#maid

Elaine turned to her father in her distress. ‘Father will you give me permission to ride after Sir Lancelot? I must reach him. Otherwise I will go out of my mind with grief.’ ‘Go, good daughter. Rescue him, if you can.’ So she made herself ready for the journey, weeping all the time. Gawain himself rode back to the court of the king in London” –The Fair Maid of Astolat ↗

— Peter Ackroyd

#lancelot #sir-gawain #sir-lancelot #the-death-of-king-arthur #the-fair-maid-of-astolat

We designate the spirit of the well as 'she' because in most of her personifications she takes a female form, though not invariably. She appears in many guises - ghost, witch, saint, mermaid, fairy, and sometimes in animal form, often as a sacred fish - and her presence permeates well lore, and indeed water lore generally. ↗

— Colin Bord

#ghost #holy-well #holy-wells #mermaid #sacred-fish

I'm always happy when I'm surrounded by water, I think I'm a Mermaid or I was a mermaid. The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean. ↗

— Beyoncé Knowles

#humbles #life #mermaid #ocean #perspective

I'm going to teach you to ride Princess." "Princess?" "My motorcycle." I laugh. "You named your motorcycle Princess?" "What can I say?" he teases. "I call all my favorite things princess. ↗

— Tera Lynn Childs

#fletcher #lily #mer #mermaid #mermate

There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#freedom

...now and then a giggling trail of mermaids appeared in our wake. We fed them oatmeal. ↗

— Tove Jansson

#mermaids #oatmeal #sailing #humor

The idea of fairyland fascinates me because it's one of those things, like mermaids and dragons, that doesn't really exist, but everyone knows about it anyway. Fairyland lies only in the eye of the beholder who is usually a fabricator of fantasy. So what good is it, this enchanted, fickle land which in some tales bodes little good to humans and, in others, is the land of peace and perpetual summer where everyone longs to be? Perhaps it's just a glimpse of our deepest wishes and greatest fears, the farthest boundaries of our imaginations. We go there because we can; we come back because we must. What we see there becomes our tales. ↗

— Patricia A. McKillip

#dreams #fairyland #fantasy #mermaids #dreams

How simple life is. It's as simple as this: you're hungry and you eat, you're full and you shit. Between eating and shitting, that's where human life is found. - (Houseboy + Maid, in Tales from Djakarta) ↗

— Pramoedya Ananta Toer

#houseboy-and-maid #jongos-dan-babu #life-between-eating-and-shitting #pramoedya #tales-from-djakarta

I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#life

Sophie has a gift," she said. "She has the Sight. She can see what others do not. In her old life she often wondered if she was mad. Now she knows that she is not mad but special. There, she was only a parlor maid, who would likely have lost her position once her looks had faded. Now she is a valued member of our household, a gifted girl with much to contribute. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#maid #perspective #sight #value #life