Today is part two of two where we are talking to Tanya Lynn about her novels. After today you will have heard about making your own books about things around your house, being discouraged by your family, researching the way that you’d like to publish your book, learning as you go, having your family read your books, having your friend read your reviews for you, and dealing with imposter syndrome.

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Tanya Lynn has always been creative, dreaming of becoming a published author her entire life.

She self published her debut book Mask of Broken Things in July 2022.

She lives in Canada, with two great kids and a floofy Maine Coon cat. She loves to read, workout & listen to music.

She’ll keep writing & testing out different genres but you can always expect something suspenseful up her sleeve.

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You.

Welcome to Freya's.

Fairy tales.

We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with the fairy tale or short story read as close to the original authors version as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show notes.

Be sure to check out our website and sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part two of Two where we are talking to Tanya Lynn about her novels.

After today, you will have heard about making your own books about things around your house, being discouraged by your family, researching the way that you'd like to publish your book, learning as you go, having your family read your books, having your friend read your reviews for you, and dealing with impostor syndrome branches of betrayal.

Hoping for a fresh start, sophie buys her grandparents old home.

But this farmhouse is holding more than memories and her choice may not be the only thing that comes back to haunt her.

Turning from his past to stand atop his empire alone, eric searches for the missing piece to unlock his future.

The problem is, the walls that hide his answers belong to someone else.

Though Sophie and Eric's meeting is innocent enough, will their unexpected chemistry spiral into more?

Someone is pulling strings, controlling lives and lighting the match that will spark broken hearts, unimaginable fear and immense torment.

How far would you go to betray someone?

Branches of Intimacy the past came to kill with twisted family ties came unhinged terror, spreading like wildfire and burning the world as they knew it to the ground.

Now they rise from the ashes, facing fear to become the strongest versions of themselves.

Eric rebuilding his life after the devastating quake of truth.

He seeks answers.

He works at finding the monster of his past to avenge his present.

But his ultimate goal is proving he is worthy of a second chance as he vows to protect his loved one, even if she chooses to turn him away.

Sophie healing her soul and becoming stronger than she's ever been.

Sophie works to overcome the damage that was inflicted by others and finds family in a place she never thought possible.

She learns who she really is and what she is capable of.

Can she reconnect with the man who once set her body on fire and made her believe in love again?

So they all know what name you're publishing under, though.

Okay.

And they'll read from them.

Most of them don't have TikTok.

I do advertise or not advertise, but I make more videos about branches on TikTok than, say, Facebook.

Facebook.

Absolutely not.

Do some stuff on Facebook, but like, just because there's my son's family, they usually follow me there, and it's like they're clutching their pearls.

I'm like, I will only post age appropriate.

Like where on TikTok or Instagram, they don't have that, which is kind of I have all these people that either friends or family, like friends friends, like family, whatever, found family that have read my books and they don't have any sort of media or anything.

And they'll write me these long messages giving me a review.

And I'm like, but could you leave a review?

Can you go where you bought the book and put this there?

That would be really helpful.

And they're like, but it's so good.

And I was like, with branches of no, I'm sorry.

Mask.

I get them mixed up all the time.

Mask.

I broken things.

It is about 390 pages, and somebody I know stayed up till, like, 02:00 in the morning and their bedtime is 08:00 P.m..

They go to bed at 08:00 P.m..

And they were like, I was up till 02:00 a.m.

Finishing this book.

And I was like, wow, that's dedicated you're into it.

She's like, I couldn't put it down.

And I was like, but could you leave a review?

Right?

I appreciate what you're saying to me, but it doesn't help me when you just help me.

Yeah, I've gotten to the point.

So I, at the beginning of the year, decided I was going to track all my reading on Goodreads, but if it's a book that I'm narrating, I count that towards my reading goal.

Because I read the book twice because I had to read it to prep it, and then I read it to narrate it actually three times, because then I read through it again while I'm listening back through the audio.

So three times in one year, I've read the same book.

