Posts
And now a few comments
On the nine planets
That orbit around the sun:
Mercury is the smallest one -
Venus is hidden by gas -
Mars has a mysterious past -
Earth is the one we inhabit -
Neptune’s non-descript -
Saturn has rings that spin -
Pluto is no longer in -
Jupiter boasts the largest mass -
And Uranus – has that unfortunate reference to your "a__"
Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Chameleon and the Moth
It was only by accident that the chameleon met the moth, or rather the caterpillar, as it had not yet undergone the metamorphosis to become a moth.
Normally, the caterpillar would have been a quick meal for the chameleon, but the chameleon had just finished eating a praying mantis which had given him quite a battle and he was a little tired.
It was the reason the chameleon had fallen from a higher branch to a lower one. And upon landing on the lower branch, the chameleon confronted a small caterpillar.
The caterpillar, completely surprise by the chameleon that had just appeared in front of him, reared up on his back pairs of legs and blurted out: “Hey…what! Your eyes – what’s wrong with your eyes. Did you bang your head?”
Slowly, and in a monotone voice, the chameleon replied: “Nothing. I can see just fine.”
“But your eyes are rolling around in different directions.” The caterpillar said excitedly.
“They’re supposed to,” the chameleon stated, “I can see in two different directions at once.”
“And your color…? You were just a light green and now you’re brown.”
“That, too,” said the Chameleon, “Is part of being a chameleon.”
“And now, if you’re done with your questioning, I have a few questions for you.”
“O.K.,” Said the caterpillar, “Ask away, but then I have to get back to work. Time is running out.”
“First,” began the chameleon, what are you doing?”
“I’m making a chrysalis,” replied the caterpillar.
“Why?”
“So, I can change into a beautiful butterfly; hopefully, a monarch butterfly.”
“It looks more like a cocoon to me,” said the chameleon.
“No,” said the caterpillar emphatically, “It’s a chrysalis. I’m sure.”
The chameleon rolled one eye around in a circle, but said nothing. The caterpillar took no notice of the eye rolling. He was busily back at his task.
For a long time, neither one said anything. Slowly, the caterpillar disappeared into his “chrysalis” and the chameleon was left alone on the branch. And with that, the chameleon started walking in that herky-jerky chameleon way along the branch, away from the chrysalis.
Once a week, as he passed through the vicinity, the chameleon stopped in to see if the caterpillar had emerged from his chrysalis.
Finally, after about a month, the caterpillar emerged from his chrysalis and the chameleon was there to see it.
“How do I look?” he asked as he dried his delicate wings in the breeze.
“You have been transformed,” replied the chameleon.
“I have become a beautiful monarch butterfly,” and with that he leaped into the next breeze and disappeared into the distance, leaving the chameleon alone on the branch.
In reality the caterpillar had emerged as an ordinary brown moth, but the chameleon said nothing for he thought: “Who am I to interfere in the dreams and aspirations of others.”
And as the chameleon watched the sun go down, a soft wind made the branch sway gently and the chameleon closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to fly in the breeze like a butterfly. After a few moments, he thought to himself, “This swaying branch is as close as I will ever come to flying.”, and gave his eyes a good roll - in opposite directions because that's what chameleons do.
Melinda and the Evil King Ravelen
King Ravelen
Long ago, in one of the evil kingdoms, perhaps the evilest, there lived an especially vile person named King Ravelen. But before we go any further, let me amend my introduction. I said the Kingdom was evil. This is not correct. The people of this kingdom were simple, honest peasants who happened to be ruled by an evil King. Did I say ruled? Again, I must correct myself. King Ravelen did not rule his Kingdom; he terrorized it and everyone in it. He demanded that everyone provide him with the best of whatever they made or did for a living. If they refused – well let’s just say that the King responded in such a way they never refused a second time.
From the baker he demanded the best golden brown crusted breads that came out of the ovens in the morning as well as the pies, cookies and pastries. After giving away all of his best baked goods each morning, the poor baker was usually left with a few stale crusts and crumbs for himself and his family.
From the woodsman, the King demanded cords of chopped and neatly stacked wood. This was a never ending task as the King’s castle had 36 fireplaces with 36 roaring fires all year round. (Evil kingdoms tend to be chilly all the time – even in summer.) If the woodsman wasn’t chopping wood, he was sharpening his axe head. If he wasn’t sharpening his axe he was stacking wood outside the King’s castle.
