The Crone

Well I never, she said. I never thought of eating the noisy frogs. Are they tasty? raw?

But Galba, satisfied, slept.

Grim hummed a slightly impatient hum, and Glendenning and he set off again down the ferny path to the center of the wood.

In the center of the wood their lived an ancient crone, rumor said she was 2,000 years old. Of course rumor would have it that she lived in a castle of spun sugar and ate children for breakfast. Glendenning was not a gustatory fan of sugar, children or frogs really, and Grim tended to prefer succulent grubs & worms. Since they were friends of Marthooselah (the crone), they did not rely on rumor, rather the evidence of their senses informed them.

Still the center of the wood was many days' journey, and they were hungry. Grim foraged amongst the deadfall and toadstools, and he enjoyed suitable nourishment long before Glendenning had spied a rabbit or wood pigeon to bring down with her bow. It was not long, however, before a small fire was roasting a tender morsel suspended above it on a green stick. Glendenning's eyes were keen, her hands were quick, and she found luck on her side more often than was strictly natural.

Frogs depart

Grimly Grim ignored the burbling amphibians, but Glendenning found them fascinating. Extending her hands, she allowed them to alight on her head, shoulders, arms and hands...some began crawling up her boots, as they sang out, "Flaunting Fatuous Fanfare! Flimsy Flirtation! Forthright Flattery"

When Galba swallowed a couple, however, "Flabbergasted! Flee! Furious! Fraudulent Fools! Ferocious Fate!" they quickly dispersed into the undergrowth.

"Chaotic cacophony..." muttered Grim.

Just then a crowd of happy hippy hoppy toads came bounding and bouncing onto the trail, burbling their greetings: "Financial Ruin! Flu Shots! Farcical Failure! Freaky! Fabulous Fandango! Faded Flowers! Five-year-old Figure-skaters! Forget this!"

As Glendenning and Grim made their misty way into the ferns and bracken under the trees, a lithe blue snake slithered onto the trail before them.

"Ho, Galba, your gleaming glistening blue is a lesson for the heavens and the waters!" quothe Glendenning politely. Grim most honorably raised his head and lowered his deadly stinger in a gesture of greeting.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time in a far country there lived a gargantuan girl and her trusty scorpion. They lived together under the roots of an enormous elm tree just an ell or 2 into the forest at the end of a winding trail of pebbles & nutshells. The girl we shall call Glendenning. Her scorpion's name is Grim. The elm has various names in many languages, but the greenest of these is Galbion, so we'll go with that.

One day, as she was dusting the scorpion's customary lair--a dark moist cavity at about eye-level, far back in the darkest corner of their abode, she thought of a song, and began to sing: dusting is dusty dumb and dirty. Dusting is not derring do. Daily dusting causes worry, caustic dregs and warty, too... The scorpion, Grim, regarded her with a sidewise glance and subtly waved its stinger along with the tune.

Green aisles of ferny fern and mossy moss were beckoning the pair away from homely tasks and down a misty lane into the depths of the mysterious wood. The larder was nearly bare and Grim had pretty well cleaned out all the edible denizens of the loam and leaf cover surrounding Galbion's roots and right out to the drip line. Glendenning enjoyed eating, and so they set off to seek their fortunes and a bit of grub.