#ATU Index

[pseuddamntired]

I think it would be fun to challenge people to write stories promoted only by categories in the aarne-thompson-uther index. With the optional additional challenge that the genre/style is NOT folk tale or fable.

Categories such as “war between birds (insects) and quadrupeds” and “which bird is father?” and “innocent slandered maiden” and “suitors at the spinning wheel” and “seemingly dead relatives” and, possibly my favorite, “cases solved in a manner worthy of Solomon”

I’m finding a lot from this table of tale types: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/c.php?g=1083510

#my post #fairy tales #folk tales #fables #atu index #aarne-thompson-uther index #classifications #writing #prompt

[katriniac]

OMG you are in folk fairytales and legend Please can you tell me some of the cuteer ones you found even better if involving bears ? I loved interact with your OC too thanks fir joining and pls relax too from time to time and do not rush in answering me either 🙏🙏 I wish you a wonderful day 🤗🤗😘😘

Yesssss, I love them! Since a very young age I have been an avid reader/student of folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends. 

Below I talk more about my personal history/feelings on the topic, and end with my three favorite fairy tales. I hope they are “cute” enough for you!

But first I wanted to answer your question about stories featuring bears.

I tried to think of one in my memory where a bear played a prominent part, but turned up empty. I mean, yes, there is the standard “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, but I assumed you wanted to hear about something off the beaten path. 

So I dug around and found this one for you:

"The Bear in the Forest Hut". 

It is a Slavic folk tale about a prince who was cursed to take the shape of a bear, and the brave and kind woman who helped him out of that curse. She had the typical misfortune to have a stupid father and an ‘evil stepmother’ who tries to stop anything good from happening to the heroine. 

I liked this one because there is plenty of detail about the trials and tests the girl goes through in order to earn the bear’s trust and break his curse. Even more unique is how the story doesn’t just end right when the curse is broken (like so many folk tales). Instead, it goes on at length about how the two get married, travel over his kingdom, and what happens to the stepmother and stepsister.

@queengiuliettafirstlady What are some of your favorite fairy tales and myths?

How did I come to love fairy tales so much?

I think I can trace it back to my godmother, who was an amazing storyteller. She was Irish, so most of the tales she told me came from the British Isles and dated back to the 12th Century or earlier. The stories I most vividly remember her telling me were about the 3rd Century charismatic (but slightly foolish) folk hero Finn MacCool (or Fionn mac Cumhaill) and his very very clever wife Sadhbh. 

As I entered my preteen years (1990s, pre-internet era) a library was built within a 15 minute drive from our rural town. I had never had such a frequent exposure to books before that, except our small school library. My mom would take me to the new public library often and I devoured every book they had on fairy tales and legends.

When I started college, the trend of turning ancient folktales into modern, dark retelling had begun to rise in popularity. Not only was my backpack full of those every week, but now I also had access to scholarly papers through our inter-collegiate online system! I could read published research on people all over the world, those who retraced Charles Perrault’s steps, or compared similar narratives, or discovered a new translation of an old work. It was also during my college years that I discovered The Aaarne-Thompson-Uther index, which categorizes the plots and themes of fairy tales. 

When I learned about Perrault and the ATU Index, it changed my self-image.

Of course kids like fairy tales, but we are expected to grow out of those stories as we mature. I still had a deep love of folklore and myths well into my 20s and that made me feel a little silly and childish. But when I discovered that Charles Perreault (a historian in the 17th Century) believed the stories being shared in the oral tradition were important enough to be written down for posterity, that boosted my spirits. And when I stumbled across the ATU Index (begun in 1910, and continues to be updated annually still to this day), which took fairy tales seriously as anthropological artifacts, I was vindicated even more. 

These historical efforts were proof that folk lore, legends, and fairy tales weren't just for children. 

