If you find yourself inside a fairy tale...

I love fairy tales; if you do also there is a wonderful challenge for you to join, Carl's Once Upon a Time III challenge, which runs until Midsummer's Eve. I have been thinking about joining, but haven't yet...I think I will go for Quest the First: Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time III criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres. I like fantasy, so perhaps I'll go with Lesley Livingstone's Wondrous Strange, John Crowley's Love & Sleep, Gordon Dahlquist's The Dark Volume, or a reread of an old favourite, Alis Rasmussen's The Labyrinth Gate.

In any case, if you are at all familiar with fairy tales you will know there are certain rules to follow if you happen to be in the middle of a story yourself -- Neil Gaiman has thoughtfully put together a poem called Instructions for just that instance.

Here is the beginning:


Instructions
by Neil Gaiman

Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never

saw before.

Say "please" before you open the latch,

go through,

walk down the path.

A red metal imp hangs from the green-painted

front door,

as a knocker,

do not touch it; it will bite your fingers.

.......now go read the poem in its entirety.......
(Or you can find the poem in his story collection, Fragile Things)

And then perhaps you'd like to hear the man himself read his poem to you. It is a wonderful experience.