Sheelagh Chalk's Hob-Deflecting Belt

Sheelagh Chalk's Hob-Deflecting Belt: Object Post 109

Source? Sheelagh probably got it from a leprechaun cobbler; possibly a relative. If it was pisky work with would be more ornamented.

Significance? In a weird way it was a symbol of good faith, as well as an acknowledgement of her attractiveness

Fate? Sheelagh probably disposed of it after she married, unless she kept it to tease Nathaniel

Author’s inspiration? I like to add small bits of social culture.

***

“Wait, I’ll tie meself up first, ‘case I meet wid another hob.”

She took off her apron and cap, and she gathered the loose dress underneath into a belt.

Sheelagh Chalk was a buxom and very pretty leprechaun colleen from the chalklands. As such, she would have grown up around hobs and would know their culture. As a fair-skinned colleen, Sheelagh could pass easily, so it wasn’t unusual that Tab and Josefa met her working in a pub in Adelaide. The pub was called The Harvest Hob, so Tab informed Josefa it was probably owned by a hob rather than a human. He was right. The publican, Nathaniel Applebee, was a tall, placid man with brown hair and blue eyes, who spoke with a marked hob accent.

Sheelagh, who acted as his barmaid, and chambermaid, was…

…a young woman with a frilled apron over a loose print dress and a cotton cap over her red hair.

She brought breakfast to Tab and Josefa and told them her name and her intentions.

 “Name’s Sheelagh Chalk. Be Applebee when I wed wid himself downstairs.”

“When are you getting married?”

“Soon as himself downstairs makes up his mind to ask me. I made up me mind to have him the day we met.”

It was Sheelagh’s partiality for the publican that led her to employ her hob-deflecting belt. She agreed to conduct Tab and Josefa over there to where they wanted to go but put a belt around her print dress before they left.

 Having delivered them to their destination, she took the short route home and…

took a step away and disappeared into the trees, untying her belt as she went.

Later, Josefa recalled this behaviour and asked Tab about it.

“What was all that belt-loosening and tightening she kept doing? Is it anything to do with being a leprechaun?” she asked Tab as they drove through the suburbs.

He laughed, not because it was funny but because he felt on top of the world. “No, it’s to do with Nathaniel being a hob.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know how Peck is about the colour green?”

“Um, yes…”

… “Well, hobs are like that with loose clothes. They’re the opposite of piskies in that. So, Sheelagh loosens her belt when she’s teasing Nathaniel and tightens it if she’s somewhere that another hob might wander by.”

In other words, although Sheelagh wasn’t yet betrothed to Nathaniel, she dressed to please him, while trying to avoid pleasing any other male hob she might encounter. Of course, a tight belt would attract a male pisky, but no doubt Sheelagh would deal with that by a summary loosening. She could simply say she was already committed but to Sheelagh’s mind that wouldn’t be half so much fun!

Sheelagh and her belt appear in Sunshower

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Ness Campbell's Defenestrated Stays

Ness Campbell's Defenestrated Stays: Object Post 108

Source? Ness brought them from Scotland

Significance? Hector was taking an interest!

Fate? Hector defenestrated them

Author’s inspiration? It’s the kind of thing Hector would undoubtedly do. Besides, have you never suffered damage from a recalcitrant underwire or a nasty bit of frayed elastic?

She laced on her stays, then bundled her sark over her head.

The morning after a girl’s wedding, she might expect some consideration, but Ness Campbell, newly married to the much older and extremely pugnacious Hector, didn’t get much. Hector informed her she was to get dressed and be ready to travel. Ness complied, but she wasn’t without backbone.

Hector waited, eyes glinting, as if he enjoyed her embarrassment. Ness lifted her chin, determined to outface him. If he thought he had married a timorous wife he was wrong. She left the screen and laced herself into her gown, blushing as she encountered Hector’s gaze.

The pair travelled on to Hector’s new property, and when they reached it, Ness was weary, felt grubby and wanted a wash. She found a clean cold little creek and set to work to make herself more comfortable.

First, she washed her gown…

Next, shaking with cold and her own audacity, she stripped her sark over her head. She had not been wearing her stays, for a strip of whalebone had worked loose and made a painful reddened patch at her waist. Hector had noticed it two days before, and had seized the stays and flung them out the inn wife’s window, vowing that when he put his hands on his woman he wanted to feel bonnie flesh, and not whalebone and flannel. Ness glanced down at her pale body, faintly green in the forest light. Anyone who saw her now would take her for a kelpie’s bride!

