Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Of elves and dragons


By chance my youngest happened upon a patch of swamp reed and decided to explore, by chance she had dressed herself in an old elf ballet costume of her oldest sister, so it was chance that had her looking like a small fae child. 

I was delighted. Recent research has led me to reading about the Scottish and Irish stories of the fae. They tended to wear green, to be wild and unearthly, and to appear at the liminal places on the boundaries of wild and tamed. 

My littlest is presently obsessed with dragons, dinosaurs and eggs, and decides that she is searching for dragons. She will tame one, and fly away.  

As she searches through the lush and shadowed green (and o, how beautiful and soothing is the green of the swamp reed) I hold my breath, entranced with the way the last light falls on, as she tells me stories of her adventure and her quest. She is intrepid, imaginative, engrossed in her make believe. 









She reaches the end of the swamp reeds, and finds some springy, low lying green stuff. She picks some, lies in it. Laughs as she and her sisters throw it up and see it fall. She is fierce and joyful, independent, intrepid and stubborn. She holds some of the deeply green leaves out to me, 'For you, mama.'


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