This short article is a MUST-READ for anyone who wants to have their love for storytelling rekindled and get pumped up to talk about fairy tales. It’s all about hope and courage.  I especially appreciated the excerpt from Katherine Rundell when she talks about “the hope that is sharper than teeth”

As I studied more and more obscure stories from around the world, I soon had a list of my top 4 favorites that I came back to:

Katie Crackernuts

The Twelve Dancing Princesses 

Beauty and the Beast 

The Myth of the Selkie

The middle two I have owned a few printed copies of. They are quite common and have many retellings/variations. But Katie Crackernuts was a story I could only read online; I had never seen it in print. 

There are actually similarities between parts of all three stories, which is probably why I love them so much.

I know you asked for ‘cute’ ones, but I don’t know if these really are that adorable. They all have happy endings for the heroines. Does that count? LOL

Katie Crackernuts (collected by Andrew Lange, first printed 1889)

This is a Scottish story about two sisters, one plain but clever (Katie) and one beautiful but simple (Anne). Despite this difference, they loved and supported one another as much as two sisters could. Through no fault of her own, Anne was cursed (you guessed it, by an evil stepmother) with the head of a sheep (or sometimes a donkey or goat, depending on the version) because the stepmother was jealous of her beauty. Katie put a hood over Anne to disguise her and left the house together, never to return.

They eventually came to the kingdom where there was a sick prince. His parents offered rich rewards for anyone who could heal his mysterious disease. Katie knew there had to be a reason normal medicine wasn’t working. She thought perhaps he was under a curse, too. Yep, he was going out at night in a trance to go under a hill to dance with fairies. So she watched and listened and investigated until she discovered the cure and how to administer it. Turns out the way to lift her sister’s curse was under that hill, as well!

She out-smarted the fairies, collected the items from them, and followed the instructions precisely. He grew well and discovered he loved her during all their time together while she was patiently investigating. When she used the cure on her sister, Anne’s sheep head turned back into a human one and the prince’s brother fell in love with her on the spot (of course he did). It was a lovely double-wedding. 

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (collected by the Brothers Grimm, first printed 1812)

This is about twelve sisters who are constantly tired and ruining their expensive shoes every night, and no one can find out why. The king has offered rich rewards and even marriage to the most beautiful of his daughters, but any man who steps up to the challenge either dies, fails the task, or is never seen again. Until one clever man (who has been watching this happen over and over) decides to try solving the mystery. The eldest sister (the most intelligent and haughty of the siblings) tries to stop him each time, but he outsmarts her as he follows the princesses into a fairy forest where they dance all night until their shoes fall apart and they drop from exhaustion.

Just like Katie in the story before, he is observant and waits until he has all the information and proof he needs to confront the princesses. He convinces the king, who is angry that his daughters were escaping every night. The man explains they were under a spell that compelled them to sneak out. The king offers him the most beautiful daughter (who is also the youngest and the most silly), but the man opts to marry the eldest because she was the only one who came close to matching wits.

Katie Crackernuts has much in common with The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Both have very strict rules for entering into the world of fairies, and the “wasting sickness” that comes upon a human who spends too much time in that world (which is also a metaphor for other maladies that were rampant during those centuries, such as tuberculosis). I enjoy that theme of “Good luck if you’re beautiful because your looks won’t save you. You need to be wise, patient, and clever in this world.”

Beauty and the Beast

This was one of my favorites long before Disney made their movie. Almost everyone knows how the story goes, so I won’t make this long post even longer by summarizing it here. The bravery and selflessness of the heroine was very inspiring to me, and I loved the idea of being surrounded by talking furniture and not a single human! I was a very introverted kid. And I guess I loved the idea of a sad prince in an unloveable disguise who needed to feel loved.

Another thing I think is neat about that story is there is an actual author: Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, published the story in 1740. Most folklore and fairy tales have a shared origin and no single creator. Not so for Beauty and the Beast. This one has a bonafide author, which makes it unique. Not only that, but the author was a woman! 

What Beauty and the Beast has in common with Katie Crackernuts is charity, mercy, humility, and selflessness.

