Love Potion #9 and a Half

Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods deep within Trollheim of the NJ Pine Belt! Tales Chronicled by Jonathan Hulton...That is me! This week Helgi drags her daughter to get a love potion.

 

Your grandmother once asked me if there was anything I appreciated about her parents, " Gramps said. "I answered, yes, they warned me not to marry her."

"Gramps, will you quit it…" Angrboda responded.

"A few months after we were married, she asked if I was satisfied, and I said I had enough already,
"Soon after that I bumped into a friend I had not seen in awhile," Gramps continued. " He said he knew your grandmother, before we married,"

"So?"

"I asked why he didn't warn me.

"On our first wedding anniversary, she pointed out my defects, and I told her that those are the same things that kept me from getting a better wife."

"Gramps," Helgi said. "Quit scaring the girl; I know you loved her and she was always wonderful."

"Well yeah, until she disappeared," Gramps responded. "It is just easier to make her a nag in my memory, but it still doesn't help…"

I was tagging along with Helgi and Gramps bringing Angrboda, against her will, to Peggy Clevenger's Pine Tavern. I think he was there just for comic relief…Maybe, he was going to spend the afternoon there with Karl. Lately, he has been drinking root beer, which is throwing Karl for a loop.

Peggy made a love potion for Helgi; she wasn't going to take any chances Angrboda's new beau would take off. Angrboda spent the whole trip looking at her toes, kicking stones, and murmuring to herself. The only thing was making her smile were Gramps cracks at humor.

"So Gramps, have you seen her again?" I asked.

"Who?" he shrugged, which was a better answer than I expected. Usually, he would snap back or hang me upside in a tree. "Hey Angrboda, did you know I proposed to your grandmother under a full moon?"

She knew she was being set up, "No."

"I claimed lunacy, but she wouldn't let me back out of it."

We just got off the S-turns off of the Stage Road to Tuckerton and were heading up toward Wheatland. I was riding on Gramps' shoulder; I was fine if I didn't get into his hair.

I once asked Gramps how come nobody ever sees them walking above the tree tops, he said it was because of ancient human magic called a SEP Field. SEP is short for somebody else's problem, it was humans way of ignoring they can't explain.

I guess that is why nobody ever noticed his horns within Peggy's Tavern—then again with her being a cunning-folk, magical people, and beings, flock there. Some travel as far as Philly, to get away from the consternation of the ever vigilant Quaker's eyes. Look what they did to the Leeds family…

I have lifted many of horns with Upton Leeds and had some very astute conversations with him.

"Now tell me everything about,Olaf," Helgi asked.

"Mom, how would you like me to ask what you and Dad did last night, really now…" Angrboda snapped.

"You should of seen the things we did during the strawberry festival, me and your grandmother—"

"Gramps," she yelled. "That's not any better…"

 

"I'll never know how she got her leg over that branch and bee's hive…"

"OK Gramps," Helgi chimed in. "I don'twant to know either."

"To this day, I don't know if I got sticky from the honey…"

"Gramps!!!" they both yelled.

We came upon Wheatland. They were just bringing out a batch of terracotta pipes for well, the indoor honeypots…Gramps stayed back and joked with Frank who was in charge of the kiln.

 

Behind Pasadena Terracotta Factory was Peggy's Pine Tavern. She was on the porch sipping her pine needle and mugwort tea. "Hello guys!"

Angrboda walked up and leaned into her and she hugged her waist. "When your mom isn't around, tell me all about Olaf!"

"OK,"

She leaned toward Helgi's ear, who bent over for a kiss, "I'll tell you all about it later."

Helgi gave her several bundles of mugwort, wormwood, Sweet Annie, and datura in exchange for the love potion.

When Helgi got the love potion she said, "Better not to take chances—those coming out parties are starting to add up."

Gramps just caught up with us. I got off his shoulder at the kilns.

Helgi went inside to see if she could find Sammy Buck, he had promised her some old Norse ballads she could play on her talharpa (a bowed horse hair lyre).

I sat next to Peggy. Angrboda had learned to trust my judgement on men.
"So tell me all about him," Peggy started.

"Well, he is so kind; his temperament is consistent—I'm a genius, and he might just be smarter, in some things, and I'm smarter in others. He compliments me. He is so grown up, a fully mentally and exceptionally good man—we are each other's cliff-notes, everything I don't have time to learn he summarizes for me and I do the same for him," Angrboda went on and on…

"So you do not have to fix him?"

"What…"

"First question I ask anyone."

"No, I understand, believe me.." she says, leaning away to look Peggy fully in the eyes. "My girlfriends have horror stories."

"He has good parents?"

"Wonderfully kind."

"Generous and kind to others—"

"Oh boy, he helps everyone, lends an ear when needed, or advice when called for—but he suffers no vampires. If you don't help yourself and others, he leaves you quick with one last kind gesture."

"Have a nice day, somewhere else…"

"What?"

"Never mind, it sounds like you got a keeper," Peggy said. "The love potion is only blueberry tea, good for your heart, anticancer, and anti inflammatory—nothing for love. A placebo to make your mom happy, don't mention it."

"I won't," Angrboda said. Little did they know Helgi was eavesdropping through the window, and scurried away before they looked up.

 

 

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