Hector wasn’t pleased to wake up and find his bride gone, but she hadn’t left him, and at least he got his way with the stays. Heaven knows what happened to them in the end. Maybe the landlord’s goat ate them.

Ness and her stays appear in Heather and Heath

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Enno's Frenched Beret

Enno's Frenched Beret: Object Post 107

Source? This is how Enno chooses to appear

Significance? The term and the image conjure Enno as a rather detached soubrette

 Fate? Like Enno, it’s eternal

Author’s inspiration? I wanted something stylish, off-beat and continental

***

gibsoned clogs and frenched beret 

Enno is the wistful spirit of the city. She’s not a ghost per se, but more like a genius locus; a minor goddess created by and through the city’s dark alleys and neon lights.

Nineteen or so? She'll grow no older;

lingeried in theatre flies; 

in the wings, in soubrette's pose

Enno is a natural around the theatre. She likes jazz clubs but not bars. She makes a lonely figure, but her sense of style is all her own and in a way that’s what she is; a style, an idea, an image of the evening.

Enno saunters through the close,

 with leather skirt and kohl-dark eyes,

 a teardrop bag swung over-shoulder,

 gibsoned clogs and frenched beret;

 crazy patterned, some do say.

Her face is pale and urchin-bright 

with nose tiptilted; double wings 

of hair in blackbird curve reflecting 

scattered light from corner signs.

That’s Enno, forever in present tense.

Enno’s name is as enigmatic as she is. It hints at the Italian, and she is surely continental. It’s a short little soubriquet, not-quite-a-palindrome, but beginning and ending with a vowel. The accent is on the first syllable.        However, it has belonged to Germans, Estonians and a Taiwanese singer. There’s nothing new under the sun.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Barbary Lark's Veil

Barbary Lark's Veil: Object Post 106

Source? Who knows?

Significance? Veils are mysterious, and so is Barbary

Fate? Ageless, changeless

Author’s inspiration? An interest in mediaeval clothing.

***

Barbary, clad in her gown  and her veil

 Belongs to no man,  with no favours for sale

Barbary Lark is a mysterious young woman whom the villagers, and especially the young men, see from time to time. She wears her gown and her veil and she’s anything but shadowy as she goes about her business. She picks the natural harvest and makes up potions. She goes by the school and calls a cheerful good morning as she passes by. Everyone knows her but since she doesn’t age they find her unsettling. She’s touched by fairy blood and thus her clothing is quaint and old-fashioned. Barbary, like Enno with her frenched beret, never sees a reason to change. She just is.

Barbary and her veil cast their light-hearted sunshine in Myths of the Mind. In oeuvre terms she may be related to Genista dar Whin in the garlands of Thorn and May series. Barbary Chalk from that series shares her first name. It’s not a common one and seems to be a form of Barbara with a loose meaning of “stranger”.  Such a name coupled with a veil fits an enigmatic character.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Genista dar Whin's Remembered Thistle

Genista dar Whin's Remembered Thistle: Object Post 105

Source? Genista dar Whin made it, remembered it into being, brought it back, or forward…

Significance? Ash knew Genista had a penchant for prickly plants

Fate? Fernborn ate it

Author’s inspiration? Thorny plants often have lovely flowers

Appeared in? Summerfeste

***

“What, no thistles, Genista?” he asked, sucking the thumb. He smiled despite the sting and the taste of blood. “You’ve thought of everything else.”

Genista dar Whin was one of the last of the hillpure; a hillfayre woman with no clod (villager) blood. She was also related to almost every eligible hillfayre male, so she was unable to have children. She couldn’t spend much time out of the hill, but she made the most of those opportunities. On one of her ventures outside, she met Ash Coleman, a villager with a strong dollop of marshfayre blood. Something about Ash appealed to her and she chanced, or maybe engineered, a few encounters. She raised a thorn circle for them. Subsequently Ash lost his memory of that but the brambles haunted his dreams.

The herb warden gave him a draught of fernseed to clear his mind and his vision. The scent of furze, a thorny plant, attracted his attention and he swallowed some of the brew…

He brushed it aside and came awake in a circle of brambles.

“Not again!” he exclaimed when the memory that had eluded him poured into his mind.

