The Woodsman and the Fairy

By Donald Muller Jr.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465334220

Donald Muller Jr.

Donald C. Muller’s interest in fantasy grew out of his boyhood years where he spent much of his time exploring the back woods of the foothills of the Catskill Mountains and reading the works of his favorite authors (Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kahlil Gibran, and Dr. Seuss), and the books of the Bible. He holds a B.A. in Combined Science from Castleton, Vt., and a dual MBA in Marketing and Healthcare Administration from AIU Online. He is interested in History, Geology, Religion and pursuing creative endeavors such as writing, scripting, clowning, writing games, and doing puppetry. He may have been seen in the Catskill Mountains of New York, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and out to the Grand Teton mountains of Wyoming or even driving the streets in Iowa. An infamous line of his is “Make it work then make it better or better make it work”. He also made up the double entrant of: “The patience of a doctor will help him keep his patients” (or is it the other way around?) “A doctor who looses his patience will make him lose his patients.” On the other hand, it could be the other way around like; “A doctor who looses his patients will cause him to lose his patience”. He has an interest also in technology that was honed in the Coast Guard in the early 1980’s where he had researched and aided the implementation of a version of the Cubic Spline Interpolation routine to allow the Coast Guard to interactively monitor and plot oceanic buoys without using ships to collect data. Later he went on to database development in the securities brokerage industry.

Book preview

The Beginning

I bid thee Greetings! My name is Traron. This is a story about my Mom and Dad, as well as I know it anyway. What am I? Well, I’m a fairy folk, as we are known around here. Where are we now? I would offer you a far away look and tell you simply we (or they) are not far away. Indeed, we live in a world that some might say exists only in the imagination. You can get to it if you follow the ethereal, and bridge the primordial. You can easily get to it when you are just waking up from that evening sleep. Without wanting to waste my effort, let me indulge a bit into your imagination so that I might tell you their story.

*     *     *

Once upon a time, a long time ago, which in our time is not so long ago, and could indeed have been just yesterday. But, in a forest, not so well known, there lived a Woodsman. He was strong, smart, well liked and much like me . . . handsome (though mom would say my looks come from her. hee hee hee). Anyway, he was and is my dad. One of his jobs was to chop wood for the local townspeople so they would be able to keep warm when the nights grew cold. One day, God was looking down on the woodsman.

That day God said to Himself, I would like to examine the heart of that Woodsman and see how happy he is.

So He did. God found that the woodsman was sad because he was alone. God knew instantly what to do.

I will create a fairy and send the fairy to flutter around the woodsman. This should spark an interest in the woodsman, said God.

The Meeting

Well, later the woodsman was hard at work hacking away at an old fallen tree. His muscles were tightening with every lift of the axe. The sweat sprayed off the muscles of the woodsman with every crack the axe made in that old fallen tree. Some of these drops caught a ray of sunshine that was piercing the dark woods. As they fell through the rays of sunlight, they twinkled and caught the eye of a passing fairy. The light was followed by a chopping sort of noise. Fairy went over to see where the rivets of light and the sound of chopping came from. In this section of the forest, the atmosphere was rather dark and somewhat foreboding. Soon the fairy found a Woodsman hacking away at a recently fallen tree.

Hello, Woodsman, said Fairy.

*     *     *

Pausing from my story, let me interject a thought that I want you to think about—you know, I’m thinking deeply whenever you find me tapping my fingers on the side of my head (hehehe, yes starting from my pinky and ending with my forefinger). Well here it goes "Especially in a deep dark forest it doesn’t take much of a light to illuminate a problem.

Anyway, to continue my story . . ."

*     *     *

Why are you hacking away at that old tree out in the middle of this deep, dark forest? asked the fairy.

Not thinking anything special of a fairy being able to talk, the woodsman answered:

The people need wood to keep warm and the forest needed someone to clear away old fallen trees and I am just the right woodsman for the job.

But something about the way the question was asked from the fairy sparked something deep down within the woodsman, which puzzled him. The woodsman also noticed that the wings of the fairy were like nothing like he had ever seen before.

Fairy, how come you are flying so deep into these dark woods?

Even as these words came from the woodsman’s mouth, his eyes saw that the fairy wasn’t flying so well and Woodsman pressed the question even further.

Fairy, I’ve seen many fairies in my time, but usually they fly somewhat differently. Is there anything wrong?

The fairy sweetly replied, I have a cold, and when I sneezed I hurt my wing when I banged into a tree. Now I’m trying to find a safe spot to land and get better.

