The Holly and the Ivy

Dave's Dream

Randy Johnson, Michael Granger, and I watching a play (second of two). We were somehow more involved in the first. Found seats for the second. Realized Michael and Randy were sitting together and moved to sit with them. The wooden chair there was much more comfortable, almost like a rocker.

Lights went down.

At first, second play was presented as a series of images, white on black with narration, telling story of a fierce, angry, large man with a beard. Many fled his anger, most far.

One fled not to distance, but to dark. She feared greatly as he fired his pistol almost randomly after her and to little effect.

She feared him because she was so close to his anger, having fled to the nearest dark. Trying to flee deeper into the dark without moving (and giving herself away) as he passed her hiding place, she made the first change, becoming a patch of bark on the ground.

Narrator changes. Becomes a middle-aged Celtic woman in a homely cottage in a the woods.

Later she realized bark was a poor choice, being out of place on the ground. Of course, the angry man was never capable of waiting for light and figuring out the misplaced bark was where she disappeared.

But others, more familiar with the dark, might.

So, she learned to change more appropriately -- to berry vines or to holly or to ivy.

Celtic woman demonstrates by tacking berry leaves onto a board next to others which are similar, though clearly of another species. Both are very green. The board also has a list on it of all the places visited by the paths of ivy.

The Celtic woman reads the list describing the changling's interaction with each manor. About one, with a strange name, she says,

"He is English, but he dabbles in magick, and we heard her screams coming from his castle."

(Many implications: Thumbtacked samples didn't hurt her; magick could, but couldn't hold her unless she wanted to go there.)

— Scotus - 10 Jun 2000