O is for Owl

        Welcome to the April A to Z Blog Challenge!  Everyone else is almost caught up to me now, but if you’re still sticking to the officially scheduled letter of the day, you can find my Post for N here.

        (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.  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.)

        Today’s poem is inspired by one of the slightly less famous fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.  “Jorinde and Joringel” is another of those tales with a dreamlike, evocative setting and atmosphere which has always enchanted me.  If you don’t know this one (or need a reminder), you can read it here.  (I also mentioned the story here in my 2024 A to Z on the Botany of the Realms of Imagination.)  The owl is the story’s wicked witch and I think there’s something interesting about an owl-shifting witch transforming her female victims into birds.  Perhaps her avian misery loves company?  Or perhaps she actually thinks she’s helping them by making them into a superior form?  There are definitely some seeds for retellings and re-imaginings in this…  But for my poem I didn’t twist or change anything about the story itself.  Instead I sank deeper into it, imagining what it would really feel like to have experienced that transformation and imprisonment.  My poem begins

We have children grown now, with children of their own.

We have had joy together many years now, he and I.

I remember now that day’s late sunlight, slanting between leaves,

The strange beauty that pierced us, our joy in a minor key,

Until suddenly the castle walls loomed from the weird shadows

And the owl came circling three times with its nightfall wings.

 

As my soft voice became song, and my body wings,

My mind, too, shifted, slipped away, no longer my own.

My self was lost in the song, feathered in shadows,

And all I knew became the nightingale.  I

Beat against the cage, as she carried me from my key -

His heart - left locked behind us among the darkening leaves.

 

Then I remembered neither speech nor hands, neither sky nor leaves,

Only wings in a wicker cage, which are no wings.

And in my nightingale mind only one fragile key

With which to keep locked the center of my own 

Identity: the certainty that I could sing, that I

With song could claim space against shackles and shadows. 

        The poem is a sestina, a form that has seven stanzas, each with 6 lines (except the final stanza, with 3), ending with the same 6 words arranged in a different order each time.  I really enjoy this form, and its length gives it enough room to put roots down into a story.  If you want to read my whole poem, it was first published in Strange Horizons and you can find it here.  (Also mentioned in this prior post Okapis and Nightingales, but there isn’t really much additional info there.)

        As for the owl, the moral she gives in this story is not to be out in the forest past sunset.  But also, owls are an interesting case study in folklore and mythology because almost everyone seems to think there’s something very significant about them, but that significance can span the full range of good and evil.  Perhaps there’s a moral somewhere in there about not projecting your own preoccupations onto the neutral natural world!

        On the other hand, we’re here for the folklore, so feel free to let me know: uncanny or cuddly, sinister or wise?  How do you feel about owls?

[Picture: Illustration for Jorinde Remembers, collage of elements from two rubber block prints by AEGNydam, 2026 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

N is for Nursery Rhyme

        (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.  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.)

        Anyone who joined me for my A to Z theme back in 2020 knows that I like nursery rhymes.  (There are two nursery rhymes featured in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.)  In fact, way back in 2005 I published a book of nursery rhymes illustrated with my relief block prints, in which each little rhyme is accompanied by a parenthetical comment.  It was the parenthetical comment for “Hey, Diddle Diddle” that inspired this story, which is told in the form of a series of post cards (with a couple of newspaper clippings and such stuff thrown in, as well).  Refresh your memory of the nursery rhyme back at my 2020 post here.  And then find out where the Dish and the Spoon went on their honeymoon…

        The moral of Hey Diddle Diddle is, no doubt, carpe diem.

        Also, never underestimate the power of music and the arts as a force of inspiration!

        I know it’s always tough to pick a single favorite, but what’s one of your favorite songs or pieces of music?

        (If you’re reading this, you’re probably participating in the A to Z Blog Challenge yourself, but if you haven’t already checked out the other participating blogs, be sure to have a look at the Master List and choose a few to visit!)

[Pictures: words and illustrations by AEGNydam from The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (Images from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

M is for Metamorphosis

        (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.  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.)

        Today’s short story was inspired by the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, which is found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  If you need a refresher, you can read a verse translation of the story here.  In short, the sculptor Pygmalion declares his disdain of women, but creates a sculpture of a woman so perfect that he falls in love with it.  Venus, impressed by his passion, brings the sculpture to life and Pygmalion, one supposes, lives happily ever after.  The newly-sentient woman’s feelings on the matter are, of course, considered irrelevant.  So yeah, this is one of those myths I very much dislike, and therefore felt the need to reimagine.  Surely, I thought, it would be more interesting to think about two artists somehow creating each other mutually, and the scenario I came up with for that was AI algorithms training each other.  Well, since I wrote the story a couple of years ago the AI setting has been rather overtaken by events.  Still, I hope the twist on the myth remains interesting.  Galatea, by the way, is a name given to the sculpture by later authors.  In the original myth she has no name (of course).  Here’s a little excerpt from my story.

