Volume 2015 Issue 37 Article 1 7-15-2015 Mythic Circle #37 Gwenyth E. Hood Marshall University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hood, Gwenyth E. (2015) "Mythic Circle #37," The Mythic Circle: Vol. 2015 : Iss. 37 , Article 1. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol2015/iss37/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Mythic Circle by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm This full issue is available in The Mythic Circle: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol2015/iss37/1 The Mythic Circle # 37 2015 Editorial........................................................................................................................................13 About This Publication.................................................................................................................31 About Our Contributors...............................................................................................................44 STORIES William H. Wandless—Ornery Corn............................................................................................5 Ryder Miller—Laser Cell Phones................................................................................................19 October Williams—The Diamond Face.......................................................................................32 Kevan Bowkett— How the Fire Beings became Slaves of the Mer-people..................................47 C. F. Cooper—The Gift......................................................... ......................................................52 POEMS Nicolo Santilli—Fulfillment..............................................2; Deliverance of Dreams…………26 Chelsi Robichaud—Call me Leda................................................................................................3 Joseph Murphy— The Shaman’s Craft…..14; The Shaman Comforts the Fledgling’s Soul…..30 The Shaman Meets with the Man in the Moon…….49. Adam Massimiano--Undine.........................................................................................................16 Ron Boyer– By Calling….15......I am a Witch..17….. Seasons of the Soul................................42 Kevan Bowkett–Saturn’s Complaint.............................................................................................50 David Sparenberg—A Wild God….............................................................................................51 ILLUSTRATIONS L. C. Atencio: Cover illustration; also p. 4, 27, and back cover. Raquel Finol-- p. 18. Editor: Gwenyth E. Hood Associate Editor: L. C. Atencio Copyright © 2015 by The Mythopoeic Society; all rights revert to authors and illustrators. The Mythic Circle #37, pg. 1 Fulfillment by Nicolo Santilli It might be that we who sit at this smooth table in the soft light have travelled through many realms brilliant with strange stars and exotic eyes casting spells of enchantment and desire, and ascending mountain slopes and layered palaces of dreams, attained to new heights of beauty and abysses of depths before we returned to this warm layered depth of shared intimacy whose quiet love is textured with hidden landscapes and a history of finding and seeking which now finds fulfillment. The Mythic Circle #37, pg. 2 Call me Leda by Chelsi Robichaud Call me Leda, For that is who I am in all but name. I, too, was taken by Zeus, And cries like hers tore from my throat As we rose in the air, white plumage Dancing round my head. Call me Leda, for I too have met a swan. His head reclined gracefully, peering into my eyes, His wings wide, his body transforming Into a creature from Hades. No longer was he the docile bird That had enthralled me. His claws Dug into my wrists, piercing to the bone. No, I whispered, but he could not hear me. His talons drew blood, and I was silenced. Leda, too, must have cried When she fell to the ground Only to see Zeus enacting this Violation On others. But I am not she. I will not speak of Jove, of Zeus, of metaphors. The plumage scattered ‘round my feet Will become the fletching to my arrows, And I will watch as Zeus falls from the sky, Shed of his will to power. The Mythic Circle #37, pg. 3 The Mythic Circle #37, pg. 4 Ornery Corn by William H. Wandless Mr. McCorkindale sized up Tim with a Ginger, his little sister, as she tried to get squint. He muttered to himself, rubbing the better of a caramel apple as big as her his chin in an agitated way that made his head. fingers look like jittery worms when they Tim swallowed hard and turned to popped through the froth of his bushy face Ol’ Huck. Mr. McCorkindale