he is, who he worships and, above all, what he has done. Jonah tells them all about his background as a Hebrew, and the events of the last few days (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.8-10). They make a few assumptions and conclude that God is enraged and wrathful, which hurts God’s feelings.

“What must we do to you to make the sea calm around us?,” the crew-members ask Jonah in a fit or terror (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.11).

More depressed and, frankly, a little suicidal, Jonah replies “Heave me overboard, and the sea will calm down for you: for I know that this terrible storm came upon you on my account” (Berlin and Brettler Jonah 1.12)....

Cailleach Aug 12, 2020

Welcome to Saga Kraft: myths, fairytales, legends stories, comfort us, inspire us and heal us. Please join us as we share stories both old, no more than anything. We're open to the story and it's unfolding at times. It may be one story told by one person at times it's the same story told through three different voices.

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery. I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magic. Oh, very common in training. We welcome you veiled one dark Berra to come and to be part of this storytelling time.

And I also want to invite saga to be present as the tremendous storyteller and holder of space for stories. Um, but this story of the cardiac also has. Bridget in it in her early as formed. I'm not as religious. So we want to invite Bridgette to be present. And the other person in the story is Angus, who is the summer King.

So we invite all of you in your life, compassionate forums to be present with us for this story. And may you be pleased with this story? May it make whatever sense two individuals that it does? May it touch the hearts that it's supposed to. Um, may I speak to those who will be listening to the story in the future?

I ask that my words go directly into the ears and to the hearts of those who will in the future, listen to this. And also to you now who are hearing this story. I really thank you. My story is about the Collie arc. Who is a goddess figure in Scotland, Ireland, and the isle of man, um, Kelly Ark. When we look at what the word means from old gala, um, what it means is the veiled one and it refers to old women, old hags and very powerful goddesses.

And this story is about that powerful goddess who is truly the veiled one. Dark Berra was the mother of all, all the gods and goddesses in Scotland. She was very old, quite tall, and everyone feared her. She reigned as the queen of winter with fierce winds, ice and biting storms at her command. As spring year, each year, she would try with all her might to prolong the winter and her reign as the queen.

Though she lived in this way for hundreds of years, she did not die because when spring inevitably came, she conceded the ruling of her realm to her son, Angus. The summer King was a beautiful golden God freed of her winter duties and aged with the effort to create the storms, to freeze the land. She would go seeking renewal.

On the night before bell Tane, she would go to the floating green Island of the West to the sacred and hidden well of youth here. She would sit in silence and alone all the long night waiting for Dawn. When she would drink the magical waters after drinking from the sacred, well, Vera would begin to grow younger.

And that anti-aging would continue for her. She leaves soon after drinking, returning to the mainland of Scotland, where she would then go into a deep, magical sleep. At length when she awoke, she was even younger, still emerging from sleep as a beautiful golden haired girls, suite of disposition by Midsummer, she would be a woman fully mature.

And with autumn came her wrinkles by winter's beginning, she was again, a withered blue faced one eyed hag. She continued in this way for hundreds of years. One winter Barrack kept captive. A young woman named Bridger barren knew that this lovely princess was going to be the wife of her son, Angus. And she would eventually put on the crown of the summer queen.

Berra didn't love her for this. She kept her captive in a hidden mountain and she set the beautiful maiden to impossible tasks and was exceedingly nasty to her when she wasn't able to complete them. And she wasn't meant to complete them. She scalded are constantly finding fault with everything. Bridget did.

The girl was wretched with this treatment and deeply miserable. She was also unused to be treating in this treated in this way. Berra gave her a Brown sheep police and told her to wash it in the stream until it became snowy, white bridge have washed it day after day, all day long with no change to the color of the fleece.

It remained a dingy Brown bridge of worried and fretted that this was going to go on for her whole life. It seemed like it was never ending. One day while washing the fleece an old grade bittered man came by and watched us Brita cried bitterly, washing the fleece to no avail. Taking pity on her. The old man asked her why she was so sad when she told him, he said, I'm sorry for you.

And taking the fleece from her. He shook it vigorously three times. At which point the fleece became instantly as white as snow I'm father winter. He said I can easily make things white. Giving the fleece back to her. He accepted her heartfelt. Thanks for saving her so much trouble. I have something else for you.

He said, and he handed her a bouquet of snowdrops pure, absolute white. Give these flowers to Berra. If she scolds you. And tell her this, tell her that snow drops are growing in the green for woods and crest is growing on the stream banks. Be sure and tell her that bridge of went to Berra and drop the fleece that are feet bare.

It didn't even look at it. She handed her the snowdrops bear. His rage lit up when she saw the flowers where these flowers from she shouted. Breaches said snowdrops are growing in the green for woods and crest is growing on the stream. Banks raging with fury Berra center, eight hugs to the North, the South, the East and the West freeze and blight any new green growth, any sign of spring, smite the world with Roston storms, wage war against all growth wage war against my son.

The summer King. Her hags mounted their shaggy goats and rode forth. Bera took her black hammer and smoked the ground again and again, freezing the earth solid and keeping spring at Bay as she's smoked the ground, she reshaped the mountains and the valleys, meantime Angus, the son of bearer and the summer King dreamt a dream of a beautiful and very sad maiden.

He saw an old gray bearded man beside her in the dream and asked the man why the maiden wept. So unceasingly, the old man said, she's a captive of Vera, your mother, and treated most cruelly. When Angus awoke, he sought guidance from the King of the green isle. The King told him this maiden is going to be your wife.

She'll be your summer. Queen Angus wanted to go at once and free her. The King tried to persuade him to wait until the first sign of spring to rescue her. But I think it's decided to go at once, even though it was deepest winter and the time of his mother's greatest power. Uh, borrow three days from August and I will sing a spell upon the land and the sea for peace of the winds and peace in the sea.