In any other Kingdom, the woodsman could have given his axe to the blacksmith for sharpening – but not in this Kingdom. The blacksmith in this Kingdom was too busy making hundreds of pairs of horse shoes for all of the horses that pulled the King about in any one of his fifty carriages. The blacksmith often wished he was one of the King’s horses, since the King could only use one carriage at a time which meant most of the horses just stood around doing nothing most of the time.
And as for the other subjects - there isn’t enough time to describe the harried lives of the tailor, the candle stick maker, the clock maker or any of the other subjects whose lives and resources were monopolized and exploited by the King.
You’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t the peasants rebel? Collectively, they certainly outnumbered the King.”
Were they weak? – No.
Were they dim witted? – No.
Disorganized? – No.
Afraid? - No, they weren’t afraid … they were petrified - petrified of the King’s special powers. For you see, King Ravelen could change himself into a large raven at will. And when transformed into a raven, he gained his evil powers. As a human, he had no special powers, just an evil personality, but his subjects did not know this. In his human form, he was so vicious, no one dared to provoke him for fear of falling victim to his wrath.
There are several important things you should know about the King. First, he could only transform into a raven during the day and only on sunny days. On cloudy or rainy days he had no powers and stayed locked inside his castle. Second, the King had absolutely no powers at night, even on the nights when the moon was full. The third and final thing you should know about the King is that he was afraid of the dark and always had the 36 fireplaces blazing.
Where Were All the Children?
Now, if you inspected this Kingdom closely. The first thing you would notice was that there were very few children playing outdoors. In fact, there were very few children left in the Kingdom and those that remained tried to be as inconspicuous as possible so as to avoid the King’s wrath. So instead of playing outside during the day, the children played outside at night when they knew the King would be in his castle. But even at night they were vigilant to the possibility of the King appearing suddenly. (An unfounded fear, but they didn't know that the King was afraid of the darkness.)
Melinda in Her Garden
Melinda was one of the children still living in the Kingdom. She lived in a small cottage just north of the King’s castle. Like the rest of the peasants, both of Melinda’s parents were forced to devote the majority of their time and energy to appeasing the King’s wishes and wants. Melinda’s father was a cooper and her mother grew herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes. Despite the King’s impact on their lives, they were a happy family.
Melinda was an extraordinary child who possessed the amazing ability to understand and speak to the animals. Now, she didn’t possess the ability to control their behavior - so if she met a wolf while walking through the forest she couldn’t command it to not attack and devour her if it were hungry. The best she could do would be to reason with it and perhaps startle it from its intention. More often than not, bears and wolves, the two most powerful and dangerous animals in the forest, were so surprised at hearing Melinda speak to them in their language that they thought she was a spirit creature passing through the human world on a pilgrimage to the Forest of Perpetual Autumn and ran in the opposite direction to avoid angering the spirit world.
But most of the encounters Melinda had with animals, and birds, occurred in and around her garden where she spent most of her time. Besides being able to speak to the animals, Melinda also had a special talent for making things grow… and grow… and grow… into the tallest flowers or the largest vegetables or fruits imaginable. Melinda’s parents, however, forbade her to apply her unique horticultural skills on any of the seeds she planted for fear it would draw the attention of King Ravelen and bring his wrath down upon them. Melinda always wore a special pouch of seeds attached to a belt tied around her waist. She kept her magic seeds in this pouch.
Sometimes Melinda broke her promise and grew a couple of exceptionally long carrots the size of walking sticks or potatoes the size of small boulders. And because both of these things grew downward and not upward, they were invisible to King Ravelen should he have happened to fly by overhead. Besides, the underground burrowing animals, the moles and the gophers, quickly gobbled them up in no time and they were gone.
Still, for all of her fascinating skills, Melinda was board and frequently lonely. She had no brothers or sisters and all of the other children in the Kingdom (those that remained) stayed and played by themselves near and around their own cottages. While talking to the animals was interesting most of the time, in reality they really didn’t have a lot to say. And as much as Melinda liked them, she found many of them to be (and she means this politely) somewhat boring.
