Fortnightly Writing Competition - "Winter Myths"

Started by SomeSickSelf, Mon 21/12/2009 03:36:03

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SomeSickSelf

I've always loved mythology, and since this competition is starting on the Winter Solstice, I thought it would be appropriate to make the theme for this fortnight winter myths.

Guidelines
For purposes of this competition a 'myth' is a (somewhat fanciful) story used to attempt to explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.

That being said your writing task for this fortnight is to create a myth set during the winter.

-You choose to adopt an existing myth, or create your own.
-Your myth does not necessarily need to explain anything about winter time, but it must take place in the winter time.
-Holiday-related stories are neither discouraged nor required.

Deadlines:
-Entries are due by Monday, January 4 at midnight in your time zone.  I'll make a post to let everyone know when the deadline has officially passed.
-Votes should be in by Thursday January 7 at midnight.  I may give an extension depending on voter turnout and overall number of entries.
-The winner will be announced the day after voting closes.

Trophies:



-I'm not much of an artist, but I have made this lovely trophy for the winner.  If anyone would like to offer a better looking trophy just send me a message.

Atelier

#1
Here's a picture I took of the cottage this story is based upon:


When I took a holiday in the mountains I was inspired by all of these cottages that seemed to appear out of nowhere, and then disappeared just as quickly. When I went walking I found a very spooky cottage tucked away from the rest of the trail, described in my story. Thankfully though, I didn't get caught in a blizzard. Here it is from practically my own account:

Lodge

  It had no turrets or mullioned windows, but despite, the sorry stone hut had been the wayfarer's saviour. Winters in the Pyrenean mountains were typically raw, and this year, with no compassion, it whipped up a blizzard of boreal proportions.
  The wayfarer did not take care, unlike Theseus, to remember the tracks he'd  taken. It soon became clear he'd found himself completely and hopelessly lost. Perhaps it was not an accident; but the wayfarer just called it out-and-out rotten luck.
  As the snow clouds began to break, he came across an abandoned hut hidden high and isolated on a mountain-side. He did not stop to contemplate his fate otherwise - with all urgency he pulled back the weathered latch and entered in.
  The mountains walling the valleys were dotted with countless abandoned homes, once belonging to the shepherds. Now though, they had been pulled down by creepers and reduced to rack and ruin in their old age. The wayfarer, however, was grateful for any respite from the blizzard.
  Inside, the smell of soil and charcoal came to him immediately. It was pitch black. The wayfarer pulled a tallow candle from his pack, and with the aid of a book match, he soon got it burning like a beacon in the blackness of the room.
  The walls of the one-room cottage lacked both plaster and cement. The bare stone blocks were instead packed with rock chips, no doubt mined from the very place where they now stood. The cottage was furnished with a long table (much like those the Norsemen dined on), and parallel to this, two robust benches.
  It was simple lodging for the wayfarer's simple needs. He did not, however, want to spend the night in the bitter cold. So, he threw down his pack upon the table and went over to the fireplace, where a neat pile of scrub kindling waited.
  The wayfarer warmed by the fire, until the cold relinquished its grip on his limbs, and he began to feel quite sleepy. After time, it consumed him.

---

  After many years had passed, the wayfarer came to realise something. Although his staff had remained on its hook long enough to gather cobwebs, he never forgot the strange, uneasy night he slept hiding from the Pyrenean blizzard. Hiding from the blizzard in the abandoned, empty shepherd's cottage...
  The locals called it the Vanishing House. It came with the snow, and vanished with the wind. After several attempts at re-finding the mysterious cottage, the wayfarer abandoned his chances of ever seeing it again.
  Although it descended like mist, and was as elusive as smoke, the wayfarer was pretty sure the cottage was more material than the locals reckoned.

---

Oliwerko

#2
I apologize if the story's too long, but I got carried away, and  even though some passages may be unnecessary, I didn't have the heart to cut them out.

The Quiet One

Today, again, is the day when we all will come out of the house during the sunset, fight our way through the piles of snow as we climb onto a nearby hill, then turn our eyes into the valley and stay silent for quite a long while. When I was a boy, I didn't understand this strange custom. Once, after returning back home I asked my father:

"Father, why do we all have to climb on the hill and stay there in silence this time every year?"