This he did. And he wrote to the lens where Brita was captive. He searched high and low day and night, but he couldn't find her. She was hidden so well, Vera angry at our son's stirred up a Tempest and blue and back to the green aisle. Undeterred Angus went back again until eventually he found her from the first time that Angus and Bridger saw each other.

They also loved each other and to help them the local fairy queen and her many maidens help the couple to safety crossing a river frozen by one of the hugs of Berra. Reja put her hand on the ice and began the very first melting of the waters. The ice hag responsible for the frozen river shrieked and fled back to Berra bridge was transformed from her rags to a gown of white silk and crystals.

She was given a white wand woven with golden stocks, the fairies, the nature spirits, the birds, the animals, all of nature celebrated the wedding. Feasta Angus and Brita shoutings spring has come spring has come. And Angus spoke. Spells is a fertility for the land. Well, breacher waved her wand, the spills of spring were strong and even made their way to the land of the humans.

Angus left his bride in safety on the green aisle. When you went and challenged his mother bear since storm after storm to drive him away, he kept coming back. She sent the wind called whistle to him, which brought hail and ice. Scotland's suffered greatly Angus flood, but returned again. The next week embarrassed sent to him was sharp, build wind, which pecked at the land, like a great bird.

Next was the sweeper, which tore branches from the trees and budding plants from their stocks. The earth was ravaged. People starved in the weeks of leanness came on. There was a sorrowful time, but where that wind of verus could not reach spring, came flowers, appeared Barrow retaliated with the gales of complaint.

Yet she was unable to fully subdue the powers of the spring, wielded by Angus and Brita it together at length. At the end of her own strength, Berra had one more blast in her. She called forth. The three days of winter that had disappeared when Angus called up the three days of spring, the spirits of those particular days of winter were Tempus spirits and they did their utmost to defeat the summer King to no avail on belting Eve weekend with effort on an extreme old age, Vera conceded, defeat, and flood in despair.

She dropped her black hammer and made her way to the well of youth on that floating green isle and waiting through the long night. She drank at Dawn the next day, when Barrow returned to her home, Reja in triumph, dipped her white hands into the high mountain waters that still held ice Vera. The veiled.

One felt instantly into her magical and deep sleep. That was beautiful. That was very magical and triumphant, a story of triumph. So many things. So we know who the man was or did I miss it? He just called himself father winter. But we don't know who he was, but the fact that he was old, put him on a powerful footing with bearer, I think could he have been her husband and the father of Angus?

He could have been one of the stories about Vera says that she was amazed in seven or nine times over because she could go through that process of renewal. She had many husbands and many children. I want to be like her. It was hard for me not to just relate to her. Cause I know I'm sure I know her and I've loved the whole winter thing.

And my son is guess, well, this is a tale that definitely honors your son as a namesake of the King of summer. I'm struck by how it would be to be constantly changing age in such a rapid succession to. Seems like it would be nice. I love to change age like breathing. Yeah. Oh, that sounds really pleasant. I think parts of it would be pleasant, but I think other parts would be a great challenge.

And I would think you would never fully be any of those ages because there's that constant change. And it seems like there's something unnatural about that, how the age can shift from one to another, in a person, but this is a goddess. So this is and nature being who has rained over well, but she has rained over one specific time and somehow she's managed that time to serve her through all that the times.

So she has a fight like her power is in the winter. Her power though, can grant her different seasons of being that is where her true power is, is in that winter, which is why she holds onto it. So tightly. So in her crone age and her, at her peak of age, that's where her power is. It's quite interesting to look at her as a feminine being and think that yes, In the winter, she's at her most haggish repulsive.

I mean, other descriptions that people say is that she has red teeth and she dresses in the winter with clothing that are covered with bones and skulls. So she may be a bone mother and in places in Scotland, where there are mountains that she has purportedly shaped with her black hammer. That are associated with her.

Those are often in alignment with the neolithic sites as well. So there's a sense of her antiquity beings. So, so ancient. She certainly feels like a giant test. She feels like she is the bones of the earth and the hollows of the earth. And just maybe why she can command the wins is because it's from her hollow places from her shallow places.

They come. Love that she models to me that it's all right to fight reality, even though you're going to lose, I need that less than sometimes. It's about the battle, not the win, right? Yeah. He didn't gain commitment and what that engagement and what that battle invokes in other people. So they can find their destiny and power because without her.

What they find who they are meant to be without being challenged. I find that very interesting is that they don't really rise until there is a great danger for the land imbalance has to be restored. And they, uh, at that point are reminded of their natural time of their natural power and it's peak. And they have to show up in that form.

It's striking to me that in the summer, when she's rejuvenating and renewing the spring on the summer, that she's not the giant tests, not the hide, but a beautiful golden inherit maiden herself and has no power whatsoever during that time. But her beauty. That's what I was just thinking. It's hard to think that a beautiful maiden doesn't have power and she's noted to be sweet tempered as a girl, but as she ages and moves into her power, her temper gets worse and worse until it definitely a template very quick to rage.

Yeah, that's a liberating, it just feels requisite to me. Like the way that you earn your power is by going through things that make you shorter tempered. Totally makes sense. Thank you for the story. It was so beautifully shared and just exquisite and it's magic and unfolding. I feel like I'll be sitting with it for a bit.

It's really lovely. That's a beautiful story. I'm trying to think what the, the lesson would be for me, where I'm the younger woman. So it's so easy for me to relate to the elderly, but where I'm the younger woman, what would that be about? Just to hang in there. My noticing about the younger woman Bridger is that she's given most things like a beautiful woman.

