Good afternoon, everyone. In the Yewdeep, there is a hall where the dead are kept. Our old friend Wryke tends them. That is The Hall of Bearing, the lead Woldwood tale this week, and it opens a part of the Marchlands that has been sealed until now. Alongside it, Nineteen Lies. Two foresters buy twenty flasks of Frostfire Winterbrandy from a stranger on a road. Or did they? A new Edvane Stories post this week, Streindarke - To Shy From The Rain, inspired by a song that impacted me, as usual. A man whose job is escorting people away from their lives receives a warrant bearing the name of a woman the city separated him from years ago. On the Dark Hearth, a post about folklore and who it belongs to, from choughs at Tintagel to counting rhymes in the Midlands. News this week brings the completion of all forty Tales from the Woldwood, and a quiet home for stories that magazines rejected but readers wanted. And at the end of this issue, a little girl standing between the rails, and a driver who should not have stopped.

Two tales this week. One opens a sealed chamber. The other opens a purse.

The Hall of Bearing Wryke enters the Hall of Bearing in the Yewdeep, where the former Yewbound Hosts are preserved in amber cels. He tends each body with his Rootkin helpers. Each figure carries a history the Marchlands have forgotten or misremembered. King Jevon, celebrated as a noble ruler, arrived as a man in flight whose lungs burned and whose hands shook. Lysa Fenward's amber is flawless, but Wryke cannot look at her face. At the far end, a gap. No chamber, no body. Bhodr was supposed to return. Every renewal, the Yewdeep expects it. Every renewal, nothing comes.

Nineteen Lies Two foresters meet a trader named Fredor Gragg on the Old King's Road, selling twenty flasks of Frostfire Winterbrandy direct from the Deepcellars of Greyholt Abbey. Ras Harram tastes one, then buys the lot. When Arnulf Pike at the Crooked Mare opens them, they tell a different story.

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The song played. The story followed.

Streindarke - To Shy From The Rain In Streindarke, Lysand DaVivi is a Nightporter. His job is to escort people away from their lives on government warrants. His third warrant of the night leads him to Canto Barbi, a woman the city separated him from years ago. He spent those years preparing for a reunion he stopped believing in, because abandoning it would have meant admitting the city had finished its work. Inspired by the Japan song Nightporter.

A new story publishes every week at edvanestories.com where you can access and read, or listen to, the entire archive.

Forty down. The novel is next.

All Forty Tales from the Woldwood Every one of the Tales from the Woldwood is now published. Forty stories, free to read, covering the forests, ruins, people, monsters and histories of the Marchlands before the first novel arrives. The timeline for publication of The Shivering Vale will be announced very soon.

Hall of Sleeping Stories A couple of short story submissions passed over by their respective submission editors have both been picked up by the wonderful Audrey Penn for her Hall of Sleeping Stories project on Substack. A home for stories that deserved better than a form rejection.

Who made the story first matters less than who made it last.

Folklore Is Up for Grabs, and It Always Has Been On choughs at Tintagel, counting rhymes in the Midlands, and the case for writing folklore the way folklore has always been written. The Arthur-as-chough legend was probably a raven once, and a Spaniard wrote about it before any Cornishman did. Three Edvane Stories are used as examples of fiction built from real folk practice, where the fiction takes its place in the tradition by sounding like it was always there. References Marina Warner, George Mackay Brown and Christina Rossetti.

VSS365 is a daily micro-fiction challenge on X. One prompt word, one complete story, 280 characters. Each week I will share my favourite of the seven. My favourite prompt this week was brake.

The driver applied the brake when he saw the little girl standing between the rails. The train shrieked to a halt a few yards from her. She approached the cab, pale and barefoot. 'You shouldn't have stopped,' she said. 'It can only board a train that isn't moving.'

Discover my VSS365 flash fiction posts on X and Bluesky.

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