After a short hesitation, he gave me a mild smile and began telling me the story:

"You know son, a very very long time ago, there was a town - just like ours. In this town lived many people, just like in ours. Among them was this strange fellow whom no one knew well. Actually, they almost didn't know him at all.

He lived in an old shack on a hill above the town. People only saw him occasionally when he came down to buy food, or when he came to the tavern for a cup of warm tea. He made very little money for what he was doing - he was carving various wood tools and statues he used to sell in the corner of the tavern, where one could often find him, with his tea in his hands.

This fellow didn't speak. Everyone knew he was mute, so the only contact he made with other people was when buying or selling things. Usually, one could understand what he thought just by looking into his eyes. Many people didn't look for this very reason. They didn’t particularly like him, but they got used to him and didn't really take notice of him. Actually, they wouldn't take notice of anybody if they could.

They were greedy people, only looking to enrich themselves. Most of them would betray their own mother for a pouch of gold. He saw it, and the greedier the people were becoming, the stronger the reflection of it was in his green eyes. It looked almost as if no one could stand looking at him, for his green eyes were a mirror of their greasiness. He was a quiet observer no one cared about. They were glad he couldn't speak, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t need company, nor did he WANT company, provided these people were the way they were.

Among all the bad people, there was one girl, Aileen – a daughter of a rich merchant, who was perhaps the greediest of them all. But not his daughter. She was fed up with all the deception and injustice her father did in a blind pursuit of his own fortune. All he did for her was buying her expensive clothing and jewelry. To her dislike, he expected her to learn the manners of high society – and also to marry a rich nobleman. Her mother married this man only because of money and neglected Aileen as her daughter.

Aileen was left for herself, with a mother craving for more and more expensive toys and a father caring only about his unfair business. She didn’t like the ‘noblemen’ her father was introducing her to, nor did she like the manners she was supposed to adopt. These ‘noblemen’ were snobbish young boys thinking that they are the focus of the whole world. They were all the same.

The only man who caught her attention was that green-eyed mute man she could see only rarely on her walks through the town. She was the only one that didn’t found a reminder of bad conscience in his eyes. She was the only one that could stay looking at him. She was the only one he ever smiled on, even very faintly.

He knew who she was. He knew that she was the only spirit in the town that was not dirty with greediness, deception and jealousy. Every time he saw her (which was actually more often than she saw him, given his observational way of life), he left his eyes on her until she was gone in the crowds. He even carved a wooden statue of her which he kept in his window frame.

He liked her. Even though he almost didn’t know her. But he knew how she was. And he knew she was the only one like that from the whole town. But he didn’t bother. He didn’t bother trying to write her letters or even talk to her. He knew their parents and that any attempts would be a very short-sighted acts of pure foolishness.


He was the only one she didn’t know, which particularly interested her. He was a mystery to her, and she knew he wasn’t like the others (the fact that the others didn’t like him gave her even more reasons). But she didn’t bother trying to find him either. She knew what her father would do. It wasn’t worth trying.

It was during one winter evening, when the green-eyed man was standing in his shack with a cup of tea, looking out of the window into the snowy valley. Everyone was out there on the winter celebrations that took place in the town. He looked at the statue and sighed lightly. Then he stepped towards the entrance.

He opened the door. He stepped out, still holding the tea in both hands. He stood there in front of the shack, looking down the hill towards the town, now being slowly concealed by the evening fog.

Few minutes later, when the sun has almost completely gone down, he saw a silhouette of a person trudging through the snow. He was puzzled for he knew for sure no one would bother to come to HIM. As the silhouette became clearer, he saw that the person was panting as if fleeing from something.

He slowly put down the tea cup to the window frame which was to the right of the door. As the person came to him, she stopped and looked at him with fear in her eyes. It was Aileen.

He didn’t move, as she slowed her breath down and said:
“They’re gone. There’s no one down there. I looked everywhere. No one is left. No one.”

In fact, he was not mute. He just thought talking was not a way of dealing with the people in the town. He simply had nothing to say. So he didn’t say anything. It was pointless, he didn’t want to. Until now.

“I know.” He said.

She was quite surprised hearing him talk, even more when he said nothing more than that. But she didn’t care.