She's given the clean fleas. She's given the snowdrops, she's rescued by Angus. She's given her wand, which she then wields beautifully, but everything is given to her. For her to play her role as summer queen. That's very true. I did not even that didn't even occur to me. I just thought of her as somebody that already had those powers ahead of time and has come into them upon challenge.

But no, the man arrives to help her. She's given the clue. Yes. She seems somewhat ambiguous and who she is and how she even comes into the picture. But then yes, ends up being one of the heroines to restore part of the restoration of nature, which I think is something in many stories that there is the young maiden that brings either an aging God, back to life or restores the piece of the land along with the summer King or along with an appropriate partner, that there is that meeting of the two youth.

Bring balance back into nature and they're are always King and queen and Lord and lady at the same time. And here are. Or escorted by or are blessed by the Fe. So blessed by the magical land, the magic of the land and the blooming land and nature spirits, Davis trees, all of those beings. I think we're always holding that tension of opposites between the old and the young between the, this is the way things were and the way things should be.

And. Think of the crazy good things we can do if we just started things differently, there's always holding that battle. Like how do we move forward? Do we follow tradition explicitly? Or do we break out and use our creativity to try to create a better world and different people's side to different ones, but nobody holds just one.

Well, put it was a naivety required creativity and bursting forth. I trust in the world that you don't get so much as an old hag. Well, and it's possible that the old carried a certain necessary role to maintain a time and retention of what it needs to be and change wasn't needed until it was yet, they were not of the awareness to.

Or maybe not even awareness is the word, but they knew that they would disappear with that change. So of course they would fight for survival of what they knew. Against all odds. And regardless of what the consequences would be, where the younger people in the story, the newness is not only newness, but it's a return to balance.

It's both it's that the old ways have forgotten or resisting a certain movement in time. And someone has to come in to stop them. That's exactly what's happening politically right now, but I don't want to drag you into that. Um, and on that note, it seems as though one thing that I'll be pondering over the next week is the power of working together with someone because it was when Reja and Angus work together that the power of spring became potent enough to turn the tide.

Whereas I can certainly relate to bearer. And her rage and her desire to kill things going the way that they have been. I also see the benefit of how hands together can bring forth that fertility and that something perhaps that our world needs needs right now is that fertility. Is that working together with the masculine and the feminine, bringing their own powers to bear.

And each of us have those within us. So that can look different ways for different people. That feels like a good, a good lesson to take from them. The story, for sure. Even on the aspect of the other. It's embracing the other and it's embracing the change that comes with a complete shift in outlook on a situation that is necessary for things to change and believing that they can.

And holding that as the new, as the new normal, as the new is the new way until that becomes exhausted in itself. And something else comes through, it'll just keep going. And that way. Yeah. And so confusing directions. In addition to my father, dying was big. My friend, John is also dying this week, probably already dead, but I haven't gotten that notice yet, but I have been really aware of how much John meant in my life.

Even though we really weren't close because we went to high school together and we both had moments of collusion where we broke the way things were happening, because we worked together against the group and moments where we worked in opposition to one another. And I'm so aware of how he taught me to cut my teeth.

You know what I mean? Like just how to stand on my own. And how to not care, what other people thought and how to be myself in a world that would not particular they appreciate or respect me. And I simultaneously think of when I spent time with small child and we would play games and they wanted me to lose.

Of course, but they'd be like, I want to play with that other person. Cause they're going to let me win. And I was like, no, I know that you were smarter than me. I know you are. And when you win from me, it will be a real victory. So I wonder how much she is playing into that, how much he is setting up terms in which they have to do what they need to do to get to the place where they're able to move forward before they're permitted.

I wonder if she's wording them or if she's being a gatekeeper with integrity. I always like to think that the big, bad is doing just what needs to be done in order to, in order to enlighten. I always want to believe that the opposer is there to enlighten the hero and that the hero really wouldn't exist without me too.

So I think I will be looking this week at what Gates I am keeping. And if I am keeping them to the best of my ability for me, someone who has always been very comfortable with the crown and all of her, all of her forms, the crone, the hag, the dark goddess, the challenging goddess. I will remember that I have aspects of that in myself and I...

Vasalisa Aug 05, 2020

In the end, we go where the story takes us and we invite you to follow. I'm C a writer, artist, and storyteller. I'm Betsy, a medium and teacher of mystery. I'm Gabriela, an artist and practitioner of folk magic. We are magical in training today. I would like to share a story from the Eastern Slavic lands of Russia.

And it's a story about Vesta Lisa, the beautiful. A long time ago in a certain stardom eMerchants and his wife who have been married for a long time. We're finally blessed with the birth of a daughter. They named her vest Salisa sadly, when vessel Lisa was only eight years old, her mother became gravely ill as a final gift to her daughter.

Vesselis has mother gave her a doll. She said my dear sweet listen carefully for this is important. I am dying. But with my final maternal blessing, I give you the make sure you always keep her clothes and don't let anybody see her. If you were ever endanger feed her and ask her for advice, she will always help you with these final words and a kiss.

Best Elise has a mother died. The merchant mourn the death of his wife, but after some time he considered marrying again, he decided to marry a widow, a woman close to his age who also had two daughters of her own. He was hoping that this mature woman and her daughters would be a great family to vest Salisa, but he was mistaken.

The widow and her daughters were deeply jealous of bacilli, says beauty and were very cruel to her. They gave her all kinds of harsh chores to complete and hopes that she would grow skinny and frail in turn Fest. Lisa accomplished all of her chores and hot sun, strong winds and cold rain, and grew more full and beautiful each day to the dismay of her stepmother and stepsisters.

