I is for Incident

         Welcome to the April A to Z Blog Challenge!  Are you looking for the officially scheduled letter of the day?  You can find my 

Post for F here.

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my shiny new collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore, coming out on April 20!  All through the month I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.  Meanwhile, to see the range of varied topics my fellow A to Z bloggers are covering this year, peruse the Master List, and visit a few other blogs that catch your fancy.)

        My short story “Incident at Bullion Mill” is my early Industrial Revolution twist on the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin,” in which a mysterious “inspector” visits the mill girls who work the machines that spin straw into gold.  If you need a refresher on the original version of the fairy tale, you can read it here (although I took ideas from an even earlier version with a slightly different ending).  I had so much fun with this one, and I really enjoyed falling into rabbit holes doing a ridiculous amount of research into the workings of early flax mills, the slang of the early nineteenth century, and (for my illustration) aerial views of cities from hot air balloons.  You can read my blog post about that last topic here: Balloonist’s-Eye Views.

        In order to avoid too much of a spoiler, all I’ll give you today is the illustration and the very beginning…

     Each of us has been asked to make a statement of what we know about the disappearance of Mr Reuben Stiltman and Miss MaryAnn Miller yesterday around half past one past noon.  My name is Harriet Lamb.  I'm 19 years old and have been working at Bullion Mill for five years.  I'm a minder on the spinning floor.  Bullion Mill is a good deal smaller than most ordinary mills, just a single three story brick building and a clock tower enclosed in a high-walled yard beside Pudsey Beck.  The scutching and heckling of the straw are not so different from an ordinary flax mill, but it's when the bobbins are brought up to the spinning floor that the doors are locked and the magic begins. 

        The moral of Rumpelstiltskin is that knowing someone’s true name gives you power over them.

        Also, never marry someone whose proposal is contingent on how much gold you can make for them.

        I aspire to spin words into gold.  What’s your most magical crafting ability?

 [Picture: Incident at Bullion Mill, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

H is for Hades

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my new collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore, which is coming out this month!  All through April I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.)

        The classical (Greek/Roman) myth of how Hades, god of the underworld, abducted Persephone, daughter of the goddess of harvest and fertility, has meant many things to many people.  I suggest you read my previous post about Persephone to see some of the range of interpretation and art inspired by the story, and if you need to read some various versions of the original myth, you can find them here.  As for my book, it includes two pieces of writing about the myth of Persephone, and they’re completely different takes on the story.  I wrote the poem first, in which I imagined the tale from the point of view of the Shades in the Underworld, bystanders who witnessed an injustice and failed to act.

     Three times we watch a seed to living lips,

     three times there is no cry, no warning, “Death.”

     We are no longer human and forget what we once were.

You can read the entire poem at my earlier post Persephone in Hades.

        My short story, on the other hand, came later after I began to think more about the personalities involved.  It’s from the point of view of Persephone, in which I’ve imagined her as a tough noir-style dame: a seductive, resourceful, manipulative, strong woman who knows how to get what she wants in a world not made for women, where you have to take matters into your own hands. 

     Most of the picture is in shadow, and if you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to look farther back.  Have you ever asked yourself what a grown woman was doing picking flowers all day?  Or for that matter, how a goddess could have been unaware of the implications of eating in the Underworld?  Of course you never asked.  No one ever does.  The party line is all innocent Maiden and pitiless brute, but there’s more to it than that…

        The thing about these ancient stories is that they’re not One Right Answer or one correct interpretation.  The reason they’ve stayed popular for so long is that they’re multi-layered and multi-faceted; every time you look at them from a different angle you see something else.  So there are a few traditional tales that have given rise to more than one re-imagining from me, and in those cases you should consider each piece to be independent: starting from the same point, but heading in a completely different direction.

        (As for this block print of Persephone, I tried to make it evoke a 1940s noir film poster.  I'm afraid that dramatic lighting is not my strong suit and I never get it exactly right, but at least I keep trying!)

        The moral of Hades is that if you see someone in trouble, be an up-stander!

        But also, things are not always as they appear.