He sat up, and the circle whirled, simple blossoms mingled with leaves, and berries in all their stages. A briar twined among them, adding its sweet pink flowers and dainty thorns. The pop of furze pods drew his attention to a bristling bush behind him, and curiously, a wild plum tree drooped a cluster of fruiting limbs. Ash reached for one and recoiled as a long thorn pierced his thumb.

 “What, no thistles, Genista?” he asked, sucking the thumb. He smiled despite the sting and the taste of blood. “You’ve thought of everything else.”

“Thistles I can raise for you, and teasels, too.” The hillfayre girl stepped into the circle. She stood inspecting him with amused interest. “What brings you back here, Ashwin?”

Genista remembered the thistle as she told him when she waylaid him again…

She reached for a shrivelled stalk beside the path and plucked a handsome purple globe out of the air. “Here’s a gift for you.”

“No thanks.” Ash put his hands behind his back, smiling despite his resolution to be as cool as she.

“You asked me for a thistle when last we met,” she said.

“I did not. I said I was surprised you hadn’t made one. Grown one. Whatever it is you do with your thorny things.”

“Then perhaps we will give it to this lady instead.” Genista caught a plaited rein from the shadows and drew forth a pony mare, a grey with a particoloured mane and mismatched eyes. “She is called Fernborn,” she said to Ash. “She will stay in the clodworld for a while—long enough to bear three foals.”

“Three?” Ash watched as the pretty mare ate the thistle flower from Genista’s hand.

That wasn’t the first encounter between the young charburner and the almost ageless hillfayre, but it was one of the happiest.

Genista dar Whin conjures her remembered thistle in Summerfeste, #2 in the Garlands of Thorn and May trilogy.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

Cordelia Petros’ Repurposed Honey Jar

Cordelia Petros’ Repurposed Honey Jar: 

Object Post 104

Source? Cordelia probably bought it, and its contents, from an irreproachably local source

Significance? It was the perfect thing for what Stephen had in mind

Fate? A good scrubbing in soapy water

Author’s inspiration? A penchant for repurposing kitchenware

Appeared in? The Peacock’s Pearl and The Drake’s Diamond

Yes, said Grandma, sneaking a glance at Grandpa who was pounding garlic with the bottom of the honey jar.

At the end of The Peacock’s Pearl, Cat Mahal was in her mother’s kitchen with her grandparent, Olivia and Stephen Petros. Stephen, a Greek-born Scotsman with an amazing zest for life and two magical traditions to draw on, had decided to make a spaghetti bolognaise. Lacking, or unable to find, a garlic crusher, Stephen repurposed his daughter Cordelia’s honey jar to smash the garlic into submission.

While Stephen cooked with the vigour only a Greek Scotsman could manage, Olivia had something important to impart to Cat.

This she did, but Cat soon noticed something odd.

It occurred to me that Grandpa hadn’t said anything for a while. That just wasn’t like Grandpa. He’s not (as far as I know) related to Elizabeth, but they have one thing in common; neither can ever keep quiet if there’s something going on. Grandpa should have been bouncing about putting his dibs in and giving opinions.

Of course he was busy pounding garlic with Mum’s honey jar. (She was not going to be pleased about that.) Maybe that was absorbing his attention. I looked round, and there he was, with the jar raised in both hands and a manic grin as he anticipated the crunchy-squish to follow… sometime.

I stared.

Grandpa stood there, frozen in place. He wasn’t distressed, or even put out. He was grinning away in anticipation of giving that garlic what-for...sometime.

I stared.

Then I turned my attention back to Grandma.

Grandma.

Yes my dear?

You froze Grandpa.

Only a little bit.

You stas-hexed him. Do you often do that?

Well… not very often.

Does he know?

Slowly Grandma unfolded her hands and lifted her finger to her lips.

I closed my eyes. Aghhhhhh! Mama mia! Dangnabbit! My grandma freezes my grandpa!

Hush dear. This too is a secret that need not be told. It does him no harm and has, sometimes, protected him from—worse.

I hushed.

 That book ends a little after this point, and when The Drake’s Diamond opens, Stephen was still frozen while menacing the garlic with the honey jar.

Several people were converging on Cat’s house, and so she—

—told Grandma she’d better un-hex Grandpa quickly.

Grandma didn’t argue. She shot Grandpa a look and down came the honey jar, smash-squish on an already-battered clove of garlic Grandpa had been pounding before Grandma hit him with the hex. The smell of garlic backwashed in our direction, mingling with the scent of Earl Grey from the cup of tea Grandpa had made for Grandma and forgotten to deliver.

