An Audience With Trolls

In tonight’s bedtime story, as you ponder an important next step, you seek advice from a colony of rock trolls in the nearby forest. You pose a series of questions to these wise and whimsical practitioners of elemental magic and divination, and you receive vague yet inspiring answers. They give you gifts, and you return home to consider your future.

Music/Sound: A Glimpse of Avalon by Flouw, Nordic Sunrise by Bruce Brus, Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Work with the elemental spirits of the forest to untangle answers to your deepest questions in tonight's folklore-inspired sleep story.

Sleep and Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy-inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel and I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep and Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

Listen to my voice for as long as it serves you,

And whenever you're ready,

Feel free to let go and make your way into sleep.

This story has no separate meditation or exercise at the end,

But it does contain some light breathing and meditation cues which you can follow if you like.

Otherwise,

Simply let the words wash over you as you relax.

In tonight's bedtime story,

As you ponder an important next step,

You seek advice from a colony of rock trolls in the nearby forest.

You pose a series of questions to these wise and whimsical practitioners of elemental magic and divination.

And you receive vague yet inspiring answers.

They give you gifts,

And you return home to consider your future.

The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children.

Philip Carr Gomm Sweeping through the trees comes a whispering sound,

A chorus of unintelligible,

Indistinguishable voices.

The forest is singing,

You think,

Singing to itself.

The leaves aflutter and awakening,

And all through the limbs and tangled branches,

All down the summer night comes the uncoached harmony of birds,

Chattering swifts,

Sweet voice warblers,

And insistent robins.

The sky behind the canopy takes on a vibrant magenta hue,

Tinging all the forest below with a rosy shimmer.

You have not walked the path before in waking life,

But as you tread you're sure you must have walked it in a dream,

For your feet fall with a clear certainty in strength.

You know before you see it when a bend in the path is coming,

Or a stream for stepping over.

But perhaps it's not so strange.

These are,

After all,

The very forests of fairy tale,

Of the folklore and legends of your youth.

These trees,

Older than generations,

Shade the secret places of the Others,

The hidden folk who were here long before your ancestors.

For as long as you can remember,

You've known about the little people of the forest.

They're known by many names,

The forest folk,

The hidden people,

And even,

Commonly,

Trolls.

Once,

You would drift to sleep to stories about them.

About princes and princesses who entered strange bargains with them,

Or families whose children were spirited away and raised in their midst.

In some stories,

The trolls were tricksy,

Even dangerous supernatural beings whom you wouldn't want to cross.

In others,

They were beneficent creatures,

Bestowers of blessings and gifts.

If rightly appeased,

They could be wise advisors to those in desperate need of guidance.

You come in search of this aspect tonight,

Under late and saturated sun.

There is something weighing heavy on your heart,

And you are unsure where else to turn.

Oh,

And the lingering late sunlight of summertime is to you a waning,

Protective garment.

According to the most common legends,

The trolls,

If you do find them,

Will not awaken till darkness falls.

And in this northern country,

At this time of year,

Sundown takes its time.

You feel a tingling sense of anticipation,

A longing for sunset,

And answers,

And spirits to guide you.

And also a clinging to the last of the light,

An uncertain wish for the ordinary to maintain its hold on the world for a little while longer,

To stave off or hold at a distance whatever magic awaits in the moonlight.

But you've set yourself to it,

And there's no turning back now.

Your modest pack is filled with offerings,

And you've brought along a lantern to light when the sun diminishes.

Home is a league behind,

And the path becomes stranger in the dark.

So onward you push,

Guided only by some intuition,

Some vestige of a map that must have been drawn in the corners of your mind by the winding fairy tales of your childhood.

In time,

The light does fade,

Washing the forest in dappled blue and shadow.

Oh,

How that last stretch of sun lingers,

Though,

As if longing to look on the earth all night.

You light the lantern,

Which produces a small but mighty amber flame.

The light bounces along the path as you move forward.

You're thankful,

Too,

For the warmth it radiates as the mild summer evening cools down.

Through the trees,

You sense the increased activity of crepuscular wildlife.

You sense your lantern light falls on the fur of a red stag.

You stop for a moment to observe him,

Still a stone save for the jaw lazily chewing on grass or grain.

Your eyes follow the line of his antlers,

Which become indistinguishable from the bare,

Low-hanging branches of a dying rowan.