The heroine not only saves herself, but she saves those who are entrusted to her. Who needs a prince, right?? Katie didn’t have to leave home to take care of her cursed sister, but she did. She didn’t have to agree to help the sick prince, but she did. Belle didn’t have to sacrifice herself in her father’s place in that unreasonable pact, but she did. She could have been disagreeable, rude, and throwing herself a pity party the entire time she was captive in the Beast’s castle, but instead she did her best to keep her spirits up and not hate her captor. (Readers: don’t come at me with the whole “Stockholm Syndrome” comment trying to be witty; it’s an old joke that was never funny in the first place.) Katie also tried hard to make the best of an awful situation, and she was never resentful to Anne or put her on a guilt trip. I was inspired by the important values and virtues portrayed by these two heroines.

The Legend of the Selkie

You asked for ‘cute’ stories, but this last one is anything but cute. The Celtic legend of the Selkie is heartbreaking, and there is hardly ever a happy ending. I heard briefly about it as a kid, but never found a published story to read. The oral tradition of the tale goes back to the 13th Century, but it didn’t make it into many books. Then the movie The Secret of Roan Inish came out in 1995. I was 15 at the time and didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so I begged a family member to bring me to the only theater in the entire state that was showing this independent film, over an hour away. It was magical. I bought the DVD as soon as it was available. It was the only thing I could find at that time (remember, the internet wasn’t really used for entertainment in 1995 like it is now) that displayed the Selkie myth, which is:

There are some special seals in the sea who can shed their seal-skin and turn themselves into human women. They are beautiful, quiet, and hard-working. And therefore they are much sought-after as wives by the lonely fishermen of the islands. The legend says that if you find a Selkie in her human form and take her seal-skin away from her, she is yours for the rest of your life. You can imagine the life of servitude that awaits the poor woman! She is usually desperate to turn the house inside out looking for her seal skin and return to the sea, or if she doesn’t find it she will murder her husband.

Fascinating!

Oof, okay. That post went on really long. Sorry. When I start to talk about fairy tales and folklore, I have a difficult time keeping it short, lol. And I didn't even get into the Greek myths! Yikes.

#fairy tales #storytelling #folklore #legends #myths #folktales #Katie Crackernuts #Kate Crackernuts #Selkie #Beauty and the Beast #The Twelve Dancing Princesses #Twelve Dancing Princesses #The Bear in the Forest Hut #Irish legend #Slavic stories #Finn MacCool #Fionn mac Cumhaill #Charles Perrault #Aaarne-Thompson-Uther index #ATU Index #Andrew Lange #Brothers Grimm #Grimms Fairy Tales #Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve #my asks #Celtic folklore

[rapha-reads]

So I'm reading Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, and I absolutely adore how it's a mix of all these tales I spent five months studying for my thesis. It's the entire ATU 425 tale type category at once*. A bit of Beauty and the Beast, a bit of Cupid and Psyche, a bit of East of the Sun and West of the Moon... When you know what you're looking at, it's so interesting to analyse it all.

*ATU= Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, a classification of as many of the folktales and fairytales indexed around the world and the centuries, catalogued after their structures (their type). ATU 425: "The Search for the Lost Husband". ATU 425A: "Animal as Bridegroom" -> East of the Sun and West of the Moon (and The Serpent Prince, the Pig King...). ATU 425B: "Son of the Witch" -> Cupid and Psyche (also The Son of the Ogress, Tale of Baba Yaga...). ATU 425C: "Beauty and the Beast". There are a few more types (it goes to 425E), but these three are the main ones.

