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Notes:
1. Written in August 2020
__________Author: dng
Tale #145: The Ogre’s Boots
The Ogre’s Boots #1
A young man was walking along the road when he came across an ogre slumbering in the grass. “That ogre’s most likely up to no good,” said the lad, and so he crept up to the ogre, eased the sword from his belt, and stabbed him through the eye with such ferocity the blade came out of the back of the ogre’s skull and pinned his thrashing body to the ground.
When the ogre was finally dead, the young man prised open the ogre’s hand and removed the sack he was holding from his gargantuan grasp. Inside the sack were six children, which all ran off hither and thither through the grass and into the woods. None of them said a word to the young man who had rescued them.
Then out of the sack crawled a snake, and it looked at the lad and said, “Let me tell you a secret for saving my life. This ogre’s boots are magical, and they let you travel seven leagues in a single stride.” And with that the snake slithered off into the long grass and off towards the woods.
The young man prised the boots from the ogre’s feet and put them on his own, and they fit him perfectly, despite having previously fitted the ogre’s monstrous feet. Unfortunately, as the lad’s home was exactly six leagues away, his first step took him past his town, and no matter what he tried he could never get home again (the boots were unremovable).
The Ogre’s Boots #2
An ogre had been terrorising a town, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it.
The youngest of seven sons sneaked off one night to the ogre’s castle. He climbed over the wall, sneaked under the bushes, slipped beneath the portcullis, crept silently along the corridors, and then squeezed through the keyhole on the ogre’s door and into its bedroom.
Instead of trying to kill the ogre as his dear dead brothers had, he decided rather to steal the the ogre’s boots. They were seven league boots, which meant that whoever wore them could traverse great distances in a single bound. He put them on, and ran as far away from the castle and the town as quickly as he could.
He lived on in happiness and splendour for many years. The town was destroyed by the ogre the very next day.
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Notes:
1. Written in September 2016
2. For the undex
3. If anyone remembers the undex
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If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tale #144: The King In His Castle
The King sat in his castle and slowly went mad. It was his right and his pleasure. Within the walls, none could escape his ever growing insanity.
Outside, none knew of it. Or if they knew, they did not care. And even if they cared, no difference in his behaviour could they discern.
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Notes:
1. Written in July 2019
2. About no particular person
3. Or persons
4. We could name
Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!There Was A Forest Here. It’s Gone Now
When I was about five, I got lost in the woods.
I still remember the panic rising in me as I realised I was alone. This all consuming terror that filled me up until all I could do was run and scream and weep.
Flashbacks of the clothes I was wearing, shimmering blue nylon shorts, some plain coloured t-shirt, cheap white trainers, neon socks.
Yet is any of that true? If I was sent back there, to watch from afar, would that be what I was wearing. Would the sun be as bright, the trees as dense, the woods as empty…
And would my screams be as loud as they are in my dreams? If I was passing by, would I even register that that child – that child that was me – was even, in that moment, in distress? Have I externalised, in these long years since, what was always then internalised, taken those silent screams, those blinked back tears, and given them voice, amplified them in the hauntings of my mind.
Eventually I found my parents. Sprinted into their arms across the clearing. Wrapped my arms round my mum’s legs, wept into her dress. Lost myself in the folds of it, the depth of it, the warmth and the comfort of her endless kindness.
As we made our way back to the car, I looked up finally, my tears wiped away on my mother’s clothes, my eyes too young for glasses, my vision as clear as it would ever be.
I did not recognise my parents at all.
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Notes:
1. Written in September 2020
2. The title’s a Silent Hill reference
3. (obviously)
Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Hauntology (places in space #45)
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Notes:
1. Written in August 2020
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