Everyday Canvas

A Silly Story

Prompt: Use these words in your entry today: mistletoe, snowman, angel, cactus, demolish and pickles.

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A Silly Story
after a medieval tale

Against my angel’s warning, I stopped at an inn on a frigid, cruel, snowy day. I should have known. The inn had the shape of a crypt.

“Isn’t the shape of this inn enough to make you scared?” asked my angel, who--unseen by others--always accompanied me.

I shrugged. “It is just a shape.”

“The snowman outside has cactus for teeth,” whispered my angel while we entered through the front door. “And don’t stand under the mistletoe. Or else!”

“Or else what?”

“The innkeeper will stuff you into a barrel of pickles.”

Was she joking? So I laughed and boasted, “But I can knock down the barrel, raze it to the ground, and demolish the entire inn, as I am not a pickle.”

“If you think you’ll be saved by St. Nick, don’t keep your hopes too high. This inn is the only place St. Nick avoids.”


Maybe she had a point but what did she think I could do? Surely, I couldn’t dodge the mistletoe. It was everywhere, even hanging from the ceiling, and sure enough, I found myself in a pickle.

But then, a sweet voice arose through the nude branches of the bleak trees. “Ho, Ho, Ho!”

Me a terrestrial thing, I was ecstatic as you-know-who picked me out of the barrel.

“Honestly,” I said to my angel, “If I know that the one named Nicholas will rescue me, I’ll jump into any pickle barrel, again.”

“So cocky! But you win!” said, my angel.

Who says angels know everything!


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Well, this is how I demolish medieval tales such as this one:

After an old legend of two Spanish boys traveling home from a boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the evil innkeeper, killed the boys and put them in a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, and found the boys in the barrel and miraculously bought them back to life!