#echo north #joanna ruth meyer #books #fairy tales rewritten #fairytales rewritings #folklore #folklore studies #fairy tales #tale types #atu index #alright professional deformation i guess but this is just fascinating and i want to keep working on contemporary rewritings of fairy tales #rapha talks #rapha reads

[horizon-verizon]

The Aaarne-Thompson-Uther Index

Animal Tales: 1 - 299

Tales in Magic: 300 - 749

Religious Tales: 750 - 849

Realisitic Tales (Set in Real Settings and Contexts): 850 - 999

Tales of the Stupid Ogre/giant/Devil: 1000 - 1199

Anecdotes & Jokes: 1200 - 1999

Formula Tales: 2000 - 2399

#fairytales #aarne-thompson-uther index #atu index #not asoiaf #storage

[ao-ihinata]

I'm literally running a fever right now but,

Question : in the Aarne-Tompson-Uther index (further referred to as ATU) 425: The Search for the Lost Husband, or rather specifically ATU 425A : The Animal (Monster) as Bridegroom the heroine will often end her journey after freeing the Bridegroom by bribing the false bride to let her spend the night with him. Was this a cultural thing like "the Lord can sleep with a bride before her wedding because he rules the lands" type of sh*t

because I know that servants would sleep in the bedchamber incase something might be needed etc

and so I'm curious if this "nights bought" thing was a sexual bargain to be the Prince's lover before he's married or to have the honor of serving him (which I guess might also become sexual)

#fyp #ATU index #Aarne-Tompson-Uther index #fairytale #folktale #the Lost Husband #Animal as Bridegroom #furry ?? #i need answers #now

[phantasma-mirror]

Okay but can you tell ME about the ATU index (I also am obsessed I just like hearing other ppl talk about it. If ur talking about the folklore one if not idk what it is but I wanna hear Abt it anyways)

OHHHHH MY GOD--

okay I stumbled across it during a particularly slow work week while goofing off on wikipedia. originally started out trying to find a list of fairy tale princesses across literature, and after spending a good chunk of time poking through the List of Fairytales list, I came across it and me personally? I think not only is it incredibly cool from a "wow, some tropes and stories truly do transcend culture and geographical boundaries" standpoint, but there are some categories that I did not know EXISTED, let alone are reocurring?

Why are so many fair maidens marrying snakes?

How is there both a suspicious amount of and suspicious lack of cannibalism?

Why is this the funniest entry I've ever seen?

I am so deeply intrigued by this index, I need to see if a library near me has the complete text edition or else I'll lose my mind

#Birdy Nerdy Chirps #every time there's a lull in the day... i think of her....ATU Index my beloved... #welcoming any and all discussion about this thing because i do not think i will ever get bored of it

[swordfright]

Ok so weird thing that happened: a while ago I re-read scheherazade (as one does) (it’s very nice) and I was like uh. I wonder what’s the inspiration for the name. And looked it up and found out about the story. Cut to like two days later and guess what story came up during my literature class! Yeah the timing was absolutely impeccable lol

That's wild, classic Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon! And there's a chance this might keep happening to you, since "storytelling saves bride's life" is a fairly common archetype that's influenced a lot of folklore/literature over the centuries.

Btw I'm so happy ppl are still reading that fic... i'm not always proud of my old writing but i like to think Scheherazade still holds up 💚

#it's also called the frequency illusion i think #also i looked up the “telling stories saves bride's life” tale type and it's classified as Tale 875B in the ATU Index #at least according to wikipedia lmao #asks #don't think too hard about cdream = bride haha

[animecarcrash]

does anyone know where i can find an online version of the complete Aarne-Thompson-Uther index??

#ATU #aarne-thompson-uther index #ty in advance lol #literature

[sterrenkijker]

Fuck . Neverafter is really just taletypes all the way down

#neverafter #dimension 20 #ATU index girlies please interact

[alexidoesart]

Many folktales throughout different cultures feature a heroine being given the impossible task of sorting through grains/seeds-- whether that be picking them from the ashes, from between each other, or from their rotting counterparts.

In this task, she often does as much as she can before submitting to a higher power, whether that power recognizes her virtue or she directly asks for help varies based on the culture and tale.

Featured are eight such tales, most of which can be categorized into “Snake Bride” (ATU 425) type tales or “Cinderella” (Both often ATU 510 in the folklore index-- Cinderellas are specifically ATU 510A)

The circle puts them in no particular order, as “origins”  and lineages are muddied, and many of the current incarnations have been influenced by each other, though Ye Xian is the oldest known “complete” version of Cinderella.

