The Jackdaw's Account

 

My journal entry (text in bold represents a truth or factual event):

Tonight my travels took me beneath the oaks once more. I told myself I wished to explore farther north, though I suspect some part of me simply wanted to see the standing stones again, and to discover whether any more of them had taken it upon themselves to move.

 

As I drew near, I could see a small gathering of jackdaws amongst the stones. They seemed entirely unconcerned by my presence, and for several minutes I watched them strut from one stone to the next, occasionally stopping to examine the dark, disturbed earth where the seventh stone ought to have stood. Looking for worms in the freshly turned soil, no doubt.

 

I smiled at their antics and continued north, intending to venture deeper into the forest. I had gone only a few steps when I realised that one of the birds was following me. Jackdaws do not hop about as many smaller birds do. They walk with a purposeful, if somewhat comical, strut, and this particular fellow appeared to be marching directly towards me. I stopped and turned to watch him, that was when I noticed a glint of something bright held between his beak.

"Well, hello there," I said. "What have you got?"

Still he came. I lowered myself onto one knee, hoping perhaps I might seem a little less threatening from closer to the ground. Either the gesture worked, or the creature possessed no fear of me whatsoever, for he walked straight up and dropped his treasure onto the earth between us.

 

Neither of us moved. For a moment we simply regarded one another, each apparently waiting for the other to decide what should happen next. At last I reached down and picked up the little shining thing. It was a length of silver thread, finer than any I had seen before. It caught the fading light with an almost impossible brilliance, seeming to shimmer even when held perfectly still. I knew, in that strange way only a Keeper can know, that this was no trinket accidentally found by a curious bird. It was a gift from the forest. Something to be treasured. Then I remembered what I had read in the journals of the Keeper who came before me. Nothing is freely given in the forest. A prize received requires a prize surrendered.

 

My pockets, unfortunately, were bare. I had left the cottage carrying nothing of value, and for a moment I wondered what I could offer in return. Then my eye fell upon the cuff of my shirt. Each sleeve was fastened with a small bronze button with a circular laurel embossed upon it. It was no great treasure, perhaps, but it was mine, and I had always been rather fond of them. That, I decided, would have to be enough.

I caught the thread holding one of the buttons between my teeth and worried at it until it snapped. Then I placed the button carefully upon the ground between us. The jackdaw considered my offering. He tilted his head to one side, then the other, before giving a small, solemn bob that I chose to take as approval. Stepping forward, he plucked the button neatly from the earth. For one last moment those strange pale eyes regarded me. Then he spread his wings and was gone, carrying his prize back towards the standing stones and the waiting flock. 

I watched until I could no longer tell him from the others. Then I turned for home, the silver thread tucked safely away and one less button on my shirt than when I had left the cottage. 

The Truth In the Text

Sometimes, when I am thinking about the prompt and what to write, weaving in a thread of truth can be challenging. I've never seen a jackdaw, it belongs to the crow family and we don't have that species here in Australia. We do have a similar looking species, the Australian magpie, but it is not belong to the family of crows. 

I think every Australian has a love/hate relationship with our magpies, especially during August and September when the males are very territorial and will swoop passers-by.  One of the quirky traditions here in Australia is to wear a magpie hat during swooping season, which is nothing more than an upturned plastic ice-cream containers. 

I appreciate that if you are not Australian you probably think I am telling a tall tale, but any Australian from my era can verify this, indeed the image below is of children attending a NSW primary school in 1984. There have been many reports of injuries resulting in blindness as a result of aggressive magpies, I personally have had close encounters with a particularly aggressive male who followed me for over a kilometre swooping repeatedly at my eyes.

I digress, this wasn't intended to be a history lesson about magpies, it was meant to be about the buttons. The very first entry on this blog was called Grandma's Buttons in which I describe "I have a huge jar of buttons that was started by my Grandma, and then passed along to my Mother, who in turn passed them along to me. A glorious collection of colours and textures, most taken from old clothes before they were turned into rags."

The exchange with the jackdaw became my inlet to weave in the truth, and allowed me to bring Grandma's buttons into the narrative. Naturally, I searched through the jar of buttons to find one that fit the narrative and this made its way into the journal also.

Front Cover

The Make

This was a fun but frustrating make. I knew I wanted to make a field guide and had planned on using Microsoft Publisher for the layout. Sadly, this is being discontinued, I suppose the rise of tools like Canva make this obselete. I don't like Canva all that much, certainly not as a replacement for a program like Publisher. 

Page 1

It took me about a day of fiddling with Microsoft Word to come up with a layout that worked. The problem was that I wanted to make a smaller than A5 booklet because it had to slide into the A5 sleeve I had created, it took a while to fiddle with the margins and get it right.

Page 2

The A5 pocket was cut on my Silhouette using a design I purchased from Silhouette Design Studio. I wanted to incorporate the silver thread so I used a free feather design from Kreative Kiwi which I embroidered onto black organza with my Brother VE2300 Embroidery Machine. 