They were the ones who grew more ugly and shriveled with resentment as the time passed. How did vast Salisa remain so joyful and then changed against the resentment she was facing? Well, as her mother instructed vest, Elisa fed her doll who aided her and all of her chores, no matter how difficult they may have been.

She always set aside morsel of food for the doll. Even if it meant she didn't eat much herself. It's all her mother gave her, was always fed and had returned. She listened to vessel. Lisa gave her advice, did her chores and even taught her what herbs to use to keep her skin from burning. When the stepmother would send her out into the scorching sun to work a few years, went by and Lisa became of age to Mary being the most beautiful young girl in the village.

She had many suitors. Nobody paid any attention to her ugly stepsisters, which drove their mother to rage. And she would punish vessel Lisa with painful beatings. She saw this Elisa as a reason why her daughters would never marry when the merchant had to leave home on business for a long time, she found another house to move to this house was near thick forest and deep in this forest was a hut, which was the dwelling of Baba Yaga.

Well, by Yaga wanted to be left alone. Didn't like people and even ate them like chickens. If she felt like it. Needless to say with the forest, so close to this house by Salisa stepmother found all kinds of reasons to send her to the woods, to complete various chores of hopes of Baba Yaga, seeing and capturing her.

So she would never return, but somehow Vasily sun never came upon the hut of Baba Yaga because the doll always advised her which paths to avoid and how to get safely home. One autumn evening, the three maidens were tasked with sewing work to complete. When the only candle was snuffed out, less Elisa was forced to go to Baba Yaga hut to bring back more light Vesta.

Lisa fed her doll and shared the new server terrifying journey to come and how she was scared for her life. The doll ate her supper and with gleaming eyes comforted vessel Lisa, if you're not facili sushi, Scott with me hidden in your pocket, no harm will come to you from Baba Yaga. Vesta. Lisa started her journey into the dark night, trembling and cold.

She walked for some time, a white horseman rode past her dressed in white, on a white horse. And David came, she kept walking. I read horsemen galloped past her dressed in red on a red horse, sun Rose high into the sky all night and all day. And the following evening, she came upon Baba Yaga hut, which was a terrifying sight.

The hut was fenced by human bones. And it was surrounded by spikes with human skulls, with glaring eyes, a black horseman approached his horse. This was black, and he was dressed in black and night King, but not for long. The horses it's been galloped into the hut and was swallowed by it and the eyes and all the skulls lit up and everywhere was no bright light day.

And then the trees parted and Baba Yaga came flying through the air and a mortar steering it toward with a pestle. She sniffed the air and shouted. Phew. Phew. What is that human smell? Who dares to come here? It is. I grinded mother said vessel Lisa bowing, her head low. I was sent here to bring home some light.

Very well then, but first you must work for me and do whatever I ask of you or I will eat. You said Baba Yaga. She opened up the hut and let facility son side time went by invest. Salisa fulfilled all of Baba Yaga requests. She cooked, she cleaned, she spun and she sewed all along. She fed her doll and made sure even the most impossible if tasks were performed perfectly.

So then Baba Yaga had no reason to complain. One day, Baba Yaga turned her nose at buss Elisa and asked, how is it that you accomplish whatever I ask of you? Well, grandmother, best Elisa replied. I am helped by the blessing of my mother, Baba Yaga, recoiled. Oh, I see. That's what it is. I will not have any blessing in my house.

Get out of here. Bless a daughter, and take the light for which you came. Shoo. Vesta, Lisa run out of the hut, grabbing one of the skulls with fiery eyes, from defense and headed for home. She hesitated for a moment and thought about hiding it somewhere. It looked so dangerous and surely there must be light at home by now, but the skull whispered to her, take me through your stepmother and stepsisters.

And as vessel Lisa approached closer to the house and saw that it was dark, she decided to bring the glowing skull with her. She was greeted warmly by her step-family for the first time. They told her they were unable to light a match during her absence. And we're so grateful for vessel. Lisa has returned the skull with glowing eyes, stared at the stepmother and stepsister so intensely that they burned no matter where they hid the burning eyes would find them.

And by morning they were nothing. But Ash vessels, Lisa remained on touched and harmed by the school's fire. She buried the skull in the yard, secured the house and left. She found an elderly childless woman who gave her shelter as vessel. Lisa waited for her father's return sometime during her stay. She said, grandmother, I am restless with no work.

Bring me some flax and I will take up spinning again. She also asked her doll for a loom. The doll said, bring me an old comb, a shuttle and some horse hair. And I shall make you alone with this fine loom vessel. Lisa was able to leave the most beautiful linen worthy of a star. The old woman told vessel Lisa to make some shirts and she would take them to the palace to present at court that SAR has never seen such fine clothing and requested to meet the creatrix of the woven gifts upon meeting beautiful vessel.

Lisa, he fell madly in love with her and asked her to marry and she agreed the wedding was celebrated right away for the SAR could not imagine another day without vessels. He set aside. Soon after her father returned and was ask to live at the palace with the happy couple. Vessel ISA asked for the old woman to be invited to the palace as well, and ended up living there to facili son, never forgot about her Dole and kept her clothes and fed her for the rest of her life until she died.

It's hard not to applaud. Well, I have to say, I really wanted doll like that. Myself. Perhaps we should make some, that'd be fun. Well, thank you. I loved it. And actually this brings up the question for me. Why did she get some doll? You know what I mean? Why what's the place? Well, I have a practical answer that is culturally accurate.

There are dolls made in Eastern Europe. They are made of clothing that belonged to the parent, usually the mother and they are protective dolls. So the smell well of the mother would be on the clothing of the doll. And so when mothers would go to work or would have to go away. They would leave these dolls who are called McConkey, which just means a meddling Pancha means something metals together sort of fastened together.

