Tag Archives: folklore

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Fairy Shoemaker

17 Tuesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Irish Folklore

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For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted as part of #FairyTaleFlash is “St. Patrick’s Day, leprechauns, or fairies.” It’s interesting that in old Irish folktales, the leprechaun was one of the few fairies that actually had a job — he was their cobbler. The great W. B. Yeats suggested that the reason a fairy cobbler was so important was that the other fairies wore out their shoes with all their fancy dancing, which I always thought was a funny idea.

March 17, 2026

“The leprechaun bent over the fine fairy boot. Fixing them was ticklish – the sidhe imbued their footwear with strange spells, and didn’t care how much they wore them out. Hard to repair without shredding the magic, but was there a better way to earn a pot of gold?”
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Illustration by Warwick Goble

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: The Wounds of Selene

03 Tuesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Greek Folklore

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For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted as part of #FairyTaleFlash is “the full moon, stars, or sun.” Selene, the Greek moon goddess, appears in very few myths. However, I was intrigued to discover that a few classical authors believed that she was something of a warrior, and that the scarring on the moon came from her battles with the gods’ enemies.

March 3, 2026

“I am Selene, goddess of the Moon, sister to the Sun and Dawn. At the beginning of time, I went to war. My curved horns flashed against the giants and the monsters who sought to devour the gods. Few remember. I remember. All my wounds remind me. The scars and craters that forever mark the face of the moon.”
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Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Owain’s Ravens

28 Saturday Feb 2026

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Welsh Folklore

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For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted as part of #FairyTaleFlash is “raven, owl, duck, swan, or any other bird.” I’ve always been intrigued by how the Welsh Arthurian hero Owain is accompanied by a host of ravens, and how in the Welsh stories, his mother is the Welsh mother goddess Modron (that gets changed to Morgan le Fey in the later Arthurian romances).

February 28, 2026

“After the Welsh goddess Modron’s newborn son Mabon was stolen from his crib, it was centuries before she had the courage to make another. We, the 300 Ravens of Kenverchyn, stand guard as Owain slumbers in his crib. We will always watch him, will never leave him.”
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Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: King Arthur’s Mood

11 Friday Jul 2025

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Welsh Folklore

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For this week, the prompt for flash fiction submitted to #FairyTaleFlash is “travel or a grand adventure.” As I am currently writing a novel in which King Arthur and many of his warriors go off on a grand adventure, I thought it would be interesting to have Arthur fantasize about it here.

July 11, 2025

“King Arthur tried to focus on what his advisors were telling him – something related to taxes or the price of grain. All the high king could think of was how much he wished he could just throw his crown away, pull on his armor, and ride off on adventures with his brother.”
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Title page illustration by N. C. Wyeth for “The Boy’s King Arthur” (1922).

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Owain and Modron

06 Tuesday May 2025

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Welsh Folklore

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

Fairy Tale Flash Fiction: Menw

25 Thursday Jan 2024

Posted by in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction

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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?
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image by Aubrey Beardsley