white beard. At last he crouched down, stepped to the side of the plywood boy, his gaunt body a stack of odd angles, and leaned against the forbidding sign, and delivered his verdict. watched with undiminished skepticism. “I reckon you’re big enough for me,” Tim squared up to the outstretched he said, “but you’ll have to be big enough wooden arm; it seemed impossibly high. for Ol’ Huck.” He gestured toward the He was wearing four pairs of socks and plywood guardian that stood between had pulled the strap of his baseball cap so Tim and the corn, the cutout of a straw- tight that it sat high on his head. Would it hatted, freckled boy with a thin smile and be enough? lifeless eyes that held one arm straight Tim straightened up, crossed his out to the side and carried a sign in the fingers in the pockets of his jacket, and crook of his opposite elbow. You Must took three big steps forward. Be This Big to Enter the Crazy Maze, it Ol’ Huck knocked his cap clean off. read. Tim nodded, fidgeted, and looked Tim looked to Mr. McCorkindale. over his shoulder to his folks. The rawboned farmer grinned toothily; “Give it a try, Timbo!” his father and when he left his post beside Ol’ called between sips of cider. He was Huck, the plywood dropped back into its perched on a bench made of hay bales, rut with a dusty thump. “Well, young and his feet dangled inches above the fella,” he said, rubbing his hands together ground. “You’re as tall as you need to like they had never been warm, “if it’s be! You’re the biggest of the Littles!” okay with your folks, you’ll be the last to His mother nodded and smiled, steadying brave the Crazy Maze this season.” The Mythic Circle #37, pg. 5 “Way to go, Timmy!” his mother you’ll blow this whistle if you get cried, and his father shot him an emphatic yourself in a pickle?” thumbs-up. Tim flipped his cap back on Tim looked to his father, but he was and wheeled toward the entrance, but Mr. trying to unstick Ginger’s caramel apple McCorkindale caught him by the from the sleeve of his blue windbreaker. shoulder, his fingers light and spidery. Ginger clapped her hands, considered He crouched down beside Tim, his knee them with a frown, and wiped them clean digging a divot in the dirt. Gray eyes on the front of her gingham dress. Tim sparkled from the crags of his leathery turned to Mr. McCorkindale, whose lips face. were twitching so much that his beard “You look like a smart boy to me,” shivered. “I promise,” he said. Mr. McCorkindale whispered, albeit at a “Second thing,” Mr. McCorkindale volume Tim was sure his parents could continued, passing Tim a penlight. “It hear, “so you must have heard about the gets gloomy in there once the sun dips satchel full of money Ma McCorkindale down behind the rows. Won’t be long lost in the maze. I’ve told that woman from now. You can use this flashlight if it time and again that the Crazy Maze is no gets too dark, and it might even scare off shortcut to anywhere, but she don’t never the groundhogs if they’re none too listen. She says she’s sure she left it out hungry.” He turned to Tim’s folks and on the deck in the middle, but no one’s winked. “If you get caught in the dark, been able to find the deck, much less the promise me you’ll turn this light on and money. My guess is that the corn decided wave it around, okay? We’ll come fetch to keep it, but what corn could do with you if you do.” five thousand dollars I’ll never know.” Tim looked to his mother, but she was Tim’s mother chuckled, and Ginger busy tucking her hair back under a blue yelped as the caramel apple bopped her in polka-dotted hairband, replacing the the nose. black one Ginger was chewing. His “Young fella,” Mr. McCorkindale said, father was trying to interest Ginger in the shaking his head, “I’ve given that money caramel apple, but she was more up for lost; if you find it, it’s yours to fascinated by the spectacles balanced on keep, okay?” Tim nodded so eagerly his the tip of his nose. Tim turned to Mr. cap fell off again, but the farmer held up McCorkindale, whose crow’s-foot a cautioning finger. “You’ve got to hold wrinkles stretched all the way back to his up your end of the bargain and keep it ears. “I promise,” he said. fair and square, though. Before you head “Last thing,” Mr. McCorkindale said, in, you’ve got to make me three leading Tim at last toward the maw of the promises.” maze. His voice dropped down low, so Tim nodded again anxiously. The low Tim could barely hear it above the cornstalks beckoned, and he looked with rustling of the rows. “This here is ornery concern at the descending sun. corn,” he began, “a kind of corn that’s no Mr.