The birds were the exception. Melinda found them to be the most interesting. They spent most of the day flying about the countryside, so they always had a lot to say. But being the fidgety creatures that they were, they never stayed in one place long enough to finish a sentence – so Melinda only heard small snippets of their conversations. Or, if they asked her a question, they would usually fly away before she could reply. Sometimes this made Melinda laugh, other times it made her frustrated. And it was in one of her frustrated moments that she decided to attempt return home to formulate her plan.
As I mentioned earlier, the Kingdom contained very few children. Years and years ago, there were children everywhere and then over time their numbers grew less and less. And what caused this to happen?
Did the children stray into the forest and eaten by wolves or bears. – No.
Did they move away to live in other Kingdoms? – No.
Did they simply vanish – No – well, maybe…
The reason there were so few children left in the Kingdom was because the King used his evil magic to send them to a dreadful place called the Land of Darkness. And whenever a parent refused to provide the king with the goods and/or services he demanded, he would transform himawld into a raven to regain his powers and then fly about the Kingdom searching out the children of the parents that had given him trouble. Once he located them, he chanted a spell that sounded like “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw” and they instantly vanished – forever – into the Land of Darkness.
Children sent to the Land of Darkness were never seen or heard from again. No one knew where this place was; only that it was underground. And Legend had it that when all of the entombed children sobbed at the same time it caused an earth tremor on the surface so powerful that it shook all of the buildings and even put fine, hairline fractures in the walls of the King’s castle.
Children sent to the Land of Darkness never aged. They existed in a suspended state in pitch black darkness. And the underground cavern was hot and humid from years and years of tears from the sobbing children.
Melinda Gets Captured
Melinda had formulate a simple but brilliant plan. She would anger the King and he would send her to the Land of Darkness. Once there, she would rescue the banished children and return them to their families. Her plan was to wear her shinny silver hair clip while pretending to be gardening. Melinda knew that if the King was flying overhead the clip would flash in the sunlight, catch his attention and that he would swoop down and try to snatch it away. (Ravens are attracted to bright, shiny objects.)
So, on the next bright sunny day, Melinda tied her seed pouch around her waist and put the silver clip in her hair and went to work in her garden. She didn’t have to wait long for the King to appear. He swooped down out of the sky and landed in a tree a few yards away. A few moments later, the raven swooped down and tried to pick the silver clip out of Melinda’s hair. Melinda ducked and the raven missed its mark. After several more unsuccessful attempts, the raven gave up and flew away. It had been just an ordinary raven, not King Ravelen. Melinda continued pretending to work her garden. Several hours later, with the sun at its noon position, Melinda was hungry and decided to return home to get something to eat.
Disappointed, Melinda started walking back to her cottage. She was completely lost in thought thinking about how she would try again tomorrow when she felt a quick tug at her hair. Instinctively, Melinda ducked and felt for her hair clip. It was loose but still in place. Her first thought was that the same raven that had tried to steal her hair clip a short while ago, but in looking more closely she saw it was a much larger raven – it was King Ravelen – this time she was certain. Her heart raced rapidly along with her thoughts, but not out of fear – but more out of the excitement she felt that her plan was working.
The King had landed in a nearby tree and was planning his next attempt at snatching the silver hair clip. As the hair clip flashed in the sunlight, an uncontrollable desire to possess it overwhelmed the raven. The King swooped down at Melinda again, but Melinda was ready this time and ducked at the last moment, causing the raven to miss its mark.
The raven returned its perch in the tree. Enough of this, thought the King, as he dove again at Melinda: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw”.
Melinda had been waiting for this. She repeated to herself: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw” committing the spell to memory. She now possessed and understood the magic chant the King used to send the children to the Land of Darkness.
In a moment, it was all over. Melinda was gone and the raven disappeared into the distance with the silver hair clip flashing in its beak.
Melinda in the Land of Darkness
When Melinda opened her eyes, she could see nothing. She was now in the Land of Darkness and whether she closed or opened her eyes it made no difference. The darkness she was darker and thicker than any other darkness she had ever experienced.
The place she was in was also very cold and damp and noisy from all of the children sobbing.
Melinda though for a moment and then at the top of her lungs yelled, “Everyone, please be quiet! My name is Melinda and I have come to rescue all of you.”
Most of the crying stopped, but since they were in a cave, the sobbing sounds made by the remaining sobers echoed still made it impossible what she had to say to be heard by all of the children.
“Please, please, no more crying.”
