Author’s Note: A Thyme of Trouble

On Monday September 19, 2022, I published A Thyme of Trouble, Episode 1 on Wattpad. This is a short story and will only have one episode. It’s currently ranked #582 in Food but #12 in Halflings, so I’ll take the Halflings score :)

I wrote this story in response to a contest keying off of the prompt “Trouble”. It features Elina Hogsbreath as the principal character.

Elina appeared in Gammond Brandyford in Piskie Sticks Part 1, but this was the first story that I’d written for Elina. I was excited to write it.

I was particularly fond of the kitchen scenes because so much of this character is entangled with her kitchen.

Her kitchen is the source of generational magic, and Elina is an untrained Hedge Witch who uses magic while cleaning and cooking food. Yes, magic! How else did you think she runs an inn all by herself? :)

I wrote that the clay oven in her kitchen was 3’ deep and recessed into her wall. That’s because I picture it as a floor heater under Elina’s private residence in the tavern. If you’re a halfling and preparing six to eight meals a day, that oven must constantly be running, so why not use some of the heat?

Her oven also features a Halfling hero, Elucian, fighting a hydra with a pike. I picture Elina with an oven peel, driving it deep into the hot oven … I just liked the imagry. The hero depicted on her oven door is Elucian, who was referred to in Elucian’s Song, Episode 19, in Skyer Dannon’s story. I didn’t mention Elucian by name in Elina’s story, but that’s what I thought of when I wrote the piece.

The central conflict in this story arises from how our troubles suppress our enjoyment of food. It introduces a Celtic fae called a joint-eater, or an alp-luachra. I really liked playing with this idea of a fae that would eat when you ate and potentially starve you, and it was a natural fit for Elina. In my story, the fae sucks away all joy from food and eating, and it has a radius effect so that everyone in the tavern was impacted when Ian Denbow walked into the room.

There were a number of fae-related superstitions that I incorporated into the writing and didn’t feel the need to really explain them. I thought my audience could live with that and were probably exposed to these mechanics in my previous stories. The souring milk (milk sours when introduced to a fae), wearing your jacket backward (a cloak in this case), salt as a barrier, and using iron to repel them (Elina’s use of the skillet to get the fae out of Denbow). As Elina’s primary antagonists are fae, it allows me to delve into these myths and talk about them in ways that might make more sense to contemporary audiences.

Elina as a character is a lot of fun because she’s “trapped” in the Swindle & Swine; she really can’t go anywhere without shutting down the inn. So her stories revolve around other characters who come and go as foot traffic. That offers a lot of opportunities for kitschy, homey, cozy, foody writing that just makes me feel good. I hope to revisit the character soon.

Thanks for reading!

R