And these dolls would protect and sooth children. So there really is a very, an accurate connection to the doll. And the doll having magical and protective powers and one that you can tell your sorrows too. So it is part of the folk culture, perhaps, and perhaps the doll was a doll that her mother gave her the mother's daughter, the grandmother.

How do you think also Lisa felt about it? Burning them off? I don't believe that she would on her own desire that I think vice Salisa more than anything, wanted to please everybody and wanted change to occur. Yeah. I mean, I think as much as she wanted to please, everybody too, I'm really struck by how whatever came at her.

She encompassed, you know, with strengthened by the doll strengthened by the knowledge that she would get the advice or the help or whatever. She really took a lot of things in her stride. Even the marriage, he falls madly in love with her and she agrees. Why not? You know, But it sounds like what you're talking about is the possible power of blessing that comes down maybe through the ancestral field.

Yes. And how that is something that even Baba Yaga could acknowledge as being a very formidable power. Yes. Well, when that in its own, right, might even interfere with Bobby yogas magic or whatever, whatever it is that she decided, you know, to ask Lisa to leave, you know, to finally say, okay, we're done with everything here.

That's very interesting. And the story is really worthy of a book. There is so much, there, there is so much in this story. And the fact that there's more than one story about vessel Lisa and Baba Yaga, and they are different. Each story is different, almost shows a different phase or a different aspect of these two women interacting.

It's fascinating to, to witness and to honor the different phases of a person's life and how they can be changed based on in what type of heroin they appear or what type of a villain they appear. In this story, bubble Yaga can be seen as a villain or as a savior. One who bestows the revenge that vessel Lisa herself would not be able to administer because when she arrives at Baba Yaga hut, Baba Yaga, doesn't let her leave without the light.

She came for. Knowing what the light would do. And knowing the bus Elisa would be safe from disliked, just like she was safe from any of her rafts that would normally come upon anybody else in her home. Any other human that would come to her home? Yeah. And also I'm wondering if by virtue of the, the experience that boss Elisa has had with the doll, too, that whatever, the confidence that it gave her to be able to approach Baba Yaga, and also the stepmother and the sisters prepared her for Baba Yaga by ordering her around, giving her impossible tasks to do.

Baba Yaga is just a big step up. It sounds like from this, so that unlike many people that maybe had a better childhood and better opportunities who would not have been prepared for somebody like Baba Yaga, and also Lisa was ready for her. Does she become more cunning and some of the other versions or.

How would you describe her? She really doesn't. She's a strong character, but seems unchanged by whatever thrown her way. She seems to be the light carrier, the light bear, and many of them representations of the different stories she's often seen as the initiate tricks as the, as the initiated, as the persevering light of in many ways as the eternal maiden with eternal hope.

And access to other powers, other worldly powers in many ways she's seen as Baba Yaga as apprentice. And it's just a striking image of her emerging from the dark wood, with the raging skull fire. That's gorgeous for enemies. I was just pondering the thought of a light pair and their shoes. He is the light that she's carrying is really like a double edged sword in a way that brings the light, but it also brings stuff and a leveling, a reckoning, if you will.

Yeah, there's something about tough taking the light from a source by oppressing it and torturing it into giving your light actually blows up in your face

into the perspective. Another aspect here is Baba Yaga, the judge of character here. Is she weighing the worthy against the unworthy of her gifts of her transformative powerful gifts. I certainly look at it that way because there are plenty of people that approach by bio-gas hut yet clearly by the, by the posts with the schools.

Many of them do not return except for a few. And Vasily says one. Invite Lisa also in approaching Baba Yaga gives her the due respect. She bows to her. She's recognizing what she's walking into and that if she's still walk out, she really has to show up and recognize the person an hour of Baba Yaga. And love that.

I had never heard her of like get out before I hadn't heard that version. And I really liked that. Like, you have a blessing, you cannot be here. Cause that could go anyway at any time that's an untrustworthy thing. But I also really loved the thought and that I've heard the story many times in different ways, but not this one.

I love the idea of her getting back and burying the skull. And it made me really think about the journey of the person who had that skull. Clearly they showed up at it, father yogas, hut, and fail. Until they could do this one thing to redeem themselves and then they were put to peace to rest. There was something very lovely to me in that it's almost like a weird Bobby younger purgatory.

We'll just sit on the stake for a while. Till you learn your lesson, then you get to repair a tone and then you can last. I haven't looked at it that way, but it's absolutely, you're absolutely right. That is, that is how it happened. And to be buried, to, to have a final resting place and then be engaged because festival visa was going to bury it anywhere and leave it into forest.

She was afraid of it. It wasn't really sure what was going to happen with the skull and the spirit that's school said to her, let me come with you. I have work to do. And therefore ended up being buried and laid to rest. We've got to do the slumping ban thing until somebody else had buried it. Maybe. I don't know.

I also was curious. So in the grim stories, they, you know, now the grim stories are filled with stepmothers. But originally they were not. When the Grimms originally went around and interviewed everybody for the stories, those were genuine mothers who are destroying their children and then the Grimms they're brothers.

And I suppose they probably have a mother who don't want up this off. And so they wrote mothers out and wrote in stepmothers everywhere so that there wouldn't be any condemnation of mothers in their work. And so I wonder if that's also true in the story. I do not know if that is true in the story, and it seems that the mother's death is auspicious and it's part of the power that vessel Lisa is taking from the doll.

So I think in this version, The death of the mother is real the stepmother and the stepsisters. I'm not sure if there is a version without them, a version of the story without them, but it does strike me on that with the step sisters and the step mother. There's a certain element of the other. A wonder if it's a cross cultural element, just like.

