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It all began with a
Big Red Book
of Fairy Tales
Saga of the White Forest
© 2024 Maggie Kirton
Time does not know from where I’ve come. I am so aged I can’t remember my mother's face.
Time, that old nag, has worn smooth the shell that clothes me. Twisted wooden knots now exist where fine lines used to be. My feet have become implanted into the belly of a fallen tree, a Nurse Log. Moss-ridden and peat’d, she flakes away in weather and storm—but she holds well the seeds and nurses the young who dare to clamp themselves into her soft belly. She holds me here and I, unable to leave her, will remain at her side until we both vanish from this land.
I am the Keeper of the Saga and this tale is long in its telling. It's as entangled as this mass of trillium and pine dust. Dappled sunlight and memories drift betwixt my soul and this Boreal of Notman.
Some have said: "He is naught but a tortoise, green and cool; soldered onto this land."
But I say, "I am a a turtle. Ancient and knowing in the ways of this land-this land of shadows and light-this land of Notman in the White Forest. This is who I am."
It is well known that as I clambered over this old nurse that she moaned out and clutched onto my feet, holding me fast, and because age has had its way with me, I could not creep away.
Bits of lush green moss grew against me and I stand now in its comfortable embrace as it rises higher, planting me firmer.
From this place I tell the tale of a lone wolf and his beloved Lorac, a simple firefly. Here, where the living things acknowledge the names of ancestors well remembered – their voices carried into the wind from these old and wooden lips. The sounds I make remain engraved upon the timbers that shelter me.
Indeed, my whispers have silenced anger. They have calmed the wild beating heart. They have enchanted the shadows where the sun cannot reach. The tales of this land are bold and cruel and are whispered herein. I dare not stop the telling of them now. Listen well and understand them, for if a single word falls to the wayside and is lost, it will never be found again.
Can you hear the sound I make? A song of birds and tattered birch paper against the wind.
Sing with me. Surely your lips will know the sounds. Listen with me as your ears learn the music. And laugh with me, for certainly your heart knows the joy that will come. And when you must, weep with me, because surely your cheeks have tasted the salt of sorrow.
It is easier for me to grow wings and soar with the Osprey than it is to stand here and die without giving back to Notman the secrets it has entrusted to me.
This is a tale of an unlikely love born in fire and wind with small hopes, truths and untruths. It is a tale of a wolf and his firefly. Stand fast and listen as I, Keeper of the Saga, paint these words and scatter them into the depths of the White Forest.
Here begins the Saga of the White Forest hidden in the enchanted Land of Notman.