Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Tales from the Hidden Grove
    Tales from the Hidden Grove
    Tales from the Hidden Grove
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Tales from the Hidden Grove

    By Elizabeth Hopkinson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Elizabeth Hopkinson has had over 60 short fantasy stories published. Now for the first time, 12 of them have been collected in this charming slim volume. Booksellers and emperors learn to fly, fairies deliver the milk, and horses, knitting needles and the Houses of Parliament are not what they seem. Sometimes funny, sometimes moving, always imaginative, this book will take you into the magical world of an author Black Pear Press called: "Amongst the finest short story writers in the UK right now. " This book also contains the previously unpublished "Paper Prince", and a brief "About the Stories" describing the inspiration behind each of them.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateMay 17, 2017
    ISBN9780244006976
    Tales from the Hidden Grove

    Read more from Elizabeth Hopkinson

    Related to Tales from the Hidden Grove

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Mermaid And The Boy

      Jun 3, 2020

      The Mermaid And The Boy
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Fool Who Fished For A King

      May 1, 2020

      The Fool Who Fished For A King
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Nightingale

      May 1, 2019

      The Nightingale
      10 min read

    • Article

      In Memory Of Derek Alton Walcott

      Mar 15, 2018

      1 Island traffic slows to a haltas screeching gulls reluctantto lift heavenwardcongregate like mourners in saltcrustedkelp, as the repellentnews spreads to colder shores: Sir Derek is no more.Bandwidths, clogged by streamingtributes, carry the pitcho

      2 min read

    • Article

      Greeting The Queen Of The Night

      Dec 4, 2019

      Greeting The Queen Of The Night
      2 min read

    • Article

      Tripping The Light Fintastic

      Jul 5, 2023

      ON a peaceful summer’s evening, a beautiful girl with long, golden hair floated in a rockpool near Cury in Cornwall, sobbing inconsolably. An old man drew near and, startled, she leapt, revealing a hint of fish tail. Keen to help a damsel in distress

      6 min read

    • Article

      6 Watery Folklore Wonders

      Mar 25, 2021

      6 Watery Folklore Wonders
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Stories Of A Chile Night

      Nov 1, 2022

      Stories Of A Chile Night
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Sun Horse

      Aug 2, 2023

      The Sun Horse
      5 min read

    • Article

      Queen Minbe And The Cricket

      Jul 1, 2019

      Queen Minbe And The Cricket
      3 min read

    • Article

      Nothing Prepares You For The Impact Of Africa.

      Jun 30, 2021

      Strange sights, new sounds, unfamiliar smells. It is a total assault on the senses, like being a child again and seeing the world afresh. Once you have been there, breathed its dry air, watched distant storms trailing across its immense horizons and

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Tale Of Two Christmases

      Dec 17, 2020

      A Tale Of Two Christmases
      7 min read

    • Article

      Copenhagen’s Goodwill Ambassador

      Apr 1, 2024

      Copenhagen’s Goodwill Ambassador
      4 min read

    • Article

      Memorable Mermaids

      Apr 15, 2021

      Memorable Mermaids
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Island Of Many Colors

      Nov 1, 2020

      The Island Of Many Colors
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Little Mermaid

      Jan 1, 2020

      The Little Mermaid
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Poet of Kyrgyzstan

      Dec 1, 2020

      The Poet of Kyrgyzstan
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Vikings Of Birka

      Oct 29, 2021

      I do not know her name, so I have given her one: I call her Hervor. Other famous skeletons have names. Think of Lucy the Australopithecus, named for a Beatles song, and Ötzi the Iceman, named for the valley he was found in. I could have named her Lag

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Portuguese Legend Retold by Ona Síporín

      Nov 1, 2021

      A Portuguese Legend Retold by Ona Síporín
      3 min read

    • Article

      Myths And Monsters

      Dec 22, 2020

      Myths And Monsters
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Tales from the Hidden Grove

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Tales from the Hidden Grove - Elizabeth Hopkinson

      Tales from the Hidden Grove

      Tales from the Hidden Grove

      Copyright Details

      Copyright © 2017 by Elizabeth Hopkinson

      All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

      First Printing: 2017

      ISBN 978-0-244-00697-6

      Hidden Grove Press

      22 Pasture Side Terrace (West), Clayton,

      Bradford, West Yorkshire BD14 6LW

      www.elizabethhopkinson.uk

      The Ice Queen and the Mer-King was first published in New Fairy Tales, February 2009 issue.

      Anna Sun and Anna Moon was first published in Spacesports and Spidersilk, June 2012 issue.