He didn’t say anything as she fell into his arms.


So, my son – we stay silent in this winter evening in memory of those two people who didn’t fall into the sea of filth surrounding them, and also to remind ourselves not to end up like the inhabitants of the town, because money, my son – money is not everything.”

Oddysseus

My entry:

The First Snowfall

Once, in the days when the mountains were young, there lived a water nymph named Drizzid. Drizzid loved nothing more than to play in the stream by her village with her fellow nymphs, splashing them, and massaging their backs, and practicising kissing boys by making out with them... you know - girl stuff.
Then one day, the evil Ice Wizard Zzgryfsqwtchlplrtqqq37 from the Land of Unpronounceable Names came down and froze their stream, because he was bored and his mother never hugged him as a child.

"Hey, dickweed! Not cool!" Said one of Drizzid's friends, but the Ice Wizard just laughed and lowered the temperature of the air around her, which made her nipples all pointy, and she was embarrassed and had to excuse herself.

"You're totally harshing my buzz." Said Drizzid, with gusto. "But because we in the nymph realm believe in forgiveness, I'm going to"

"Taste the pain!" Interjected the Ice Wizard as he bitch-slapped her with his icy hand, freezing her instantly. Then, with the speed of a jaguar, the Ice Wizard pressed forward, down-forward, down, forward forward high-punch, thus unleashing a flawless 18-hit combo ending in a massive uppercut that pulverized her body and sent it shooting up into the ionosphere in a billion itty bitty widdle pieces.

And that is where snow comes from.

ashmc2

I have just finished my entry with two days to spare. :P

The Plight of the Neanderthals

I am the Keeper of the Rules.  I am the second Chief of all the Clans to hold this honor. My father was chosen to bring order to the Clan. He passed on to me the Rules of the Gods. No longer did the fiercest among us eat first to bursting and mate with any woman in the Clan merely because he was strongest and killed more beasts. Following the Gods, we now lived as a true Clan.

I was only a child when the Gods Ra and Horus descended from the Sun in a cloud of smoke and flame. They walked among us, their skin glinting like the sun, and killed our Clan Chief with rods of colored light. The next to be Chief stepped forward, happy to seize the opportunity, while beating his large hair-covered chest in triumph. He too was struck down, without even a scream, in these beams of light His black bones fell to the dirt beside the first Clan Chief. No one after stepped forward to lead of the Clan.

The Gods chose my smallish father as the new Chief for reasons only they understood. They told the Clan of the evil God Set and his hate for all upright walkers. They gifted my father with the knowledge to make fire. This fire was to be lit every night to keep the Lord of the Dark and his beasts from taking the weakest among us. Our meat was forever more to be cooked with the tree and the flame. No more did we have to tear and gnaw our meat like the sharp-toothed beasts. No more did we have to huddle together with the hair of beasts just to survive the night’s chill.

We lived well for many cycles as the Rules were followed, but then came the Tall-Thin-Ones with the teeth of beasts around their necks. These new upright walkers also had the ability to make flame. They came from the warm south, with no hair covering their bodies, and showing a deep malice towards our people. We tried to fight for our caves, but their tipped spears were able to fly while our charred sticks could not. Even worse, with the Tall-Thin-Ones came the lung sickness. Whole Clans died as they coughed blood and drowned in throes of pain. I could no longer pass on the Rules of the Gods to the other Clans or bring them in to build our numbers, for fear of the sickness.

Slowly we have moved northward into the eternal winter to stay away from the dying Clans and the Tall-Thin-Ones. The water is frozen and the herds are few. We have to melt the ice to drink and the berries and roots are no more. Our bellies no longer stay full. The leaves are now gone and green-needled trees, that burn with soot, now huddle in small copses on the barren drifts.

But not all is bleak. We have been given a sign from the Gods. After a score of cycles the Gods of the Sun have returned to us. The sky dances with their colored lights. The winter’s night shines like the day with bouncing and swirling Rays of Ra. They bid us to come onward north and live among them in their land. I am the Keeper of the Rules and shall lead the Clan north through the barren drifts. Although we shall trudge through the cold wastes with the last of our food, I pray that the dancing lights portend a great future for the Clan. Only time will tell. Only time will tell. 