Snake Brides:

Psyche, Eros and Psyche (Greco-Roman)

Sukkia, The Snake’s Bride (India)

Donan Sampakang Tale about Gansaļangi and Donan Sampakang (Indonesian)

Cinderellas:

Aschenputtel (German)

Tam, Tấm and Cám (Vietnam)

Unnamed Heroine The Wonderful Birch (Finish & Slavic)

Ye Xian (Chinese)

Neither (ATU 480B-- Stepmother and Stepdaughter)

Vasilisa, Vasilisa the Wise (or Beautiful) (Slavic)

#animation #folklore #mythology #cinderella #vasilisa the beautiful #eros and pysche #ye xian #the wonderful birch #phenakistoscope

[dimetrodone]

how goes the reading of the andersen tales? also, thoughts on the aarne-thompson-uther index?

I am approximately 2/3rds done, I took a break last week to read something else for a book club I’m in.

I’m not knowledgable enough about fairlytales and folklore to have any strong opinions on the ATU index besides it being interesting and helping me find similar and “related” stories. I imagine there is some controversy and messiness with it as is the case with all classification systems, but I haven’t read into it enough to know about that

[cor-ardens-archive]

I found an interesting resource for film adaptations of fairy tales, The International Fairy-Tale Filmography. If you use their advanced search engine, you can filter by origin, so you can, for example, search titles related to Bluebeard, or Sleeping Beauty etc. The tales are indexed using the ATU index, so you can also search by number (so Bluebeard would be 312, for example).

#m.

[mechanismslorearchive]

also. every time I see a three-digit number in ouatis canon I pull up the ATU tale type index. it hasn't matched one thing so far but one of these days I'm going to find some staggering insight because of my autistic obsession with folklore sorting

#mod miralines #today it was node 314g in a rebel yell which doesn't connect to anything as far as I can tell #the mechs had to know about it though right #there has to be an atu reference somewhere in canon I refuse to believe there isn't #they're that kind of nerds #also only tangentially related to the archive

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

(I was going to make a post about "Why Tale Type 425 is my favorite", and then realized I should find a good explanation of what that means, first)

I've known about this index for decades, and it's one of my favorite things. It helps me think about my own "in the folk tradition" creations -- like stitching old pieces of fabric into a new quilt.

I didn't realize until I read this article, though, that it was updated and rearranged in 2008, to try and correct for the sexism and Eurocentrism (work's not done, but it's begun).

BTW, Melvil Dewey was pressured to resign from the American Library Association in 1905, for racism, antisemitism, and sexual harassment of women. So not only does the ATU motif index have more ogres, it also has less bigotry.

#folktales #Aarne-Thompson Uther Tale Type Index #Melvil Dewey was a P.O.S.

[nobodys-saviour]

ATU index

What is the ATU index? It is an index uses to classify folklore into types, gathering similar motifs and working from that.

Here we will be trying to classify the motifs of each myth (and maybe some)

[ Xavier's / Zayne's / Rafayel's ]

obviously, myth spoilers under the cut.

ATU 310 Maiden in the Tower / AT 310 Rapunzel

Zayne is the Maiden in the Tower.

G279.2.2. Theft from witch Well MC tries to steal from Zayne. Tries.

G204. Girl in service of witch Zayne is Astra's tool.

R41.2.2. Captivity in tower Zayne is not allowed to leave the tower, and whenever he does the thorns come out to basically bind him and prevent him from doing so.

ATU 410 Sleeping Beauty

He was in a slumber when MC got into the tower.

G269.4. Curse by disappointed witch Whenever he does anything against Astra's will, Zayne is punished. He is cursed to never leave the tower, cursed so that the jasmines would not bloom.

M370. Vain attempts to escape fulfillment of prophecy. MC prophesied to die (but successfully circumvents it with Zayne's help)

D1967.1. Person in magic sleep surrounded by protecting hedge At the beginning, Zayne was sleeping in the throne room, pierced by the ice. The "hedge" in this case, is the ice and the thorns.

