I saw the Devil

I went out to the woods one night
No goblins or bogeys can me affright
I looked for my cronies by the hollow oak tree
Then I saw the Devil and the Devil saw me.

“Yer mates have fled home and bolted the door”
says the Devil, “they’ll never have sleep no more”
So I spits in his eye and I says to he,
“You can scare off my mates but you won’t scare me.”

He showed me his demons on a darkling plain
And the souls of the damned in eternal flame
Then I showed him my business that I came out to do
And the Devil ran off and his little imps too.

When I go out to the woods of a night
The Devil himself can’t me affright
For the Devil looked within me and saw worse than he
When I saw the Devil and the Devil saw me.

 

This is a longer version of my contribution this week to Crap Mariner's weekly challenge. Poetic necessity overflowed the bound of 100 words.

There was once a country where the craft of building was in a sorry state. In that country lived a man who had already perceived this in his youth, and thought it a great folly. He had therefore busied himself with travelling to many other countries and observing how they made buildings there. He thought long and hard, and made experimental trial, of why some methods made sound buildings of all sorts: houses, fortifications, bridges, dams, and other constructions also; but others could scarcely build a hut that would withstand the procession of a single year’s seasons.

Leftover Soup fanart of Maxine Hellenberger

I've been following the web comic Leftover Soup for about a year. The artist is running an end-of-year invitation for fanart of the comic. So here is my interpretation of Maxine Hellenberger as an avatar in Second Life.

First video.

Second video.

Pictures below the cut.

The Cobbler and the Devil (musical version)

For the words, see here, and for the longer story, here. And here's a PDF of the music that will be more readable than the image below.

I have neither a singing voice nor a banjo, but if anyone else wants to perform this, go right ahead.

The Cobbler and the Devil (remix)

The devil met a cobbler, disguised as just a man
And said “Can you make boots for me, as fast as e’er you can?”
The cobbler said, “Two silver coins, and you’ll walk in them this day.”
But when he drew his old boots off, he was in the Devil’s pay.

Two cloven hoofs he saw there, that singed the wooden floor
And the Devil sneering at him, ’twixt him and the workroom door.
He worked hard to make the Devil’s shoes the best that they could be
And all the while thinking harder how from the Devil he might be free.

The work was done as the sun went down and the Devil leapt up high
And his hooves came down into those boots — and the Devil in pain did cry
For the soles were lined with the covers torn off from the book of God's own Word
And the cobbler still has the Devil’s coins, if it’s all true that I’ve heard.

The Cobbler and the Devil

Once upon a time there was a cobbler. Everyone in his village would come to him for their shoes, and from the villages round about. He made everything from labourers’ working boots to fine Sunday best shoes for the farmers’ wives. He fancied himself the best cobbler there ever was, and if that was not quite right, it was not very wrong.

One day, at daybreak, a stranger appeared at the door of his cottage (for this was long before shops and opening hours were invented). “Cobbler, I must have new boots,” he said, “for these fit me ill. Can you make them this day?”

“A silver piece each,” said the cobbler, “and you shall walk in them before the sun goes down.”

But when the stranger drew off his old boots, the cobbler was appalled to see that he had hooves inside them, that smoked on the wooden floor. The cobbler tried to put a brave face forward, saying ”You do not want a cobbler, be off to a blacksmith!”

“You have taken my money!” gloated the devil. “Make me my boots, or I shall take your soul!”

H22O, a build by Squonk Levenque. Squonk created the Treptower Park and 2304 Rain builds, both now gone. He is known for rain, and H22O contains even more rain.

One arrives at a pair of floating islands in the sky.

A teleporter takes one down to a bleak room, which turns out to be the base of a lighthouse. Outside, unceasing rain falls on a watery landscape. A giant stone man crouches on hands and knees, his head plunged into the sea. A small figure faces him at the end of a pier.