Now it was quiet enough for Melinda to speak and be heard and for Melinda to hear what the children had to say. Melinda listed to their stories and their pleas to help them to return to their families. And when they were done Melinda told them her plan.
The Escape from the Land of the Darkness
Melinda’s plan was simple. She had brought her seed pouch containing some very magical seeds. And these magic seeds would help the children and her escape from the Land of Darkness - But how?
Well, this was Melinda’s plan:
Melinda knew seeds grow toward sunlight. They start in the darkness below the surface and push their way up out of the soil. Melinda’s magic seeds were even more sensitive to sunlight and thousands of times more powerful than ordinary seeds. Melinda planned to germinate her magic seeds, which were vine seeds, and let them grow up towards the surface. She and the other children would then climb the vine (like a rope) to their freedom. Melinda knew there had to be hundreds of hairline cracks in the ceiling of the cave from the earth tremors the children had caused by their collective sobbing. Melinda was betting that some of these cracks reached all the way to the surface and that the vines would find these cracks and widen them as they pushed upwards towards the sunlight. Once this happened, she and the children would have to act quickly because the vine seeds only live for a few short hours and then whither away.
Melinda reached into her seed pouch and threw a handful of vine seeds into the darkness. Almost instantly, the seeds began to grow. Magically, they started out as thin as thin and stringy and then became as thick as ropes. And just as Melinda had speculated, they found the hairline cracks in the ceiling of the cave and began pushing their way upward. And as they did, the cracks widened. And then suddenly, a shaft of sunlight stabbed through the darkness and then another and another…everyone was going home!
Melinda yelled to the children to climb up the vines – and they did. For more than an hour, they climbed the vines, one after another, until they had all reached the surface. All of the children had climbed with their eyes closed because the bright sunlight was blinding after having spent all that time underground.
When the last child reached the surface, Melinda began her ascent. As she climbed, she could feel the vine begin to wither, so she climbed faster. And just as she reached the surface, just as she climbed back onto solid ground, the vine she had used to make her escape died, withered away and collapsed back down into the shaft.
Melinda Sends the King to the Land of Darkness
Exhausted from their climb to freedom and unable to adjust to the blinding sunlight, the children rested in the grassy meadow where they now were. Melinda, because she had only been in the Land of Darkness for a short period of time, recovered after a few short minutes. Vigilantly, she was watching the sky for any approaching ravens. Fortunately, there were none at the moment.
But that moment was short lived. For suddenly, a small spec appeared in the distance and Melinda was sure it was the King. In no time it was directly overhead. It was King Ravelen. And suddenly there was pandemonium. The raven was swooping down at the children. They ran in all directions for their lives.
Melinda was ready to implement the second part of her plan. She reached into her seed pouch, pulled out her gold hair clip and fastened it in her hair. The gold clip glittered in the sunlight and almost immediately the raven was attracted to it and dove towards Melinda. Melinda waited and just as the raven was about to snatch the gold clip from her hair, Melinda chanted: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw”. And the King vanished. Melinda had sent him to the Land of Darkness. And there was no possible chance of the King escaping because he was now in almost total darkness, except for the shafts the vines had made, and he could not use his magic powers – and, the vines the children and Melinda used for their escape had died and collapsed back into the cavern.
The entire village celebrated the return of the children the banishment of King Ravelen. As a reward, they made Melinda their Queen and she ruled over the kingdom for a very long time, using her magic for the good of everyone.
As for King Ravelen, his voice could sometimes be heard pleading (from the shafts above the cavern where he was trapped) to be set free, swearing that he was a changed person. Of course, no one heeded his requests. And not being an uncivilized or cruel Kingdom, the peasants all took turns dropping one loaf of golden brown bread down one the shafts to him each morning so the ex-King would not starve to death.
Long ago, in one of the evil kingdoms, perhaps the evilest, there lived an especially vile person named King Ravelen. But before we go any further, let me amend my introduction. I said the Kingdom was evil. This is not correct. The people of this kingdom were simple, honest peasants who happened to be ruled by an evil King. Did I say ruled? Again, I must correct myself. King Ravelen did not rule his Kingdom; he terrorized it and everyone in it. He demanded that everyone provide him with the best of whatever they made or did for a living. If they refused – well let’s just say that the King responded in such a way they never refused a second time.
