The Three Sisters and the Dragon of the North, By Laura Beasley

"The Captives," by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan

Editor's note: The mixture of the magic and the familiar made this work an easy winner for April. I especially like the sister with the dietary requirements!

The Old Weaver began at the beginning as the children gathered at her feet, “There was a time and it was not my time and it was not your time. It was a time of dragons and dirigibles, a time of eaters and evil, a time of fantasy and forgiveness. It was a time when a girl who was destined to be our greatest princess was born of humble parents in poverty and sadness, in pain and sincerity.”

The Dragon of the North was a demanding taskmaster who insisted upon a sacrifice on the first day of spring each year. The young man who had been chosen was expected to bring the gift to the dragon. The gift was not gold. The dragon had baskets of gold. The gift was never jewels. The dragon had buckets of jewels. The annual gift was not food for the gluttonous dragon. The dragon’s troughs overflowed with cupcakes and doughnuts for his ten daily meals. The spring gift was always a human sacrifice. The young man was compelled to bring his favorite sister to the dragon.

Some had tried to fool the dragon with slave girls purchased in the market place or strangers they had abducted or distant cousins. The dragon always knew the difference. This was a fairy tale time of large families and a young man might have seven sisters. He might substitute his second favorite sister for the dragon.

The dragon would sneer, “I need to have your favorite sister or I will destroy the village.”

The young men were forced to sacrifice that which they most valued to save their people. The young women were never seen again. The villagers continued to bring gifts to the dragon. They brought baskets of gold and buckets of jewels each week. The cooks carried cupcakes and doughnuts to refill the troughs ten times each day. On the first day of spring, a doomed young man was compelled to bring his most beloved sister to the Dragon of the North.

One year the chosen man had three sisters. Insisting that he loved them equally, he could not decide which sister should be taken to the dragon.

As the oldest brother, he’d known the oldest sister the longest and reasoned that maybe that meant he loved her best. After all she’d been willing to take care of the other sisters after their parents had died. She was expert at spinning and handiwork.
 
Abandoned in the dragon’s castle, the oldest sister began to eat the cupcakes and doughnuts. Within minutes, she had eaten them all.

The dragon was outraged to find an empty trough, “Why have you eaten all of my food?”

“There will be more food in a few hours. Tell me about your parents, How did you feel about your mother? Did she nurse you or were you weaned too young? Did you have a wet nurse? What flavor milk was the breast milk? Was it green? Or chocolate? Is that why you are obsessed with doughnuts and cupcakes because you weren’t given enough love as a dragon-pup? I raised my younger sisters and I know a lot about child-psychology. Your relationship with your father is very important as well. We have lots to talk about.”

“I have no intention of sharing my personal business with someone who eats all of my food. You cannot be the favorite sister of your brother. Go back home and tell him to send another sister!” said the dragon.

The young man sent for his second sister. She was a poor scholar but was a talented musician. She schemed to make lots of money and wanted the dragon’s gold and jewels. She refused to eat any of the food and complained when the dragon entered the room
.
“Is this the only kind of food that you have? I cannot eat cupcakes and doughnuts for the next year. My family should have explained my specific eating requirements. I eat liver sausage on homemade fresh-baked white bread. I drink medicinal tonic sold by the traveling medicine show barker. I refuse to consume anything else.”

“I will not deal with someone who is so difficult. I just want a pleasant conversational companion for the next year. Go back home and have your brother send the next sister,” said the dragon.

“The only way I will leave is if you give me 100 baskets of gold and 100 buckets of jewels,” said the second sister.

“That’s ridiculous” said the dragon “but I want you to leave so I’ll give you 99 baskets of gold and 100 buckets of jewels.”

“I won’t leave until I have one-hundred of each!” demanded the girl.

“I’ll agree to anything as long as you leave the castle. Take it and be gone!” said the dragon.

The young man didn’t know where to find his youngest sister. He followed the hoof prints of their horse deep into the forest. She was sitting in the branches of a tree reading.

“Will you go to the dragon’s castle to save the village?” asked the young man. “I guess you are my favorite sister although I can never find you.”

“It’s difficult to find the one you need the most. Of course I will save the village,” she said.

Unlike her sisters, she didn’t remain with the food or valuables. Instead, the girl explored the rest of the castle. She found women from previous spring sacrifices reading in the library. They told her everything she needed to know to outwit the dragon.

When she returned to the throne room, the dragon was licking icing from a cupcake. The girl dumped the trough contents onto floor and crushed the food with her brown boots.

“Why don’t we go outside?” she asked the dragon.

“I never go outside. I stay inside and play video games,” said the dragon.

“Today we are going outside and we will play basketball, I will teach you Horse,” the girl said. “And we are going to start eating fruits and vegetables as well. It’s time that you became a fit dragon and made some dragon friends.”