For example, when I read this story, there are several versions of one vessel or any other human approaches, Baba Yaga hut. What is often said by Baba Yaga is when she smells, she says, what is that Russian smell? She will often be referring to a person, a Russian person, which this is a Russian story. And in another version, it's about the human.

She smells the human, but bring it back into that stepmother aspect. Is it, the people we're marrying into different with people of different countries that became this place of misunderstanding of assuming cruelty that the other might have where its own family, its own clan would not. I bring it up because it's consistent in a lot of these stories of smelling of a person that's different.

So the stepmother could be just the other. An unknown factor, a foreign factor influencing the law and order of a community as it's been developed, somebody new infiltrating it, not knowing its ways causing havoc, causing pain and sorrow to the family or to the community. It comes up quite a bit. So I wonder too, if that's an aspect of the stepmother.

Well, and what a perfect setup for that to be the case too. I would think with the father being a merchant and somebody who travels possibly to other lands and you know, where he might be finding somebody who brings back the other in that kind of way, but the others also there with Bobby Yaga and in a certain kind of way, the other is there with us, Alyssa herself too.

I mean, she's so full of grace for lack of a better word, but that's kind of other worldly right there. Absolutely. And even her birth is auspicious because her parents were married for a long time. Her parents were married for 12 years before she was born. So her birth itself is magical, is somewhat miraculous.

So even that indeed she, Avast Elisa is, is another, she's a, of a different time or have a different she's made of a difference tapestry than the rest of her world and is punished for it and has to suffer for it until she's recognized first by Baba Yaga. And then by the star who, you know, in this story has the place of seeing her truly seeing her and finding.

Out of all the women in the community, in the land, whatever princesses were nearby, he chooses her. And that type of story is I think it's 5% of stories are where the protagonist is not changed. Usually in the story, the protagonist is changed a great deal, but in 5% of stories, the protagonist doesn't change.

They change everyone around them. By their being there. And when you were talking, so honestly thinking of the Carlo, Ginzburg one where he's describing witches and the way that, that now is linked, at least in my mind to so many neuro diversities. I was like, wow. So also it's just kind of neuro diverse, you know, she's out there in super on task and super focused.

She got the knife and making her way in her different way. And that forces everyone around her to change, including Baba Yaga, because it brings out such a different version of Baba Yaga and kind of waiting for the wrath of Baba Yaga or the. Penances or whatever it is that Baba Yaga might cast on a person, but seemed almost immune to them by virtue of the doll.

And I totally see it as probably recognizing her own

any here's a skull to give you a few seconds. A few kind of what coping tools to deal with urea.

And perhaps while I can't punish you, but I need to punish...

Gulveig Heiðr Aug 05, 2020

That I've chosen is the story of from the North Epic poem called the Sears prophecy or Volvo spa. And a little background is that the Norris and Viking and pre Viking times were not literate. The North myths were well known through oral tradition for the Norse. Inventing a new story was not valued as much as the poetic retelling of a known story.

The versions that we have of the myths were written during the times when conversion to Christianity had already occurred, when stories were still largely remembered. Before being written down myths were living and could change from storyteller to storyteller. Also there wasn't organized religion, but instead during those Viking and pre biking times, the heads of settlements, their wives, or even poets were the storytellers and officiator is that ceremonies and could tell the myths from their own perspective.

The Epic poem, Vola spa begins after creation has already occurred. And through the telling of the story, the Norris creation myth gets retold, including the story of GoBank herself. The story goes like this. A sear, a prophetess is summoned by the all father Odin King of the gods. She's a mighty practitioner of side in life and her power is vast and undiminished.

Oh, comes to her as a seeker and asks her about the oldest deeds of gods and men. She gives him much more than he asked for. She starts by remembering the night worlds and nine giant hisses, and that they raised her in those long gone days. She remembers the seed from which the world tree Yik dress cells sprouted that tree, which holds the nine worlds in the beginning.

There was no land, no sea, no earth or sky or a greenery. There was just a huge yawning, chaos void called goodness, a gap and an immense giant named Emir. Dismembering ear. Oh, then and his brothers created the nine worlds from his body in these worlds, the sun and the moon, and the stars help things to thrive, but they themselves knew no order, no knowledge of their true places and no sense of their true might.

All the God powers went back to the Thrones of fate, that place of the sacred gods and together, they made a decision and that decision became time itself. It's included the naming of night and day and the separation of them and the orderlies cyclical aspects of time. Then on the vast Plains of Eve, all the gods continued.

And created workshops and made temples high shrines, golden treasures, and many tools with which to create more happy about this. They played in their lush gardens and enjoyed the plenty they had created. They had lots of gold Ben, three terrible and powerful giantism came from Yotes and hammer the world of the giants.

Thus ending that golden age, the God powers went back to the Thrones of fate and decided to make dwarves many dwarves out of the remainder of the giant is rotting limbs. These dwarves were little and manlike. Three gods and full of people. Power and passion went back to mid guard and found two pieces of driftwood, ask an umbrella who were weak in capable.

And without it's looking in human, they had no breath, no soul and no life breadth. So, and life itself was given to them by the three gods and ask an envelope, became humans. That sprout of gig dress. So now grown into a mighty tree, develops drew drops from it as it stands forever green over IRT as well, three wise ones known as NORNS live under the tree at the well of fate or to Verdun day.

And sculled carved men's fates, determined Destiny's laws and the lifespan of every child born. They foretell the future by seeing what has already occurred in the past. And what is happening in the present? Spinning weaving, eventually cutting the sear. The prophetess remembers the first murder ever in the world occurred when go vague.

