The Forest
It was a foggy morning in the Delton Forest when an elf began to stir in his tent. He rustled about, rose to his feet, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. As he walked outside his tent, he stretched and yawned. He heard the birds chirping and the stream flowing in the distance. He let out a faint sigh of comfort, feeling the sun on his face. He had his boots fastened in just a few moments and was ready to go. Down to the stream he went to collect water and bathe for the day. After a short time of bathing and washing his clothes, he arose from the stream, dried off with his towel, donned his dry clothes, and hung his wet clothes on a branch to dry.
He started back to his camp, collecting sticks and chunks of limbs on his way, for his work was about to begin. He sat on a log, humming a tune and sometimes whistling as he drew a carving knife from his belt. He looked over each piece of wood and chose which one to start with. He took the piece of wood and his knife and began to carve little notches at first, but eventually got more detailed with his cuts. Each one precise, each one working with the others to form a trinket. The trinkets he made, he would sell either to shops in the villages he visited or sometimes to the children playing in the villages.
As he continued carving, he began to sing along with the same melody he was humming and sometimes whistling to: “Oh, Mary was a maiden from a village oh so far, she came selling apples in her old wooden cart. She sold her apples by threes, but when she came to me, she sold me four or maybe more for a kiss under the oak tree.” He continued to hum the melody as he worked. By the time the sun was high in the sky, he had made several trinkets: a dragon, a bear, a horse, and his last one was a wolf, which he was finishing up. Suddenly, his knife slipped and made a shallow cut on his palm. Had he had less experience, he might have made a gash. He sighed, wiping the blood from his hand and placing the wolf into his backpack.
