The Rumour of the Potter & the Candle Maker

[version 1.6]

The note was found in the old man's coat pocket. It was written on durable parchment, and quite firmly (a trick to accomplish using a quill, I can tell you) - written so, perhaps in order that it might be better remembered:

Just begin, already!

You're already as ready

As you'll ever be ready to be.

What the man (or whoever had written the note for him) had meant to begin, it is now but for the Crow to know. His old heart had given out on the way, having by then spent one too many a day, disconnected.

In one still-warm hand, he clutched flowers stolen from the King's meadow nearby, and in the other, an old hammer. In his belt pouch were seven old nails, which had each seen better days. 1

When the old potter who lived in the ramshackle hut just up the lane - the hut with the roof which had been in sore need of mending for the last seven seasons - when she heard the particulars of her neighbour's passing, she went into a month of mourning. She had hardly known the old candle maker for all that time they had shared a lane, but felt his loss nonetheless, and also anew.

When the townsfolk came to the man's place to auction his land and tools (he had left no known heirs), they found the front door curiously taken off its hinges, though none of the cabin's contents seemed otherwise out of place. His candles were of unexceptional quality, made with enough care to be of use, but not enough to be of added value otherwise.

What was a surprising find was the old trunk stuffed tight with journals, maps, sketches, and histories of the Realm. No one had suspected the candlemaker had ever learned to read. Who needed to do that, to make candles?

Some mysteries, made great - because they are small. Some lessons, learned late (if not soon) - though as often as not, never at all.

B.B. Butterwell's Compendium Allegoriian by B.B. Butterwell is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal

Footnotes

There had also been a small wedge of cheese in the pouch as well, though by the time the village folk found the man, this had been taken by a rat. ↩