The woodsman gently responded, saying, You may stay with me.

The fairy, seeing that the woodsman was kind and his words were soothing, the fairy agreed to stay . . . For awhile anyway.

The woodsman collected some special flowers and made a rather fragrant bouquet. He also included some special herbs that he used on himself whenever he came down with a cold and placed them in some hot water for the fairy.

Here, said the woodsman. These herbs make me feel better whenever I come down with a cold. Maybe they will do you some good also.

The wing was bandaged up the best it could be and the fairy was delighted.

The fairy said, You are indeed kind to me. I’m sure the wing will mend well and I recognize the herbs as the bitter rootstalk of the goldenseed, which contains hydrastis. Yes, they are good for me as well. Thank you so much.

I might have a question to ask you, Woodsman, said the fairy, sipping on the brew that the woodsman had brought her.

The woodsman simply answered and said, Sure fairy. Ask what ever it is that is in your heart.

So she did. Why are you alone in these foreboding woods, Woodsman?

A million needles instantly struck the woodsman.

The fairy saw the pain on the face of the woodsman and quickly proceeded. You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful. But I would like the answer to that question when you feel up to the task.

The woodsman responded, It’s ok, Fairy. I will put it like this. Sometimes you work hard and people respond to what you do. Sometimes you can spend a lifetime for others and they cannot see beyond what they are given except for what they can get. I guess here is a problem. How do people dig themselves into having one-sided relationships? In those situations, well, is it best to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and set about moving on? It’s a great feeling to be needed, Fairy. I guess that is what happened to me. I was in one of those relationships for a long time. I felt my soul crying out because it was dying. It’s nice to have friends around, Fairy. They become like your family. In life, I believe that you are given charges. Sometimes you get to choose your charges, sometimes they are chosen for you. A baby being raised without love will die.

*     *     *

Pausig from my story (hehehe, yes again), let me explain things to you. You know, I don’t have to mention to anyone that they instantly became good friends. I can’t because I wouldn’t have been here except that my mom has a rather inquisitive nature about her. But I digress. Let me now get back to the story at hand, as the fairy was not yet my mother. HeHeHe.

Anyway . . .

*     *     *

Fairy got better and the woodsman cleared more trees away to give more light into this patch of woods that was in fact his home. Every day, the woodsman went out to perform his chores, and he was pleased that fairy came along to talk with him. Sometimes Fairy would even land on the shoulder of the woodsman. It made the woodsman happy to Fairy resting there. Not only was the voice of the fairy small, and so he could hear her better, the voice of Fairy was easy to his ear as well. Together they made a pleasant picture out in those deep dark woods. Though they had many adventures, Woodsman never really knew the heart of the fairy. Not yet anyway. He sensed Fairy was happy, well sort of, but maybe unsettled as well.

One day, the woodsman asked a question to Fairy. What’s on your heart, Fairy?

The woodsman bent down and picked a purple rose from a rose bush he had been tending, and offered it to the fairy. She graciously accepted it. The fairy reached out her hand, and turned the rose over so that the back of her hand had faced his skin. She brushed her hand lightly against the side of his face and then she stopped. She brought one finger up to her lips, kissed the end of her fingertip, reached up and pressed it gently against his lips.

How tender the touch and how soft is the skin of this creature, the woodsman thought. He kissed the finger she held there. As he stood there gazing into the face of the fairy, he felt that there was no place he could think of where he would rather be than standing there with her at that very moment, as God clicked a picture for time and smiled.

As the fairy gazed into the eyes of the woodsman, she could see a billowing brook of meandering thoughts. Much like her own thoughts, she thought.

She could even imagine herself locked away in his being with herself looking out and back at herself in the eyes of this Woodsman. She beheld an aura of wisdom and knowledge that poured from deep within him. This aura surrounded her tiny frame with such warmth. She adored him with all the grace of an angelic chorus.

For the first time in his life, the woodsman felt treasured. Usually people cannot see fairies, as they exist at a greater frequency then people do. The woodsman was able to see her because he had a special gift whereby he could use his spirit to see various beings in the elemental plane. He had been given this gift earlier in his life.

It happened when he died during an operation that he had. The room where the operation was performed was three floors above the ground. His doctor wanted to remove his inflamed tonsils (something that is not usually done anymore) and administered some gas whose oil that had been earlier extracted from a skunkweed plant. The oil was heated and the oil mist was then piped through a set of reeds that ended