Thursday 13 October 2011

Nils' First Love - Romantic Friday Writers' Challenge No. 23 - 14th October 2011


Source:Wikipedia



Welcome to the Romantic Friday Writing Challenge, started and hosted by L'Aussie Denise and Francine Howarth, where participants share their own 300-400-word text on a given theme. This week's theme for Friday, 14th October, Challenge No. 22, is 'First Love'.

Here is my text:
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Nils' First Love

Nils folded his wings, removed his clothes, donned his nightshirt, climbed into bed, drew the curtains, and pulled the covers up over his head. It was still twilight, but he was tired, after a long day and a long life. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts wander back in time. He remembered how his father always spoke proudly of their race at family-gatherings:


Source: Wikipedia

Quick and quiet the Fae doth bring,
Drops of dew to every flower,
Light and airy doth the Fae take wing,
At dawn or the evening-hour.

Nils took also great pride in his heritage. He was pleased that he could still remember the words to this poem. To remember was important.

He remembered Tintomara, his first love. Tintomara was the prettiest little winged girl. Her family lived behind a huge moss-covered rock under juniper trees. Nils knew nothing about the power of love. What was a girl? he thought. Girls were like his sisters - someone to play hide and seek with; someone to tease and taddle-tale.

Being a brother is not the same thing as being a suiter or a husband. When Tintomara came of age, she blossomed like a rosebud opening its petals at dawn. One day, Nils was dumbstruck by her beauty. She flew as if she ruled the air
around her. Nils wooed her with bouquets of forget-me-nots and wild strawberries strung on a straw of grass.


Source:Wikipedia

Tintomara loved Nils too. They could have been a magnificent couple and the founders of a stunning dynasty of little people, if she had not taken ill and died before they wed.

Winter is hard on all creatures, but hardest on the little winged people who are so gentle, dreaming and fragile. They often perish, if winter comes too quickly. Tintomara was caught outside in the cold before she could take cover.

Nils was devastated. But he did get to kiss her once (and it was a magical kiss at that). But that was all.


Source: Wikipedia

Nils could have died of grief if he had not met Klara, who became his wife and gave him many children. He loved her too, as long as she lived. But since she passed away, he finds that it is not the image of Klara that comes to him on lonely, windy nights. No, when Nils closes his eyes, he sees Tintomara, and feels that one magical first kiss.

[Text copyright 2011 Christina Wigren]


Source:Wikipedia

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Word count according to WordCalc: 400; FCA; Full Critique Acceptable. Write whatever you like. Constructive criticism is always welcome!


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Best wishes,
Anna



P.S. This is a completely ficticious story with made up characters who have no resemblance to persons living or dead.
I have written the little verse myself. It is not a quote of some poem. It is supposed to sound slightly archaic to fit the ancient Faerie-setting.
You may perhaps recognise similar characters from my post for 'Bouquet' and 'Blue Moon', when I wrote about Carl Linneaus meeting faeries in the woods. In this story, I have removed Carl or any other normal-sized human beings and just kept the faeries.
Time frame: The young winged man who met Carl in the first two stories could feasibly be the old winged man who remembers his youth. This story, 'Nils' First Love' was written, as was 'Bouquet' and 'Blue Moon', directly for REW.

BTW: The name 'Tintomara' is a character from the novel Drottningens juvelsmycke
of the Swedish romantic poet, Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793-1866). I love the sound of Tintomara, so I borrowed it from Almqvist! Sounds similar to 'Tinkerbelle' from J.M. Barries' Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie 1860-1937). But Almqvist's Tintomara was neither male nor female. I am letting Tintomara be a beautiful female faerie in my story.


Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (1793-1866)

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First Commenter:

Margo Benson



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