        How do you feel about eating in the Underworld (or Faerie, which has similar mythology)?  Would you be able to resist that pomegranate?  Would you want to?

[Picture: Queen of the Underworld, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

G is for Green Girl and Garden

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore – coming out on April 20!)

        The Green Girl is the narrator of one of the poems in the book, and it’s inspired by the legend of The Green Children of Woolpit.  This is one of the stories that, unlike “The Sleeping Beauty,” for example, is not exactly widely known.  If you want to learn about the legend and about my poem, go check out this prior blog post about them.  There you can read the background of the legend and also follow a further link to read the entire poem where it was published by New Myths in 2025.

        So to provide something new for today, G is also for Garden - the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, to be specific.  Here’s the explanation as it appears in the End Notes of my book: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by second century authors, but that was already long after they had apparently been destroyed by an earthquake.  Actual facts about this wonder therefore have to be supplemented with legend.  The hanging gardens were said to have been built around 600 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II for his wife Amytis of Media, who missed the mountain greenery of her homeland.  Modern archaeology has found no evidence for such gardens in Babylon, and some scholars suggest other possible locations and histories, but the legend about Nebuchadnezzar II building the Hanging Gardens comes from Berossus in the early third century BCE.

        The inspiration for both my story and my artwork grew from the fact that “hanging gardens” always sounded so much more magical to me than mere plantings on terraces.  What if the gardens were actually hanging? 

        Clearly it would take djinn to create something like this, but what do you do when something goes wrong and the djinn aren’t around?  My short story imagines the adventure of Queen Amytis when her hanging garden blows away.

        As I mentioned back at B, yes, there are End Notes.  I wanted to give readers a place to find out which stories inspired each of the pieces in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, so I’m not leaving anyone guessing - if they don’t want to be left guessing.  But I also wanted to give the reader a choice of when (or if) to get that background information.  Do you prefer to read the story first and let it stand on its own before you find out the background, or do you prefer to know all the possible references as you read?  Of course some of the source stories are famous enough to be obvious, but some, like the Green Children, are less so.

        Also, the Green Children and the Hanging Gardens both fall into my category of “Other” folklore, so if you want to read more about that category, here’s my prior post on Giving Legends and Folklore a Kick.

        The moral of the Hanging Garden is to make sure your castles (and gardens) in the air are securely tethered.

        Also, don’t plant Enormous Turnips on your Hanging Gardens.  The two gardening styles do not mix well.

        Here in the northern hemisphere my thoughts are definitely turning to gardening as Spring is really getting going.  Would you like a Hanging Garden of your own?

[Pictures: Twilight in a Green Land, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025;

Hanging Garden, detail of a larger rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021 (Images from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, but you can see the whole piece at NydamPrints.com).]

F is for Fairies

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my immanent collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  Plus, don’t forget to see what all my fellow A to Z bloggers are up to, at the Master List.)

        One of the iconic scenes in the famous fairy tale “The Sleeping Beauty” is when twelve fairies are invited to the christening of the princess to bestow their gifts… and of course one fairy is not invited.  (Need a refresher?  Read the fairy tale here.)  I love the way there are rules to the fairies’ magic: each gets to bestow one and only one gift, and one fairy cannot simply reverse or eliminate another fairy’s gift, but you can tweak it…  But another thing that’s interesting about this fairy tale episode is that not all the gifts are listed.  In fact, all we get are virtue, beauty, and riches, until the appearance of the thirteenth fairy and her curse.  So I decided to imagine what all 13 fairies bestowed, and why.  I wrote a poem explaining each gift, and to keep things interesting I tried to use a wide variety of different poetic forms, as well.  (Originally I’d thought I’d use 13 different forms, but I have to confess that I ended up with a few repeats.)  Some of these poems are quite short, such as the very first one:

Beauty.

Tyranny of eyes

To dictate what deserves esteem.

Despot vision demands its due,

And we obey.  I must give

Beauty.

While others are longer, including a villanelle (goodness) and a couple of sonnets (sense of humor, and the final mitigation of the curse).  The block print I give you today is the Seventh Fairy.  Can you guess what gift she’s bestowing on the princess?  I’m not sure she was present at my birth, but she definitely visited my children!