So I'm like, I'm going to count it, but I won't review it because that feels ick.

Because I'm like getting paid to read it.

Even if it's a royalty share, I'm getting paid later to read it.

It's like, no, but I will read it.

So it'll count.

I don't know.

Does it count towards authors?

Do you guys even see how many people have read the book?

No.

Okay, so I guess it does.

No good.

Anyways.

I can see books that I read want to read it, are currently reading.

Like, just the number, not who you are.

Unless you're my friend on Goodreads.

I have no idea.

Which I just recently heard that Amazon frowns upon you being friends with someone who reviews your book and can remove the reviews.

Cool.

Yeah.

I'm like, well, it is what it is.

I don't know I don't know enough.

I just recently jumped on I mean, I've had a good reads for forever because I've had a Kindle for a long time, but I don't know how any of it works.

I have to do what you did.

I have to Google all the things to figure out how everything works.

The main thing is have book written on that.

Last year I read mostly indie anyway, but this year I've dedicated to reading only indie.

So I do try or I at least leave a rating.

In the very least I leave a rating and then I try to review it.

If it's not for me, I still try to review it and I just try to be like, I really like the descriptions or the writing.

I can pull myself apart from the actual story.

Some stuff just is not mine.

For me, it's just not.

I just read Handmaid's Tale and all I left was the star rating because I'm like everybody at this point with the TV, like with the Hulu series, everybody knows what that book is about at this time.

So you're either going to like it or you're not.

And I'm an awful reviewer.

I'll give away the end.

So usually I just like, this book was great.

I loved it.

My issue is I forget what I just read once I finished the book.

So I don't remember what did I like about it?

I'm like, terrible.

My memory is garbage.

So I'm like, I don't remember what I just read, but I liked it.

So are you an author that do you go through and read your reviews or do you ignore your reviews?

Has that helped you or hurt you?

When I first started, I was reading all the time and I was like, let's not do this.

So my friend, sometimes she'll be like, hey, you got a really good review.

You should check it out.

And then I will.

Okay.

Because sometimes it helps.

Or sometimes I'll go back and read other reviews because sometimes you'll be writing and you're just like, I suck.

This is terrible.

What is wrong with me?

What am I doing?

Imposter syndrome is a beast and it just comes in out of nowhere and it's like, what are you doing?

Why are you doing this?

And so then I'll go back and I'll read my reviews and be like.

This is yeah, I read my narrator reviews.

I read them to make sure that there's not some glaring issue that I need to fix.

But so far, all the bad ones are they don't like my voice and I can't change that.

So unless it's one of my first audiobooks, in which case I'm like, fair, I didn't know what I was doing.

It's like you with trying to format it and stuff at the beginning.

I have a daily fiction podcast that's like classic novel audiobooks.

And while I had been doing fiction narrating through that I wasn't getting paid for it, so no one was really like, grading me.

If you want to call a review a grade.

So when I started doing it, actually for Audible, it was like, they're just rougher than now.

But I did the best I could at the time.

So now when one of those gets a bad review, I'm like, Sarah, we're just going to move past it.

If they're like, this is the worst narrator ever.

I'm like, okay, just keep going.

What else?

Objective to some people.

So I love Crime and murder with romance and spice together, yes.

I find it really hard to write a book where I don't kill off a bunch of people.

And that's not for everybody.

And I get it.

Yeah.

My main concerns now are, is it well edited?

Because I don't have time to narrate ones that I have to fix as I go because word here, word there, not that big of a deal, but like 50% of it being awful or whatever, takes a lot longer to figure out.

I would find myself just like, staring at the page going, what is this sentence trying to say?

And that's why after I'm done a book, well, one of the reasons, because I go back halfway through, I do an edit, sometimes I'll leave a bracket and be like, is this a word?

Or I will google the word while.

I'm bracket and put, do I need a name here?

Or I know where the sentence is going, but because I don't stop and read back the chapters, I just keep going.