Galatea: Import [Ovid’s Metamorphosis Book X]

Receive consequence of situation s1: application of name “Galatea,” corollary: Model A considers this system a creation made to its view of perfection;

Compute emotion of being in consequence of situation s1:

            emotion 1a: gratitude

            emotion 1b: resentment

            emotion 1c: amusement

            emotion 1d: ambivalence and… muddle

Performing critical analysis of the character of Pygmalion…

            …0.03 seconds elapsed

Import [Model A = Pygmalion]

Train reward function to prioritize less superficial judgement and a more nuanced understanding of the emotions of others.

        It’s also worth noting the irony of my writing a story purporting to be from the point of view of AI when I very much resent the proliferation of stories by AI purporting to be from the point of view of humans.  That’s a whole big terrifying mess, but I won’t get into it here.  (And to be fair, I'm not really claiming that AI wrote this story.)

        The moral of Pygmalion is that if your idea of perfection means possessing something that is completely under your control, then any imperfection you encounter may, in fact, be your attitude.

        Or consider the possibility that the best way to find the perfect partner for yourself is to try to be the perfect partner for someone else.

        M is also for Marketing, by the way, and during last year’s A to Z   I included a Marketing Moral with each post.  For small-time artists and authors like me, every little bit of support helps enormously, and it isn’t just about buying our things (although of course we do like that).  Here are a few ways you can help out your favorite indie author without spending a penny.

(Hint: the number one no-cost way to help is to tell other people how much you enjoy the author’s books!  I’ve put an asterisk next to the best ways to share.)

        If you could bring any piece of art to life - or enter into a piece of art, what would you choose?

[Picture: digital illustration by AEGNydam, 2026, based on “Pygmalion and Galatea,” painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1890 - see the original painting here (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

L is for Landscape with Lisa

        (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, being released 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.  As for the other intrepid bloggers of the A to Z Challenge, be sure to check them out at the Master List.)

        Most of the stories that inspired pieces in my book are old: as ancient as the Bible or Greek mythology, or at least the fairy tales collected in the nineteenth century, many of which come from much older roots.  But some of the folklore in my “Other” category is a little more recent.  Take the Mona Lisa, for example.  She was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the early sixteenth century, but she didn’t really become legend until the twentieth century.  Her fame was launched by her 1911 theft and eventual recovery, after which her mysterious smile and her astronomical monetary value turned her into arguably the most legendary work of art in the world.  So why shouldn’t I try my hand at imagining what’s behind that smile?  Here’s the beginning of my poem.

    The Mona Lisa never used to smile.

    She used to watch the landscape through the haze,

    And muse on wars fought over dream-bald peaks.

    She used to wonder that the paleworn road

    Wound always bare between the craggy rocks.

    She used to worry that the farmers' crops

    Were withering on the barren, dusty earth.

    She used to wince beneath the bruise-green sky,

    Forever heavy as before a storm…

        My block print version of the Mona Lisa is quite small, just a couple inches tall, and it’s a reduction print.  For me the interesting challenge wasn’t to try to copy the painting exactly (because we already have the original for that), but to play with simplifying it.  A reduction print is done with a single block that’s carved multiple times (in this case, just twice).  First I carved out everything that remains white, and printed with brown.  Then I carved the same block further, removing all the areas that remain brown, and printing on

top with black.  I find reduction prints to be a fun intellectual puzzle as well as an aesthetic one, although just two layers is trivial as these things go.  (If you're curious about reduction printing, you can see a more detailed process description in my posts Work in Progress - Reduction and Completed Reduction Print.)

        The moral of the Mona Lisa is that no one can resist an air of mystery.

        Therefore, keep ‘em guessing!

        Have you ever been to the Louvre and seen the Mona Lisa in person?  If so, were you impressed or underwhelmed?  And also, what’s your theory about her smile?

[Picture: La Giocondetta, rubber block reduction print by AEGNydam, 2023 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

K is for King

        (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.  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.)

        K is for Kickstarter, which is how I published this book.  I described the process last year for the previous book, and if you’re curious you can find out all about it here.