“Stephen.” Grandma raised her voice a bit over the smash-squishing. She sounded placid, just as if she hadn’t stas-hexed Grandpa and left him frozen in place for at least five minutes.

She swept the odds and ends back into her handbag (yes, that apparently-bottomless handbag) and snapped it closed.

“Yes Livvy?” Grandpa stopped pounding on the garlic and turned to Grandma, beaming. He hadn’t the least notion he’d spent the last five minutes under a hex.

“You might want to wash that jar before Cordelia sees it,” said Grandma. “You know she’s particular about her kitchen.”

“Oh, Cordy won’t be back for ages,” said Grandpa. “Car trouble, remember?”

“Cordy is back now,” said Grandma, still sounding placid.

When Cordelia came in, she stopped short…

…at the sight of Grandma sitting at the counter while Grandpa ran water over the bottom of the honey jar.

That was the last we heard about that jar. Let’s just hope Stephen added some soap and elbow grease to that water.

Cordelia Petros’ honey jar gets appropriated and repurposed into a makeshift garlic crusher in The Peacock’s Pearl and cleaned up in The Drake’s Diamond.

           

Flax Lilykicker's UN-vitation

Flax Lilykicker's UN-vitation. Object Post 103

Source? Miss Kisses sent it

Significance? It emphasised how out of place Flax was in the Academy of Sweetness

Fate? Who knows? Maybe the dog-fae ate it.

Appeared in? Flax the Feral Fairy

“Out of the way!” bawled Flax as a fat, grumpy bluebird swooped towards her.

“Lassie, do you know–” the hags began.

Flax picked up Butterfly’s second-best slipper and threw it at Maggie’s head. “Go away, you clackety slopper!”

The bluebird dropped the envelope and flew away with an angry twitter. “Come back!” howled Flax. “Give me that invitation, or I’ll use your claws to comb my hair!”

Auld Anni picked up the envelope the bird had dropped and opened it. “Miss Kisses informs Flax Lilykicker that she is not—”

Flax threw a hairbrush at Anni. “That’s my invitation, you tatty old haggis!” She jumped out the window, snatched the card from Anni and raced away.

Flax Lilykicker was a bad fairy. That wasn’t her fault. It was just what she was. The purpose of bad fairies was to keep humans on their toes. Unfortunately, Flax had somehow or other ended up in Miss Kisses’ Academy of Sweetness For Little Fairies. It was not a good place for Flax. Three water hags discovered her there and decided to rescue her and place her in Hags’ Abademy of Badness where she could fulfill her potential.

Just as they attempted to make contact, Miss Kisses’ bluebirds delivered invitations to the little fairies for a party to celebrate Butterfly Cloudsinger’s Seal of Sweetness.

Only for some reason, Flax’s invitation was a different colour.

Then Flax saw the food.

“Gooseberry tartlets!” she moaned. “Hazelnut truffles with jelly! Yum!”

Petal popped out her head from the Pink Pavilion. “Flax, you’re missing the butter suckers! They’re yummy.”

Flax dived into the Pavilion, and grabbed a sugar pop. Her fingers closed on air.

She snatched a bowl of blackberry flummery fool. It shivered and shimmered and turned to mist in her mouth.

When she lunged for a butter sucker, her favourite sticky treat, it bounced away.

Butterfly floated down and took the green invitation from Flax’s pocket. She read it aloud. “‘Miss Kisses informs Flax Lilykicker that she is not invited to the Party Pavilion to celebrate Butterfly’s Seal of Sweetness. She should not arrive at five past eleven, and she will not enjoy gooseberry tartlets, hazelnut truffles, sugar pops, butter suckers, and blackberry flummery fool with the rest of Daisy Dorm.’”

There was a shocked silence, then Butterfly giggled.

“What’s so funny?” said Flax.

“Miss Kisses is sooo funny,” said Butterfly. “She sent you an un-vitation!”

Flax snatched Butterfly’s wand and trampled it under her rat-heeled boots.

This piece of gratuitous but understandable bad behaviour resulted in Flax receiving the ultimate punishment for a bad fairy. She was pinked.

Fortunately, after several chapters of mayhem Flax did end up where she should have been all along if only she hadn’t lost her temper with the hags.

Flax Lilykicker and her un-vitation appear in Flax the Feral Fairy

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of June 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places, objects and themes. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!