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queerly_beloved)
Preface:
Not much more to say, here, except: Besides giving me a chance to write a more believable (to me) "And they fell in love, and were happy ever after" resolution, this exercise also gave me a chance to write more believable consequences for what happens when the singular head of government is thrown out of commission by a magic spell for a generation (or four -- I'm still haunted by the implications of Sleeping Beauty).
Also, in the original, we never know who "Iron Heinrich" is, or why he has that nickname, or why he shares the status of titular character, until the penultimate full paragraph of the story -- at the very beginning of a very ordinary journey to the king's palace, at a very ordinary pace. What could be a big, dramatic, moment is, instead, lumped in with the denouement.
I realized it would make more sense, from the characters' own point of view, if that moment came at the end of a long, extraordinary, journey (which also gave the two people at the center of the story actual time to become emotionally closer)
Where we left off:
( Under the Linden Tree, Part 5/5 (1,529 words) )
--End--
Here's the paragraph that inspired much of this story, from the Wikipedia article Lime Tree (aka Linden Tree) in Culture > Germanic Mythology (Which I looked up because I was curious as to why the Linden Tree was called out by name in my Grimm source):
And from the Wikipedia article on the Lime (Linden) Tree, I learned that they can live up to 2,000 years old (!), and can be propagated by cuttings.
So, I kinda had to make those things into plot points, didn't I?
BTW, Here's a illustration of a mature Linden from 1840.
queerly_beloved)Preface:
Not much more to say, here, except: Besides giving me a chance to write a more believable (to me) "And they fell in love, and were happy ever after" resolution, this exercise also gave me a chance to write more believable consequences for what happens when the singular head of government is thrown out of commission by a magic spell for a generation (or four -- I'm still haunted by the implications of Sleeping Beauty).
Also, in the original, we never know who "Iron Heinrich" is, or why he has that nickname, or why he shares the status of titular character, until the penultimate full paragraph of the story -- at the very beginning of a very ordinary journey to the king's palace, at a very ordinary pace. What could be a big, dramatic, moment is, instead, lumped in with the denouement.
I realized it would make more sense, from the characters' own point of view, if that moment came at the end of a long, extraordinary, journey (which also gave the two people at the center of the story actual time to become emotionally closer)
Where we left off:
When Heinrich came, at last, to say that it was time to go, the linden branch was no longer in his buttonhole. And the slightest of smiles passed between master and servant.
( Under the Linden Tree, Part 5/5 (1,529 words) )
--End--
Here's the paragraph that inspired much of this story, from the Wikipedia article Lime Tree (aka Linden Tree) in Culture > Germanic Mythology (Which I looked up because I was curious as to why the Linden Tree was called out by name in my Grimm source):
Originally, local communities assembled not only to celebrate and dance under a linden tree, but to hold their judicial thing meetings there in order to restore justice and peace. It was believed that the tree would help unearth the truth. Thus the tree became associated with jurisprudence even after Christianization, such as in the case of the Gerichtslinde, and verdicts in rural Germany were frequently returned sub tilia (Unter der linden) until the Age of Enlightenment.
And from the Wikipedia article on the Lime (Linden) Tree, I learned that they can live up to 2,000 years old (!), and can be propagated by cuttings.
So, I kinda had to make those things into plot points, didn't I?
BTW, Here's a illustration of a mature Linden from 1840.
