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Author’s Note: The Pig King
On Sunday October 23, 2022, I published The Pig King on Wattpad; an approximately 11,000-word short story broken into five episodes.
I was doing some research on a potential new story and ran across a historical event that took place in the Pacific Northwest around 1859 called the Pig War! Cool, eh? Essentially, a pig was killed in a disputed territory which nearly sent the US and UK down a path of conflict. I wanted to write a Maedrey Puck story about how Halflings avoided greed and corruption when they came into more contact with the human lands of Gaelwyn, and I thought something like the Pig War would be a great premise. I fleshed out the story’s outline while taking a Sunday walk with my partner, Camille; she actually came up with the Trial by Jam.
I was seriously disappointed when I learned there was already a classic fairy tale entitled The Pig King written by Giovanni Francesco Straparola. Luckily, the tales are so dissimilar and his work was published, like, 500 years ago, so I figured I was in the clear with copyright law.
Frequent readers of mine will recognize Kindle Muckwalker as the Ranger mentioned in The Groteseque of Sylvanus. Kindle and Jayleigh Warmhollow are contemporaries. You might also recognize Faw Kag as the human glass and herb trader from The Knave of Nodderton.
There are two co-stars in this story. Swain Thistlewillow, the land owner, and Gilbert Bramblewood, the pig owner. Deliberately, I wanted to make Gilbert feel like a burly Scottish fellow and Swain feel like an entitled New Englander. Swain and Gilbert aren’t enemies but they are caught up in a conflict. Neither wish to back down and they’re creating a rift in the halfling community.
The way I see it, Halflings are a communal folk spared greed, scarcity, and competition. Halflings don’t hoard. They share. Maedrey Puck helped create a reminder for sharing that would stick with future generations. There’s an abundance of resources that surrounded Halfling communities like Ehrendvale, so that puts downward pressure on scarcity. Sure, there’s the idea of private property, but Halflings give what they have to help others. They keep what they need, they share what they can, and they don’t perceive themselves in competition with others.
In this story, I describe the Halfling community of Ehrendvale as a trading hub. Human greed had started corrupting cooperative Halfling traditions, and this story tries to set the lore to keep the human influence at bay.
This story is about the folly of greed and hoarding wealth, and compromising for the betterment of all in a community instead of an individual. I think it’s a good reminder in the years ahead as economic scarcity, greed, and inequality dominate our real lives.
The Pig King will be one of the first works I’ll take cross-platform - to Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Books, by Q1 2023.
Thanks for reading!
R
Who is Maedrey Puck?
Character Description
Maedrey Puck is a lightfoot halfling cleric of the Aevalorn Parishes, a Child of Yondalla.
In her sixties, she walks with a limp and relies on a weirdly-curved juniper wood staff to hobble around. She has piercing olive eyes, a smattering of black freckles, and a pock-marked face.
I often describe her as having many strands of tight box braids interlaced with crushable metal and bone beads; in writing the character, she may turn to these items for spell components when her focus, the juniper wood staff, is out of reach.
I write her as a devout eccentric - totally off of her rocker - who uses her very twisted sense of justice and wisdom to protect halflings; honestly, she is just as likely to drown someone as baptize them.
She exists in the past as a contemporary of Skyer Dannon and her stories generally concern a time when the Aevalorn Parishes started having more frequent contact with the human City States of Gaelwyn.
Her name of Puck is deliberate and refers to the character in Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Stories
As a cleric, I use this character to explore spiritual and moral themes. I find her fun to write because she’s sly, crafty, and tuned to the metaphysical world.
She made her first appearance in the Ballad of Skyer Dannon and her first dedicated story was The Pig King.
Who is Skyer Dannon?
Character Description
Skyer Dannon was a halfling, born more than four hundred years ago in Tatterfield Parish.
He lived a good life. He had friends. He had a family. He was adored by his kin. Ask around: Skyer Dannon lived.
Skyer Dannon died. He did die.
Although he died, Skyer Dannon was never buried; his body did not decompose; his consciousness never left him.
In death, so many years ago, he walked Aevalorn immortal, and Skyer Dannon continues to do so to this very day.
”Perfect as Pears.”
Stories
Skyer Dannon is a complex character that bends several ideas on its head, starting with the idea of “hobbits”. In the Ballad of Skyer Dannon, I wanted to create a story where the Shire gets a vampire. He represents everything a halfling isn’t. He’s an anti-villain of sorts, a good guy and a bad guy. His stories are dark, sinister, and horror; he’s all about graphic violence, vampire lore, and demons.
Skyer is immortal and can appear in many settings, but he will have adventures with Maedrey Puck, Jayleigh Warmhollow, and Kindle Muckwalker. The Ballad will be the first long-form book that I’ll publish.
