A tale of mice and dragons (2024)

Friends,

The bulk of this post is a fairy tale I’ve written. In order for it to make any sense at all, here’s what you need to know:

• A little over a week ago, I gave a talk to a group of pilgrims. The talk in question was delivered from the top of a bunk bed in a a small pilgrim hostel. It was our sixth day en route to Santiago and we were weary and sore. My hair and my calf muscles were riddled with knots, the room was mostly empty, and the sky outside threatened rain.

  

• I had no outline prepared for my talk, only some thoughts. My thoughts were as follows:

  • Our mind, our heart, our body, our experience is like a castle. Or a temple, or a house. Everyone’s is different, I guess. I want mine to be a formidable castle with towers that touch the clouds, but in all likelihood, it’s just a simple wooden house. But that’s not the point.

  • The point: Every small, miserable anxiety or discomfort is like a mouse scuttling across the floorboards of our mental space. When we are in challenging situations (like walking the Camino de Santiago), we can choose to be so distracted with containing, fretting over, battling, and cursing at the mice, that we lose sight of one crucial truth: We were made for greatness, not comfort. We were not made to go to war with mere mice, we were made to fight dragons, to fight wild and daring battles, to partake in the splendid, fearsome adventure we so desperately crave.

  • If we fixate on the mice (the blister on our big toe, the fact that our breakfast was not quite to our liking, our frustration over a night’s sleep punctuated by the symphonic snores of 129 other pilgrims, our dissatisfaction or confusion over our current state in life) we will waste our time, our energy, our life picking fights with unworthy adversaries instead of the truly heroic work of striving for sainthood.

  • By waging war on these mice, we might even come to believe ourselves capable of fighting our own battles, instead of coming to learn that up against the dragon, we stand no chance; we must call on the Cavalry of Heaven to come to our aid. Perhaps I can deliver myself from the hunger in my stomach. Perhaps I even can bring myself to bite my tongue and stifle an angry retort. But I cannot deliver myself from the vices that continually threaten my soul.

    • In my imagination, two scenes:

    • One: I stand proudly before the wretched beast. I’m in splendid armor, my hair is braided with gold, and I wield a magnificent sword. None if helps me though, it’s mere decoration that disguises the fact that I’m fighting a battle I simply cannot win. My short lived boldness shrivels and dies as the dragon roars and a blast of fire comes straight for me.

    • Two: I stand before the dragon, looking up at it’s foul snout with defiance, confidence even. I’m wearing plain linen, my hair is sticking to my sweaty forehead. But I am not afraid, no. I’m concentrating all my effort on calling on all my friends in Heaven. Soon enough, Joan of Arc charges in on a steed of blinding white. St. Joseph comes to stand protectively in front of me, hammer at the ready. St. Michael goes in for the kill, the brilliance of his goodness more than enough to render the dragon powerless.

    • I think I prefer scene two.

• ANYWAYS, I liked this image of mice and dragons so much, I decided to turn it into a fairy tale of sorts, which you can read below.

  • As always, I carry you and your intentions with me with every step I take, and am honored to be united to and with you on this mission, Creatio’s mission, my mission, the Church’s mission.

    See Also

    Read MTL - Starting from Zero - v22 Chapter 45 Soul Well and Brief Unsealing - NovelBuddyMarxist Globalism Will Not SurviveWizards, Vampires, Dragons, and...Holden Caulfield?We Make The Garden Blooms - Chapter 34 - shivangoes - A Song of Ice and Fire

    ad iesum per mariam,

    Jayden

A Tale of Mice and Dragons

Once upon a time, there was a castle. It was a very fine castle, a proper fortress replete with towers and turrets, very strong walls and a very tall keep—all the things a good castle should have.

Now, as for the king and queen who resided in this castle, two important things must be made known:

1. While they both endeavored with to serve their people faithfully and honorably (and to great success, as they were beloved throughout the kingdom), they harbored their vices and disordered attachments as all human beings do.

2. This being said, perhaps their most deleterious attachment was to the general upkeep of the castle from which they ruled. The queen had a great love of promenading across the halls in her finest gowns; she loved the sound that the gentle sweep of silk made across the spotless stone floor. Because of this, she frequently fretted over the thought of a singular speck of dirt polluting the immaculate hallways and the hems of her extravagant dresses. For his part, the king’s great concern was his storehouse full of fine wine and mead. He policed the shelves daily, taking inventory of every bottle, dusting them all himself, and pausing only to take discreet swigs from the occasional bottle.

Every morning, the queen would oversee the cleaning of each of the castle’s great rooms, while the king would visit each tower and turret and pace around the grounds, looking to fortify any weaknesses in the castle’s structure. Then of course, they would tend to their people. The queen would pray her daily psalms and visit the infirmary, while the king would visit the serfs and farmers and review the kingdom’s laws to ensure all was just and right in the land.

And yet, every evening, they would lie awake in bed, plagued by some inexplicable emptiness. The hearth crackled and the wind whispered through the curtains and the hearts of the king and queen ached uncomfortably.

“I wish to be a hero,” sighed the king. “Oh, that I were a knight instead of a king, traversing the land and fighting evil, risking great peril for the sake of upholding the good.

“I wish my life to be a wonderful adventure,” lamented the queen. “Oh, that I was the recipient of some prophecy, destined for glory, chosen above all, somehow set apart for some great purpose.”

