A Tiny Story from my Mantle

A Tiny Story from my Mantle 

The big white owl flew silently from dry rustling grasslands barely covered with thin and worn blankets of snow all the way to the edge of a deep forest to the little evergreen tree decorated with lights and with toys. Snow filled wild wind whistled and danced around hills and rocks, through trees stripped bare of summer leaves. The old owl was always certain that gifts would be under the little tree. Gifts for the old couple that lived over the hill and down the road just past an old town that twinkled with candle light in windows trimmed with snow and icicles.

There is no reality as bright and magical as a starry moonlit night over snow covered fields. The magic of these nights and the little tree that sparkled and shone at the edge of the forest drew field mice and rabbits to discover the little tree. No one ever knew who decorated the tree each year, and no one knew who cleared the snow and placed the presents there. Children from the tiny town made forbidden forays to the edge of the Great Evergreen Forest each year just before Christmas when the moon rode full in the starry-dark night sky. Elven shadows danced and elven music drifted in the cold night air. The children were certain and told each other marvellous stories of their nights in the snow. The grand snowy owl watched over the children on these nights filled with glitter and excitement. He spread his wings to his nest in grasslands only when the children were all back in their sturdy homes and tucked safely in their beds.

“That’s the thing about magic; you’ve got to know it’s still here, 

all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.”

~ Charles de Lint