Other Gods

Old Stories Told Anew

By: Jake van der Kamp

Narrated by: Jake van der Kamp

Three times did the fisherman's wife tell her husband to summon the magic flounder and demand an even finer home than the flounder had given her the last time. In the end, the flounder gave her all she really needed and returned her to the hovel from which she came. In this retelling of the story, a prophesying sybil, a priestess of Artemis installed by the goddess on the Isle of the Flounder, tells the queen of Samris she may have her finer palaces. But it was the sybil's priests, who put these words in her mouth. The queen's consort, the commander of her armies, who saved the Isle of the Flounder from armed attack, wants the good fortune more widely shared and the two grow more distant from each other.

In a fit of inspired madness, the sybil then repudiates her blessings of the queen's building projects. In so doing, she destroys her own life, destroys the prophetic standing of the Isle of the Flounder and destroys the queen's reign in Samris. But she brings queen and consort together again with all they really need or want.

©2021 Jake van der Kamp (P)2022 BPYA 1382 Holdings