The Fairy Child

Marley had so many questions and trepidations about what it would mean to give birth to a fairy child.

What if her baby was too fragile for this world? Would her milk be enough? Would the infant behave as mortal children do?

She had over a hundred such questions - and for each one of them a happy finding to come.

Now finally in the world, her little Charlene was doing just fine. In every respect the child appeared to be human, save for her exceptional contentedness. She never cried.

Marley became very used to her small companion - which made it all the more terrible when she was taken from her.

Barely eight months old, there came a day that had been chilly and Marley had gone to secure the windows downstairs before the rains came. When she returned to the cot, she had found it empty.

"No!" Marley screamed. She was in a panic, tossing the blankets in frantic disarray, she searched the floor beneath, and then ran to the front door to find it hanging wide open.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

Bones Clattering Musically in the Wind

What would have been but half a day's journey on horseback was a three-day expedition for Robin and the Friar traveling the roads on foot.

Robin walked a mortal's pace, stopping at intercessions for Tooke to catch breath and pray, relieve himself, feed and sleep.

On the third day they stood beneath their eleven dear friends, aligned on the scaffolding, whose bones were now clattering musically in the wind. In just a handful of days the birds had picked the flesh away, discarding those parts less savory.

"They never made it home", Tooke said, before breaking into a weeping.

Robin had seen so many men come and go into death, he was well used to moribund endings; however, even this lit an anger in his soul. Men of the faith were never soldiers and had no chance ever of defending themselves. Ranked as soft as a woman and innocent as a child, this homicide was an explicit defiance to all things Godly. Whether robed or not, these were holy men, whose only treason was to tend to the wounded, albeit the enemy.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series 

King John & Sheriff Marc

King John and Sheriff Marc shared an unnatural love together, for they despised each other's presence, yet continually appeased the other's vanity with great pleasure.

Neither would have thought twice before baring their sword from its leathery sheath; pushing hard with will and want, and a cruel gamefulness.

Both assumed superiority over the other.

The commoners hated them with equal distaste, and this manufactured a conspiratorial bond between them.

John's beard was twisted, and like a Saracen it would reach down to his waist when unwound. His back was scarred from flagellation; half of his finger nails were missing, torn by himself (at the Sheriff’s request); his girth had widened, and his veins bulged like purple grapes.

John's temperament was flaccid until aroused by some sport of cruelty. Whereas Marc's mood was permanent - an acrid disposition with a bitter tongue.

Retiring at night, both lay on their beds of black goose down - full fast asleep - yet without rest or dream.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Baby Charlene

Meeting baby Charlene was the best day of her ragged life ... everything else dissolved its importance and mother and baby were content eating and sleeping together; getting stronger by the day.

As the weeks progressed and the weather warmed, Marley would take Charlene in her pram out to the park to the seat on the hill.

She avoided walking too close to the gardener's shed, but would sit on the seat overlooking the suburb below.

Puck had engraved their three names at the back in the wood there, which made her smile to see this every time.

They had enough money to get by and Marley was so enthralled with her small child, she rarely, if ever, thought of anything else in the world - or outside of it.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series

Druid Priests related Fairytales

The ancient Druid Priests related fairytales which may seem very elementary to us, but which proceeded from the deepest and most profound insight. Stories of such beings as Kobolds, Undines, Nixies and the like, are regarded to-day as superstition and phantasy, but they originated from living intercourse with the highest spiritual beings on other planes. For in very truth, spiritual worlds are all around us. 

The astral world is everywhere, with colours and sounds as real as those of the physical world. All this is revealed to one who has made progress in his development. We learn to know whole ranks of new Beings who cannot become visible on the physical plane because they do not reach down as far as physical substance; their corporeality consists of astral substance.

The sagas and fairytales originated from actual intercourse with these Beings. In earlier times, spiritual forces brought about what the modern mind would call ‘Miracles.’ It is incorrect to speak, as do our scientists to-day, of the primitive conditions in which an ancient humanity existed. Men satisfied their material needs in those times in the simplest possible way, but, on the other hand, they shared in a very real sense in the spiritual life directed by these higher Personalities.

-Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner on Fairytales

Materialists say myths and fairy tales originated in the childhood stage of the human race. But in its childhood, humanity was taught by the gods. In the process of our evolution, myths and fairy tales are gradually lost, but children should not grow up without them. 

It makes a tremendous difference whether or not children are allowed to grow up with fairy tales. The power of the fairy tale images, which give wings to the soul, becomes apparent only at a later age. Growing up without fairy tales leads later to boredom, to world-weariness. Indeed, it can even cause physical symptoms — fairy tales can help to prevent illnesses. The qualities that seep into our soul from fairy tales later emerge as a zest for life, enthusiasm for being alive, and an ability to cope with life, all of which can be seen even in old age.

Children have to experience the power of the content of fairy tales while they are young and can still do so. People who cannot live with ideas that have no reality on the physical plane will be dead to the spiritual world. 

Philosophies based only on the material world are the death of our soul. Physical evolution leads to the death of the spiritual world. We must reach a view of the world based not on appearances, but resting solidly on its own inherent structure. We have to move toward the principle: I believe what I know. 

-Rudolf Steiner, The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path

Robin Hood as Puck

The "mythological theory" dates back at least to 1584, when Reginald Scot identified Robin Hood with the Germanic goblin "Hudgin" or Hodekin and associated him with Robin Goodfellow [Puck]. 

"There go as many tales upon this Hudgin, in some parts of Germany, as there did in England of Robin Goodfellow. But this Hudgin was so called, because he always wore a cap or a hood; and therefore I think it was Robin Hood."

-Reginald Scot 

Thomas Keightley said “Robin Good-fellow answers to the Nisse God-dreng of the Norwegians. He was called Robin Hood, because, like the Nis and the Brownie, he wore a hood”.

Jacob Grimm also noted the similarity between Robin Goodfellow and Robin Hood.


"From the beginning of scholarly investigation into the legends about the outlaw, it had been obvious that at the end of the Middle Ages he had been celebrated in plays as well as ballads. Two very different approaches to research into his legend were proposed in response. The first, by Joseph Ritson in 1795, assumed that Robin had been a real human being; the second, started by Thomas Wright in 1837, opined that he was originally a woodland god, honoured in the May revels. This latter argument gained more support in the early twentieth century. Douglas Kennedy and Lord Raglan suggested that he had been the dying and returning god of vegetation postulated by Sir James Frazer as a universal focus of devotion in ancient religion."

-Ronald Hutton

Richard Dadd 

Legend has it that when Jesus was dying on the cross, the robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the robin's breast, and thereafter all robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them.

An alternative legend has it that its breast was scorched fetching water for souls in Purgatory.