Excerpt from an until now untitled story, in which the modern teen 'Elizabeth' is on a fantastic adventure…
Annyawg took his leave, and Meno asked: 'Well, then, girl, what did you think of him?'.
Said Elizabeth: 'I like him, but I feel there's something strangely sad about him'.
Said Meno: ‘Yes, that's true. That youth has a great deal on his hands. His father was a wizard, and his mother was a river-goddess. Both are heavy on his shoulders’.
Said Elizabeth: ‘In a way, he reminds me of you’.
Meno answered: ‘I’m pleased you should think so, because he’s my son’.
Said Elizabeth: ‘Your son?! You’re his father?! But you don’t look old enough;–– he’s my age!’.
Meno answered: ‘So he is; and so was I, when I knew his mother.
I first saw her when I was a little older than you are now, when I went out on a walking-party, with my brothers and cousins, in one of our rare years of peace. After a while, I went off alone, to pick watercress; and instead, I saw what seemed to me a beautiful maiden, sitting on a rock with her pretty little toes in the foam of the rippling brook, singing to herself in a voice like the river’s own, and combing her hair. I was dazzled, and I sat gazing quite some time, until she took notice of me, and called: “Come down! Don’t be shy! We’ll share the pool”.
So down I went. One thing led to another, and when the little bundle was old enough to go out of his mother’s sight, she sent him to me, to live with my relatives. You can imagine how it surprised the family when this boy appeared on the door-step, and claimed to be the son of Meno son of Teirwaedd of the House of Searlin!’.
Said Elizabeth: ‘And they believed him? Just like that?’.
Meno answered: ‘He wore the ring I gave his mother to remember me by, and he knew the passwords I’d told her’.
Said Elizabeth: ‘Did you ever see her again?’.
Meno answered: ‘Not much’.
Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? Criticism? Let me know!
