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Welcome to another adventure from the Thousand Acre Woods deep within Trollheim of the NJ Pine Belt! Tales Chronicled by Jonathan Hulton. That's me. Today I'm telling the story of the time when Bjorn confided in Karl about his current relationship with his teenage daughter. A story, as old as time.

 

Bjorn's relationship with his daughter was distressing him. His problems were as old as the dirt suffered by many. He had left home to seek out Karl's advice. Karl was sitting under a massive leaning tree.

"Karl, why do you always sit under that tree?"

"I'm waiting for it to fall."

"..to fall on you?"

"Yes, I have been waiting for it to fall for many years now."

So Bjorn sat under the tree with him.

"What bugs you today?" asked Karl, who was eating acorns.

"Its Angrboða."

"Or is it Bjorn?"

"I once was the stars and wonder in her eyes."

"Though you're not now?"

"No. Now I'm an old fool."

"Well, you are quite old—"

"Hey, Methuselah quit trying to compete against you a few millenniums ago." Bjorn said, poking Karl in the belly. "You are getting a little round in the middle."

"She still sees stars," Karl answered as he waved into the sky and the sun disappeared.

"As with the day, the sun clouds the stars from the sky for a period of time, which does not mean that they are not up there."

"I try to teach her, but my words are feeble and twisted as an old woman."

"Pearls before swine."

"What?"

"Remember what Nasreddin taught: 'You can only teach to those who are ready'"

"Pearls before swine."

"You have taught her how to learn, but you lost the steps you had to walk with your own father."

"I know, but I feel like the gnat that made his home in the elephant's ear. I made my presence known, believing it had made an impact, and in the end, I was wished a fair journey, for it never made any impact on the elephant if I had come or gone."

"You are worried if she will make the right decisions in your life?"

"No! In her own."

"So, agree, it is hers to live?"

" Yes! But—"

"I told this same story to your father:

"There was this jötunn that had three daughters. He had two dutiful daughters. After several years of imprisonment, he released the third headstrong daughter into the wasteland. She was released into the unknown and dangerous world filled with rebellious youth and the disillusioned elders of her father's kingdom.

"In this new world, she looked to 'the birds of the air' to be fed and gained a cubit in stature. In time, a man wealthy of heart and mind took her for his wife in his kingdom. Little did they tally before returning to what was once the realm of the great Fisher. From there, the land and them were one filled with the visionaries that preceded the princess into her exile. The land was so prosperous that the kingdom of the Jötunn emptied into their world, leaving their original homes emptied so their borders could stretch right up to her father's keep. Then the father begged for an audience with his daughter with hat in hand and realized he was always the stars in her eyes that she reached for."

"Yes, but what if she gets lost in the wasteland?"

"Think of the Spinner's daughter:

"She lost her family when shipwrecked to learn the craft of weaving from the family that took her in. Then she was captured by pirates and sold into slavery to the mast maker, who freed her to be lost to the sea once more. Waking up in China, she fulfilled the prophecy of the great tent maker when she was able to take the lessons learned from her turmoil to erect the first tent in the realm. She utilized all of her trades to make fiber, cloth, stakes, and poles. It was then that she was rewarded by the emperor and found true love with a prince of hearts."

"You have to learn to cut the thread."

"What thread?"

"Think of the time the Mullah tied a gourd to his leg to only lose himself when he awoke to find the gourd tied to the joker," Karl said as he passed a glass of mead to Bjorn. "Are you afraid you are the joker now? The Mullah?"

"Cut the thread."

"Are you not Bjorn as well as Gramps, or even myself, for that matter?"

"Yes." It was then that Angrboða swung down from her knees to kiss Bjorn on the cheek, right before she hit him on the head with a club. It was then that Bjorn truly saw the stars in her eyes.

 

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