A pair of eyes in the same branches indicate the presence of a barn owl,

White and serene.

A red squirrel whisks across the path and disappears into an elm.

At the same time,

The whisper song of the woods seems more present,

More intelligible than before.

You must be close,

You think,

To the hiding place of the ones you seek.

Are they the source of the chorus you hear,

You wonder?

Or is it merely the play of the breeze through the leaves and water,

Playing tricks upon your senses?

And soon the path gently widens to your gaze,

The floating spill of the lantern expanding with it.

The spaces between the trees grow more expansive until a quiet clearing yawns before you.

Indeed,

You arrive just at the very moment that the final rays of sunlight are at last releasing their hold on the land,

This place of midnight sun.

This is the kind of place you've dreamt of all your life,

An archetypal grove of mountain ash,

In the heart of which you can imagine the priests of long-forgotten folk religions might have gathered to commune with spirits or worship their old gods.

It breathes in stillness for only a moment as you step into it,

And yet you feel suspended here in time,

Able to take in many details all at once.

The fading gold glimmer of sun on the leaves slipping to a silvery green,

The exposed roots of one great mother tree tangled in impossibly perfect knots,

Her dense corums of yellowish white flowers,

And not to be outdone in their impeccable placement,

The ring of perfectly round,

Smooth-surfaced,

Moss-covered stones arranged in a spiraling circle within the glade.

All this natural beauty embeds itself in your gaze,

Your memory,

In an instant,

And in another it begins to change.

As soon as the departed sun is replaced by the silver,

Shimmering veil of oncoming moonlight,

It's as if a spell is cast.

All at once,

The earth seems to tremble,

And the whisper-song that,

Lord,

You hear seems to rise from the ground and diffuse in all directions.

Indeed,

The earth quivers so acutely that the spiral of stones,

Which seemed so solid,

Heavy and immovable,

Look to be quaking,

Rocking against the ground.

An earthquake,

You wonder vainly,

Reaching out to cling to the nearest rowan limb,

And finding it reassuringly sturdy.

No,

You think.

This is no movement of the ground beneath your feet.

The tremble,

The quake,

Is coming from the stones themselves.

Their movement is intensifying.

They no longer simply shake in place,

But they are beginning to roll with an inner momentum you can't understand.

The whole grove comes alive with their motion,

Rolling forward as one in a delicate spiral,

Round and round,

Drawing your eye toward the center with mesmeric fascination.

You do not release your grip from the rowan limb,

Not for fear of the ground shifting under you,

But out of sheer,

Wondrous overwhelm,

Watching the spiral dance of the stones.

At last the undulation of the spiral ceases,

But only to make way for further amazement.

For now,

The stones are unfurling themselves like buds into blossoms.

In and out they reveal themselves not as mere forest rocks,

But as little people,

Little men and women the size of small children or smaller.

They are rounded and hunched,

Their skin made,

It seems,

From smooth stone.

One by one they yawn and stretch and open bright,

Round eyes to regard you.

Each one of them is distinct and different,

Though they share many facial features in common,

Rounded noses,

Ears that come to a point.

Their garb and garments serve to amuse and enchant.

Here and there some little folk wear cloaks of lush green grass,

Dappled with white and purple flowers.

There are others,

Smooth and round as river stones,

Covered in spots of river moss.

Some adorned and crowned with feathers.

Some appear to have crystals growing organically from their shoulders.

Every agate you'd wager,

Bloodstone and pointed clear quartz.

Every single one,

Though,

Has wreathed around their neck a small talisman.

You can't make out the different carvings,

Though they remind you somewhat of runes.

All of them,

The trolls,

Behold you from below with wide-eyed curiosity.

They are charming and small,

And also awe-inspiring and unnerving.

All you can do for the moment is stare down at them,

Blinking in incredulity.

What did you expect it,

After all?

Did you really believe you'd find the creatures of legend in the heart of the fairy-tale wood?

Or were you simply grasping at straws while navigating a complex decision?

Whatever the case,

It seems you are,

For better or worse,

In the company of trolls.

What you do next could have far-reaching consequences,

So you do well to keep your head on straight.

You reach,

Slowly for your pack.

Dozens of tiny eyes travel in unison,

Watching your every move.

You reach inside and retrieve,

First,

A jar of honey,

Then place it gingerly upon the ground before your feet.

The trolls' eyes collectively sparkle.