Golden liquid or power of gold was pierced by Spears and then burned in Oden's sacred halls. They burned her three times. She was reborn three times over and over. Not just a few times still each time she would leave again. I named her bright one, Heidi. She came into their homes as a sorceress who forced saga good and pleasing things.

She knew spirit magic. She knew saver. She practiced wise craft. She was favored by women. Then the powers, the sacred gods went to the Thrones of fate. And the question this time was whether the ACR or the sky gods alone should yield the tribute or. If all the gods, including the Vanya, the nature and land gods should share the sacrificial feasts.

After all Freya, a goddess of the Von air had brought the knowledge of bloat or sacred offerings to the ACR. What happened was Odin hurled, his spear into the host. That was the first war in worlds. The Ram part of the ACR stronghold was destroyed as the Vanya continuously attack the plane on which it was built with their magical war spells.

We're continued for some time and was costly with no one winning eventually truce was made between the ACR and Vania with hostages exchanged along with knowledge, but the golden age ended and Ragnarok, the end of all, the worlds was triggered. Very lovely. Thank you. I'm still in it. I'm I'm still in the story and I think I'll be in the story for a long time.

I feel like it's still unfolding. I feel like it's still going under and going back up. The first thing that I found intriguing and interesting is that before the concept of time, there was no form. There was no meaning it's with that concept of time and with time, destiny and dose two together creating form.

And giving birth to everything else, giving the word of everything else before which it was everything and nothing at the same time, until the time came into being the measure of time, I found it interesting that when time was created, then people knew themselves and understood something about their power and their true nature.

I actually feel confused about that. So I have to admit the time has always confused me a lot and I don't fully believe in it. I believe that it's a thing we use, but it is not nature to me. And so it's, it's not at all surprising to me though that time would contain meaning. Because as human beings, so much of our idea of our value is what we can complete within the time of our life.

And so I can totally see how that would translate immediately into meaning, but I wonder how destiny for that. Like if our, you know, what our meaning is, is our ability to accomplish or be, or provide during our time, then it's destiny. So in my mind, destiny or the immutable destiny of Orlov is sort of wording time itself.

That mean what way do they interact? How does destiny work with time? So to me, I think of it as feed versus destiny. I think it was destiny when we embrace it and we make it pleasant and fate when we fight it and we make it unpleasant. So, so how does it that fit into meaning? I don't really know. I found for myself as I was exploring this story and looking at different versions of it, meaning translated by different people like in the North tradition that each translation had a different flavor to it.

Even a different understanding of who go veg really is. Um, some people saw her as one of the evil, giant ASEs. You know, if we can say evil, but one of those dark and terrible giant Asus who came and changed everything. Other translators saw her as Freya as an aspect of Freya. And yet another version of her was the, of her as a Northern herself.

And can one be all of those things, perhaps? I don't know. But as I was trying to find the ground from which I wanted to stand, if you, if I could say that when I was sharing this myth and in a way I think I was asking for what's the most true version of it. What I was told was the version that finds its way through you through one, through the storyteller is the true version for that moment.

But I've found that this story has stayed with me as I've been exploring at a home has been working its way through me. So I'm very interested to hear what you have to say as well. I think the concept of the three giant offices and even that in the story, and, and I'm sure many versions of the story they're called evil and what that really means is.

Able to change things and the power of that and how to some, especially since it was probably taking form or written down in Christian times, the idea of feminine spirits of women, spirits, women, giantess, is being able to change things that would be terrifying. Another clue in this, I think too, is that notion of the northerns being able to foresee what happens in the future by looking in the past.

And what happens in the past is that the gods dismembered, the giant IE mirror. And so was that where it all began? It was that dismemberment of, of the giant. Actually the seeds were those three giant, I think, are those three giants passing through? Just kind of like the wave of, okay, you began this and we're carrying it.

Well, not even we're carrying it forward, but it's carrying forward in its own way. Yeah. Yeah, I totally view the whole thing as a domino effect. Like somebody flipped to that first step and it was done. It was just a matter of everything falling out. But yeah, so, you know, the concept blonde up and probably said it wrong and old Norris, it's the idea that something it's attributed largely to women and it literally means blend.

And it means blend in terms of mix in a way that makes better as if to learn and to incorporate and to process, but it also means to taint and to condemn and to undermine. And so it's that idea that women are particularly on the forefront of bringing in change. And that was probably largely because they came in from another group in order to marry, which meant they had loyalties to two groups and therefore they were dangerous.

But snarly actually has a remark in there too. About the golden age being the time before they were ruined by women.

Once again, power. Yup. That's the power. Of women as being able to mix, give, um, bring life and therefore bring death, right? All these things that are, that are dangerous things and just the gold of the whole concept of the women and the goal. Like there's a, there's a great benefit and a great beauty and a great price.

Which is also sort of inherent in the blonde that comes up. Although, honestly, when I say that, I think of that as children. That's how I feel about it. Children.

Is there ever a reason why they'll bright? One is speared. Is there ever a reason given why. Because if it's, you know, she's there and then she is, the decision is made for her to be killed. What came into that decision? Do we know how that decision came to be? And are there various points on this or different versions?

Yeah, I mean, there are several different versions about it. One of them is cute by the notion or the observation that this fearing of her. And the burning of her happened in Owen's hall. And, uh, how is a place of sacred hospitality? So the idea of what happened to her, then one begins to wonder, is there something sacred or sacral about that?

And also that, uh, you know, what happened after her burning was, then they go to start, you know, they'd go back to the place where they make their decisions, the gods and the powers do. And this time is the question is about who gets to make the offerings and who, and making the offerings in those times was also meant partaking of the offerings of them.

