The Bear Facts
Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods. A place on the edge of Trollheim deep within the mysterious NJ Pine Belt! Tales Chronicled by Christopher Jonathan Hulton...That's me! Today's tale, Bjorn and I learn not to look up.
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I was walking with Bjorn on Jones Road. We were almost to the hideout of General Howe at the end of Dover Road. The British Commander-in-Chief during the Revolutionary War paid American General Lacey to buy the Thousand Acre Woods, so he had a place to hide after he conceded the war for the profit of the Bank of England.
He let General John Burgoyne hang in the wind at Saratoga as he went to Tuckerton to eat some clams. General Lacey was in the tavern when Howe told Lafayette that Burgoyne would have to fend for himself. Lafayette raced to the battle to watch and got the French to win the war for the colonies, and Lacey got an iron forge to compete with those other generals at Batso; Washington had arrested for war profiteering.
We won the two wars, the Revolutionary and the War of 1812, but England got the money. Hamilton became Secretary of the Treasury on September 11th, so many years ago, and handed the nation's wealth to the Bank of England, and after we closed Hamilton's bank, Monroe opened the second and gave the keys back to England. So it goes…
Now we complain about Lincoln's greenbacks, minted at home, by our treasury independent of England—sorry, about the tangent. Don't get me started on the Revenue Act; we are still paying an income tax to bolster up the military-industrial complex these many years after the Civil War.
At least one Cowardly Lion is roaring that it is unconstitutional; Bryan might win this one at least…
Now you might ask why we were on that road; if you asked me, I don't remember, but what happened next was quite amazing.
"Hello!" a voice called down to us. "Yes, you two. I don't want to be a bother; could please look up. Yes, to the left, that is, it. Excuse my interruption. I have gotten myself into another predicament, I fear to say."
We looked up and saw a bear skull looking down at us. The Finns were always sticking their skulls up in trees. They thought they were doing the animals a favor by killing them and setting their souls free to return to the stars.
Silly little Finns.
Bosco loves chasing the Finnish postman. Because he is always dodging a Lenape or a Finn wishing to set him free…
Would you be so kind as to help me get down?" asked the bear. Bjorn grew tall enough to look him in the eye. "I'm afraid it won't be that easy," said the bear, shaking his head.
"See, a powerful Finnish Trollman cursed me for eating his trout," sighed the bear. "There was no sign on it saying 'don't eat my fish of wisdom', at least none I read. Anyway, I thought that myth was about a dragon's heart—well, I'm up here now. If there only was a wedding feast…Or if he was a dwarf disguised as a pike, instead of a trout, we could have skipped the part I am about to ask."
"Why a wedding feast?" I asked.
"At the feast they invite me to eat of my flesh, and off I go home to Hongatar, the pine tree bear goddess; see there, that is her skull on top of the tree."
"Hello there," Hongatar said to us. We waved back.
"They invite you to eat yourself so you can go to heaven?" I asked, thinking it sounded peculiar.
"Didn't your savior Manni eat of his flesh and ascend to Heaven, hmmm…" he said.
"Good point," Bjorn nodded.
"So I found a couple who agreed to invite me to their wedding, but they can't afford a ring," said the bear.
"So," I asked.
"Well, you two have a magical bearing about you and I thought you might get Andvaranaut, Andvari's ring,—if I had eaten a pike I could have had a ring already, but I didn't."
"What is with this pike?" asked Bjorn, confused.
"So?" I asked again, sounding like a broken whippoorwill.
"I need you two to steal the ring from the otter under the bridge."
"I thought I was supposed to be under there?" Bjorn joked.
"That was Bearly funny, Bjorn..." the skull gibed.
"Oh, that's easy," Bjorn laughed.
"He is the tricky one; it won't be that easy."
"Don't worry; I'll be back in five."
We walked to the bridge and crossed over.
"Good thing I brought some snacks," Bjorn said as he pulled out a box of popcorn.
Otr popped up his head and smiled with his hands out.
"First, the ring."
Otr shrugged, but his stomach began making noises. He then flicked his tail, and Bjorn caught the ring, and he handed him the popcorn.
We walked back.
As Bjorn grew once more to place the ring on his largest tooth, an arrow shot through the ring from another dimension, lodging it into another pine. Many more arrows followed the first. Bjorn grabbed me and grew so big that the arrows in contrast were as small as the hairs on a flea.
Gusir, the Pine Wizard, was shooting arrows through a bowl of water (Finnish magic mirror) he was watching us through.
Then Bjorn shrunk so small he could look through a dewdrop back at Bruni, and reached in, and his arm grew larger, stretching through Gusir's bowl, and slammed his head several times into it till it broke.
The following week, we received a wedding invitation from Karl; the bear's friends asked him to be the priest at the wedding.
If you like this tale, hit the share button below or just even tell your friend the old fashion way, with your mouth. Come back next week for our next tale.
We are releasing our second collection of Trollheim stories in print, named Trolling About. It will be available on this website at www.salemhousepress.com and Barnes & Noble. Pick up your copy today, pretty please with sugar on top...
Make sure you pick up the first collection of tales too...
Fiction/ Illustrated Fantasy/ Mythology / Scandinavian Myth/ Norse Sagas / Scandinavian Folk Lore / Coffee Table Book
Paperback: $45 | Hardcover: $65 | PDF eBook $5
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Following the Harry N. Abrams, Inc. tradition of the series that created Brian Froud's and Alan Lee's Faeries and Gnomes by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet, we present you with what would have been the next book in the series: Trolls: A Compendium. Trolls—do you think you know what they are? Could you be wrong?
Trolls within Scandinavian lore, myth, saga, fantasy, and folktales are actually anything magical within our northern neighbor's culture. Richly illustrated in this volume are the tales of faeries, dwarves, nissen, huldras, gods, Jotuns, draugar, ghosts, and more. Also, this book introduces our readers to the world of Trollheim, populated by Nattrolls that escaped the 17th-century Swedish colony within the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Narrated by Christopher Jonathan Hulton, who lives in the Thousand Acre Woods just after the Civil War, their tales are filled with Native American lore and tales of their neighbor, the Jersey Devil.
Preview: Google Books
Hardcover: $65.00
PDF (non-flowable, best on tablet, desktop, or laptop) eBook: Download a copy onto your device today! Only $5.00
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