Next,

You pull from the pack a small bottle of wine and place this next to the honey.

The same for a jar of milk,

A brass bell,

A small cake,

And three gold coins.

Laid out in a little semicircle,

The offerings gleam in the moonlight.

Silently,

You hope that they will be well-received.

It's a few moments before anyone moves,

And you feel your breath catch in your chest in anticipation.

But finally,

One of the small,

Rock-like creatures ventures forward,

Wraps her hands around the neck of the wine bottle,

Then hurriedly snatches it under her cloak and scurries away.

Or,

More accurately,

Rolls away like a boulder down a gentle slope.

She finds stillness among the masses,

Some of whom flock to her,

Appearing to chuckle and grab for the wine.

The process repeats as one by one,

The little trolls come forward and lay claim to one of your gifts.

They try to conceal their delight,

But to no avail.

The honey goes,

Then the coins and the bell,

Then the cake.

A chorus of peeling giggles rises to your ears,

And you find yourself moved to nervous laughter.

Then it subsides,

And silence sweeps once more over the grove.

A troll comes forward,

The tallest of the dozens by a bit,

Though you recognize as he approaches that much of the height comes from his crystal crown.

Each stone,

Rough-edged and jagged,

Is of a different color.

Deep amber,

Fiery red,

Moss green,

Rich azure.

You imagine he must be the chief or king of this assembly of trolls.

The little man in fine adornment inclines his head toward you,

Unmistakably a bow.

So you follow suit and lean forward,

Feeling clumsy and oversized.

Your eyes meet,

And the troll king's inscrutable expression splits into a wrinkly-eyed smile.

You have honored us,

He says,

His voice warm and grandfatherly,

With gifts to our liking.

Nicely done.

Tell us your name.

You reply with your name,

And the troll king repeats it.

I do not like that very much,

He says,

As a matter of fact.

So while you are among us,

You will be called Oski,

Giver of gifts and friend of the trolls.

The new name floats through the air and lands upon you,

A wind-borne garment.

You find that it rather suits you,

Or at least this momentary version of you that cavorts with spirits in a moonlit glade.

But now you must tell us how we can be of service,

The troll king continues.

We are pleased with your offerings,

And thus are obliged to offer you guidance on a matter of life,

Soul,

Or spirit.

Thank you,

You say.

I do seek guidance.

A hundred eyes blink brightly up at you,

Seeing them now after earning your new name and their approval.

You no longer feel at all intimidated.

You feel,

If anything,

At home among them.

And so,

With a lightening feeling that's like having a great weight lifted from your chest and shoulders,

You tell them of your dilemma.

They listen attentively,

Nodding here and there,

Reacting with sympathetic sounds and glances.

You haven't spoken this aloud to anyone yet,

You realize.

You've been carrying it all alone,

And it feels good just to give it voice,

To let others even trolls share in bearing it.

When you conclude,

The troll king speaks again.

We will help you,

Aski,

He says.

But to receive the wisdom we have to offer,

You must be willing to walk our ways this night.

Do you accept?

Yes,

You say,

Without hesitation or question.

Very well,

Says the troll king,

And he calls out to the folk behind him.

Grenda.

One of the trolls,

From whose shoulders grow toadstools and shelf mushrooms,

Rolls forward at his call.

She bows subtly to you,

And you reciprocate the gesture.

Then she produces,

From beneath her garment,

A leather purse tied with string.

She reaches inside to produce a handful of tiny,

Irregular-shaped discs of wood,

Each polished and carved with a symbol.

These are runes you recognize,

Such as the ones carved on the old boulders and standing stones you've seen.

They click and clack against each other in her hands.

Grenda speaks.

The earth listens,

But does not judge,

She says.

To find your answer in the runes,

You must speak your question very clearly.

You open your mouth to speak,

But Grenda stops you with a little noise.

Not aloud,

She said.

Think instead about the present moment,

The problem.

Ask within what you can learn from where you are now.

So you turn your question inward,

At Grenda's advice.

You close your eyes and contemplate the weight upon your heart and everything that's led to it.

Shutting out the inner voice that hums about the future,

All the infinitely possible outcomes,

And simply meditating on the moment,

The circumstances,

Where you are.

Presently,

You open your eyes and turn your gaze down to Grenda,

Giving her a swift nod.

You're ready.

Grenda reaches into the pouch to produce exactly nine runes.

