Wind-chime

Old fatty Horsecrof had one hanging off the end of her caravan on the guttering, it was the first one I had ever seen. I grew up hearing it plonk plonk plink plonk day and night and never really gave it a second thought.
One day I lay in bed listening to old fatty Horsecrof's wind-chime, I tried to count the different tones and decided there were five. Five hanging bits that the wooden weight struck as it swung to and fro' in the wind.
Old fatty Horsecrof was a witch and like all witches she had a wart on her nose and a white cat, someone once told me she cast a spell on a black cat that went wrong and she ended up with a white cat. Something I'm sure she's not too pleased about. Anyway, I liked old fatty Horsecrof and she liked me. I often spent time in her caravan whittling sticks, painting and drawing pictures, she was a brilliant artist and showed me lots of tricks when it came to all things like colour mixing, blending, masking and casting spells. I stood and counted the hanging bits on the wind-chime one afternoon and found there were six wooden rods hitting the hanging thing on the wind-chime and not the five I thought it had. I got a stick and tapped each one and each one made a different sound, except for two of them that sounded exactly the same. Just as I was tapping them old fatty Horsecrof poked her head out of the caravan window and shouted at me. "What do you think your doing boy", She had never called me boy before so I knew something was going to happen. I explained what I was doing while she looked at me with a smile on her wrinkled face. "Come in here boy and be quick at it". She sat me down and waved a bendy stick over my head, I felt a strange wobbly feeling spinning in my body and my hands felt tingly. I'm not sure what happened next but I do know she had cast one of her spells over me. "Now" she said, "Take that wood over there and see what you can do". I watched my hands as they worked the wood, like magic the sticks and off cuts slipped into place, for some reason I asked her for a bottle, I had no idea why. Before too long I had slipped the sailing ship I had made into the bottle, it looked perfect. "Oh dear" Screamed old fatty Horsecrof "I cast a spell to make you clever at making wind-chimes, oh dear oh dearie me".
Once again old fatty Horsecrof had spun a spell that went a little wrong, just like the spell she spun on her cat all those years ago. The years have passed and now I'm an old man who likes to sit in the sun and watch the world go by. Occasionally someone might ask me why I have a ship in a bottle hanging off my guttering. I just smile, they wouldn't believe me would they?



Poetry by JohnJohn
Read 645 times
Written on 2018-09-25 at 12:46

dott Save as a bookmark (requires login)
dott Write a comment (requires login)
dott Send as email (requires login)
dott Print text


shells
Loved this, delightful. Great name "Fatty Horsecrof" enjoyed the eccentricity.
2018-09-27