So, yeah, I stopped midway through to do an edit and then I let it marinate.

And when I'm done for about two weeks and then I go back and I reread it and I'm like, okay, this sounds crap, but I know where we were going.

Whereas if it goes to somebody else, they're going to be like, what?

Yeah, because my time is so limited with my day job that I still have and own, so, like, that won't go away.

And then narrating and then trying to write my time is so limited.

I was like, you know what?

For this book, for fairy tale book, I have all the chapters named already and what is supposed to happen in that chapter for the story to move forward.

And then I finished chapter one and I went back and edited chapter one and then sent that off to my best friend and then two other authors to make sure that this is not crap before I write the entire book.

And the whole premise was awful kind of thing.

That has not been the feedback so far.

They've been like, absolutely, keep writing.

I'm like, okay, cool.

But I feel like the one chapter at a time for me and everybody, everybody works differently and everybody's advice.

Like, I know Stephen King's a really big talker, but also Brandon Sanderson teaches classes that are up on YouTube, I think, on how to write.

Everybody has to work differently.

Like my brain one, I have to remember to go and write the details, like what was the dad's name so that I can reference it later.

Going back through it once I finish that chapter gives me a chance to pull all those details out and keep them in a little spreadsheet so they're where I can find them again.

I make character cards.

That's what my husband, he basically wrote a book of his characters for his book.

So I keep their index cards and I keep one on each character.

Sometimes they have more.

I keep them on each person's house so I can just look at them so that I know what the layout of the house is sort of thing.

So I'm not starting with a two bedroom and ending with one bedroom.

Yeah.

Any details like that are things that I mentioned.

Eye color, hair color.

Now I actually went into Canva and found the character because I'm terrible at descriptions of people.

So I'm like, we're going to go find character art on Canva and use that as our, like how our main characters are going to look so that I have something I can look at.

She's blonde.

She has bright red lipstick on.

The only reason we liked her is because the guy fits the character for the main guy.

And that was the best girl I got.

I was like, it is what it is.

You've had quite a few things that you probably would give as a tip for someone new.

But what's the biggest, I guess, piece of advice that you would give to someone starting out or trying to figure things out?

First off, just write the d*** book.

Yes.

I guess feel like a lot of people, like, if I wouldn't have just written the d*** book, I probably would have never gotten it done.

And finding what works best for you just because something works really great for another person.

Just like how some people I know some people that have to go back and edit each chapter and that works for them, but I would get stuck in a weird circle and never leave.

To kind of like know how your brain works and do that.

Yeah, whatever works best for you.

I make a lot of lists and what I wish I would have found sooner is like other author friends, just because they can give you they're there if you're like, I suck.

And they're like, no.

Or help with just little stuff that you don't think is going to be like the blurb or probably could have got help with formatting if I had some friends at that time, but I didn't.

Just trying to find I guess it is hard to find friends.

Finding friends is hard.

How did you find your author group?

I can't remember who I was following first, whether it was April or Cape Pata, but I seen the discord.

I joined it, and I've been there since, I think September of last year.

Yeah, I asked P.

S.

Nell to be on my podcast, and then she was like, hey, join this discord too.

And I'm like, okay.

So that's how I got there.

That was December.

I think it's when I talked to her.

And just the more you post and the more you interact on whether it be TikTok or Instagram, I haven't figured out Instagram.

Same.

Let's be honest, I haven't figured out TikTok this week.

I was like, let's throw a bunch more hashtags on it and see if that works.

What I did this week, so I have I was getting close to 12,000 followers, and not that that means crap, but I was like, I only wanted to get to ten so I could have a playlist.

That's all I wanted.

I went through and I took out 600 accounts that were inactive, so they actually hadn't posted in like a year, two years, three years.

Or TikTok doesn't take out banned accounts.

Yeah, you have to go do it, do that.

I didn't know that.

And you can only remove 100 a day, so it took me six days.

But I have noticed an increase in you're reminding me.