From the baker he demanded the best golden brown crusted breads that came out of the ovens in the morning as well as the pies, cookies and pastries. After giving away all of his best baked goods each morning, the poor baker was usually left with a few stale crusts and crumbs for himself and his family.
From the woodsman, the King demanded cords of chopped and neatly stacked wood. This was a never ending task as the King’s castle had 36 fireplaces with 36 roaring fires all year round. (Evil kingdoms tend to be chilly all the time – even in summer.) If the woodsman wasn’t chopping wood, he was sharpening his axe head. If he wasn’t sharpening his axe he was stacking wood outside the King’s castle.
In any other Kingdom, the woodsman could have given his axe to the blacksmith for sharpening – but not in this Kingdom. The blacksmith in this Kingdom was too busy making hundreds of pairs of horse shoes for all of the horses that pulled the King about in any one of his fifty carriages. The blacksmith often wished he was one of the King’s horses, since the King could only use one carriage at a time which meant most of the horses just stood around doing nothing most of the time.
And as for the other subjects - there isn’t enough time to describe the harried lives of the tailor, the candle stick maker, the clock maker or any of the other subjects whose lives and resources were monopolized and exploited by the King.
You’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t the peasants rebel? Collectively, they certainly outnumbered the King.”
Were they weak? – No.
Were they dim witted? – No.
Disorganized? – No.
Afraid? - No, they weren’t afraid … they were petrified - petrified of the King’s special powers. For you see, King Ravelen could change himself into a large raven at will. And when transformed into a raven, he gained his evil powers. As a human, he had no special powers, just an evil personality, but his subjects did not know this. In his human form, he was so vicious, no one dared to provoke him for fear of falling victim to his wrath.
There are several important things you should know about the King. First, he could only transform into a raven during the day and only on sunny days. On cloudy or rainy days he had no powers and stayed locked inside his castle. Second, the King had absolutely no powers at night, even on the nights when the moon was full. The third and final thing you should know about the King is that he was afraid of the dark and always had the 36 fireplaces blazing.
Where Were All the Children?
Now, if you inspected this Kingdom closely. The first thing you would notice was that there were very few children playing outdoors. In fact, there were very few children left in the Kingdom and those that remained tried to be as inconspicuous as possible so as to avoid the King’s wrath. So instead of playing outside during the day, the children played outside at night when they knew the King would be in his castle. But even at night they were vigilant to the possibility of the King appearing suddenly. (An unfounded fear, but they didn't know that the King was afraid of the darkness.)
Melinda in Her Garden
Melinda was one of the children still living in the Kingdom. She lived in a small cottage just north of the King’s castle. Like the rest of the peasants, both of Melinda’s parents were forced to devote the majority of their time and energy to appeasing the King’s wishes and wants. Melinda’s father was a cooper and her mother grew herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes. Despite the King’s impact on their lives, they were a happy family.
Melinda was an extraordinary child who possessed the amazing ability to understand and speak to the animals. Now, she didn’t possess the ability to control their behavior - so if she met a wolf while walking through the forest she couldn’t command it to not attack and devour her if it were hungry. The best she could do would be to reason with it and perhaps startle it from its intention. More often than not, bears and wolves, the two most powerful and dangerous animals in the forest, were so surprised at hearing Melinda speak to them in their language that they thought she was a spirit creature passing through the human world on a pilgrimage to the Forest of Perpetual Autumn and ran in the opposite direction to avoid angering the spirit world.
But most of the encounters Melinda had with animals, and birds, occurred in and around her garden where she spent most of her time. Besides being able to speak to the animals, Melinda also had a special talent for making things grow… and grow… and grow… into the tallest flowers or the largest vegetables or fruits imaginable. Melinda’s parents, however, forbade her to apply her unique horticultural skills on any of the seeds she planted for fear it would draw the attention of King Ravelen and bring his wrath down upon them. Melinda always wore a special pouch of seeds attached to a belt tied around her waist. She kept her magic seeds in this pouch.
Sometimes Melinda broke her promise and grew a couple of exceptionally long carrots the size of walking sticks or potatoes the size of small boulders. And because both of these things grew downward and not upward, they were invisible to King Ravelen should he have happened to fly by overhead. Besides, the underground burrowing animals, the moles and the gophers, quickly gobbled them up in no time and they were gone.