N711.2. Hero finds maiden in (magic) castle. Hero is our MC, and the castle is the Tower of Thorns. It definitely is some sort of magic castle.

Only Thompson Motif

H81.1.1.1.1. Hero takes token from sleeping princess. Well MC tries to steal the Creatio Protocore while the mans asleep.

C611. Forbidden chamber The library? At least MC thought it was forbidden (it was not). Foreseer's room was thought to be forbidden too.

C920. Death for breaking tabu. Zayne isn't definitively said to gave died, but he was buried beneath all the ice and snow after merging the Creatio protocore in MC's heart.

K555. Executioner kept busy or interested until rescue comes. MC has to make the jasmine flower bloom.

#i can probably find more thompson notifs but this has been sitting in the drafts F O R E V E R. #*motifs #i want to rest. #love and deepspace #happy white valentine's day!

[theragamuffininitiative]

Okay tell me ALL about your fairy tale retelling WIP, I am most curious!!

hi hi hi!

Brief lil disclaimer here: I wrote this story as my nanowrimo project back in erm 2021 and have barely looked at it since. (working on that!) Everything I am about to say is based on my memory of how the story was working at the time and a couple glances at my documents tonight - and if I say something in this post that I like better than what I originally had, I will run with it. XD

Right then!

Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf is a Russian fairytale classified as a 550 on the ATU folklore index (a fact I sprinkle in not to be pretentious but bc I recently discovered the index and it is fascinating). This basically means the story revolves around catching a mystical bird, sometimes a phoenix, and involves a princess, usually a horse, and some supernatural animal helper. In my retelling, I also take from the Grimm Brothers' The Golden Bird version.

As you know, I fell into the intrigue of this tale when visiting an art museum displaying Vasnetsov's A Knight at the Crossroads, which is a reference to this tale. Now, Vasnetsov also painted Tsarevitch Ivan on a Gray Wolf:

And it's just so????!

In my retelling of this fairytale, our hero is a bit of a simple boy. He is content with simple things and a simple life after his near-death at a young age to a mysterious wasting disease spreading across the land - a madness that robs the infected of sleep and appetite until they go insane. The only cure is the fruit of an equally mysterious tree. Ivan fears his healing may have not been complete, for he has not felt the need for sleep or food the way he ought to ever since.

When fruit begins to disappear from the closely protected tree, the threat of losing the cure drives Ivan into action. An enchantment of sleep shields the thief from being captured. Here, Ivan's curse is a boon, as he alone sees a great golden bird steal the fruit. Although a great company set out to capture the bird, Ivan becomes separated from them and lost. At an ancient crossroads that promises death in every direction, he meets the Wolf, the instrument of the crossroads' doom. When the Wolf unexpectedly takes Ivan to find his missing companions, they discover the whole company has fallen to the madness - Ivan's brother among them.

It is no disease, but a curse.

Ivan, now with the Wolf, seeks aid from his best friend, the Princess Evolett, who was to be wed to the prince of the neighboring country and seal a treaty of peace between them. But all is not as it seems in these foreign lands, and Ivan must work with the Wolf to capture the golden bird, protect the fruit tree, rescue Evolett, heal the madness, prevent war between the two kingdoms, and defeat a dark enchantment for good - if the Wolf, the madness, or a multitude of other enemies don't kill him first... [ramble continued below the cut]

I love, love, love playing around with the fairytale motifs in this story.

For example, the original fairytale has a very episodic, repetitive sort of scavenger hunt that Ivan is forced into. I messed with it a lot to give the different elements their own, interconnected importance: the tree is a magical cure, the bird has magical elements of its own, the golden cage from some versions of the tale is a metaphor for the princess's imprisonment, the inns are not merely symbolism for laziness but traps laid by a powerful enemy to serve a dark purpose, and nothing is as it would seem - least of all Ivan or the Wolf.