        Of course F is also for Fairy Tale, the single largest section of my book.  To see more about why I love fairy tales and what I’m doing with them in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, you can read this prior post about Giving Fairy Tales a Kick.

        The moral of Sleeping Beauty is that you should be sure to invite all the fairies.  (E. Nesbit has a great short story, “Melisande,” about what happens if you don’t invite any of them!  I highly recommend reading it here.)

        Also, even with the best-laid plans, it’s good to be flexible and have a back-up plan waiting to step up if necessary.

        The great biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson wrote, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.”  If you were a fairy, what wish would you bestow on a baby?

[Picture: The Seventh Fairy, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

E is for Enormous

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore that will be released on April 20.  All through the month I’m sharing excerpts, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.)

        “The Enormous Turnip” is a Russian folktale first recorded in 1863, although variants exist in other places.  (Don’t know it?  You can read it here.)  This is one of the stories that’s represented in my book only by the artwork (and a little comment) and not by a full story or poem.  It’s a charming folktale and in this case my artwork is a fairly straightforward illustration without re-imagining anything substantive.  I just love stories about cooperation!  Still, I did have fun on the circular composition of all the people and animals that have to help pull on the turnip before it can be yanked from the ground.

        The one thing that this story does lead me to wonder is what interesting things they might be able to do with a turnip this large.  Certainly they could feed a village, but hollowing out the middle would provide more than enough mashed turnip for meals while still leaving material for some other purpose.  Perhaps they could make it into a house, or if it’s not quite big enough for that, how about carving it into a pair of dugout boats, or using it as a dome atop their town hall, or maybe a bus shelter?  Any other ideas?

        The moral of the enormous turnip is that if you have a green thumb of this potency you’d better choose wisely what you plant.

        Also, the contributions of even the smallest members of the community are important, and we accomplish the most when we all work together.

        Speaking of community, would you like to join an on-line, world-wide community of authors sharing their work with readers?  I invite you to check out Strong Women-Strange Worlds, the place for free, twice-monthly live, on-line readings by women and non-binary authors of sci fi, fantasy, and speculative horror.  Each event features 6 authors reading excerpts of their own work – just enough to get the flavor.  Consider it a tasting menu of speculative fiction delight!  The audience can interact with the authors and each other in the chat throughout the readings, and there’s an opportunity for Q&A with the authors at the end.  I’ll be one of those reading in the May 1 event alongside some truly amazing authors, and I’ll be presenting something from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, although I haven’t yet decided what.  I’d love to see some of my A to Z peeps in the audience.  Check it out: it’s

free, it’s from the comfort of your own home (or lunch break at work), and it’s a wonderful respite from doom-scrolling.  Find all the details, upcoming author panels, and links to register here.

        Okay, after that PSA, let’s get back to the Enormous Turnip.  Do you have a green thumb?  Have you ever had a gardening adventure that exceeded expectations?

 

[Picture: The Enormous Turnip, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 20 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

D is for Dust-Up in the Desert

        My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my immanent collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales and myths.  When I talk about myths, however, I’m actually including not just classical Greek mythology but also the Bible.  For today’s post I’m going to repeat the point I made yesterday, that in the context of folklore the word “myth” doesn’t mean “false or erroneous stories, the opposite of truth.”  Rather, it means “sacred stories that convey profound truths to the people who tell them.”  If you weren’t here for the letter C, you can read a bit more about my thoughts on including Bible stories among the traditional tales I’m reimagining in my prior post Giving the Bible a Kick.