“I feel bored,” confessed the king.

“I feel weary,” admitted the queen.

Now, unbeknownst to the king and queen, who had at last fallen into a fitful sleep, a dragon was circling above the castle. She’d taken to flying over it each night, inspecting every gate and gargoyle. Her massive, leathery wings made no sound as she swooped through the darkness.

Hmm, she thought with a mind full of fire and treachery, this castle is the perfect place to build a nest and lay my eggs at last. With all these turrets and towers, I should be able to defend my hatchlings quite easily.

Savage and fierce as they might be, dragons are terribly predictable. When they set their sights on something, whether that is a field of sheep or a mountain of gold, they do not rush in all at once. They are not creatures of haste, dragons. No, when they covet something, they move in stages.

They begin with the burning of houses and the pillaging of livestock. Then, once the land has been seared with hateful fire, they proceed to snatching of young maidens and carrying them off in the night. Then lastly, when the kingdom is full of smoke and the cries of vengeful lovers, the dragon comes to take what all along was their goal.

The next night, the dragon struck for the first time. But the king and queen did not notice the tell-tale smell of smoke carried in on the breeze or the muffled cries coming from the town below. At some point that morning, one of the maids had sighted a mouse scuttling across the gallery. The queen had fainted, the king had spit out his mouthful of venison, and the whole of the castle had spent the remainder of the day scouring every nook and cranny for any mouse, mouse hair, and mouse dropping. The king and queen had a mutual hatred of mice, and thus it was the castle’s new mouse infestation that dominated their nighttime preoccupations.

“I can hear them,” shuddered the king, imagining he could hear the gentle pattering of rodent paws across his bedroom floor.

“I can smell them,” wailed the queen, imagining she could smell the foul stench of rodent wafting in through the once sweetly-perfumed chamber.

And neither the king nor queen slept a wink that night.

Come morning, the castle was full of aggrieved peasants and gentry alike.

“Majesty,” said a bedraggled lady to the queen, “something came in the night and set our estate ablaze. We barely made it out alive.” She flapped the tattered silken sleeves of her gown in distressed.

The queen tried with all her might to focus on the ash-covered face of the lady. But all the while, a fatal urgency consumed every fiber of her being. Finally, she could take it no longer and leapt from her throne.

“The mice,” she shrieked, “They’re scuttling across my floors, I can hear them. I must go see every crack and cobblestone is cleaned with lye and scalding water!”

That night, the dragon struck for the second time. But the king and queen did not notice the tell-tale shrieking of maidens as they were carried off in the night, nor the yells of their lovers who waved their swords futilely in the air, desperate yet unable to save their sweethearts.

“I can still hear them,” whispered the king, thinking only of the army of mice he was sure lived inside the walls of the castle.

“I can still smell them,” wept the queen, convinced that if she lifted her pillow, she’d find a neat assortment of mouse droppings polluting her freshly cleaned sheets.

And neither the king nor queen slept a wink that night.

Come morning, the castle was full of outraged, ruddy faced men.

“Majesty,” cried a young farmer to the king, “my betrothed has vanished. Something snatched her in the dead of night, I’m sure of it.”

The king tried with all his might to focus on the anguished face of the young farmer. But all the while, a persistent panic hummed in his mind, in his blood, in his limbs. Finally, he could take it no longer, and leapt from his throne.

“The mice,” he shouted. “They’ve breached my cellars at last. I must go protect my vintages!”

That night, the dragon struck for the final time. The king and queen were jolted from their beds by a rumbling stronger than thunder and a quaking more powerful than any earthquake. Smoke filled their lungs and they coughed and trembled as they crawled down the hallways, eyes burning and vision blurry. A pair of guards met them at the staircase, handkerchiefs held over their noses.

“Hurry,” they bellowed over the dragon’s roaring. “To the secret passageway, before it’s too late.”

“My wine,” coughed the king, making to turn towards his cellar.

“My gowns,” gasped the queen, making to turn back towards the bedroom.

“Don’t you understand?” Bellowed the more audacious of the two guards. “A dragon has come for your castle. If you don’t flee, you’ll be burned to a crisp, or perhaps eaten whole!”

Reluctantly, the king and queen allowed themselves to be shepherded through the secret passageway, onto two white steeds, and over a series of hills. When they were at last a safe distance from the castle, the king and queen slipped from their horses and watched in disbelief as the formidable black figure of the dragon circled twice over the castle before descending behind the walls and out of sight.

At that moment, a priest rode over the hill. He habitually traveled between kingdoms to celebrate weddings and funerals, hear confessions, and pray over the sick. He was at that time, intending to visit the very kingdom the dragon had just overtaken.

“Father,” the queen said, running towards his steed. “Oh, Father, you won’t believe what has befallen us.”

The priest listened to the pair of monarchs recount all that had happened with a look of grave seriousness on his face.

“I don’t understand,” the queen said. “How could we have let this happen? How could God have let this happen?”

“We should’ve seen the signs,” the king said, hiding his face in his hands.

“You said you wanted to be a hero,” the priest said to the king. “And you longed for adventure,” he said to the queen. “But when the opportunity to be heroic, to have an adventure presented itself, you were too preoccupied with the small annoyances and

disruptions to your daily comfort. You were too busy worrying over the mice to battle the dragon, and for this reason, the dragon has come and gone and taken from you not only your castle, but the chance for heroism and adventure.”