Tales From the Lionheart

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is

In a break from my usual fare, I’m proud to share a couple short stories from the imagination of my and

Kate

’s Little Lionheart. Even at six-years-old the boy is threatening to overshadow me with his creativity and talent.

Without further ado, it gives me great joy to present Little Lionheart’s debut as a Substack author.

---

A Castle Stands on the Hill

A castle stands on the hill straight up and then pretty trees stand on either side of a stream. The stream looks green and black, but where the Sun reflects on the stream, it looks orange and bright. There are rushes on either side of the stream. They are pretty and green and maybe there is a kitten snuggled up in them.

The castle looks very old. It is gray and black. It’s courtyard is green, though, and there are no other houses nearby. On the flagpole of the castle, there is no flag.

The Sun is nice and bright as it descends behind the trees. It must be setting. Gray clouds are filling the air as the Sun goes down. If not, then the gray clouds are filling the sky to rain.

One of the saplings looks like a goose walking around because it has red for its head, green for its body and brown for its legs. And there is one more thing. The part where the Sun isn’t shining on the grass, it looks darker green.

---

How Cat and Kitten Saved Their Pretty Redstone Castle

Once upon a time, a Cat and a Kitten lived in a pretty Redstone Castle. It was in a pretty meadow. The Castle is pretty red with wheat around it to make it look not pretty strong.

But, there is a problem about the Castle. They need guards because of the invaders. The invaders are evil dogs. The dogs keep attacking land trying to get land. The dogs are fierce and they painted themselves red and blue so that they looked like no dogs the cats had ever seen before.

Now, there’s something weird about the story. Before the cats had guards, the Commander of the Evil Dogs knocked down the wheat. The dogs only weakened the strong walls a tiny bit, but then the cats knew they needed to get guards.

The cats send a message to the town of Cats for guards. They promise to give a fish award to any cats that sign up to be their guards. They already have four guards, which is not enough, so the names of the guards are: Ozzy the Dog, Opal Darling the Cat, and then there are two more cats which are Figgy the Cat and Mickey the Cat. They still need more guards than that because there are over 700 dog guards and they need more than the dog guards to guard them.

Lots and lots and lots of cats from the Cat Village have come to help and be guards. The traps are basically a trap that the dogs get trapped in and then they open up the trap with a little paw thing that they push on and then they chase the dogs away.

Now, here is the most funny part. The most funny part is where the evil dogs attack. So, now you’re going to hear about the evil dogs. The evil dogs have been preperating for the attack but the cats have already been preperating for the fence. Now, you get to hear about the dogs.

So, now the dogs are making war. A hundred of them - 700 of them - get caugh in the traps and then the rest run away. The cats open up the traps and chase the dogs all the way there, killing some of the evil dogs. They are driving the evil dogs back to the dogs’ castle.

Then the dogs learned a lesson not to attack the cats anymore. The cats celebrated by having a great feast of milk and fish. Both Cat and Kitten did a speech and this is what it said:

The more it
SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.

And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing¹

Cat and Kitten also thanked the Cats that joined the army. It’s called the Grand Army of the Cats. Now, they have their big feast and they lived happily ever after (like most stories say).

---

If you enjoyed reading my Thoughts, consider showing your appreciation by helping to make my dream of quitting my day job a reality.

---

1. Little Lionheart loves him some Winnie-the-Pooh, particularly this whimsical rhyme that Pooh recites as he travels through the Hundred Acre Wood during a snowstorm.