Hello Enchanted Friends: Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2024, issue of The Fairy Tale Magazine, “Flights of Fancy.” If you are a recent fan, then you may not know that for over 15 years, in both the Enchanted Conversation and FTM iterations, we published directly on the site, and did not do PDF versions or sell subscriptions. We only experimented with that in 2023. So we are returning to our roots with this wonderful issue! This issue is packed with emotion, magic and old stories filled with new details and new points of view. I’m proud of how it has turned out. You’ll see terrific stor ..read more

He had only a cow, milky and white, and my own hungry look in his youthful eyes. The beans screamed in my pocket, singing their lies. I smoothed my white beard, nodded my head. “Good morning, Jack,” I said.   I spun him a story of how high he could climb, leaves licking his body like soft feathered wings. The beans whispered their false rhyme of jewel-hued night, thick bars of silver, and ruby-red rings. They warbled of white hens who would lay golden eggs, and hummed the hushed, haunted tunes of gilded harp strings.   The boy’s eyes grew as wide as the sky. I rattled the beans lik ..read more

Oh, love, you are whispering willow, me beneath branches, breathing in oak, moss, watching lichen grow. Drift me away into far mountains, into ice, rugged your bark pulls me back into my own coloratura, dew on leaves tangle me vibrato, mud on feet, my palms, surface roots prodding me safe from freeze, canopy tendrils tickle as I natter away. You, patient, greening, flavor sunshine, choreograph our musky jade caress. You firm, tall, bring our twigs into unison, understand, all patience and wisdom. I warble a capella melodies, you lullaby me through wind and frost. Such cadences, such arias, w ..read more

Gretel knows about stones Stones may lead you safe home But they cannot make home safe You cannot squeeze blood from stones They have nothing to give   I know about nothing    Gretel knows about crumbs Crumbs will not lead you home at all Not if the birds get them first  Even kept in your pocket and nibbled slowly Crumbs are not enough    I know about not enough    And when you do not have enough When you do not even have any When you are afraid in the wood You will not recognize the difference between some and too much It is all the same to you It w ..read more

When she asked for the dresses, the king’s Order came to us, the maidens of The kingdom. Commanded on pain of death, To weave dresses as golden as the sun, As silver as the moon, as dazzling as The stars.   Weaving a dress from sunlight merely Burns the hands, Threads of fire ignite fingertips, Leaving heat-radiating scars, reminders Of gold’s price.   Moonlight is cooler, less punishing. Silver Water streaming through the needle. Moonlight forgives distraction and Missed stitches.   But only a witch can weave A dress from starlight. Interlacing Diamond-keen beams risks Blood ..read more

Editor’s note: Some of you may be familiar with Kristen’s brilliant refrigerator magnet poetry. I’m a huge fan, and am excited that Kristen is hard at work creating a chapbook of these astonishing poems—which FTM will be promoting! Enjoy this taste of her work. The image is by Kristen. (KW) Kristen Baum DeBeasi’s poetry has appeared iBlue Heron Review, The Muleskinner Journal, Menacing Hedge and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net nominee and was Moon Tide Press’s Poet of the Month for July 2021. When she isn’t writing words or music, she loves testing new recipes and collecting lea ..read more

Titania's missing hair comb sits in the dusty corner of a rummage shop in Least Pickings, nestled between a tarnished silver vanity brush and a cracked mirror, half wrapped in moldering leather. The Shoppe on Brackenbury Lane might as well have left the "e" off their name, since it tilts precariously on the worn sign hanging above the door, threatening to death leap onto any prospective customer who might dare walk through the creaking front door paned with grimy leaded glass. But this is where the faeries go to hide the things they want to forget, or may want to have found. If mortals ..read more

The old woman, Nonna, made a habit of inspecting her garden daily. Yes, she hired laborers to do this sort of thing, but the subtleties too often escaped these simple peasants. Like so many tender spring plants, the men required vigilance. No matter. The regular exercise and morning air were good for Nonna, kept her mind sharp, her figure lithe.   “The radishes are ready for harvesting and re-sowing,” she commented to the lad who’d just come trotting up the hillside.   “They could stand another day or two in the ground. They’ll be bigger that ..read more

When the boat slid before me as if waiting, I snipped the blue thread in my wrist with a sliver of the shattered mirror  and with my bloodied finger wrote my name on its stern    so as to be remembered.   I laid down, unravelling my braids from their ivory combs. They trailed behind me, a tangle of bright skeins like seaweed skimming the surface. I watched the blood flowers floating below, a rose tapestry aswirl, embroidered on the water.   My life ebbed like the stream’s foam. Though faint, I fought to raise my head to gaze toward Camelot, my wrists staining my ..read more

Reality is too tidy after one hundred years of dreaming So she makes her garden messy She grows no roses, but wild brambles that bear the sweetest blackberries Soft between her teeth, sun ripened and warm Only she can pick them safe from thorns   She does not sleep much, which makes the court whisper Of curses reversed but not quite broken She shelters in her plants’ unjudging company Weaving moonflower and morning glory into ever-blooming vines Cradled in the roots of a steady birch The trees know all about long, deep sleep   By night she gathers up the sleep she does not need Bu ..read more