SomeSickSelf

Two very good, very different entries so far.  Not much time left so get your stories done soon.  I've updated the first post with a nifty trophy for our winner.  It's not much, but it'll do I think.

Macay

Here's an entry, the original story was a bit short so I turned it into a poem instead, for surely we all like a jolly good rhyme.

~Aosaginohi in Winter~
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meng Wu Po is the man which we are to be concerned,
From his tale some thing might be learned.
He was a vagrant man who from his zither made coin
And angered the men when he pleased the occassional loin.
This passer of the road of which none had a clue
Was one for the angels, that much is quite true.
He lived for a story and as you will come to see,
He died in one without a hint of reverie.
'Tis was a winter where the cold lay harsh
And our good Meng wandered a road of which was a farse.
It was by fact a river of ice
Covered in snow, it did look quite nice.
This he did follow with clueless remorse,
Until he heard a zither song and altered his course.
Lying against a tree there was a bird without a fold,
Larger than a man, with a zither of gold,
This heron was white and with a neck
Taller than the tree of which he had his fishermans deck.
Meng starred at the bird from a distance like a cur,
Who looked his way and spoke in an attempt to lure.
'If you want to hear my zither,
Then why do you dither, do come hither'
Meng came close and felt placed like a king
'You are lost, are you not?' asked the heron, lost in his string
Meng did figure, came to agree
And asked the heron in a plea
'Emperors would worhsip your zither and yet I must depart,
could you point me to the road of which I must reach before dark.'
'I will lead you to the road, if you do me one favour,'
The heron did ask 'Crack the ice so I can get me a fish to savour'
So Meng lifted a boulder and had at the river,
Hoping that the bird could at least get a sliver.
It did not take long for the ice to crack,
Leaving an impressive hole that took some knack.
Meng did rise and turned to face
The fowl that now pushed him into the haze,
When he tried to get out the bird pecked at his strife
So his head started bleeding 'til he felt that was his life.
As he started to pass he saw what had fed,
This birds diet was on the riverbed.
They linned the bottom these skeletons so bright,
And by the gods it gave him a terrible fright.
I hope you now see why Meng is our concern
For even men like he cannot be saved by what they learn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

SomeSickSelf

Okay, we should be well past the deadline in every time zone at this point.  Let the voting commence!

Atelier

I blatantly missed the deadline so is my entry still counted? (It's in the first post). I had it all ready but never managed to post it...

I'm going to go with Macay, because a lot of effort has clearly been put in and the third and fourth line is excellent!

Darius Poyer

Well then, i give my vote to Macay as well. It was simply a delight to read.

SomeSickSelf

Quote from: AtelierGames on Mon 04/01/2010 18:41:09
I blatantly missed the deadline so is my entry still counted? (It's in the first post). I had it all ready but never managed to post it...

I'll count it, only because you had mentioned before that it was done before the deadline.

Oliwerko

Odyssesus' entry made me laugh  ;D

I got a bit lost in Macay's one, maybe it's me, I don't know.

I give my vote to the Lodge, because there's simply exactly the type of story I like to read.

Macay

I didn't know you could vote if you had an entry; if it so then my vote goes to AG's 'Lodge', didn't overstay it's welcome and felt like a story around the fireplace.

Oddysseus


ashmc2

I’m going to be difficult and tie the votes up again. Sorry SSS but it is back in your lap because I really enjoyed the lodge. My vote goes to AG this fortnight.

xenophon

My vote goes to "The Quiet One" by Oliwerko.

I liked the message that "money isn't everything", especially around the holiday season & because of the fact that lately around our house, that message has been hitting home.

Good job, Oliwerko!

SomeSickSelf

Up to me to break the tie then?  It's unfortunate that I'm not able to give fair consideration to all of the entries, but I honestly fear that if that were the case it would have been too hard to choose.

At any rate, I cast my tie-breaking vote for Lodge by AtelierGames.

Congratulations to you AG, the trophy is yours, as is the honor of creating the next competition.

My thanks to everyone, I could not have been more pleased with the turnout.  I'd love to stay and ramble, but I really must be getting to bed.  Keep on writing!

Atelier

Thank you to everybody who voted and competed, I'll start the new round sometime today.

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