        I wanted to be sure to include all that background and caveat again because today’s story is inspired by the Exodus story of the Plagues of Egypt - and treats it in a way that could be construed as disrespectful!  (You can brush up on the story here.)  This is a story that has had profound spiritual depth for many people, especially oppressed people.  It’s one of the Bible’s most beloved stories - but it also raises a lot of difficult questions.  As a child it was one of my favorite Bible stories because it reads like a fairy tale with its cruel king, Cinderella people, magic spells, and thrilling escape.  But the piece that I’m jumping off from for my own story is that this myth dates back to the  stratum of the Bible written by people who did believe in the existence of multiple gods competing for the loyalty and worship of the people.  I’ve reimagined this ancient story, therefore, as a sort of boxing match between the god of the ancient Israelites and the god of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.  Here’s how it begins…

        We’ve got a great crowd today on the banks of the Nile for what’s sure to be an epic Celestial Smackdown.  The entire population of Egypt is in attendance, not that they have any choice, being the field of battle, so let’s not keep them in suspense as to their fate.  In the red corner is defending champion Amun-Ra, the Hidden One, Lord of the Silent, represented on the material plane by an elite team of Chief Priests and Magicians!  And in the blue corner is the challenger Yahweh, new on the scene but already making waves despite the reluctance of his Prophets Moses and Aaron!  You know, Reggie, Amun-Ra is at the top of his game, so Yahweh can’t afford to pull any punches if he wants to prove his omnipotence. 

        And that’s the bell, and Yahweh comes out first, leading with a challenge that cannot be ignored.  Performing the first miracle, he’s turning his prophet’s staff into a serpent.  But the Egyptian priests can give as good as they get, and all their rods are turning into serpents, too.  There are snakes all over the floor here in the Egyptian Pharaoh’s palace…

        Why I have written this story?  Not merely to be flippant, I assure you.  Nor is it my intention to be disrespectful or to offend anyone.  Rather, I used this reimagining to explore the nature of divine power as depicted in this Bible story… and to hint just slightly at the possibility of change over time in human understanding of the Divine, and human relationship with the Divine.

        And that brings me to a larger point about this whole project.  Some of the pieces in my book Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns are certainly “just for fun,” and I hope that all of the pieces in it are enjoyable! - but at the same time, all these stories that I’m riffing on have stuck around and been revisited and retold and adapted to different times and places precisely because they do prompt us to wrestle with bigger, deeper issues.  So whatever your religious background, these stories are there to help us grapple with moral, ethical, spiritual truths.

        The moral of the plagues of Egypt is that parting a sea is an epic flex - although it may have serious environmental impact.

        Also, do not keep hardening your heart!  I don’t care who you are, if you’re oppressing people, let them go!

        This ancient story has inspired an incredible range of music, including 

spirituals (ex. “Go Down Moses” ca. 1850)

hymns and Passover songs (ex. Dayenu ca. 900)

operas (from Rossini 1818 to Schoenberg ca. 1932)

oratorios (from Handel’s “Israel in Egypt” 1739 to Itkin’s “Exodus” 2008)

Disney’s musical “Prince of Egypt” (1998)

thrash metal (Metallica’s “Creeping Death” 1984)

… not to mention songs that allude to the story more generally, including reggae “Exodus” by Bob Marley (1977).  How many of these pieces have you heard?  Got any others you know?

[Pictures: Assorted illustrations: collagraph star, various rubber block print frogs, wood block print Grasshopper, by AEGNydam (Images from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns and NydamPrints.com).]

C is for Creation and Cain

        My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my immanent collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  When I talk about myths, however, I’m actually including not just classical Greek mythology but also the Bible.  Remember that the word “myth” in this context doesn’t mean “false or erroneous stories, the opposite of truth.”  Rather, it means “sacred stories that convey profound truths to the people who tell them.”  You can read a bit more about my thoughts on including Bible stories among the traditional tales I’m reimagining, in my prior post Giving the Bible a Kick.

          One of the short stories included in this section of my book deals with Creation (you can read the Bible's story here if you’re not familiar with it) and another deals with Cain and Abel (you can read that myth here) and how I imagined their continued rivalry through cycles of reincarnation.  I’m not including long excerpts of my stories here today because both of them have actually been previously published and you can read them at Friends Journal in their entirety.  (In their entireties?  Whatever.)

        Read “Good” here: It seems like just last week, yet so long ago that the entire universe was a uniform, velvety nothing – deep, without form and void – that I dreamed in my heart of light… 

        Read “Brothers” here: Over and over they were born, those brothers, always catching at each other’s heels…

        Let me know what you think of them!