Then,

With a grace you'd hardly have expected from a troll,

She casts them onto the mossy ground between you.

She kneels to inspect the results.

You bend over to look with her.

You don't know runes too well,

But you recognize one or two.

The symbol for the yew tree,

Or strength.

The rune for family,

Or heritage.

Grenda offers a hmm and an ah,

Sounds of curiosity and revelation.

What do you see?

You ask,

Trying not to seem too impatient.

She is silent for a moment more,

And then she says,

You are connected,

Deeply,

To your ancestral roots.

Their wisdom runs through your veins,

Whether you know it or not,

Oski.

From your ancestors,

You receive instinct,

Intuition,

And yet you do not trust this aspect of yourself.

You hide from it,

You dismiss it,

And yet what compass led you to this place tonight?

Her words linger on the air as you contemplate their meaning.

You think of the tapestry of tales from which your mind made a map of the forest.

The voices of the elders that once spoke those tales to you as your eyes stung with sleep by the crackling fire.

What other paths lie hidden in your bloodline,

In the long forgotten wisdoms and traditions of your ancestors?

In Grenda's strange and circuitous fortune,

You feel a piece of your answer has just become unclouded,

Just a portion of the whole picture revealed.

You thank her for her wisdoms.

The little troll all decked in mushrooms gathers up her runes from the mossy floor and deposits them in her leather purse.

But before she turns and leaves you,

She reaches back into the bag and produces one of the smooth little tablets.

She thrusts her hand forward,

Presenting it to you.

Take this with you,

Aski,

She says.

Your fingers brush against hers as you retrieve the rune.

Her skin is calloused and cold as stone.

You turn the thing over in your hand and inspect the symbol engraved upon it.

A vertical slash with two small diagonal slashes near the top.

It resembles the imprint of a bird's foot in fresh soil.

It feels somehow warm and radiant in your hands,

Like a protective charm or a cloak of peace.

You bow your head to Grenda in reverence as she disappears back into the crowd of trolls.

The troll king now summons forth another,

This one called Bardo.

He comes to you with mollusc shells about his ears and a wreath of river grass on his head.

He bows and you return the motion,

Becoming quite accustomed to the greeting.

Unlike Grenda,

Bardo never speaks,

But in his eyes and subtle movements you can sense that he is giving you instructions.

Suggestions more like.

He is guiding you as the current of a river guides the fallen leaves that coast along its slippery surface.

Your gaze follows his expressive gesture downward toward a little indentation in the ground where,

At the touch of Bardo's stony hand,

Springs a small pool of crystal clear water.

Immediately you can see your reflection within it.

You can't help but allow a half smile to cross your lips.

You understand implicitly that Bardo simply wants you to gaze into the pool for some time.

You've heard of such practices before,

Just as you're familiar with rune casting.

There's an ancient wisdom that sings through these things.

But where you come from,

It's been so long since they were practiced that the collective knowledge has faded.

You wonder silently if that's the true purpose of the creatures of the forest,

These beneficent trolls,

To safeguard the wisdom of the ages,

Even as mankind seeks to willfully erase its histories.

But you let your gaze become intent upon the surface of the water.

First,

You merely notice the qualities of the surface.

Glassy and reflective,

Mostly still but ever so gently disturbed by your breath upon it,

Or by deep rumbles in the belly of the earth.

It has no color of its own and yet you could swear it is of a silver nature.

Perhaps that's just the veil of moonlight in which it charges.

Then your awareness moves beyond the physical nature of the water,

The medium of understanding.

You begin to perceive with deeper clarity that which it reflects,

Centrally your face,

Your features,

Whatever lines there are in your brow,

The expression in your eyes,

The curve of your nose and jawline.

There are such specificities in your face,

Such unique and incomparable features that have yet become so familiar and unassuming to you.

There are also echoes in this reflection of the past,

Of the people who came before you,

Who shaped you and brought you forth into the world,

Your ancestors.

You notice how the light of the full moon changes the nature of your reflection,

As does the greenery of the glade.

Behind you,

The overhanging canopy of mountain ash makes a dim and delicate backdrop.

You are distinctly aware of the smallest,

Subtlest movements in the water or the reflection.

At first,

These movements,

The shaking of a leaf or a twitch of your face,

Draw your eye rapidly.

But after a time,

You relax,

Embracing a softer awareness,

Perceiving all motion and change without much reaction.

