Winner: 8 by Michael Mullin
Congratulations to the winner of 8: The Previously Untold Story of the Previously Unknown 8th Dwarf by Michael Mullin.
blodeuedd of Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell
I hope you enjoy it!...
Watching Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999)
My husband and I sat down to watch A Midsummer Night's Dream this past Friday, not a movie he would usually choose to watch, but he knows I've been enjoying Shakespeare month so he went along with it.
The plot stays true to the play, which I talked about yesterday. Our story begins as Hermia and Lysander flee deep into the forest to escape Hermia's father who insists she marry Demetrius. Soon, Demetrius wanders into the forest himself in search of his true love Hermia. Following close on Demetrius' heels is Helena, who is hopelessly in love with the man. Things only get worse, of course, when the squabbling King and Queen of Fairies arrive on the scene, and King Oberon sends his fairy trickster Puck to liberally dose just about everyone with a magical love potion. Numerous romantic mix-ups ensue and then amateur actors show up adding to the mix, one is even given a donkey head by Puck and...
Reading Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
On this midsummer night, the woods are full of magic and enchantment, lovers and fairies.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of Shakespeare's romantic comedies, has whole batch of main characters, certainly more than most plays. From ancient myth we have Theseus, soon to be married to the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. We have four young lovers Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius, who would really fit in to any time and place, since young people in love tend to act and think the same. From the English countryside of Shakespeare's time, we have Nick Bottom, a weaver, who along with some other workmen is pulling together a play to perform at the wedding. Finally, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, and Puck come from the world of folklore and magic.
At the beginning of the play, Hermia's father is insisting she marry Demetrius, even though she truly loves Lysander, so she and Lysander conspire to run away together, agreeing to meet in...
Reading Shakespeare: Sonnet 29
Sonnet XXIX
by William Shakespeare
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
The speaker in this Sonnet is obviously upset at the beginning, an outcast who Fortune is not smiling on. We don't know why he's in disgrace, and we really can't just assume the speaker is Shakespeare himself. The disgrace, real or imagined, may be exaggerated to make the speaker sound more gloomy and depressed, even heaven...
Flash Fiction: Watching A Dream
Watching A Dream
Warren watched from his perch on the tree limb. He had followed his King and Queen to this woods tonight, curious, but of course Oberon and Titania were making fools of themselves again, not attending a meeting with the gnomes as he had hoped. They needed to form a treaty soon, before the restlessness developed into war. He was tired of the monarchs' petty squabbling, their indifference to the daily lives of the fairies. Titania was so wrapped up with her worshippers, those silly women who dedicated their lives to her. Oberon was little better, attempting to maintain control over minute details, while not seeing the big picture, fooling around in mortals' lives for amusement, barely noting that the lesser fairies were growing anxious.
Warren saw that fool, the one who had come to the woods with a band of friends and had to smile. Leave it to Puck to give the man the head of a donkey and...
Thursday’s Tale: Tamlane by Joseph Jacobs
"Tamlane" is a tale of a young man and the woman who loves him, both children of earls, told by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales, 1894. I like this one because it's the woman who has to come to the man's rescue.
Tamlane and Burd Janet grew up together and had known since they were young that they would marry, but when the time comes near, Tamlane up and disappears to no one knows where. Many days later, Burd Janet takes a walk in the Carterhaugh Wood and is picking flowers from a bush when who should appear but Tamlane. She asks where he's been, and he responds that he's been in Elfland, a knight of the Queen. He says it's a wonderful place, except he misses her and he's afraid that he is going to be the tithe the Elves pay to the Nether world every seven years.
Burd Janet asks what she can do to save him. Tamlane...