many did) except as a victim of a nefarious being. But in my story the princess, in addition to being beautiful and clever, is quite handy with a bow, and without her aid, the male hero of this saga would have failed.
And since I have a knight and a princess as the central characters in the tale, I have cast the story with a French flavor, for, in addition to a magical adventure, this tale is a romance at heart, and French is to my mind perhaps the most romantic language of all.
One other note: throughout the telling, I have relied upon the phases of the moon. I used the earth’s own moon cycles to do so, and I hope they correspond to those in that magical place. But perhaps I am quite mistaken in my assumptions. . Who knows? For, once you cross the twilight borders and enter Faery, strange and wonderful are the ways therein.
Lastly, I enjoyed “restoring” these two fairy tales to their proper length by putting them back together to make a much longer story, as well as adding back those things I think should have been there in the first place, but which may have been omitted bit by bit down through the ages.
I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Dennis L. McKiernan
Tucson, Arizona, 2006