Indeed,

It's a uniquely relaxing exercise.

You almost lose awareness of the tribe of trolls who surround you,

So pull are you toward the images in the water.

And in time,

You forget that the face upon which you gaze is your own.

It is new again.

It is a face you admire and cherish and behold as if it's the first time.

And so,

Opening your heart to this newness and innocence,

You turn your mind yet again to the question that plagues you,

The choice you must soon make.

What can you find in this admittedly shallow pool,

In this reflection of the known and unknown,

To inform how you move forward?

What ripple on the surface?

What wrinkle on the forehead?

What shiver in the leaves of the canopy?

Somewhere in the space between the medium and the reflection,

There is a quiver of truth.

It's so faint,

Such a silent glimmer that it's hard to grasp with the mind,

But it's there,

An illusory glow of the periphery that dashes away as the eye tries to behold it directly.

Your answer lies so close,

Within reach,

Yet elusive still.

You breathe in,

Deep and grounding,

And out,

Releasing everything.

The reflection undulates in the wake of the breath's breeze,

And as the ripples subside,

The you that shines in the surface of the pool becomes again infinitely recognizable.

You come home to yourself.

And in a few moments,

You fall away from the heightened awareness of the gazing.

You soften against the earth,

And you pull your eyes away from the surface of the pool to meet Bardo's once more.

He nods slowly.

Still he has no words,

And yet you take his meaning straight away.

You found something in the depths,

You realize.

A missing piece of the puzzle.

There are no words for what can be found in the deepest parts of oneself.

Bardo conjures up a glass vessel,

Scoops up a small amount of water with it,

Then stops it with a cork and presents it to you.

You accept it graciously,

Then bow your head,

And Bardo slinks back into the throng of trolls.

Now the troll king calls forth one by the name of Holger.

He is a hulking mass of a creature,

Diminutive though he may be in stature.

Dense,

He looks,

Like the heaviest metals at the core of the earth.

By the looks of him,

He's forged of lava rock,

Shining with shards of obsidian and garnet round his head and shoulders.

And in the center of his face gleam two bright diamond eyes,

Like stars against a curtain of night.

Much can be revealed,

He says,

In the spark and in the ember.

Without waiting for a reply,

Holger takes a thundering breath and rubs his two hands together,

As if he's trying to warm them against a sudden chill.

But there are sparks,

Flying from the friction between his hands.

And now they seem to have caught fire between them,

Enveloping his hands in a blue-white flame.

Now Holger swiftly presses his hands to the ground,

And fire erupts there with an unexpected force.

You jump backward in response.

The heat from the climbing flames prickles your skin.

But the little troll does not flinch,

For he sustains the fire,

Which now leaps to alarming heights.

His voice comes through the crackle and spark.

Look into the fire,

Oski,

He says,

And seek your next steps within.

Already you've trained your eyes to look long into a reflective surface,

To recognize patterns.

But the fire is different.

It is dynamic,

Forceful,

And alive.

The flames dance with bright vigor,

And at first your gaze is drawn in frenzied motion across them.

What answers will you find here,

In such confusion?

Colors slide in and out of each other in the fluid dance of the fire.

Blue-white to crimson and gold,

Edges of yellow and hints of green.

Soon your eyes settle into a hypnotic sway,

Moving across the shifting lines and curves with a practiced ease.

You think briefly of the way a dreamer's eyes move rapidly behind their lids.

And just as those eyes might witness wondrous visions of the dream world,

So do yours perceive wild illusions now.

Patterns and faces and familiar landscapes leap out of the fire,

Then ripple back into obscurity.

They dance with you.

All the while your breath moves in and out in concert with the movement of the flame.

Your body tingles from the radiant heat.

You can feel with a heightened awareness the exchange of air,

Sensing the fire as a creature of breath.

You are connected to the same source.

All life and movement and flow.

You realize that what you are seeing,

In the flames themselves and in the visions they conjure,

Is possibility,

Potential.

The spark of change and the myriad branches that stem from every choice you make.

A hundred thousand possible futures ignite before your eyes.

Infinite paths.

Infinite possibilities.

You try to follow one to its conclusion,

But your mind trips on other branches,

Spinning out in all directions.

In time,

The flames lessen and shrink,

Receding to their wellspring in Holger's hands.