      Survivors was first published in Strange Horizons, 11th April 2005 issue.

      Fairy Dairy was first published in EOTU Ezine of Fiction, Art and Poetry: The Fantasy Issue IV, December 2004.

      French Knitting was first published in The Linnet’s Wings, winter 2014/2015 issue.

      Cromwell and the Fools was first published in On the Day of the Dead, pub. Black Pear Press, November 2016.

      Bursting the Bubble was first published in Vitality, December 2015 issue.

      Silver Hands was first published in Cabinet des Fees, March 2009 issue.

      Horse was first published in Byzarium, October 2008 issue.

      Mr Spink Learns to Fly was first published in Byzarium, December 2005 issue.

      The Tale of the Emperor’s Sighs was first published in Silver Blade, Issue 10, May 2011.

      Cover Illustration: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Arthur Rackham.  Public domain.

      The Ice Queen and the Mer-King

      There was once, so the story goes, a king who subdued the surrounding nations with the might of his sword, and all feared him.  And when he had conquered the nations to the west and the south, he made war on the icemen who rule the frozen wasteland to the north, beyond the mountains.  Then there was battle on the plains of ice for many days, but the soldiers of the warrior king outnumbered the icemen with their sparkling javelins, and the plains fell.  For a prize of war, the king from the south demanded the elder daughter of the ice prince for his wife, and he carried her away captive to his home among the heath lands and the rushing rivers, and made her his queen.

      Never in all his days had the king seen such a rare beauty as the ice princess from the frozen waste.  Her skin shone and glittered in the sun.  Some say the sun shone right through it, leaving rainbows in every room through which she passed.  Her eyes were as blue as the clear sky on a January morning, and each delicate strand of her flowing hair was made from a single icicle.

      Too rare and too delicate was the new queen for the palace of the king within his fortified city.  He could not regale her in the mighty feast hall of his fathers, where the trophies of war hung above the great fireplace and unspeakable desires burned in the eyes of his warriors and chieftains.  He could not promenade her in the scented gardens where the daughters of the ancient houses whispered by the trellises and the jealous sun winked maliciously from behind the clouds.

      So, the king took his queen of ice and locked her in the upper room of a tower.  It stood on an island in a coastal bay, where the great river flowing from the mountains met the dark and changeable sea.  Here she remained, looking out from her window at night, as the waves crashed and tumbled, singing a lament in the cold, chiming tongue of her people.  Her breath as she sang was like clouds of snowflakes falling in a mist.  It fell slowly to meet the restless surface of the sea, each flake for one moment a glistening star before it was gone forever.

      Each week, the king would unlock the door of the queen’s chamber with an iron key, and bring her down to the room beneath her own, a cold room with gloomy tapestries and a panelled bed.  There he would embrace her roughly and, with each embrace, one icicle strand of the queen’s hair would break off and fall to the ground with a crash.  When the king was gone, the queen, returning to her chamber, would weep and mourn the breaking of her delicate hair, shedding hailstone tears.  These too would fall into the night, and the wind would carry them away into the heart of the sea.

      Now, beneath the waves that roared about the island, lay the kingdom of the mer-folk.  For long centuries beyond the accounting of men, they had ruled the ocean depths.  But unlike the king above the surface were they, because they ruled with equity and not by the sword.  Although their king wielded the trident, and the power of the waves was at his command, he used it but seldom.  He took counsel among the lords of the mer-folk, and understood the ways of the many creatures that swim the unseen depths, and the pulse of the ocean was the beating of his own heart.

      So, it happened that, as the mer-folk feasted at night upon thrones of pearl and shared the fellowship cup together in their coral gardens, they looked far above them and saw the glittering of stars.  It seemed to them that there were constellations in the heavens.  Each star gleamed for one moment and then went dark as another appeared, as unlike the first as it was unlike the next.  Magical and mysterious to the lords of the sea were the stars that were the breath of the ice queen.  It happened also that, as they swam in clear lagoons beyond the knowledge of mariners, pearls fell softly through the sea towards them, no bigger than the scales of the tiniest fish.  But when they tried to touch the pearls that were the ice queen’s tears, they melted in their hands.

      And the king of the mer-folk declared that they should all swim up to the surface to see what these marvels were, that came to them from the world of air.  So, they rose together at night upon the back of a wave, singing their haunting songs.  There, in the window of the tower, they saw the ice queen with her clear blue eyes, weeping into the night.

      The queen looked through her tears and beheld the mer-folk riding the waves and their hair blowing about them in the windy night.  She lifted up her voice and sang mournfully in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1