The characteristics for Ivan specifically came to me while watching Mal in the first season of Netflix's Shadow and Bone.

I really love Mal's stubborn tenacity, fierce loyalty, and simplistic personal goals in the face of all the complexity and conniving of everything around him. Since this fairytale showcases a "simpleton" character, I wanted to show that character at their very best.

Also! I love writing Ivan and the Wolf. Ivan's plucky, irreverent sense of humor set against the Wolf's stoic, utterly dry and cold attitude is so much fun to play with. 👏

(tried to credit the images by link, not sure if that worked)

Excerpt from Ivan meeting the Wolf:

Then the wolf made a guttural, whining sound from the back of its throat, a sound which rolled forward out of its mouth and formed into four distinct words. "Will you kill me?" Ivan stared at it.  Having never met a wolf before, he couldn’t say with absolute authority that they did not speak, but he also thought that if they had, someone might have mentioned it to him once upon a time. This one, however, most assuredly had spoken. He supposed he should have asked it to repeat itself, or even agreed with the sentiment and at once lifted his weapon. Instead, he considered the question posed to him. "I don't think so," he said in the end. "Not unless I have to.”  He didn’t add that this was because he didn’t think he could beat the wolf if he tried. There was something else at work here, as he had feared, and he needed to find out what the game was. In his head, he noted that this creature was not merely a wolf, but the Wolf. The wolf made another noise, and this sounded like a quiet, “Ah, then.” “What will you do if I come down?” Ivan ventured to ask. The Wolf blinked lazily. “I have deprived you of your mount,” it stated. “I have come to take you where you must go.” That didn’t sound promising, although slightly better than admitting it wanted to gobble him up. “Are you fae?” Ivan called to it. He felt he remembered something from his father’s stories that the fae had to answer truthfully the questions you asked them directly. “I am not.” Enchanted or a liar, then. A wolf given the tongue of man. It also seemed to think something like a man, though its tone was distant and cold. “How can I trust you?” he asked it. The Wolf stared at him, not responding, and cocked its head. So maybe not the thinking of a man. Maybe the concept of trust was foreign to it still. He tried something less abstract. “Are you going to attack me?” “That is not my purpose,” said the Wolf. “There is an inn, a long distance from here. You have strayed from the path and it took me some time to find you, but I can lead you there, through ways horse hooves cannot tread, before the Wood grows dark.” “Is leading me to the inn your purpose?” “It is.” “Why?” The Wolf had to think about this, and Ivan thought again that it didn’t seem to be comfortable with questions that involved reasoning beyond cold facts. “The crossroads demand a price from everyone who passes through them. The price is set by your choice and you have chosen. Now I will take you where your path leads.”

Yes, I'll take "uneasy partnerships founded on enmity but sealed in friendship" for $500, thank you.

A messy music playlist I haven't touched since NaNo writing: here It's a story of family, loyalty, honor, and simple truths more powerful than any deep enchantment. 🥺😭

Excited to write Evolett more, she is a spitfire and impressed by no one (even when probably she should be, for her own good lol). Ivan's father was an adventurer in his own day, and I love writing little nods to his offstage capers - there's an invisibility cloak!

Ivan's brother is kind of a jerk. 🙈 But hey, still family. And he's less of a jerk than the guys in the old fairytale ok. 😅 Probably.

Ok, I feel like that's a pretty boring ramble, but I have tried to type this up about five different times so here we are! I have shed tears over Ivan and the Wolf, and lived in the nonsense from the random old woman running the dilapidated inn next to the one that breathes enchantment, and sketched out the borderlines between kingdoms and the unseen shadowy arm reaching across borders to ensnare them all, and written a lot of dog jokes. I love this one, I can't wait to get back into it. 😊

Thank you for asking and letting me ramble! 💛

#i have tried to type this up like five times #and it's been one of those weeks where i'm just constantly falling asleep #so we compromise and i stayed up so i will be falling asleep all day tomorrow at work instead lol #thanks for the ask! #kanerallels #wip: the madness and the golden bird