Once upon a post...

Today was a random day with some small amount of work, a lot of editing of the Song Challenge thread I started on U-O, a little random NFC posting, the usual SH3 and DQ adventures (I'm now stuck in the former at the same palceI got stuck last time and can't remember how I got past it, very frustrating - as for the latter, more on that in a minute...) and it finished with a foray into the world of Russian choir music.

Eruntane is a member of the University Choral Society and tonight they had a special concert held jointly with Dziannitsa, the Gomel State University Choir from Gomel, Belarus, a city 'twinned' with the 'Deen. Whilst teh Choral Society performed with their usual finesse and were marred only by their director of music, 'The Fat Controller' (possibly the most pretentious man on earth), it was Dziannitsa who really stole the show. Their combination of excellent performances matched with excellent choices of music made listening to them an enchating experience. The three pieces which involved soloists were especially memorable and during once such piece I found myself getting goosebumps at the soaring melody. Wow!

I ended up leaving the cathedral they performed at with a CD of theirs, technically breaking the spending ban, but I wans't going to get another chance to pick it up and it was only £5, so Eruntane at least reckons it's forgivable.

So onto that thing I hinted about in parentheses oh... eight or nine lines ago...

Yes. Dragon Quest. I thought sometime near the start of this game that it had the air of a Fairy Tale about it. Telling a friend this opinion he said "Wait until you get to Ascantha". I had no diea when the reaching of this mysterious distant location would occur, but I was intrigued. Did he mean the plot kicked off here, or was it more directly related to my 'Fairy Tale' comment?

It turned out the latter was the case, as I discovered when I arrived at Ascantha yesterday afternoon. Here was a peaceful kingdom, as declared by the windy roads, cows and pretty castle, turned into one big funeral wher everyone wears black, children stay indoors and the afformentioend castle is draped in black veils. We soon discover that the King has been in mourning for the dead Queen for two years now and the entire kingdom must do the same. A fairy tale set up if ever there was one.

The plot obviously its there for us to resolve and you sned your characters on a little quest, diverting attentiona way from the main problem of an evil jester-mage who's going around killing people, and visiting a strange world of moonlight before finally setting the kingdom to rights. It was all very charming without ever seeming too childish and through the slightly overdone dialogue towards the end some very valid points were made about the strength of the hum character, however it really got me thinking about our love of fairy tales.

We never quite grow out of them, do we? We often think that we should, but there is something about the fable, parable, myth and legend of a fairy tale that stays with us. Sure most fairy tales these days have become overly sanatised lumps of romantic schmoltz, but at the heart of a good fairy tale is the ability to inspire, to relate to the characters (in the most fleeting, yet prfound ways) and even to haunt. To be honest I'm not sure what draws us to them, but I do know they are capitvating and worth spending time reading and iamgining and creating. The day we truly tire of fairy tales will be a sad one indeed, one to shame even Ascantha's weeping King.