“I have 983 Facebook Friends,” said the dragon.

“You need friends in the real world,” said the girl.

Within months, the dragon had shed his excess kilos. He’d met several dragons at book club meetings at the castle. After the youngest sister was convinced the dragon had embraced a healthy dragon lifestyle, she bid him farewell. She rescued the other women from the library. Then they flew away in a rainbow-colored dirigible to another kingdom where everyone lived happily ever after.

Laura Beasley has a horse named Amos and a dog named Audrey. She and her husband have three grown children whose names do not begin with the letter A. Her stories have been published in Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine and Rose Red Review.

Cinderella's Slipper Galaxy?

Check this out on Slate!

New "Cinderella's Slipper Galaxy"? I say, "yes!"

Weekly Book Mail, June Contest

 

f anyone wants to get a signed book this week, I go to the post office tomorrow to do a batch mailing, so order today, or it will be a week longer.

 

Also, don't forget that the monthly contests are still happening. The window for June opens 12 a.m., EST, June 1!

 

And, those of you who have been following EC for awhile, I urge you to consider applying for one of the positions advertised here for contributing columnists. I want to fill the slots with true fairy tale lovers! 

 

Finally, if you have read Beyond the Glass Slipper, please consider doing an Amazon or Goodreads review. I ask for nothing but honesty, and would expect nothing else from a friends of EC, but I really do want and need the feedback.

Regular Paid Columnists Wanted, Enchanted Conversation

ear EC Friends,

EC's monthly contests are going to continue, of course, and I certainly hope the special Beyond the Glass Slipper contest will yield many fabulous entries. Yet, I still have further plans to expand the amount of new material that is published in EC monthly. To that end, I am looking for three writers to do three different kinds of columns per month. They will be paid $15  (US dollars only) per column. (I wish it could be more, but the budget is small right now. The rate could go to $25 per month if things get better financially. Let's hope the book keeps selling!) Update: You must 18 or older to apply.

I am looking for one contributor for each of the following areas:

* Book reviewing: The contributor would be responsible for getting free reviewer's copies of new books on fairy tales or of or influenced by fairy tales. I would expect two to four books to be reviewed each month. The reviewer could then sell or keep the books.

* Fairy tale news reporter: This writer would be responsible for writing five to 10 little nuggets of news monthly about fairy tales in pop culture: new movies, trends, art, etc.

* Fairy tale vintage sleuth: This writer will investigate old illustrations, out-of-copyright fairy tale books and old, interesting bits of information about fairy tales the rest of us may never have known.

There will be more details forthcoming for the people chosen, and the commitment would be for one year.

Please query in ONE area with a sample column of how you would do the job (no more than 750 words, MAX). You must be an EC follower. Include a very brief bio. No attachments, please, unless it is art, which you may include. The actual sample writing should be in the body of the email.

Send the queries to enchantedconversation@gmail.com, no later than June 30, 11:59 p.m., EST.

A Long-Overdue Review: The Fairies Return

EC is not normally a place for book reviews. (Although I may reconsider that.)

Yet, some time back, while I was deep in teaching, and then, working on Beyond the Glass Slipper, I received a review copy of The Fairies Return: Or, New Tales for Old. I read it almost immediately, and enjoyed it immensely. I'll explain why, in a moment, but first an explanation of why I am doing this now:

"Once Upon a Time," by Kenneth Whitley

Books need to be reviewed. I am finding that out the hard way. Even getting reviews on Amazon is tough! So, apologies to Maria Tatar. She's as important as scholars get in fairy tale studies, so she doesn't need my review, but here it is.

Tatar, who is the chair of the Program of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, edited this new version of The Fairies Return, and wrote the lucid, highly detailed introduction to this volume. Originally published in 1934, Peter Davies compiled the stories in The Fairies Return.

He was THAT Peter Davies. As in Peter Pan. The few pages Tatar devotes to his story in the introduction would be worth the book's price, at least to me. Tatar simply lays out some bare facts about Davies' life and career and death, and how the character is Peter Pan is drawn from more than one source. It's a moving story, and, to me, shocking. I am not a Peter Pan fan, at all, so I have never seen a movie or read a book about J.M. Barrie.

The introduction also neatly explains each story and gives a bit of social and historical information about fairy tales and life in the 1930s. The stories themselves are very much a relic of the times. For me, that is no deterrent. I am an old fan of early 20th century popular literature, especially mystery novels. Yet, readers should be warned that the "new" tales of this volume have the language, pace, attitudes, prejudices, and sometimes, pop culture references that only those of us who get a kick out of the '30s will "get." For example, "Big Claus and Little Claus," by R.J. Yeatman W.C. Sellar is told in a gangster or crime movie style. It's dated, really.

