Now that Volume 3 is in its third draft (and it has a title!) I am feeling much better about it. There are even parts I’m becoming fond of, such as:

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But Anah, seeing the snake, was happy, for he thought he had been led here on purpose of his supper; and he strode to the tree and lopped off the head of the snake with his axe. And it cried, “Woe, I am perished!” upon which it expired, and fell to the ground, and was ready to be skinned and toasted.

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Toasted snake. Isn’t that nice?

            As you may be able to tell from the excerpt, Volume 3 is heavily influenced by a book of medieval Welsh stories called The Mabinogian. Probably you have read it, or parts of it – if you haven’t, it is all about knights, maidens, magic, and of course chivalry; part of it tells the story of King Arthur. When I was in high school, I had a Dover Thrift Edition of the Lady Charlotte Guest translation, and I read it so often that sucker eventually just fell apart.

            I liked two things about it. First, the stories are told in a very oral way, if that’s the word I want – most of the sentences begin with And or So, and the dialogue goes back and forth within a paragraph. The effect is that you’re listening, not reading, and I like the intimacy that creates.

            The other thing I enjoy, and find unique, is the precision of the descriptions. In a story called The Lady in the Fountain, for instance, a lion is introduced in the following manner:

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And Owain went towards the spot, and beheld a huge craggy mound, in the middle of the wood; on the side of which was a grey rock.  And there was a cleft in the rock, and a serpent was within the cleft.  And near the rock stood a black lion, and every time the lion sought to go thence, the serpent darted towards him to attack him. 

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Did you get all that? The mound, the rock, the cleft, the serpent, and the lion? I think what appeals to me is how factual it appears when you write it down that way, like the writer is actually a trial witness, listing a progression of observations that may or may not have something to do with the case.

            My story, although it uses these two devices, (plus of course the thee and thou) is a different animal altogether. It’s a long story (that is part of an even longer story) broken up into pieces that are not quite chapters and not quite individual stories, and each piece ends with a funny proverb (there are no funny proverbs in The Mabinogian). And The Mabinogian has all kinds of good stuff that I didn’t use, such as murder, enchantments, treasure, sex, revenge, eveningwear, and death by jousting. My story has a lot of talking birds and no mention of material wealth, just food.

            Anyway, I am relieved to find, after three drafts, that it’s not as awful as I expected. Bring on the chocolate cake!

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