Copyright All Images © Jeffrey Coulson 2016 Alll rights reserved.
All Stories © Sue Coulson 2016 All rights reserved.
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The Forge
At one end of the village green stands the Forge; an unusual shroom as this one had grown around the furnace and chimney placed there for the purpose. The mycelium was encouraged to put forth a fruit body where the brick edifice had been constructed. Within days a shroom with a bright tangerine cap decorated with blue spots stood proudly melded with the bricks and mortar. The gills were jade green which made for a particularly striking shroom. Another grew behind this and became the metal store and the place where the coke for the furnace was stored. Over the years the shroom had dried in the heat of the furnace and several cracks had appeared around doors and windows. The cap also had cracks around the edges and where the chimney rose through it the cap had puckered and dried as hard as the brick which it enclosed. The shroom however did not wither or break; in fact it grew larger as the forge needed to expand to accommodate all the work that the smithy took on. The ashes from the furnace which the smithy spread around made sure it remained strong and healthy despite the cracks.
Tewman the smithy lived behind his forge in the main part of the shroom. He was a burly, thick set man with a shock of ginger hair, much like the cap on his shroom. His skin was weather beaten from spending so much time in the open, stood in front of the furnace shaping tools and implements on his anvil. His arms were corded with muscle from the constant use of heavy hammers and pumping the bellows to keep the fire at just the right temperature. He was a taciturn man and kept himself to himself but for all his size he blushed like a maiden when the young girls in the village smiled at him or said hello. He preferred to deal with the men in the village as he soon became tongue tied speaking to the women, never knowing what to say to them he always felt awkward and stupid which certainly wasn’t the case. In spite of his shyness he was particularly keen on the young daughter of the Pigment Contractor on the opposite side of the village green. Her name was Sujay and every time she came with her father to order some item or another Tewman stammered more than usual but gazed at her with wonder in his eyes. Shar too was a shy girl and had similar feelings about Tewman but could not bring herself to make the first tentative steps in communicating with him. Her mother and father had spoken about this situation and her father was quite happy should Sujay take up with the smith and become the smith’s wife, she would have some standing in the village as his wife. Her mother was also happy should the union take place as Tewman was a good looking young man, particular in his ways, polite and with good prospects. She had already spoken to Mother Redikin and plans were in place for Tewman and Sujay to be invited over for one of her infamous teas. They wouldn’t of course know the other was coming, and Mother Redikin would pretend forgetfulness on the part of an old lady to have invited them both on the same day. She would then arrange for some young person to knock loudly on her door, shouting that she was needed elsewhere, Mother Redikin would apologise and insist that the two stay to finish their tea, she would be back as soon as she could, leaving the two alone and hoping for the best.