Your eyes retain the afterglow,

So that all seems black and amorphous in the wake of the flame's recession.

And then,

Slowly,

It all comes back,

Ghostly forms emerging from nothingness.

Little eyes blinking in the darkness.

Holger's eyes,

Still like tiny dots,

Still like tiny diamonds peeking out from lava rock.

With the last wisps of smoke that rise from the dying embers in his hands,

Your mind compresses the hundred thousand possible paths you perceived into one clear choice.

And how obvious it seems to you now.

Trust the path to which your heart yearns,

Says Holger.

You're touched by the sincerity of the statement,

And the simplicity.

Then Holger,

The lump of lava and stars,

Retrieves a small leather pouch and fills it with a pinch of the ash that settles on the ground before you.

This he presents to you and retreats.

Finally,

The Troll King calls forth one called Arda.

She rolls forward in a flash of feathers,

For her cloak and crown are woven from them.

Immediately,

She projects a lightness that's at odds with her stony form.

Her face is painted with strange symbols in white.

When she speaks,

Her voice is whispery and ethereal,

Like the sound of the whistling wind.

You like her straight away.

You've come to your crossroads,

She says,

And discovered its source in you.

You've carved a path forward.

All that's left is to gather the courage to walk it.

I can help with that.

She is smiling all the while.

Now she produces a peculiar object.

A wand,

You think,

Whittled of a rowan twig,

Wrapped around with vines and feathers,

And topped with a point of clear quartz.

It's rather a thing of beauty,

You decide on looking at it longer.

Rustic in its make,

It has the feeling of something indescribably old.

Arda waves the wand in a grand flourish and utters an unintelligible incantation.

At once you feel a strong breeze pass over your limbs and through your hair.

It catches you off guard,

But what's most surprising is the fact that you can see the wind.

It moves through the open air like a white gold fluid,

Transparent and wild.

Soon wisps of glittering wind are rising from all directions.

Arda is calling the winds.

The strands come from the surrounding wood,

From the sky,

From the earth itself.

They swirl together and come apart like dancers at a ball.

They are made of every color.

They spiral throughout the grove and wrap around you like delicate veils,

Animating your limbs and awakening your eyes.

You feel somehow both relaxed and invigorated by their touch.

Arda chants audibly,

And the winds become stronger,

Churning and agitating the leaves and grasses of the clearing.

The billow and bluster is so consuming that at first you don't even notice that the gale has lifted you from the ground.

But soon you rise and fall on the waves of the wind like a great and heaving breath.

You are moved to astonished laughter.

You are aloft in the light of the moon,

Puppeted by the most tender of winds.

How amusing,

You think,

To be held up by oft-invisible forces,

Moved along an unseen course,

And yet to feel absolutely protected.

You can let go,

Releasing control even for a moment.

It's liberating.

It makes all seem possible.

Then,

Just as gently as you were lifted by the swimming strands of breeze,

You gingerly touch down.

Your ears are still full of the laughing chorus of the wind till all fades from sight and sense,

Guided by Arda's hand and wand.

You exhale,

The deepest exhale you've ever known.

Your muscles slide into deep relaxation and your mind slips into utter calm.

No,

No fear ahead,

Oski,

Says Arda,

The smile never leaving her lips.

She plucks a feather from her cloak.

One that's long,

Narrow,

And blue with white spots.

You turn it over in your hand and thank her as she slips backward between her comrades.

You survey the gifts you've been given.

A rune,

A vessel of water,

One of ash,

And a feather.

Each one is a gift.

Each one a piece of the puzzle toward resolving the inner conflict with which you've wrestled.

You can almost hear the resolution singing from the breath of the breeze through the forest.

Your heart is overcome with gratitude and wonder at what you've witnessed here.

And so you lift your gaze from the gifts to the grove,

Opening your mouth to proclaim your thanks.

But there's only a flicker of movement before you,

A hardening,

A calcifying.

And you find that instead of a congress of trolls,

You're in the presence of nothing more than a spiral of stones.

The aging moon shimmers on their smooth,

Moss-covered surfaces.

The grass ripples,

Tickled by a low breeze.

All is quiet,

Save for the eerie trill of a nightjar somewhere not far off.

You're alone.

But there's a sharp little gleam in between two of the stones that might be,

No,

It is,

You're sure of it,

The reflective glass of an empty honey jar.

You want to be getting back.