Still, for all of her fascinating skills, Melinda was board and frequently lonely. She had no brothers or sisters and all of the other children in the Kingdom (those that remained) stayed and played by themselves near and around their own cottages. While talking to the animals was interesting most of the time, in reality they really didn’t have a lot to say. And as much as Melinda liked them, she found many of them to be (and she means this politely) somewhat boring.
The birds were the exception. Melinda found them to be the most interesting. They spent most of the day flying about the countryside, so they always had a lot to say. But being the fidgety creatures that they were, they never stayed in one place long enough to finish a sentence – so Melinda only heard small snippets of their conversations. Or, if they asked her a question, they would usually fly away before she could reply. Sometimes this made Melinda laugh, other times it made her frustrated. And it was in one of her frustrated moments that she decided to attempt return home to formulate her plan.
As I mentioned earlier, the Kingdom contained very few children. Years and years ago, there were children everywhere and then over time their numbers grew less and less. And what caused this to happen?
Did the children stray into the forest and eaten by wolves or bears. – No.
Did they move away to live in other Kingdoms? – No.
Did they simply vanish – No – well, maybe…
The reason there were so few children left in the Kingdom was because the King used his evil magic to send them to a dreadful place called the Land of Darkness. And whenever a parent refused to provide the king with the goods and/or services he demanded, he would transform himawld into a raven to regain his powers and then fly about the Kingdom searching out the children of the parents that had given him trouble. Once he located them, he chanted a spell that sounded like “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw” and they instantly vanished – forever – into the Land of Darkness.
Children sent to the Land of Darkness were never seen or heard from again. No one knew where this place was; only that it was underground. And Legend had it that when all of the entombed children sobbed at the same time it caused an earth tremor on the surface so powerful that it shook all of the buildings and even put fine, hairline fractures in the walls of the King’s castle.
Children sent to the Land of Darkness never aged. They existed in a suspended state in pitch black darkness. And the underground cavern was hot and humid from years and years of tears from the sobbing children.
Melinda Gets Captured
Melinda had formulate a simple but brilliant plan. She would anger the King and he would send her to the Land of Darkness. Once there, she would rescue the banished children and return them to their families. Her plan was to wear her shinny silver hair clip while pretending to be gardening. Melinda knew that if the King was flying overhead the clip would flash in the sunlight, catch his attention and that he would swoop down and try to snatch it away. (Ravens are attracted to bright, shiny objects.)
So, on the next bright sunny day, Melinda tied her seed pouch around her waist and put the silver clip in her hair and went to work in her garden. She didn’t have to wait long for the King to appear. He swooped down out of the sky and landed in a tree a few yards away. A few moments later, the raven swooped down and tried to pick the silver clip out of Melinda’s hair. Melinda ducked and the raven missed its mark. After several more unsuccessful attempts, the raven gave up and flew away. It had been just an ordinary raven, not King Ravelen. Melinda continued pretending to work her garden. Several hours later, with the sun at its noon position, Melinda was hungry and decided to return home to get something to eat.
Disappointed, Melinda started walking back to her cottage. She was completely lost in thought thinking about how she would try again tomorrow when she felt a quick tug at her hair. Instinctively, Melinda ducked and felt for her hair clip. It was loose but still in place. Her first thought was that the same raven that had tried to steal her hair clip a short while ago, but in looking more closely she saw it was a much larger raven – it was King Ravelen – this time she was certain. Her heart raced rapidly along with her thoughts, but not out of fear – but more out of the excitement she felt that her plan was working.
The King had landed in a nearby tree and was planning his next attempt at snatching the silver hair clip. As the hair clip flashed in the sunlight, an uncontrollable desire to possess it overwhelmed the raven. The King swooped down at Melinda again, but Melinda was ready this time and ducked at the last moment, causing the raven to miss its mark.
The raven returned its perch in the tree. Enough of this, thought the King, as he dove again at Melinda: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw”.
Melinda had been waiting for this. She repeated to herself: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw” committing the spell to memory. She now possessed and understood the magic chant the King used to send the children to the Land of Darkness.
In a moment, it was all over. Melinda was gone and the raven disappeared into the distance with the silver hair clip flashing in its beak.
Melinda in the Land of Darkness
When Melinda opened her eyes, she could see nothing. She was now in the Land of Darkness and whether she closed or opened her eyes it made no difference. The darkness she was darker and thicker than any other darkness she had ever experienced.