But there are many tales in the book that are breathtakingly current in their ability to engage the reader. Two examples leap to mind:  "Godfather Death," by Clemence Dane is sad, and shivery and unforgettable as a story of trickery and sacrifice. "The Fisherman and His Wife," by E.M. Delafield, is a delightfully mean-spirited piece of work that digs into what I have always suspected was a nasty relationship between the protagonist and his ball and chain.

The other stories are well worth the visit to the land of fairy tales of the 1930s. It's summer reading time. Give it a whirl, because of the amazing stories, and the enlightening introduction.

A Special Writing Contest Is Announced: You Go Beyond the Glass Slipper

"The Decameron," by Theodor Baierl

Grand Prize: $200
Four Honorable Mention Prizes: $50 each
Deadline: August 15, 2013, at 11:59 p.m., EST.

Since Beyond the Glass Slipper was conceived, nearly a year ago, I've been hoping that the stories in the book would eventually inspire writers and poets. I thought long and hard about how to achieve that, and holding a contest seemed like the best way to accomplish the goal.

To begin, I want to make it clear: I want to sell copies of Beyond the Glass Slipper. Of course I do, and to pretend otherwise would be silly. But Enchanted Conversation contests have never had a fee for entry, and there isn't one now, even in a roundabout form, like a required book purchase.

All of the stories in the book are available online. The value of the book, I believe, is in the perspective and the very considerable experience I bring to the tales from years as a college writing teacher as well as editor of EC. Make no mistake, BtGS is a big peek into how I think, read, write and edit.

You should also know that the book is available from a number of outlets (here, at Amazon, B&N and Kobo), so there is no way to keep track of who is buying it, beyond the very small number purchased here on EC--but even my family didn't purchase it through here. Don't worry about that influencing my decision.

That's enough of that. Now, the contest details:

* The following tales should serve as inspiration for stories or poems you submit. They, are, of course, in the book, and you can find them online as well.
"The Nixy," "The Soldier and the Vampire," "The Three Pennies," "Fairy Gifts," "The Loving Pair," "The Dirty Shepherdess,"  "The Gifts of the Little People," "The Blue Light," "King Pig," and "Kisa the Cat."
* The regular monthly contests will continue while this contest is going on. The contests are unrelated. Please read the guidelines for those separately, if you are interested in them.
* I am interested in stories or poems that are inspired by these works, not very close retellings of the stories.
* You must be 18 to be published in Enchanted Conversation.
* The content age level is 13 or above. Think The Hunger Games and late Harry Potter books for content level. But EC is NOT a young children's publication. No sci-fi, high fantasy or space travel. Dark is just fine, but always try to celebrate the human condition, even if the story or poem involves tragedy. No erotica.

* All formatting must be clean, clear and in the body of an email. No attachments will be opened or considered. If you copy and paste from a word processing program, be sure each line breaks normally as though you were writing across the email message box.Tricky spacing or elaborate breaks, a huge amount of paragraph breaking and symbols like *&%^) will harm a submission's chances of being chosen. Please do not indent paragraph openings. Just break once between paragraphs. Just one, clearly defined space.
* Please edit your work. Since American punctuation and spelling is what I know, please consider that when writing. It's not that I think it's superior, it's just that it's what I know. That said, I greatly welcome submissions from outside the US.

* All submissions must be accompanied by a very short bio, written in the third person. No more than two sentences, please. Please do not provide a list of all of your publishing credits.

* You must be a follower through Twitter, Pinterest, Google Friends/Followers OR are part of a Google+ circle of mine to be considered for any publication.You do not need to follow in more than one way. You must indicate how you follow when you submit.

* Only submit work using an email address you check often. If I send you a message letting you know a submission has been chosen and you don't respond in seven days, I will move on to the next work that was closest to being chosen.

* No contracts will be used. Just please read this page.

* Send all submissions to enchantedconversation@gmail.com. Also, you must have a Paypal address that you include with the submission.

* Do read work EC has already published to see what gets published here.

* Each writer may submit only one story or one poem (previously unpublished) for the contest. Also, please do not submit a work to another site while it is still being considered for Enchanted Conversation. After the contest has ended, and the winners announced, your story/poem is released from consideration. At that point, exclusivity is my problem, not yours.

* Works submitted for a contest will be acknowledged with a very brief email back to let you know it has been received. No feedback of any kind will be given, at any time. Only winners will be notified, briefly, via email. Winners will also be announced on the site. Those whose works have not been chosen will not be told individually. (I am sorry for this, but I do not have the time.) 

* EC claims the first rights to works chosen for publication on this site via the contest, but once I publish it, the writer or poet may shop it elsewhere. I do reserve the right to archive indefinitely, but will remove a work upon request. By accepting the contest prize, the winner acknowledges that EC has the right to first world-wide publication.

* There is no minimum or maximum word count. However, very long poems also have less chance of publication.
* Money will be paid in US dollars only. I do not do currency conversions.
* No entry fee.