Fables and Fantasies

By Dale T. Phillips

This collection of five different tales gives some new takes on old stories. It's like following a familiar road, only to discover a new, unusual side path that takes you to an alternate destination. Here are new worlds to explore, with magic, swords, vampires, princesses in peril, and choices to be made. Heroes and villains and something in between. Monsters, both internal and external. Encounters with the unusual to make you think, laugh, and shiver with fright.
Three stories are all new, and two have been previously published, in Aoife's Kiss and Sorcerous Signals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dale T. Phillips
• Release date: Dec 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465949929

Dale T. Phillips

A lifelong student of mysteries, Maine, and the martial arts, Dale T. Phillips has combined all of these into the Zack Taylor series. His travels and background allow him to paint a compelling picture of a man with a mission, but one at odds with himself and his new environment. A longtime follower of mystery fiction, the author has crafted a hero in the mold of Travis McGee, Doc Ford, and John Cain, a moral man at heart who finds himself faced with difficult choices in a dangerous world. But Maine is different from the mean, big-city streets of New York, Boston, or L.A., and Zack must learn quickly if he is to survive. Dale studied writing with Stephen King, and has published over 70 short stories, non-fiction, and more. He has appeared on stage, television (including Jeopardy), and in an independent feature film. He co-wrote and acted in a short political satire film. He has traveled to all 50 states, Mexico, Canada, and through Europe. He can be found at www.daletphillips.com

Book preview

Fables and Fantasies

A Five Story Collection

Dale T. Phillips

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Fables and Fantasies

Copyright 2011 Dale T. Phillips

Cover Design copyright 2011 Melinda Phillips

Blades and Butchery was first published in Aofie’s Kiss, March 2009

The Little Guy was first published in Sorcerous Signals, Feb 2010

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no portion of these stories may be reproduced without written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and thank you for purchasing this short story.

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Other works by Dale T. Phillips

Zack Taylor Mystery Novels

A Memory of Grief

A Fall From Grace

Story Collections

Crooked Paths (Mystery/Crime)

Strange Tales (Weird, Magic Realism, Paranormal)

Halls of Horror #1 and #2 (Horror)

Jumble Sale (Mixed Genres)

Apocalypse Tango (Science Fiction)

For more information about the author and his works, go to: http://www.daletphillips.com

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Our New Queen

Blades and Butchery

Froggy Went A Courting

The Little Guy

Jakob and the Witch

About the Author

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Foreword

For the longest time, I could never figure out why adults would tell fairy tales (especially those of the Brothers Grimm, which were rather grim) to young children, presenting kids a world of oddly cruel behaviors and child-menacing monsters. Sounded like pretty gruesome stuff for such tender sensibilities. Were they supposed to be precautionary tales? Don’t pick flowers off the path? Be suspicious if someone leads you deep into the woods? Mom thinks it’s a bad idea to trade our cow for magic beans, but we really know better?

And what’s up with those leaps in the narrative, and fantastic elements of magic and mayhem? What were we supposed to learn from those?

I preferred the stories as shown in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show’s Fractured Fairy Tales, where they would take a well-known old chestnut and twist it into something funny, with a different moral, a shaggy-dog pun at the end. Laughing at these tales seemed far better than being creeped out by hearing how grownups were abandoning you to the wolves.

Then I read Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, and I understood. Childhood is a terrifying existence at the whim of irrational giants, where disaster is a step away, even if one has done nothing to deserve it. The monsters can come at any time-- and they might well be your own family. Fairy tales are a way of telling children, via story (the most powerful teaching method of all) that they can fight back and sometimes win: Hansel and Gretel pushing the witch into the oven, Jack defeating the giant, the evil queen being bested. I finally got why fairy tales are so important from such a young age. Fantasy allows us to expand our world, try out roles. It allows us to see the world in a different way.

But my reading tastes changed as I got older, and the fairy tales didn’t always have a happy ending-- sometimes the monsters won. We don’t all live happily ever after. Life is a mixture of good and bad outcomes, and the modern fantasy story can go either way.

So here are a handful of tales for your enjoyment. Some are funny, some scary, some end well, and some have mixed blessings to those in the story. Kind of like life.

Our New Queen is a familiar setting, but a very different outcome, mixing in a current modern phenomenon with an old style tale.

Blades and Butchery is an homage to the epic Sword and Sorcery tales of the great Fritz Leiber. It is easy to parody heroic fantasy, and make it wicked fun, so I had a go at my own anti-heroes.

Froggy Went A Courting came about just because of the old song (Mr. Frog went a courting, he did ride, sword and pistol by his side). I had to find a story to match, and created this tale of love and good intentions gone wrong.

The Little Guy takes a familiar tale and tells it from the other side. It comes out with a bit of a different slant, then, and highlights the unfairness of some of the old fairy tales.

Jakob and the Witch began as just a title, and I wasn’t sure where the story was going when I began. The title of Marburg in the story arose and had resonance. There is a title in that part of the world called a Margrave, and I wanted a title a bit further down the scale, something similar, but not exactly the same. As a special bonus, the name is also a deadly pathogen, just as the beliefs of the Marburg in the story are deadly to humankind. After I introduced the word, I looked it up, and found that it is a town in Germany. In an odd bit of coincidence and Jungian synchronicity, it was the area where the Brothers Grimm set some