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BEVAN THOMAS

~ Writer, editor, storyteller

BEVAN THOMAS

Tag Archives: fairytaleflash

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Owain and Modron

06 Tuesday May 2025

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Welsh Folklore

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Arthurian, Celtic, fairytaleflash, fantasy, flashfiction, folklore, King Arthur, Wales

For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is “mothers (human or animal) or fairy godmothers or stepmothers.” I decided to explore the birth of Owain, one of King Arthur’s warriors in the Welsh stories. The late French authors renamed him “Ywain,” and made him the son of Morgan le Fey. However, in the Welsh stories, Owain is the son of Modron, a mysterious entity who seems to have been a Celtic mother goddess.

May 6, 2025

My father lay with my mother by a river. Less than a year later, she gave to him me and my twin brother. Then she left. They say she was Modron, a mother goddess our people worshipped long ago. If she was a mother goddess, why was she not a mother to me?
#FairyTaleFlash

Image is a statue of Matrona, the Gaulish equivalent of Modron.

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Menw

25 Thursday Jan 2024

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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fairytaleflash, fantasy, flash fiction, folklore, King Arthur, mythology

For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is my favourite subject in all of folklore and literature: “Arthurian Legends: King Arthur, Excalibur, Guinevere, Merlin, Morgan LeFay, Knights of the Round Table, and more.” I decided to give a short character study on one of my favourite of King Arthur’s champions: Menw the Wise, one of King Arthur’s three warrior-wizards in Welsh folklore.

January 18, 2024

I am Menw, one of King Arthur’s three wizard-warriors. Merlin taught me my Art, and commanded me to obey and protect the king. But which of those commands takes priority? Should I disobey the king when his order would endanger him? When do I follow my own will?
#FairyTaleFlash

image by Aubrey Beardsley

FairyTaleFlash: The Door

03 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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fairytaleflash, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction

For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “otherworldly land or portal/doorway.”

January 3, 2024

Ever since I was born, there has been a door in my basement. A black door covered in runes I cannot read. As there’s no door on the other side of the wall, logically this door must instead open to other worlds. I haven’t had the courage to open it yet, but hopefully I will eventually.
#FairyTaleFlash

stock image

FairyTaleFlash: A Christmas Job

12 Tuesday Dec 2023

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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Christmas, fairy tale, fairytaleflash, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction

For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “stories that feature St. Nicholas, elves, or Krampus.” Well, as a long-term fantasy fan, I’m intrigued by how much more nebulous the term “elf” is in folklore than it is in, say, Lord of the Rings. For example, the first recorded references to “dark elves” and “black elves,” was in Snorri Sturluson’s medieval Icelandic text The Prose Edda, in which Snorri seems to be equating such beings with dwarves. This would make sense if you use “elf” in the more general sense to mean “fairy”; dwarves are subterranean fairies who like darkness. An interesting thing about that is that it could mean that Santa’s industrious workshop elves may actually be dwarves. Which inspired from me this very short piece of flash fiction:

December 12, 2023

My parents were shocked when I started working in Santa Claus’ shop. My family’s been blacksmiths since the moment we were changed from maggots to dwarves, and they couldn’t see a dwarf in any other life. But I like fresh air — claustrophobia is crummy for a dwarf.
#FairyTaleFlash

Image by Hans Gude

 

FairyTaleFlash: Christmas God

08 Friday Dec 2023

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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Christmas, fairytaleflash, flash fiction, Norse Mythology, Odin, Santa Claus

For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “a Christmas ghost or a gothic Christmas tale or a strange/weird Christmas story.” There’s an intriguing theory that elements of Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, were inspired by the Norse god Odin. The theory doesn’t have anything substantial to support it, but part of the fun of writing fiction is running with ideas too vague or unproven for a reputable scholar. So here’s my Christmas flash fiction:

December 7, 2023

Though Santa Claus is based on St. Nicholas, some people have noted similarities to the Norse god Odin (a flying steed, all-seeing wisdom, etc.). They don’t realize that this is because Odin has disguised himself as Santa as a scam to steal modern worshippers.
#FairyTaleFlash

Odin and Santa Claus

Flash Stories from #FairyTaleFlash

06 Wednesday Dec 2023

Posted by Bevan Thomas in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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fairy tale, fairytaleflash, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten heavily involved in the community of mythology, folklore, and literature hashtags on Twitter and other social media, such as #MythologyMonday, #FairyTaleTuesday, #WyrdWednesday, #FolkloreThursday, etc. Every week, each one posts a new theme, such as “ocean” for one #MythologyMonday week, and then “fruit” the next week, and they repost any posts that people make that are about elements of mythology, folklore, etc. that are related to the theme and use the hashtag. So, for example, on the Monday that #MythologyMonday posts about “ocean,” the site would then repost any myths people referenced about the ocean, fish, etc. The most unusual hashtag is #FairyTaleFlash, a companion to #FairyTaleTuesday. While every Tuesday, #FairyTaleTuesday reposts any fairy tale or fantasy factoids about its current theme, #FairyTaleFlash will instead repost any fantasy flash fiction (fiction small enough to fit on a single tweet) that follows the same theme.

Back in 2022, I created a few of my own flash fiction for #FairyTaleFlash.

May 23, 2022

Theme: Fables with morals
Every day a sparrow sat chirping on a man’s balcony. Eventually it annoyed the man enough that he drove her away. Once no bird was claiming the balcony, a huge goose moved in. His honking was far more annoying than the chirping, and he far harder to drive away than the sparrow was.
#FairyTaleFlash

(the moral of this story, by the way, is “if you try to get rid of your problems without thinking carefully about it, often they will get replaced by something worse.”)

Jun 7, 2022

Theme: Stories from an animal’s point of view
Every bear clan tells tales of human-shifters. Each day I dream of being able to put on human form and walk among them in their strange metal forests. Of accessing strange human powers such as opposable thumbs and ability to read. Imagine what that would be like.
#FairyTaleFlash

June 14, 2022

Theme: Unusual romances
“Didn’t I tell you I could arrange a feast grand enough for all our wedding guests?” the raven groom said.
“I should never have doubted you.” The raven bride gazed at the bloody battlefield. “How romantic! Everything’s perfect.”
The flock of ravens descended on the broken corpses.
#FairyTaleFlash

It’s a fun challenge, creating a story within a couple of days that’s only a few sentences long. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the right frame of mind to start doing #FairyTaleFlash stories again.


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    ♣ BLOG

    • Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Owain and Modron
    • Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
    • Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Menw
    • FairyTaleFlash: The Door
    • My Adventure with the Fatal Five

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