This was adhered to the pocket using spray adhesive which I felt was the best way to prevent glue seeping through the fabric or warping the cardboard.

Page 4

The field journal was printed on 120gsm A4 paper. The images within the field guide were mostly copyright free images from vintage field journals and story books. 

Page 10

I found some great resources at the Biodiversity Library, which also led me to the discovery that websites like iStock and Alamy are putting their own watermark on these free images and reselling. 

Page 11

The field guide was 12 pages in total, no wonder it took me over a week! I have only captured the pages with images as the remaining text is told above.

Back Cover

Bonus content

I spent the week researching jackdaws and stumbled across an Aesop's Fable called 'The Vain Jackdaw and his Borrowed Feathers', which tells of a plain bird who dresses himself up in peacock's feathers. You can read the various versions of this fable here. What we may learn from this fable is, in the main, to live contentedly in our own condition, whatever it be, without affecting to look bigger than we are, by a false or borrowed light. 

The Boundary Stones

 

My journal entry (text in bold represents a truth or factual event):

Tonight I followed the northern path beneath the oaks, the gentlest and most polite quarter of the forest. The trees are ancient here, their roots deep in forgotten ages, their branches witnesses to generations long vanished.

 

I had almost reached the end of my wanderings when I came upon a row of standing stones. I counted six of them, weathered and silent, set roughly in a line. The stones varied in height, the smallest rose no higher than my knee, while the tallest stood a hand above my own head. They appeared to mark the boundary of something that could no longer be seen, some ancient division whose meaning had drifted away like mist.

 

It seemed there had once been a seventh, for at the end of the row lay a hollow in the earth, some three feet across. The soil there was dark and damp as though the wound in the ground had not long been made. Whatever had happened, the earth had not yet forgotten it.

 

I was born on the seventh day of the fifth month, and so the number seven has always carried a quiet importance for me. The old stories speak of it as a number of hidden power, appearing wherever the ordinary world brushes against the realm of wonder. In the land of my forebears, seven wanders often through the old tales. Seven sisters shine in the heavens, seven years pass beneath an enchantment, seven trials await the traveller who strays from the path. 

Looking upon these weathered sentinels, I found myself wondering what story belonged to them, and whether the missing seventh stone had once marked a threshold now forgotten.

The Truth In the Text

I was born on the seventh day of the fifth month and the number seven has always been my 'lucky' number. The land of my forebears that I am referring to here is Wales, the country where my father was born. I didn't really know him, I was conceived when my mother was quite young and their lives were not meant to be entwined. I did meet him when I was a teenager, along with his wife and my two half brothers, but the last time we spoke was over 40 years ago.

There is a group of standing stones in Wales called Cwm Irfon Standing Stones (Seven Sisters). They are situated on the moorland/hills near the village of Seven Sisters (Map Ref: SN834085) in the county of Glamorgan (I know, right). The site is explicitly recorded with the alternate name "Seven Sisters" on the Megalithic Portal.

Another interesting connection to my heritage is the legend of the Pleiades, the legendary star cluster known as "Y Saith Chwaer," or "The Seven Sisters".

The website Mid Wales My Way says: In ancient lore, these seven brilliant stars are said to be the daughters of the mighty Titan Atlas. With Atlas bound to his eternal task of holding up the sky, his daughters were transformed into stars to escape the relentless pursuit of the fearsome hunter Orion. Even now, they dance gracefully across the heavens, a glowing tribute to sisterly love and unity. Yet, whispers of an ancient tale suggest that one sister fell in love with a mortal and slipped into hiding, which is why  we only see only six stars now gleam in the night, leaving the seventh cloaked in mystery.

What a remarkable process this is becoming, the weaving of stories and truths together so tightly that the edges between them blur. 

The Make

For this one I wanted to use my Prismacolor pencils, I quite enjoy using coloured pencils on kraft paper so I sketched directly on the back of the preceding entry. I used  Google to find a few reference photos for inspiration but I have not been able to locate an image of the Seven Sisters stones in Wales, the land is now afforested and no stones are visible. More mystery I suppose, are they still there? Perhaps the entity that removed my seventh stone has also been at play? 

The journal text was done on my typewriter, torn edges inked with Pumice Stone distress ink by Tim Holtz. This was layered onto a marble pattern scrapbook paper by Kaisercraft.

The second page of journaling sits beside a pocket ready for the next entry which will feature a curious Jackdaw.

The First of the Folk - The White Hare

My journal entry (text in bold represents a truth or factual event):

I began on the full moon, drawn towards the Fairy Ring. The night was cold, but the season was beginning to turn towards spring. I am sad at the passing of winter; where others bemoan gloomy skies, the rain brings me comfort.

I had not gone far when, in the middle of the path, sat a white hare wearing what appeared to be an old bridal veil. Once white, it had softened to the beige of aged thread. It was made of cloth once fine enough for a noble bride, but time had taken its toll, and moths had eaten their fill, leaving a remnant that looked like lace.

