The Box That Waits: A Modern Twist on an Ancient Fairy Tale
A story of desire and the patience of forgotten things.
folklore
A Fairy Tale: The Listening Tree
A story of when the distance between a told thing and an untold thing was believed to matter enormously.
The Fullness of Stone: A Fairy Tale of What is Needed
A story older than its telling...
A Folktale of the Dolomites and the Origin of Edelweiss
This story explains the origins of the edelweiss flower and why the Dolomite peaks are so hauntingly bare.
Tanna, Queen of the Crodères: A Neolithic Folktale
Several years ago my son and I went hiking through the Lavaredo Pass, high in the Dolomites. It was warm down in the valley, but as we went higher, the temperature dropped considerably despite the sunny weather. As we climbed, we came upon the remnants of trenches, fortifications and tunnels
Consensual Hair Cutting and Money Sharing: Two Modern Fairy Tales
A note before we begin: What follows is a work of allegorical fiction. Any resemblance to real individuals, living or dead, is a function of the universality of the situations described, not of any intention to depict specific persons.
Sanguanél, Salvanèl, Mazariol, and Mazaròl
Continuing recent essays about quirky northern Italian stories, here are some intertwined creatures that roam through their folklore. These particular stories, not very well known in English sources, touch upon memory loss, losing one’s way, and environmental concerns. Sanguanél and Salvanèl The first little creature has two slightly different
Camalò: Centre of the World or Portal to the Underworld
Lately, I find myself recalling places and stories from Italy. Here is a recollection from the Province of Treviso, in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. The village is called Camalò. It’s not particularly remarkable to look at or to pass through. Back in the 1970s, when driving to
Fireflies, Mermaids and Skeins of Thread
Folktales from the Euganean Hills Years ago I lived near the area of the Colli Euganei (the Euganean Hills). They only rise to between 300-600 metres in height, but with everything else around them being completely flat, they do stand out. The area is named after an ancient pre-Roman
Wolf Pelt: A Fairy Tale Retold
All the best stories come from long ago, and this is one such story. This is my retelling and re-imagining of it: There once was — or there once was not — a story, in the oldest days and ages, in a land so far away it was beyond seven mountains, beyond
The Little People of the Credit River
Who knows if they are still among us? The Anishinaabeg of Mississauga believed the Credit River was home to a group of tiny people — we night think of them as elves, sprites, spirits, little people — that they called the Mamagwasewug. Part of the folklore of many tribes, the Mamagwasewug were
The Orcolat: Pink Floyd, the Ogre, and the Real Voice of the Quake
The earthquake in Northern Italy happened on May 6, 1976, at exactly 9 PM. Later major aftershocks occurred on the 11th and 15th of September. I was there and will always remember. Not at the epicenter, but certainly well within the range where the earthquake was felt. But first a
Disappearing Queen Anne’s Lace
Until recently, Queen Anne’s Lace was a very common weed in the Mississauga area of Ontario. It was and occasionally is still found in ditches, along roadsides and generally in poor soils. The plant grows to a height of 2 to 3 ft. and blooms midsummer. Once the sun