Slimeglasses
Local Legend
You draw and write horror really well!
Campfire
- Thread starter Cuddlebug
- Start date
Cuddlebug
Local Legend
All right, folks, the evening before All Saints' Day is approaching; it’s getting dark earlier, and tonight the veils between the worlds will be thin. It’s gotten too cold outside for a bonfire, but I’m already bringing wood inside and getting the fireplace ready, so if you’re in the mood for some good, old-fashioned spookiness in a few hours, stop by. There’ll be punch and candy—and if you want, crabs and spiders, too—and hopefully it’ll be really cozy.
Cuddlebug
Local Legend
So, it's evening here now, darkness has fallen and some fog's swaying, too. The fire is burning and it's getting warm and cozy already. So please, gather around, of you like.
A few years ago I was lucky to meet a very special author, Christian von Aster, who has a very special kind of humor and storytelling, which I liked and like very much. So I picked up a poem, written in kinda old style just like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" ( which was probably a bit inspiring for it). Unfortunately it's rhymed in German, but I'm not talented enough to rhyme such one in english, so I hope the atmosphere doesn't suffer too much from the lack of them.
So, as promised, please enjoy
A few years ago I was lucky to meet a very special author, Christian von Aster, who has a very special kind of humor and storytelling, which I liked and like very much. So I picked up a poem, written in kinda old style just like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" ( which was probably a bit inspiring for it). Unfortunately it's rhymed in German, but I'm not talented enough to rhyme such one in english, so I hope the atmosphere doesn't suffer too much from the lack of them.
So, as promised, please enjoy
Cuddlebug
Local Legend
The Midnight Ravens
I found the legend of the midnight ravens
buried under mountains of dust,
on my rather uneventful journey
through an old library,
where footsteps echo through the aisles
and books fall from the shelves.
That’s what happened to that book, too—
otherwise I probably would have overlooked it.
I picked it up off the floor,
almost put it back on the shelf,
when suddenly the book sprang open
and my fate took its course:
From it came a glow like a thousand candles,
something awoke in my heart,
I was afraid, a little uneasy,
but I took the book with me,
for I must say that these ravens
have somehow enchanted me…
In the evening, in my room, I dared to do it;
I opened the book
and, by the warm glow of a candle
and with a good glass of wine,
I began to read devoutly.
I had never felt this way before;
every word penetrated me,
wanted to be within me, to be with me.
Every sentence, no matter how strangely constructed,
got under my skin in a strange way,
as if magic were at work.
Then it seemed as if the flock of ravens
stirred to life from their illustrations,
every drawing came to life.
And no matter how much I wanted
to tear myself away, I could no longer do so…
As I continued reading that book,
something even stranger happened to me:
I realized I was feeling what the ravens felt,
midnight magic seeped into me, washing over me.
Deep inside me, a soft “click,”
a cold shiver down my spine,
and slowly, my self
transformed into that of a raven.
I read and could feel
how the gentle, cool
winds swept around us ravens as we flew,
while we circled, in the sky,
high above the earth.
It was as if I were returning,
as if I had once been a raven,
before I read this book.
I read and read, as if possessed,
And more and more I forgot
what was happening around me
and what the world of humans was like.
With any other book, I would have dozed off.
From that one, I looked up only once,
and that was at the sky in the middle of the night.
That’s when I finally woke up;
I wanted to be up there, only up there,
circling and screeching with the midnight ravens.
I wanted to embrace the night, to kiss it,
so I flung open the window
and cut myself on the frame;
my blood stained the book’s cover,
and a strange event began.
A wind swept away the person I used to be,
my spine bent, became crooked,
it spun me round and round.
I screamed—it was a strange sound—
and from my pale human skin
narrow keels pushed out,
turning into raven feathers.
My nose and my mouth
grew together, becoming round,
and my arms turned into wings.
The chains were shattered, the reins torn,
that bound me to the human world.
The gate to the night was breached…
And when man had become a raven,
one could hear from the distant north
the call of the midnight ravens drawing near,
who were now on their way to me.
The beating of their wings darkened the moon,
and I knew it was worth it
to heed the call of the ravens circling outside my window
that very night.
I let people be people
and plunged into the night,
tumbled through the coldest storms,
scaled the highest towers of clouds,
black feathers my adornment,
and there was raven’s blood within me.