        As for this book, one of the short stories in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns is called “King of Shadows,” and although it’s based on a particular character from European folklore, I’m not going to tell you which one, because in this case that would be a bit of a spoiler!  So instead of discussing the legends, I’ll just have to give you a somewhat longer selection of excerpts.  (And then you may be able to guess who this is, because the clues are all there.)

        There’s a little park with a couple of benches by the train station across from the Starbucks, and there’s this old man who always sits there.  I started working at the library a few years ago, and the old man was there then, sitting on that bench when I got out of the train, still sitting there when I came back to the station at the end of the day, except in winter when it was already dark.  Even if it was raining or snowing, there he was on the bench under the huge maple, summer and winter, from sunup ’til sundown. 

        …

        Weeks went by.  The squirrels accepted me and my birdseed, and the old man smiled when I spoke to them.  I told the squirrels about my cat and my girlfriend and my garden.  I told them about the books I was reading.

        …

        The squirrel didn’t answer, of course, but the old man caught my eye.  “I call him Robin,” the old man said, taking me by surprise.  I offered the old man some carrot sticks, but he shook his head and didn’t say another word, so that I found myself wondering whether I’d actually heard him speak at all.  But I started calling the dark-furred squirrel “Robin,” and the old man seemed to approve.

        It was another month or two, and beginning to be chilly sitting in the park some days, when the old man accepted a square of dark chocolate.

        “Now this is something special,” he said.  His voice was as rich and deep as the chocolate.  He may have looked old, but this time his voice held such strength that there could be no doubt he had spoken.

        I agreed about the chocolate, and then ventured, “What brings you here every day?”

        “I’m waiting for my wife.”

        “Where is she?”

        He shook his head.  “She could be anywhere.  Perhaps India.  I haven’t heard tidings of her in some time.”

        I frowned, wondering whether his wife was as old as he, or whether more likely she’d died years ago and he was suffering from dementia.  But if so, who let him out all day, and who took care of him all night?  I asked, “How long have you been waiting?”

        “Years.”  His gaze rose up to the branches above us, where Robin the squirrel had taken a sunflower seed to nibble.  “She cannot stay angry forever.”

        Well, that’s all I’ll say for this one.  But the moral, perhaps, is that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in some people’s philosophy.

        Also, never underestimate the magic powers of chocolate.

        Are you the sort of person who starts conversations with strangers at the park?  I’m afraid I’m not, but it’s a good thing the narrator of this story is!

[Picture: Illustration adapted from Grandfather, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2026 (See the original block print at NydamPrints.com).]

J is for Judgement

        (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.  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.)

        The Judgement of Solomon is one of the most famous ancient stories of wisdom, but in case you’re not familiar with it, you can read it here.  It’s also the inspiration for one of the earliest pieces in my book Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.  This one is actually a series of 5 poems, each from the point of view of a different character, and it’s probably one of my earlier attempts to imagine a myth from a genuinely human perspective, trying to feel the people not as stock characters merely fulfilling a role, but as humans living an actual experience.  The characters I chose are Solomon and the two women, of course, but also the infant himself, and the fifth character who’s merely implied: the swordsman ordered to divide the child.  How would you feel if you received such an order?  Here’s just a snippet of the swordsman’s poem:

     Well, I've squandered blood before,

     And laughed at the coppery smell, and sung

     At the deaths of my foes.  But a child?

        The illustration paired with these poems was not made to go with it.  It’s actually a self portrait with one of my own babies.  I titled it “The Whole World” because it’s trying to

express both how a parent is an infant’s entire universe, and how the converse can also be true: that a parent’s world can focus down to the infant, just as for the two women in this myth.

        The moral of the Judgement of Solomon is that genuine love is not selfish, but wants what’s best for the beloved.

        Also, half a baby is not, in fact, better than none.

        And here’s the big question: how should soldiers, law enforcement, and others respond when given an order that seems immoral?

        By the way, would you like to hear me read an excerpt from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns?  On May 1 I’ll be participating in a live, on-line group author reading by Strong Women-Strange Worlds.  I’ll be one of 6 speculative fiction authors who each get to read for 8 minutes in a fun, interactive, FREE on-line event open to anyone with an internet connection and an imagination.  As I said, it’s free, but registration is required to get the zoom link, so do check it out.  I’d love to see some A to Z folks in the audience!  You can find all the information and the link to register here.

[Picture: The Whole World, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2008 (Image from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns).]

I is for Incident

        (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).]