More Short Tales of Fairies
In the first of this trio of mini stories, fairies tip a man off about a source of gold, and he eventually gets rich from it. The guy's always had a big mouth, so before too long, he starts bragging about his mysterious friends and how they help him out—but the fairies don't like him talking about them, so they quit supporting him after that. If I were to base my assignment off this story, I'd probably stick with the idea of a character with mysterious, powerful "friends" helping him out, but it wouldn't just be with money, and I'd rather take it a little darker than fairies: maybe a minor demon or some similar type of creature. But when the relationship or alliance or whatever goes south and the character's deal sours, the creature quickly turns on the person, and everything gets crazy.
The Pellings
This time around, when a group of fairies gather to dance, a mortal hides nearby and jumps out to snatch away one of the dancers. The rest of the fairies panic and scatter, "disappear[ing] in an instant." I love the idea of a mortal planning and waiting and setting a trap to capture some kind of creature, so that's probably what my protagonist would get up to if I based my story off of this one. But instead of capturing a fairy, she'd probably be capturing something dangerous, some kind of monster, in order to force it to help her with something. Not sure yet how noble or ignoble that "something" might be, but I think this could be a lot of fun.
The Long-Lived Ancestors
In this story, the Eagle is considering proposing to the Owl, but he wants to know how old she is first. So he goes too all the oldest members of the community, asking them about her age—but none of them can remember her ever being younger or older than she is now. For as far back as they can remember, she's always been exactly the same. This makes me want to do a sort of pseudo-Peter Pan story about a character who's young forever, who can never change, told from the POV of a character who's slowly but surely aging past that character and realizing that she's leaving him behind. It's like that line from Pearl Jam's "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town": I've changed by not changing at all.
Short Tales of Wonder
One of these shorts features a young man names Hughes, who goes "as a military substitute for a farmer's son" and gets paid 80 pounds, a watch, and a suit for it. I find the idea of freelancing as a fighter interesting, so to mix things up a little, I might end up with a protagonist who freelances as a brawler instead of a soldier. Sort of a Tyler Durden vibe, but this guy would at least be trying to get himself together.
Billy Duffy and the Devil
This is probably the Supernatural tint to my soul, but if I went with a story based off of this one, I'd definitely want to explore a character who's made a deal—sold her soul—in some kind of crossroads bargain (a la Robert Johnson), and whose part of the contract is about to come up. Crunch time, people.
Billy Duffy and the Devil (Part II)
First, I'd just like to go on the record and say that I completely adore Billy Duffy, so I can remember to go back through and read his stories again someday. But in terms of how I'll spin this off into a story, I'd probably narrow in on the way Billy's always carefully manipulating things in advance so he can get his own way out of situations: letting someone fall into one of his traps, waiting till they ask for help, and then asking, "What are you going to give me if I let you go?" I like the idea of a character who you'd underestimate if you didn't know his reputation, because at first glance, he's a walking wreck who can't get his life together. But that doesn't keep him from staying three steps ahead of you, even when he can't do anything else right, and ruthlessly pursuing his own agenda and gains. A character like that could get into all sorts of trouble.
The Story of John O'Groats
With this one, it was the initial description of John O'Scales that caught my attention: a "cunning man, who robbed his master all he could during the week, and prayed hard for forgiveness on the Sabbath." I love the idea of a morally challenged character who wrestles with doing bad things and being good at them, but also having been raised a Catholic by an equally flawed father, and trying to reconcile those two sides of himself.
The Fishermen of Shetland
In this story, a witch and her accomplice put a merman chieftain into an unnatural sleep, then drag him to the forest. The witch gets a copper vessel, and they bury the sleeping chieftain in it. I love the idea of a character being spelled into a long sleep, then buried alive, with sort of a gender-bent Sleeping Beauty flair. I think I'd have more fun with it if my sleeping beauty could wake up for brief stretches or at certain times or only at night or something, and if my protagonist were trying to help him break his curse, because she has someone at stake for related reasons.
The Fishermen of Shetland (Part II)
The scene that grabbed me from this story was the one where the protagonist, still stuck in the shape of a bear, kills the witch's accomplice, and then immediately turns back to his human shape again. His true love and her sister happen to walk by and witness the whole thing, and they immediately run up to him and kiss him, ask him questions. But I wonder what would happen if their reaction went the opposite way: if they saw what he did and were horrified of him. I wonder what would happen if the protagonist of my story were under a curse, and he could only become human again in short bursts, and only after committing some kind of terrible, inhuman sin. Could be a fun study on what it means to be a person versus what it means to be human, and the different sides of that.
Bibliography: Welsh Fairy-Tales and Other Stories by Peter Emerson. Source: Mythology and Folklore UN-Textbook.
Image Credit: Church Candles by PublicDomainPictures. Source: Pixabay.
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