The Stolen Bride

Once upon a time, a blonde, blue eyed lass named Colette was preparing to marry Stan, her childhood sweetheart.  But on the very day of her wedding, she vanished!  Old Roger, her father, who thought, incidentally, that Colette could do much better, felt this social humiliation very keenly.  A whole days' paid entertainment now gone to waste!  But Stan and the old man agreed to a truce and set out to look for her.

After a few hours, Old Roger thought he heard his daughter's cries for help away off in the hills.  Not stopping to tell poor Stan, he ran as quickly as he could in that direction.  There he found Colette, still in her wedding dress, covered in silver ornament from head to foot!  Her father then understood that she had been taken by the gyants to be the bride of a particularly lanky and strong bodied specimen.  They had dressed her in silver as her bride-price.

Old Roger was much pleased with this new match, and did all in his power to encourage the union.  Poor Stan did not learn until it was too late that his dear Colette was now forever lost to him.  Old Roger grew rich from his new relations, but did not live long in the enjoyment of it, as dissipation and luxury ran its course.  And as for Stan, he wandered the hills, hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of his Colette.  She stayed ever young and golden as he grew old and grey.

Gofaric the Gyant - part 3 of 3

                                                                        V.
After this debacle, Gofaric asked princess Colette why they kept coming to challenge him when it was so obvious that they could not possibly win.  Colette explained that her hand had been promised.  She, as fine a girl as had ever been seen thereabouts, with svelte figure, azure eyes and sungolden hair, would be wedlocked to him and have to clean his house, cook his favorite foods, wash his stinky clothes.....and sleep with him (ugh!).  It was quite obvious to any man that she was well worth the hazard of one's life (humph!). So the gyant pondered her words.

                                                                        VI.
Suddenly, Gofaric the gyant came to realize that he indeed liked the idea of wedlock overmuch.  He picked up the princess and smashed his way into the cathedral, where he forced Bishop Abner to marry them!  Colette has a hard life now, but she did gain eternal youth and a share of the gyant's immortality and strength through regular and prolonged exercise of his husbandly prerogatives.

                                                                        fin

((there are many variations of this tale, as the mythology of Algarsheen is rich in gyant lore...........))

Gofaric the Gyant - part 2 of 3

                                                                        III.
The gyant Gofaric kept Princess Colette tethered outside his cave as a lure to all would-be rescuers.  These had been promised the hand of the princess by the King.  All set off from that city blessed by Bishop Abner, and all were easily defeated by the gyant!  Most fled in shame, but a few were slain, and their remains cast into the violated barrow of John the Old, first king of Algarsheen.

                                                                        IV.
At his very wits end, the king did take council with Bishop Abner.  Together they decided to expend the resources necessary to summon Jack, the well-known gyant killer.  Indeed, this same Jack did then arrive with great celebration and homage, and the whole city turned out to watch upon the day when he went up to the low hill to challenge Gofaric.  But the gyant did mash him with one blow!  The throng, with their king and bishop together, fled headlong back behind the broken walls of Algarsheen.

((ooh! ooh!! who will defeat the gyant now????))

Gofaric the Gyant - part 1 of 3

((there are just not the right kind of fairy tales out there for me..so i must write my own..but be warned, they are oddshippy....))

                                                                          I.
Long, long ago there dwelt in a dry, dark cave upon a low hill the gyant known as Gofaric.  Ages out of mind had he dwelt there, hibernating at times for decades, and forgetful of even his own past.  But prodigious strength he had, and earth-lore aplenty.  When awake, he keenly hunted his lands.  His only fault was a lack of sustained attention, the exception to this being the possessive desire he felt toward his beloved treasures.

                                                                          II.

After a particularly sustained and satisfying hibernation, the gyant Gofaric was rudely awakened by a riotous cacophony of sounds  not heard on his low hill sanctuary before.  During his absence, the city of Algersheen had been founded, fortified, and converted to Christianity.  King and bishop now presided over a thriving and prosperous trade in foodstuffs and antiquities.  Gofaric took great offense to this blemish upon his domain.  Taking up his club, he smashed his way into the city, breaking walls and houses.  He rampaged all the way to the royal palace, where he espied and seized King Roger's daughter, the Princess Colette.

((ooh! ooh! what will happen next? stay tuned to this station!))

Koteka--abo Oyinbo: (ogun orixa+freyja shipping)

nets of naija

entangle me:

being an object

is now my fate?

but here i am

a special THING~

royal regalia

the "yellow gourd."

my curiosity

brought me here

to you, great one.

and you took me

to be your bride.

but now i see

i must be trained:

golden hair

and pink skin

do not kneel well

or hold burnt umber

with lissome lips

without experience (!).

i will be special

i will have value

(so you say)

for you are a god

as well as king~

creative fire!

a burning god

that i must cool,

sheath to a morsel

fit for a goddess...

northern ice

for tropical fire!

Ten years after...

He stumbled across the campus toward the line of robed and hatted graduates, still cursing under his breath the fact that he had to come back in the spring to get his diploma. Why couldn't they have given it to him in December when he finished! He didn't know these people, they weren't in his class. They only stared at him as he tried to find his place at the head of the M's.

God! This was long and he was bored. Well he never likes sitting too long, or standing too long if there was nothing for him to do. So many other things he could be doing..like..like... But he couldn't think of any. And those five rum-n-cokes weren't helping either. At last...the line up for the diplomas. He kept it together pretty well, till he saw the celebrity guest speaker. John Houseman was a special favorite for his work in The Paper Chase, both movie and TV series. "Tdhey come in hrere wid a SKULL full of MOOSH..and go out thienking like a Law-yer..hehe..ha.." He stumbled, gave Mr Houseman a wink, then collected his cum laude diploma in Ancient and Medieval History and Literature. As useless as a used tissue now, he thought....

No one was here to see him graduate..that was part of the problem. Everyone else had family and friends to share the moment, but no not him. Nobody gave a damn. Dad was dead, Mom was drunk or stoned, and the kind people who had raised him had put him out the summer he turned 18 with a slap on the back and a "good luck there, kid!" Oo...he had tried to fit in places..any place really but it never worked out. He got disgusted with the worst and self-sabotaged the best. It was his way, after all.

At the core of it all was her. No, it wasn't her fault, even he at his worst knew that. It was the fact that she had been taken from him and he could do nothing..nothing! What a fool of a protector he had been. He couldn't save her even though he had...had... Aah, he could not think about it, it was a black hole on his soul that could never be repaired. He had tried to find her. Even braving the two hour drive to Bethlehem as soon as he got his licence. But the less said about that the better. Gone to California was all he had learned. California! Might as well be Timbuktu or Outer Mongolia. He could never find her now, and even if he could, he was no longer the person she had known. He was a lonely, angry young man with no prospects and no friends. Nobody would want him; nobody would need him. He was beyond the pale of salvation this time.

When it was all over he tore off the gown and left it in the trash. In the lot, after a great struggle he found his car. Wait! Someone...no, two people were following him. What did they want! leave me alone dammit! But the words somehow didn't come. he unlocked the door, but he still felt their eyes right on him. All right...fine then! he turned to let them have it, both barrels of his ten years of pent up frustration and inadequacy. But what he saw amazed him beyond his dreams! A slender blonde woman stared at him with the bluest of eyes, reading and judging his very soul it seemed. And she did not turn away! The girl, about nine or ten he supposed tossed her brown hair and blinked her happy brown eyes as she pulled away and did a little dance in the lot. He could not speak..what could he say? The woman smiled and said at last. "Hello Sammy, ...this is our daughter."