... Oh, yeesh, is this ever embarassing.
This was written over the summer of 1995, I think, since this was the first assignment I handed
in for Writing 12. In any case, I would have been 16 or 17 when I wrote this.
The teacher was apparently unimpressed by the faux-period-piece fantasy-novel tone, and commented
that it was a "fine example of its ilk". Well, I mostly just remember the combination of
positive-sounding words, and "ilk". In retrospect, there's something terribly self-absorbed
about the hokey accents and speech patterns. Nevertheless, this story has remained one of my
favourites, and in 1995 I attempted to write actual excerpts from Lord Brock's Gramaryes. This
world was going to be linked with the world of The Villager's Tale,
and I even wrote some story scraps where "subtle" cross-references would be made.
For the record, the complete list of The Gramaryes of Lord Brock of Heatherwood included:
- The Gramarye of Avalon
- The Gramarye of Mythical Beasts and Beings
- The Gramarye of Enchanted Castles and Churches
- The Gramarye of Demons and Dragons
- The Gramarye of Elves and Enchantments
- The Gramarye of Forests and Faeries
- The Gramarye of Goblins and Gremlins
- The Gramarye of Hills and Hollows
- The Gramarye of Imps and
- The Gramarye of Jungles and J
- The Gramarye of Knights and
- The Gramarye of Lords and Ladies
- The Gramarye of Mountains and Monsters
- The Gramarye of Notable Nobility
- The Gramarye of Otherworldly Objects
- The Gramarye of Plants and Poisons
- The Gramarye of Quests and Quarrels
- The Gramarye of Rivers and
- The Gramarye of Songs
- The Gramarye of T
- The Gramarye of U
- The Gramarye of V
- The Gramarye of Wars and Weapons
- The Gramarye of Xanadu
- The Gramarye of Y
- The Gramarye of Z
As you can see, I got a little fixated on the two-word alliteration theme. Actual entries
were written for the Gramarye of Plants and Poisons; it appears that the story was designed
to also crossover with an unfinished work from Grade 10 (1994/5. I would have been about 16),
which may be included here whenever I actually get further than the scene-setting.
The main inspiration for this story was an ancient two-volume edition of
Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary that resides in our family library. At the
time, I liked to investigate the second volume's "Quotes in Foreign Languages" and "Figures
from Mythology and Literature" section, mostly for interesting bits of Arthurian legend and
Greek mythology. One day, I came across the entry for "swan maiden", and was delighted that
the dictionary would go so far as to actually include such a fanciful entry.
Possibly inspired by a book called
The Seventh Swan, which I may have read in elementary school, I began to ponder:
What if there was a swan-man? What would that be like?
(Years later, a Wargamer Society member told me that in certain Role-Playing Worlds, there
was a male equivalent to a Swan Maiden... called a Man-Drake.)
I was also haunted by memories of black swans that I'd seen at Stanley Park. For some reason,
the idea of these black swans, their ruby eyes glinting in the sunlight, appealed to me a lot
more than the idea of plain old white swans. Thus began the story.
Problem: as I discovered while doing research for an Aquatic Science 11 report on penguins,
black swans are native to Australia.
.... Which, at the time of the story, would probably be chiefly populated by Aborigine people.
If the Black Swans had the ability to transform into people, logic (my kind of logic, anyways)
would dictate that they transform into people who would "fit in"...
Leaving aside that tangled problem (for this story doesn't quite have a set period in time...),
the fact remains that the "harshly accented" tones of the Swan would, in fact, have been harsh
Australian accents. Visions of Paul Hogan stomping around in a pond came to mind when I discovered the awful truth. It was a dark day indeed.
Names are always a tough one for me, since I have a terrible time coming up with them. Maybe
it's because of Japanese shojo manga (comics for girls), where the characters used to create
the names almost always reflect the person in some way. Or maybe it's because I haven't had
enough exposure to real people, and thus I panick when I have to think of them. The notable names in this story are:
- Nathan Brock
- A name used by Mr. Sinister, one of my favourite villains from the comic book series
X-men. Because of this, I went through a period of naming many of my male characters
"Nathan" or "Nathaniel". "Brock", of course, also means "badger", and so the estate was named
"Heatherwood" to create a sense of bucolic calm. God knows how the old Lord was able to afford
a life of doing nothing but write, given that the castle didn't appear to have any kind of major
industry or trade.
- James
- I remembered that there were a lot of English kings named James. It sounded medieval.
- Lord Hewlett of Purves
- Our computer at the time was a Hewlett Packard. Over the computer area was a promotional
calendar from the lady who sold us our current house, Ms. Purves.
- Master Archer Williams
- The major road near us is called Williams Road. I think that the "Master Archer" thing
comes from vague memories of She-ra, and some red-headed moustached character named Bow.
Despite the "ilk" comment, I ended up handing in a few more fantasy stories for my assignments.
I don't think any of them were quite as hokey as this one, though, in terms of character-types
and dialects.
PS: How many cygnets did those two swans have, anyways?! And do male swans even take care
of their offspring? I seem to recall reading that swans mate for life, but that may just
be a myth.
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