 

She stared at me with eyes dark enough to mistake for shadow and deep enough that looking into them felt like looking down a well with no bottom.

 

This must be the White Hare, one of the Forest Folk—the keeper of the Ring. I had heard tales in the village of the Forest Folk but had given them little merit. Until now.

 

Rumour has it that she never lies, but the truths she offers are always sideways, leaving the recipient to do the inner work of making sense of them.

 

Ironically, knowing I could ask anything left me without anything to ask.

 

What if I asked the wrong question? I have always been timid, afraid of making the wrong choice, of choosing the wrong path. The longer I stood silent, the more certain I became that the right question had already passed me by.

 

I blurted out the most ridiculous question and immediately regretted it.

 

“Are you real?” I asked.

 

I was reminded of an encounter many years ago in a crowded bookseller’s, where I met a man who claimed to see the Fae. Filled with scepticism, I challenged his gift, an exchange I will always regret.

 

“I am a mirror,” she replied.

The Truth In the Text

In 1998, I travelled to San Francisco for a first date. It sounds mad now, and it did not go well. Luckily, I had friends in Portland, Oregon, who paid for me to fly north and spend the rest of my week with them. That part of the trip was wonderful: they took me to Mount Hood, where I saw snow for the first time, just before Halloween. I still have the plush moose I bought there, Willy, named for the Willamette River.

But this is not really a story about snow, or bad first dates, or even Willy. It is about the man who could see the Fae.

A large Portland bookshop was hosting a signing with Brian Froud. I had loved his work since Labyrinth, and I was thrilled to meet him. He spoke about his art, his vision, and the Fae... not as something seen with the eyes, but through the heart, in the in-between places: between waking and dreaming.

My practical, sceptical mind could not make sense of it. If he could see fairies, why could no one else? Still, as people raised their hands and asked their questions, he answered each one with warmth and grace. When I put up my own hand, I repeated one instruction to myself: Do not ask if they are real. Do not ask if they are real.

Then he pointed to me.

“Do you really see fairies,” I asked, “or is it just a gimmick to sell books?”

I wanted the floor to open beneath me. Who asks Brian Froud whether he is a fraud? Apparently, me.

I have often wished I could return to that moment, not to ask a cleverer question, but a kinder one. A question that made room for wonder rather than demanding proof of it.

The Make

The make was quite simple. I am using a six-ring binder, I have a six-ring hole punch and so I am able to custom make individual pages. The portrait page is an A4 sheet of single sided scrapbooking paper cut down to A5. I roughed up the edges with a distressing tool and used Tea Dye Distress Ink on the back.

The portrait of the White Hare was done on a colour photo copier and sealed with Ultra Matte Modge Podge. The brown frame was cut on my Silhouette in dark brown cardstock and inked with metallic bronze to highlight. There is also a sheet of vellum that has been stamped with a script rubber stamp, this was all layered to the background with paper and silk ribbon scraps.

The journaling was done on my vintage Royal 210 typewriter onto silk paper which was inked and fastened to the page with washi tape.

Solo Role Playing Game Junk Journal Adventure

 

I've been creatively adrift for a few years now, mostly because my focus has been elsewhere. The past decade has included obtaining a university degree and PhD. I now work as a lecturer and researcher which takes a lot of my creative energy. For that reason a lot of my crafting has been small, discreet projects such as Christmas ornaments and whenever possible, trying to finish up some incomplete projects.

Last week I was scrolling on YouTube and came across the concept of Solo RPG Journaling. These have been around in the Table Top Roleplaying Game Community (TTRPG) community for a while and I stumbled across a niche variant... solo RPGs written by junk journalers for junk journalers. 

It is safe to say I have fallen down the Rabbit Hole and don't wish to be rescued. This amazing little genre provides guided journalling, complete with both writing and crafting prompts. 

If you Google 'solo RPG journal free' you will find several resources, however I soon discovered these were mostly intended to be used as creative writing prompts. However, on ETSY, I found a handful of sellers who were offering the hybrid journal/crafting versions. After several hours of browsing I decided to buy the Folklore Forest from https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ArtfulSafari

The premise is simple, you are the Keeper of a cottage in the middle of the woods that has four regions (based on the suits in a deck of card). Each session/week you draw one card, the number cards give you a direction and a purpose, the suit cards are characters you will meet.

Taken from the instructions: "Each night you draw one playing card. The card tells you where you went and what you found. You write it in your journal, a few lines or a page or whatever it wants to be, and then you make something. Mount the specimen. Tape the edge. Draw the thing badly and label it anyway."

To keep the physical journal true to the RPG and to avoid diarising it too much I will link it to this blog where I will tease out the truth in each tale.

This is my way of passing my story down to my children. Each entry will have a piece of truth woven into it, a piece of me and my life. This is not like writing a biography, this is like writing my own version of Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. If you haven't seen the movie, do yourself a favour and check it out.