        As for this rubber block print of the glory of Creation, I made it a couple years before  writing the story, because the wonder of creation is a theme I keep coming back to.  I never tire of the marvelous interconnected beauty of our world and our universe.  You can read about the creation of this rubber block print here.

        The moral of the creation story is that every Creator appreciates having someone enjoy their work.  That’s why I’m sharing mine with you!

        Also, our universe is Very Good.  Treat it that way.

        Do you have siblings?  And was there an unhealthy amount of rivalry, or do you and your siblings support each other in more loving ways?

        Meanwhile, don’t forget to see the wide variety of themes my fellow A to Z Bloggers are doing this year!  You can find all the participating bloggers on the Master List.

        And also, want to hear me read an excerpt from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns?  I'll be participating in a free, live, on-line group author reading with Strong Women-Strange Worlds on May 1.  You can find all the details here and register now!

[Picture: Behold, It Is Good, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

B is for Beyond

        Let me introduce you properly to the book my A to Z this year is all about: Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.  It’s a collection of short stories, poetry, and art inspired by, riffing on, and reimagining fairy tales, myths, legends, and folklore (and it will be released on April 20!)  In other words, I’ve started with those traditional stories and tried to go beyond them to new perspectives about their characters and tropes and the ways they try to bring meaning to living in this world of ours.

        Later in the alphabet you’ll find out more about how I went beyond the pomegranate of the title, so today I present Beyond the Thorns, a rubber block print that illustrates a poem about Sleeping Beauty.  “The Sleeping Beauty” is the fairy tale that got by far the most reaction from me in this collection.  I’ve included a short story, 2 independent poems, and a set of 13 connected poems, plus there’s another short story that also includes an element inspired by “The Sleeping Beauty.”  Why so much about this particular fairy tale?  Here’s what I say in the end notes: Do you have any favorite songs that you love even though the lyrics are ridiculous or problematic?  You love the music, the voice, the vibe, even though logically you can’t agree with the message?  There are fairy tales like that for me.  “Sleeping Beauty” has always been one of my favorites not for the plot, but for the strange and beautiful setting of the enchanted castle falling asleep behind its mysterious hedge of thorns.  The descriptions in the Grimms’ version are wonderfully evocative in their specificity.  I love the music of the tale.

        (If you need to read or reread this fairy tale for yourself to see what I mean, you can find it here.)  Yes, my book does include End Notes, to let you know for each of my pieces which traditional story inspired it, and to explain a little bit about my reactions and why I took my own re-imaginings in a particular direction.  But to keep those notes from being too dry I’ve included lots of additional art back there.  I want the book to be an object of beauty throughout!

        But back to “Sleeping Beauty.”  In addition to that strange and beautiful setting, this fairy tale has so many little sparks of wonder that lead my imagination off in interesting directions: What are the protocol and rules of magic that fairies have to follow when bestowing gifts on a royal infant?  And what gifts did they actually all bestow?  (More on that at F!)  What are the implications of missing a century of history and marrying into a world in which so much has changed?  What might someone actually be doing while asleep for a hundred years (to sleep, perchance to dream)?…  There are just so many enticing things to imagine!  So this is the place to note that when I’ve had multiple responses to a particular traditional tale, each of my pieces should be considered to be independent and unconnected with each other.  I may be responding to a completely different element of the story, and taking my imagination in a completely different direction in each piece.

        As for this illustration of the castle behind its enchanted hedge of thorns, you can read more about the making of it at this prior blog post.  You can also see that this rubber block print is the basis for the cover design of the book, although I adapted it to full color for maximum enticing-ness (I hope).

        The moral of Sleeping Beauty is that choosing your time wisely makes all the difference between dying a horrible death impaled on thorns or strolling through a rose garden.  (If you’ve just reread the story you’ll know that in the Grimms’ version the prince doesn’t do anything heroic to get through that hedge – he just shows up at the right time.)

        Also, it’s always important to look for whatever might be hidden behind a prickly exterior.  It could be treasure or a heart of gold, or it could be lies and deception.  Observe closely!

        Have you ever gotten beyond a concealing barrier to discover a secret magical place?

[Picture: Beyond the Thorns, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2017 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]