The place she was in was also very cold and damp and noisy from all of the children sobbing.
Melinda though for a moment and then at the top of her lungs yelled, “Everyone, please be quiet! My name is Melinda and I have come to rescue all of you.”
Most of the crying stopped, but since they were in a cave, the sobbing sounds made by the remaining sobers echoed still made it impossible what she had to say to be heard by all of the children.
“Please, please, no more crying.”
Now it was quiet enough for Melinda to speak and be heard and for Melinda to hear what the children had to say. Melinda listed to their stories and their pleas to help them to return to their families. And when they were done Melinda told them her plan.
The Escape from the Land of the Darkness
Melinda’s plan was simple. She had brought her seed pouch containing some very magical seeds. And these magic seeds would help the children and her escape from the Land of Darkness - But how?
Well, this was Melinda’s plan:
Melinda knew seeds grow toward sunlight. They start in the darkness below the surface and push their way up out of the soil. Melinda’s magic seeds were even more sensitive to sunlight and thousands of times more powerful than ordinary seeds. Melinda planned to germinate her magic seeds, which were vine seeds, and let them grow up towards the surface. She and the other children would then climb the vine (like a rope) to their freedom. Melinda knew there had to be hundreds of hairline cracks in the ceiling of the cave from the earth tremors the children had caused by their collective sobbing. Melinda was betting that some of these cracks reached all the way to the surface and that the vines would find these cracks and widen them as they pushed upwards towards the sunlight. Once this happened, she and the children would have to act quickly because the vine seeds only live for a few short hours and then whither away.
Melinda reached into her seed pouch and threw a handful of vine seeds into the darkness. Almost instantly, the seeds began to grow. Magically, they started out as thin as thin and stringy and then became as thick as ropes. And just as Melinda had speculated, they found the hairline cracks in the ceiling of the cave and began pushing their way upward. And as they did, the cracks widened. And then suddenly, a shaft of sunlight stabbed through the darkness and then another and another…everyone was going home!
Melinda yelled to the children to climb up the vines – and they did. For more than an hour, they climbed the vines, one after another, until they had all reached the surface. All of the children had climbed with their eyes closed because the bright sunlight was blinding after having spent all that time underground.
When the last child reached the surface, Melinda began her ascent. As she climbed, she could feel the vine begin to wither, so she climbed faster. And just as she reached the surface, just as she climbed back onto solid ground, the vine she had used to make her escape died, withered away and collapsed back down into the shaft.
Melinda Sends the King to the Land of Darkness
Exhausted from their climb to freedom and unable to adjust to the blinding sunlight, the children rested in the grassy meadow where they now were. Melinda, because she had only been in the Land of Darkness for a short period of time, recovered after a few short minutes. Vigilantly, she was watching the sky for any approaching ravens. Fortunately, there were none at the moment.
But that moment was short lived. For suddenly, a small spec appeared in the distance and Melinda was sure it was the King. In no time it was directly overhead. It was King Ravelen. And suddenly there was pandemonium. The raven was swooping down at the children. They ran in all directions for their lives.
Melinda was ready to implement the second part of her plan. She reached into her seed pouch, pulled out her gold hair clip and fastened it in her hair. The gold clip glittered in the sunlight and almost immediately the raven was attracted to it and dove towards Melinda. Melinda waited and just as the raven was about to snatch the gold clip from her hair, Melinda chanted: “caw, caw, craw, caw, craw caw”. And the King vanished. Melinda had sent him to the Land of Darkness. And there was no possible chance of the King escaping because he was now in almost total darkness, except for the shafts the vines had made, and he could not use his magic powers – and, the vines the children and Melinda used for their escape had died and collapsed back into the cavern.
The entire village celebrated the return of the children the banishment of King Ravelen. As a reward, they made Melinda their Queen and she ruled over the kingdom for a very long time, using her magic for the good of everyone.
As for King Ravelen, his voice could sometimes be heard pleading (from the shafts above the cavern where he was trapped) to be set free, swearing that he was a changed person. Of course, no one heeded his requests. And not being an uncivilized or cruel Kingdom, the peasants all took turns dropping one loaf of golden brown bread down one the shafts to him each morning so the ex-King would not starve to death.
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