Second Re-post of: A Tiny Story from My Mantle ~ 2019 ‘edition’

A Tiny Story from My Mantle

Searching through my previous blog posts for a little story I found this tiny one. On days when my muse seems to have flown away, I look around me to find a story in my own home. In 2013, I must have been in that quite uncomfortable space when I saw the beautiful owl. Painted by my sister Kate, it seemed to be flying out of the dark forest just behind my little Christmas tree. Rather than forests, it put me in mind of a great white owl I saw on the prairies several winters ago. The story unfolded from there and granted me muse something to work with. Today, with a bit of editing, my muse has been satisfied.

A Tiny Story from My Mantle ~ 2019 ‘edition’

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. 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 high in the starry night sky. Elven shadows danced and elven music drifted in the cold night air. The children told each other marvellous stories of seeing elves and 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