Dinky, My Little House Elf

Dinky the House Elf

  Dinky: Art by D.K.Pritchett, blog owner

My mother was given the elf, Dinky, upon her marriage to my father. When Mother died, she left Dinky to me. I call her "Dink." Dink has curly, dark chestnut hair, big, blue eyes, and a long, pointy nose, which she pinches in hopes of making it petite. She wears a plain white-linen toga--rather amazingly white, because my grandmother long ago sprayed it with her secret "Freshina" potion. 

       My mother had hopes of expanding Dink's wardrobe to include some pretty chintz or toile, but the poor creature was mortified and thought she was being turned out of our house. It was with great difficulty that Mother convinced the poor little soul that Raven's Rest would always be her home. We think she finally feels secure, though her forever frowny forehead says otherwise, as if she has waited these decades for the other shoe to drop. Upon my mother's death, I pressed upon Dink a plain little pair of natural pearl earrings, which she had always admired. She was aghast, until I showed her pictures of muggle cattle with ear tags and of Charlie Weasley's marked dragons. I explained that it was a sign of my ownership, like a brand. She accepted that story and is quite proud to be so lovingly stamped as "owned."

Harry Potter Fan Fiction. 

Originally written for Azkaban Escapees, a Facebook group. In my original story and paper sketch, Dinky's nose was tiny. When I created the digital version, I made it big.

Matter Grey Toadstool - a Magical Fungus

My magical toadstool is the Matter Grey Toadstool. Though somewhat rare in the wild, there is a small stand of them on a mossy, fern-covered slope in the woods at my grandmother's old homestead. The fungus thrives in a rich loam and requires cool shade, filtered sunlight, and heavy dew. My grandmother and mother found a suitable environment in the woods on our country estate and have developed a domesticated Matter Grey mushroom.

    My family's fascination with the toadstool began with a family heirloom, a potions book written out by my great-grandmother, Anner, started by her own grandmother, we believe. It had lovely botanical drawings, properties, and potential uses, including some potions. 

    The stem and cap of the Matter Grey Toadstool have very different properties. Both parts (along with all fibrous matter, roots, and juice) may be used in mixing potions, to very different effects. It affects the brain, the blood, and to some extent, the central nervous system. Effects can be positive or negative, so great care must be taken in potion mixing.

  Re the Leaping Toadstool: Baruffio had the right idea, but obviously, his original concoction was too strong. His elixir can be improved by using a bit less Leaping Toadstool and adding a good portion of Matter Grey. We have found the perfect mix. Our ultimate goal is to help people like the Longbottoms, who are lost in madness.

   The Leaping Toadstool has bounce and innate energy, but it needs clarification and dilution. Our "Matter-Grey Clarifying Potion" acts as an antidote or diluting agent for it. Together, the two toadstools also make a great love potion. Other uses: by mixing equal portions of Matter Grey and Leaping Toadstool juice, we make tasty energy drinks and extra-body shampoos, as well as a unique charmed energy dip for broomsticks, tennis shoes, quaffles, and rubber ducks.

I have included my mother's Polaroud picture of this toadstool.*

*Mushroom and tiny toad image borrowed from Okamiarisu on Reddit; altered using a 1970s-vintage color filter and adding the clipped image of a 3D-model human brain from cgtrader.

My Little Wild Bowtruckles

North American Wiggentrees are rare, but some grow in shady spots in our forests. My wiggentree is deep in our woods on an old path near some stone ruins, and is known to be over a hundred years old. The bark is quite scaly and the trunk, nearly three feet broad. The tree has grown to fifty or sixty feet--pretty tall for a wiggentree. It bears a pretty, edible berry that grows in clusters. There are a few saplings in the woods, growing in mossy places where the ferns are very thick.

Our Appalachian bowtruckles are usually quite harmless. They do not mind us harvesting the sorbus berries, and will give up bark and branches to us without much trouble. Woe to the wizard who gets too greedy, though! Our bowtruckles will scratch their eyes out. The feisty fellows keep a stock of porcupine quills to use as weapons, in the rare event they feel threatened. This behavior is protected, as cutting down a bowtruckle's wiggentree is equal to home invasion under the law.

A local Appalachian witch, Anner Dunn, has made a lifelong study of American bowtruckles. She camps out and camouflages herself, because the little beasts are very shy. Dunn once attempted to tag individual bowtruckles, but spent the next few days picking porcupine quills out of her behind. Afterwards, she just took a copious notes.

Dunn Notes:

Identified Surnames of Bowtruckles on Pritchett land: Wiggentree, Wiggley, and Wickle.

Individuals: Twiggy and Twiggley (twins), Scritch, Vertie, "Bowleg," Twogg, Cuckleburr, Suze, Gramps, Knott, and Burl. Matching given names to surnames is a bit fuzzy.

Neighboring bowtruckle branches in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest: Bowtruckle, Bower, and Truckley.

Our bowtruckles have a long-standing though quiet feud w/the Black Walnut branch, of the nearby Cohutta Wilderness; "quiet," because they rarely encounter the enemy, since they hardly ever wander far from home. Dunn only learned of the feud when our Wiggleys attacked one of their own, a Wickle. His feet had gotten caked with black swamp mud, which they took to be the telltale black walnut stains of their enemy. Our branch has no animosity toward the American Holly, Dogwood, and Mountain Laurel bowtruckle branches. 

Food: most insects.

Seasonal delicacies: chiggers, mayflies, and wood lice. They love june bugs, which are getting scarce, and spicy fire ants. They also ferment dandelion wine, pokeberry wine, and fox grape.

Each year in season, they eat cicadas. There are feast years, due to the cyclical biology of cicada broods.

(My own observation: This summer was horrendous! It was the Feast of the Great Eastern Brood of Cicadas; they emerge once every seventeen years. Our bowtruckles partied for seven nights running and were, if possible, louder than the cicadas. Leading up to the cicada feast, the bowtruckles provoked a multitude of skunks into spraying. They like to baste fat cicadas in a brew of skunk juice and pokeberry wine. Some even pour this stinking mess into tree holes and soak in it!)

Originally composition, written for my Facebook group, Azkaban Escapees.