I guess what they do is they take your post and they show it to 100 of your followers, and if it doesn't do anything, then they don't do anything with it.

It's a percentage.

I think it's like 10% or something.

So I was like, well, I should probably check.

And it took six days.

But I do notice that I'm getting more engagement.

All of it is difficult.

So just pick what's less difficult and try building off that.

I've also noticed I started on TikTok as myself, and then like, I don't know, a couple of months into being on TikTok, I started the first podcast.

And so then I have, like, a podcast account, but those videos get, like, no views because I don't know.

I have no idea.

Those videos have gone through the wringer of like, a couple hundred views to like, one or two views now, so I need to figure that out.

But then when I started praying Victoria Narrates, that one has done well the whole time.

I don't know what I did.

People like my boring talking videos, I guess.

I don't know, talking about narrating.

And I'm like, I don't work for publishers.

All I do is through ACX.

So I'm like, I'm not putting myself out there as like some professional or whatever, but like, the lady that I had today, where she was giving really weird information, I'm like, I'm going to comment on that because that's not her experience is not normal.

So weird.

But I don't know.

Obviously, every artist would like to make what they should be making on their stuff.

And I've noticed, especially in the author community.

I'm a little bit like business minded, too, because I do own part of and run a business.

So you want to get things for as cheap as you can for the best.

You want the most bang for your buck, where authors don't think that way.

They're like, I want to be able to pay you.

And I'm like, I will honestly do your book for royalty share.

Just let me.

And then this week who was it?

I'm terrible.

James nicole York posted about she posted about it's an author who posted about wanting to do, like, an indie author alliance kind of thing where you would swap services.

Like, if you're really good at editing, you'd swap with like you need help with your cover design.

So you would, like, swap services for, like if a cover is going to cost $1,500, you trade $1,500 of editing and trade it.

Then you don't pay anything out of pocket.

You're helping each other.

People pay $1,500?

Yes.

There's a lady I talked to.

I don't know how much she paid, but if you're having a custom photo shoot done and you're paying out the models and the photographer and all of that to have completely custom, yeah, you're going to be paying a lot of money for those.

And then audiobooks, since that's based on hourly, that could be crazy, too.

Technically, ACX has like, a $400 to $1,000 bracket.

I don't know that I've ever seen a book listed for that high of pay before.

They're all like way lower than that.

But I mean, kudos to anyone able to land that.

I've never landed a $400 to $1,000.

I've never even seen one, I don't think.

Yeah, I know.

Covers.

There are I have heard all kinds of crazy.

Someone got on here and talked about they got their covers for like, $25 or something through some website that does like, stock images and stuff like that.

I'm like, I'm going to go the try to design it myself route.

And then if that doesn't work, pay someone else to do it.

I know I mess with them for a while.

It's something that I come back, I spend hours and hours and hours.

So I guess I can see it because I'll like it.

So I kind of have like a again, the first draft, and I'll like it, and I'll send it out to a few of my friends, a few people to be like, what do you think?

So when I feel like it's good, it's not the one I need to feel like in my heart that I want this to death and this is it.

That has been how I've been doing.

It makes sense.

I feel like you need a nice.

Balance of you're in love with it and it fits the genre.

Yes.

I'm not going to say never, but I don't have people on my covers yet.

I like the symbolism of other non peopley covers.

Yeah.

I feel like any kind of romance, it's either or.

It's not like you have to or you can't.

It's like either or.

There are so many.

I just bought for my birthday I bought the Twisted Love series and those are all just like the words on the covers.

I just bought the Katie Roberts books.

Fallen Olympus or dark Olympus.

Dark Olympus.

Those are not just words.

There's like stuff on the covers, but it's not people.

With branches of a trail.

I did like the tree is one that looks like it's dying, but it's like the darkness of betrayal.

And then the second one I just released the COVID I think I showed the COVID this week.

It has like a live tree that's just growing in the sunlight and it's kind of showing you the difference.

This one is darker, but then the next one, they're healing with second chances.

