Folksburywoods

When Wilma passed away, Ned lost his energy to do much around the farm. After morning coffee, he shuffled around the house, setting things up properly as Wilma would have liked. Sometimes, friends drop by with a pie or buttermilk biscuits and share the local gossip. Ned enjoys these visits…

“All is well, all is well, all is well,” chanted Ms Root one afternoon in the garden of delights. She had come to deal with a problem concerning a friend. “I must stop him from being so negative. He’s so dark every day, and frankly, I am sick of the…

“Why have you come into my woods? Can’t you see it is dark, dead, and gloomy? Now go away, or I say flail you with these branches,” shouted the old tree. The elfling stood smiling up at the tree, making things worse. “Why are you so grumpy?” the boy asked.…

As a schoolgirl, Minerva was a sassy lass who chased all the boys with a cricket bat. Later, she grew into a stunning beauty, the likes no man had seen. “Don’t let the beauty fool you. Minerva has more brains than the entire town,” her headmistress was often caught saying.…

Malik stood in his grain field and wondered how fast the summer passed. Now, as the days shortened and the night bit with icy fingers, the time of gathering was at hand. Lore spoke of this time with a sense of reverence, one that should be honored with festivals and…

Nubert sat on the bench in the afternoon and waited for a friend. He was past middle age, and in all those years of trying to find that special someone, he had never even come close to conversing over tea. His grandma once told him she met her husband while…

Legends tell of the sounding of the horn of Fortuna in times of great strife. The great horn is hidden in the Motress Abbey caves, and its location is known only to a few. The last time the horn was used was three hundred years ago when the northern Horde…

Pavia was her parent’s only child, and because they loved her so much, they overprotected her and never allowed her to play with other children. Life was lonely for Pavia, but she had a secret friend she would visit when she could sneak away from home. Hucho lived in a…

Mátyás thought himself the best thief around. His method was surprisingly simple. The robber waited high in a tree until an unsuspecting victim walked by. “HO! I am the Dark Wood robber. Hand over your silver and gold or lose your life,” shouted Mátyás, perched on a limb. The travelers…

Theodore Gossamer was a woodsman in the village of Stoke. He would wake before dawn, head to the forest, and fell timber to earn his meager daily wage. When the seasons turned cold, the woodsman earned extra money by collecting wild honey or buried truffles if luck was with him.…

“I wonder where this water goes when it leaves the forest?” asked Edwin to his friends Franny Fox and Jrika the wood elf. “I once followed it to the far side of the meadow when I was a pup, but my mother caught me and gave me a thorough shaking…

Nufel Ardox grew up hearing stories of the boneyard, a place of rest his grandfather called it. When Nufel turned sixty, he decided to find it. After a lifetime of back-breaking labor in the mines, the man who once dreamt of being a world explorer woke up and packed his…

“Oh my darling, why oh why did I have to die and leave you alone? Only the gators know the reason why. For it was they that did not stay in the muddy swamp as I dreamt of you. So if you can hear this lonesome tune, send me a…

“I look at them and wonder, are these the hands that worked all those years? Are they the same ones that play the fiddle, the same that held my late wife as she passed over last winter? I look Gojeck, and it’s as though they belong to another man,” said…