So, so it does seem as though there's something sacred about what happened there for her, and intentionally feels very intentional and destined to somehow. But by who's choosing. And again, you mean some translations when they were talking about who she became, who go there became after this three time death, which is of course an initiatory type of a death was that she, as a sorceress, came into people's homes and foresaw good things, pleasing things.

And in the end was favored by women, but often the translation or the statement is favored by evil women. So we don't know, was that something that was really felt during Viking times or was that something that was added later, but I decided as the storyteller to just say she was favored by women favorited by WISEWOMEN women.

I liked that version. So I feel like she was a giant test or whether she was sprayer, either one, she's a member of the older gobs, right. In both cases, that's the older gum set. And so in my mind that what really, demarcates the age there from those who went before them is that they're really the gods of civilization or the gods of culture.

And in many ways that makes them the gods of patriarchy. And so of course, they're going to have trouble with a more powerful, older, a woman who is getting more praise, particularly from other women. So in a way, the sear intends to give form to the formless and possibly claim. And it, and it's also a claim on nature because I do see her as, from that perspective as a nature mother, as of nature, as part of nature, And it's great communicator and everything in between life, death change cycles.

So maybe not time, but here in his case, the cycles and they're undefined, they can be, yeah. As long as they need to be in a short as they need to be. But it's, it's that potency of the cycle that is important, which she would have great knowledge of. It strikes me that this story, like any good myth really sets up templates of how things can go forward from here.

And we're talking not only about the creation story, but about that idea of going through some kind of a. Death of some sort out of which one becomes quite changed and actually refined. I mean, she went in as gold power or the power of gold or, or as one translator would say her name might mean gold power drink.

So is she the template for the sacred need itself that comes up later in the North Smith. That's a thought there. And then as the bright one sharing. Uh, as some translators say, sharing first with human women. And so that as a template for our wise women in mid guard, I think, yeah. Fill in that also. Bring some, some form of when sacred arts were passed from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter.

And that same way, it's the specific of the mystery of one, not just physical body, but association. That would be makes sense why she would choose the recipients of this power of her seeds to be like herself. So I wonder if that too means I do think it's women in this case, but is it even more than that as a, to those who are willing to receive that wisdom and hone it in the same way?

Hmm that's beautiful. So to me that is a lot about people who are willing to form relationship, as opposed to people who are willing to control. And in a lot of ways that genders are pulled that way. And I've heard it argued that it's because I'm body it's because women have no choice. But to admit that there is something more powerful than them as their body's taken over once a month.

Wow. Well, men and get away with pretending that they have control in the world. Most of the time, of course, something's eventually going to happen to take their control away. And then there's a choice as to whether to respond to whatever takes away control as a relationship with the sacred and build that kind of relationship, or to try to get the power back and reconfirm.

And so my suspicion is that it's home. It will be the receiver of relationship, the ones to engage in relationship. Yes. One of the other things that's interesting about this story too, is that, Oh, then goes to the sear to ask about the deeds of gods and men. And she tells him that, and this is the story. I mean, that, what I shared with you is that part of it.

And then what the CIHR goes on to do is give him, I am the prophecy of Ragnarok, but what it strikes me that she does is she shows him she sows Odin, where are the seeds? So frog neuron came from which in quite a bit of it is due to him, himself and his actions and his choices, but also have these. I love the idea of those three giants that come in from the side, just kind of walking through the landscape, changing everything as they do.

So that notion of when can set things rolling, but still the feminine, the chaotic elements can shift and change those plans also. So, yeah, I, like I said earlier, I'm still in it. I feel like it will take some time to fully. See all there is. Yeah, that falls to me, the idea of the sins round on them and others around them in my mind, as it does in my mouth.

The idea that, uh, in sleeping beauty, you know, they invite 12 of the 13 barriers and the other fairies shows up to give a curse and the fairy that comes after her. So I can't counter the curse, but I can change its direction. And how important that is not to, you know, the difference between taking something head on and confronting it and combating it versus getting alongside of and redirecting it.

That's more of a, in my mind, every direction. So this jibes come down. Okay. You see this? We'll take your hand and play with it for a while instead of we're going to fight it. Yeah. And relationship instead of control. And in that relationship or in that ex, if that moment is extended or suddenly looked at within that moment, things open up to have their own story that can change.

The main story is everything can percolate together, make the necessary agreements, decisions, and be something else. Well, this is a story that will, you know, from my experience go forward into the week with you. And it's a story that one of you were saying that if I looked at it head on, I would be kind of confused, but when I let it percolate and then the insights kind of came from the side or they came from different directions.

So you may find if you ponder this story, You might just see what you see out of the corners of your eyes, rather than looking at it, head on. But what ideas do you have for carrying it forward into the week? That was sort of my takeaway. Just the idea. I'm actually experiencing a lot of change in my life right now, late, even though there's still change.

Um, but that idea of looking at every change instead of how will I react to this change, how do I create relationship with this change so that together we can create the best possible outcome from here? I liked that. I liked that as well. And I think for me, and taking in this story, I, I will choose to be more present and.

Whatever moment I'm in. There seems like a mundane moment or a stressful moment or scary moment, uh, frustrating women, whatever it may be. I want to look at those moments from a perspective of who am I now in the story, if this was a story, what is happening, if somebody was to look at it from a different perspective.

And if I saw myself as a heroine of that story, Would I act differently if I had the awareness of being observed and amend the story, I think I would act differently. And if that's the case, what is that about? Yeah, I've always been very, very bothered by the first sphere. Like it just seems so inappropriate.

Um, and at the same time, I do understand that sacrifice means to make sacred. And things must be sacrificed in order to bring...

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