Showing posts with label eggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eggs. Show all posts

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Happy Monster Chicken Day!

Tabletop Gaming News
A Personal Note From Our Fairy Tale Newsroom:
We have spent almost as much time living in hospitals and doctor's offices than we have at home this past month (March), due to an emergency with our junior fairy tale newshound, so please excuse the lack of follow-through on promised posts. With his ongoing recovery still our main focus, we will be posting some of our intended articles a little late over the next couple of weeks, even though they aren't as timely for the season as we would have liked. We hope you still find them interesting.

This is one of our Fairy Tale Newsroom's favorite times of year. When we prepare for this season's magical visitors, most people expect us to mention The Easter Bunny, but not as many are familiar with The Monster Chicken. (You can read about this unusual visitor HERE.) Longtime readers of this blog will be aware, however, that this particular supernatural creature is looked forward to with more anticipation than its famous long-eared counterpart.

As the Monster Chicken plays hide-and-seek with its owner (the terribly intimidating Baba Yaga), relishing being free for the short time its absorbed magic enables it to transform each Spring, we always hope it will find a place to take refuge and catch its breath in our yard (and perhaps leave a monster egg in thanks). We prepare the night before by leaving nesting materials and a sign, welcoming the Monster Chicken to hide in our garden if it needs to, and to our collective delight, along with signs of a giant claw-footed visitor, another specially painted monster egg has appeared each year we've done so...

We have yet to catch sight of "the MC" in person but considering its origin, we thought you might like to see an old attempt at building it (in walking hut form) from a few years ago, in Minecraft Pocket Edition (a limited tablet version of the popular game). And since we are, we thought we'd throw in our homage to another fairy tale with an unusual building...

Being a cube-building game, creating organic things can be a challenge but as long as you can count, a little math, color play and imagination can make a blocky landscape quite folk art-like:

Newbie Minecrafter practicing design-via-math to create a folk-art like carpet for the purpose of creating fairy tale scenes in Minecraft (you can see a teensy bit of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut in the background).


Baba Yaga's chicken legged hut (on every day but Easter morning...)

Fuzzy close-up of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut from the side in Minecraft Pocket Edition.(Out of focus blocks lend themselves well to a tapestry-like impression it seems!)


An attempt at building Rapunzel's tower in Minecraft PE. Thing is, with Pocket Edition, there is a 'ceiling' so you can only build so high. Had to excavate lot before starting... interesting concept for keeping it hidden really!
Hidden tower...
Whoa. That's intimidatingly tall from this angle. (Rapunzel's tower in Minecraft PE.)

So what does the Monster Chicken look like once a year when it transforms and breaks loose? More importantly, did you give it a place to hide on its annual freedom run this year, and receive a thank-you-monster-egg in return?
Antonio De Luca's take on Babayaga

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Happy Easter, Ēostre, Passover & Spring Sunday!

Happy Easter!
(Or whatever you call this feast day of flowers, egg-hunts, spring goodness and Monster Chicken visits!)

In honor of the day and also to encourage the sentiment of hope and the importance of keeping our tales, fables and folklore alive, I thought I'd post some gorgeous artwork from Rise of the Guardians  - specifically Bunnymund, who's the guardian of HOPE, and spreads that sentiment with extra enthusiasm (and colorful eggs) during Spring on Easter morning.
            
It doesn't hurt for me personally, that in the movie, Bunnymund is specifically Australian, which, we're told is where the original Spring came from.  (Wow, now that's a story and it works very well with the idea of Australia being nicknamed Down Under, as well as the Persephone myth and our sunburnt land's propensity to blossom instantly, and colorfully, back to life at the first hint of rain...) He also has his Warren Headquarters underneath the continent and tunnels that lead to everywhere in the world, so he can race around the globe in seconds.

I know many people have had an exceptionally difficult year-past and the Winter/Christmas season was really rough. You're feeling tired, overwhelmed and unmotivated and that's completely normal. The great thing about Spring is that nature is eager to help you get through that and tries to show you with each new flower, leaf and egg-hunt giggles that there are still good times to be had.

Let some magic make you smile this weekend and remember your child inside:
So this Spring, hold Hope fast in your hearts and watch it spread wherever you go. Tell your stories, encourage other to tell theirs and renew your wonder of the world. It's an amazing place if you remember how to see it.

Blessings to all my fairy tale friends this Easter Day!
Bunnymnd: "That's a lotta hair fer an anklebiter!"
Merida: "Aye. An' you're a lotta hare..."
Bunnymund: "Fair enough. Least you didn't call me a kangaroo. How'dya like yur eggs?"