One last time—it had to be—
I flew into my room with the ravens.
The three of us grabbed the book I’d just finished reading,
which had surely been my fate,
and carried it gently
out into the night.
It was strange, because our path
led us to that library,
where I had spotted it the day before.
Through the open window, quite stealthily,
so that one could hardly hear us,
we ravens crept into the room,
and as so often before, once again,
the book vanished back onto the shelf…
I understood, it dawned on me:
thus the gloomy flock of ravens grew,
through this book, whose spell
can surely befall any human.
I am now a part of the Midnight Ravens,
and the body found beneath my window,
though it bore my face, shattered,
was certainly not my own,
for I am now one of many midnight ravens,
setting out for new destinations
in vast, unimagined distances.
And, believe me, I am happy to be so…
I found the legend of the midnight ravens
buried under mountains of dust,
on my rather uneventful journey
through an old library,
where footsteps echo through the aisles
and books fall from the shelves.
That’s what happened to that book, too—
otherwise I probably would have overlooked it.
I picked it up off the floor,
almost put it back on the shelf,
when suddenly the book sprang open
and my fate took its course:
From it came a glow like a thousand candles,
something awoke in my heart,
I was afraid, a little uneasy,
but I took the book with me,
for I must say that these ravens
have somehow enchanted me…
In the evening, in my room, I dared to do it;
I opened the book
and, by the warm glow of a candle
and with a good glass of wine,
I began to read devoutly.
I had never felt this way before;
every word penetrated me,
wanted to be within me, to be with me.
Every sentence, no matter how strangely constructed,
got under my skin in a strange way,
as if magic were at work.
Then it seemed as if the flock of ravens
stirred to life from their illustrations,
every drawing came to life.
And no matter how much I wanted
to tear myself away, I could no longer do so…
As I continued reading that book,
something even stranger happened to me:
I realized I was feeling what the ravens felt,
midnight magic seeped into me, washing over me.
Deep inside me, a soft “click,”
a cold shiver down my spine,
and slowly, my self
transformed into that of a raven.
I read and could feel
how the gentle, cool
winds swept around us ravens as we flew,
while we circled, in the sky,
high above the earth.
It was as if I were returning,
as if I had once been a raven,
before I read this book.
I read and read, as if possessed,
And more and more I forgot
what was happening around me
and what the world of humans was like.
With any other book, I would have dozed off.
From that one, I looked up only once,
and that was at the sky in the middle of the night.
That’s when I finally woke up;
I wanted to be up there, only up there,
circling and screeching with the midnight ravens.
I wanted to embrace the night, to kiss it,
so I flung open the window
and cut myself on the frame;
my blood stained the book’s cover,
and a strange event began.
A wind swept away the person I used to be,
my spine bent, became crooked,
it spun me round and round.
I screamed—it was a strange sound—
and from my pale human skin
narrow keels pushed out,
turning into raven feathers.
My nose and my mouth
grew together, becoming round,
and my arms turned into wings.
The chains were shattered, the reins torn,
that bound me to the human world.
The gate to the night was breached…
And when man had become a raven,
one could hear from the distant north
the call of the midnight ravens drawing near,
who were now on their way to me.
The beating of their wings darkened the moon,
and I knew it was worth it
to heed the call of the ravens circling outside my window
that very night.
I let people be people
and plunged into the night,
tumbled through the coldest storms,
scaled the highest towers of clouds,
black feathers my adornment,
and there was raven’s blood within me.
One last time—it had to be—
I flew into my room with the ravens.
The three of us grabbed the book I’d just finished reading,
which had surely been my fate,
and carried it gently
out into the night.
It was strange, because our path
led us to that library,
where I had spotted it the day before.
Through the open window, quite stealthily,
so that one could hardly hear us,
we ravens crept into the room,
and as so often before, once again,
the book vanished back onto the shelf…
I understood, it dawned on me:
thus the gloomy flock of ravens grew,
through this book, whose spell
can surely befall any human.
I am now a part of the Midnight Ravens,
and the body found beneath my window,
though it bore my face, shattered,
was certainly not my own,
for I am now one of many midnight ravens,
setting out for new destinations
in vast, unimagined distances.
And, believe me, I am happy to be so…