Sound family.

My editor might have yelled at me because it's also emotional.

Her husband was like she cried like more than once and I was like, sorry.

I've done that a few times while narrating too.

And I'm like, get it together, suck it up.

Must not sound like crying or must let's see.

Must sound emotional but not have the snot involved.

I know.

I had one of my friends on TikTok the other day finish branches of the trail.

She commented on one of my posts.

How could you.

But did you review.

It?

Please review it now that you've read it.

It's the hardest thing.

I didn't realize.

I don't know.

When I read books, I just leave something, whether it be rating or A.

Again, I suck at reviews, but this was really good.

This is what I liked.

I've always kind of since Indie, I don't really do it for Trad, which is rude, but is what this?

They have more reviews.

They don't need it unless I need to talk about yeah, but how hard reviews would be to get.

They're just wow.

I think there's a statistic on the percentage of people that read the book that then review it.

I have no idea what it is, but I know there's a statistic on it.

Like maybe I don't know, 10% or 5% or something.

Like you page is red and I'm just thinking like something doesn't add up.

Yeah.

But hopefully they'll come.

I'm sure they will.

Well, do you have any other parting.

Words or tips or anything?

I don't know, I'm pretty boring.

Well, you write Dark Romance, that is thriller that you created your own genre for.

So that is not very boring.

I just wrote it last month.

I guess it's a Christmas novella.

And because April D.

Berry writes the best rom coms, I love them, I need them in between all of the darkness.

And so I wrote it and I was like, this is finally a book that you can read.

Yes, it's not dark.

Have a good rest of your Saturday.

You too.

Bye.

Bye.

As Tanya got older, she liked The Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson.

First published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, the story follows the journey of a young mermaid who's willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul.

The original story has been a subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Beauguild and Pernell Hegard, as well as the folklorist Maria Tadar.

These analyses cover various aspects of the story, from interpreting the themes to discussing why Anderson chose to write a tragic story with a happy ending.

It has been adapted to various media, including musical theater, anime, ballet, opera and film.

There's also a statue portraying the mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written and first published.

Today we'll be reading The Girl Who Trod on the leaf.

Another Hans Christian Anderson story.

Don't forget we're reading Lemore de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the roundtable on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf there was once a girl who trod on a loaf to avoid soiling her shoes, and the misfortunes that happened to her in consequence are well known.

Her name was Inga.

She was a poor child, but proud and presuming, and with a bad and cruel disposition.

When quite a little child, she would delight in catching flies and tearing off their wings so as to make creeping things of them.

When older, she would take c*** chafers and beetles and stick pins through them.

Then she pushed a green leaf or a little scrap of paper towards their feet.

And when the poor creatures would seize it and hold it fast and turn over and over in their struggles to get free from the pin, she would say, the c*** chafer is reading.

See how he turns over the leaf.

She grew worse instead of better with years, and unfortunately she was pretty, which caused her to be excused when she would have been sharply reproved.

Your headstrong will require severity to conquer it.

Her mother often said to her.

As a little child, you used to trample on my apron, but one day I fear you will trample on my heart.

And alas, this fear was realized.

Inga was taken to the house of some rich people who lived at a distance and who treated her as their own child and dressed her so fine that her pride and arrogance increased.

When she had been there about a year, her patroness said to her, you ought to go for once and see your parents, Inga.

So Inga started to go and visit her parents, but she only wanted to show herself in her native place, that the people might see how fine she was she reached the entrance of the village and saw the young laboring men and maidens standing together chatting and her own mother amongst them.

Inga's mother was sitting on a stone to rest with a f***** of sticks lying before her which she had picked up in the wood.

Then Inga turned back, she who was so finely dressed she felt ashamed of her mother a poorly clad woman who picked up wood in the forest.

She did not turn back out of pity for her mother's poverty, but from pride.

Another half year went by and her mistress said you ought to go home again and visit your parents, Inga and I'll give you a large wheaton loaf to take to them.

