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.