In something of a daze,

You safely store your gifts in your pack and retrieve your lantern.

You take one last look at the moonlit glade before you depart.

How was it,

You wonder,

That you found your way here so easily with only the spell of your intuition?

Then off you go,

Shaking off a shiver at the onset of the midnight chill,

Back through the wood,

Retracing your step.

With every turn of the path,

As you turn over the evening's events,

Your mind becomes just a little bit hazier.

You're quite certain the trolls,

Were they trolls,

Gave you a name.

But what was it?

Your mind only turns up your human name now when you try to search your memories.

The details of your encounter begin to blend hopelessly into each other,

Like honey dissolving into a steaming cup of tea.

Oh,

A cup of tea would be nice to warm your bones when you make it home.

Whatever were you thinking,

Being out so late in the wilds,

With so few layers?

You're not sure what you're thinking,

With so few layers.

Even in the summer,

The night can be brisk.

By the time your lantern light is no longer necessary,

Paling in the ambient light of the town that infiltrates the shallowest parts of the wood,

You've quite forgotten what brought you out here,

Alone in the middle of the night.

A silly frolic,

You suppose?

A primal urge to escape modern life and bathe in unfiltered moonlight?

What you do know is that you found some answers on your midnight romp.

You feel a deep resolve,

A motivating spark to stir up change,

To confront what ails you,

To move forward with a clear head.

And heart.

The house is quiet when you arrive home.

You set your pack down on the floor,

Carrying nothing for the contents that spill from its open pocket.

Your body is inexplicably weary,

As if you've performed some strenuous activity.

But your head spins with thoughts of tomorrow,

And the world around you.

But your head spins with thoughts of tomorrow.

You decide to brew that cup of tea,

After all,

To quiet your racing mind before retiring to bed.

Steeping the tea,

You inhale the scent of chamomile and rosehip,

And release an audible sigh.

It's now,

Sitting down and letting the mug warm your hands,

That you notice the items spilling from your pack.

You crouch down to pick them up,

Inspecting them with curiosity.

What strange artifacts.

A rune carved into a piece of what looks like petrified tree bark.

A glass bottle of a liquid,

And a leather purse,

And a funny-looking bird feather.

You puzzle over what on earth they could be,

And how on earth they got to be in your pack.

Yet there's something of a warmth,

A kindness that seems to radiate from them.

You're comforted by their presence.

It's so late.

Perhaps in the morning,

You'll make some sense of these unusual objects,

Till then,

You'll keep them in the trinket box under your bed,

Where you store all strange and special things,

Special to you,

And no one else.

At last,

You climb the stairs to bed,

And retrieve the trinket box,

Lined with velvet and filled with tiny things,

That clink against each other with musical accord.

You're comforted by the warmth,

And the warmth of the scent.

You're comforted by the warmth,

And the scent of the things,

That clink against each other with musical accords.

But that's very odd,

You think,

Going to place the unexplained objects in the box.

For they're already there,

In multitudes,

In fact.

Glass vessels,

Leather pouches,

A handful of feathers of differing patterns,

And lengths,

Runes,

Eight of them,

With this one,

Nine,

All carved with different symbols.

That's very odd,

Indeed.

But you'll sort it out in the morning.

For now,

You are too exhausted,

Too weary to untwist this mystery.

You slide the box,

Back under your bed,

Shake away the days,

And climb under the covers.

Moonlight,

Falls delicately through the gap in the curtains.

You slide swiftly,

Into a dream,

That you are the steward of an ancient tradition.

A worker of magic,

Bestower of gifts,

And seer of infinite futures.

The night wind whistles and dances over treetops,

On moonbeams.

And you are the steward of an ancient tradition.

A worker of magic,

Bestower of gifts,

And seer of infinite futures.

The night wind whistles and dances over treetops,

On moonbeams.

Sweet dreams.

Reviews

O yes! 💕🙏

Nicely done to make trolls into helpful beings rather than harmful beings.

I go to bed with you every night with your viose in my ears. Thanks for sharing your wisdom

Your voice is peaceful bliss, Laurel & I luv all of your stories. 💕💐😍😘🐈🐈🐨

Great storytelling 🌈

So glad you’re back, it felt like forever, love all your stories

So glad you're back. Thank you for another wonderful tale.

Wow ….just passed out. Now trying for second time.

Another brilliant story. So grateful for your gifts. 🙏🏻