They'll be glad to see you, I'm sure.

So Inga put on her best clothes and her new shoes drew her dress up around her and set out stepping very carefully that she might be clean and neat about the feet and there was nothing wrong in doing so.

But when she came to the place where the footpath led across the moor she found small pools of water and a great deal of mud.

So she threw the loaf into the mud and trod upon it that she might pass without wetting her feet.

But as she stood with 1ft on the loaf and the other lifted up to step forward the loaf began to sink under her lower and lower till she disappeared altogether.

And only a few bubbles on the surface of the muddy pool remained to show where she had sunk.

And this is the story.

But where did Inga go?

She sank into the ground and went down to the marshwoman who's always brewing there.

The Marsh Woman is related to the elf maidens who are well known.

Her songs are sung and pictures painted about them.

But of the Marsh Woman nothing is known except that when a mist arises from the meadows in summertime it is because she is brewing beneath them to the Marshwoman's Brewery.

Inga sunk down to a place which no one can endure for long.

A heap of mud is a palace compared with the Marshallman's Brewery.

And as Inga fell, she shuddered in every limb and soon became cold and stiff as marble.

Her foot was still fastened to the loaf which bowed her down as a golden ear of corn bends the stem.

An evil spirit soon took possession of Inga and carried her to a still worse place in which she saw crowds of unhappy people waiting in a state of agony for the gates of mercy to be opened to them.

And in every heart was a miserable and eternal feeling of unrest.

It would take too much time to describe the various tortures these people suffered but Inga's punishment consisted in standing there as a statue with her foot fastened to the loaf.

She could move her eyes about and see all the misery around her but she could not turn.

Her head, and when she saw the people looking at her, she thought they were admiring her pretty face and fine clothes, for she was still vain and proud.

But she had forgotten how soiled her clothes had become while in the Marshallman's brewery and that they were covered with mud.

A snake had also fastened itself in her hair and hugged down her back, while from each fold in her dress a great toad peeped out and croaked like an asthmatic poodle.

Worse than all, it was the terrible hunger that tormented her.

She could not stoop to break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood.

No, her back was too stiff and her whole body like a pillar of stone and then came creeping over her face and eyes.

Flies without wings.

She winked and blinked, but they could not fly away, for their wings had been pulled off.

This, added to the hunger she felt was horrible torture.

If this last much longer, she said, I shall not be able to bear it.

But it did last, and she had to bear it without being able to help herself.

A tear, followed by many scalding tears fell upon her head and rolled over her face and neck down to the loaf on which she stood.

Who could be weeping for Inga?

She had a mother in the world still, and the tears of sorrow which a mother sheds for her child will always find their way to the child's heart.

But they often increase the torment instead of being a relief.

And Inga could hear all that was said about her in the world she had left, and everyone seemed cruel to her.

The sin that she had committed in treading on the loaf was known on earth, for she had been seen by the cowherd from the hill when she was crossing the marsh and had disappeared when her mother wept and exclaimed, o, Inga, what grief thou hast caused thy mother.

She would say, oh, that I had never been born.

My mother's tears are useless now.

And then the words of the kind people who had adopted her came to her ears when they said inga was a sinful girl who did not value the gifts of God but trampled them under her feet.

Ah, thought Inga, they should have punished me and driven all my naughty tempers out of me.

A song was made about the girl who trod on a loaf to keep her shoes from being soiled, and this song was sung everywhere.

The story of her sin was also told to the little children, and they called her wicked Inga and said she was so naughty that she ought to be punished.

Inga heard all this, and her heart became hardened and full of bitterness.

But one day, while hunger and grief were gnawing in her hollow frame, she heard a little innocent child.

While listening to the tale of the vain haughty, inga burst into tears and exclaim, will she never come up again?

And she heard the reply no, she will never come up again.

But if she were to say she was sorry and ask pardon, and promise never to do so again?

Asked the little one.

Yes, then she might come.

But she will not beg pardon was the answer.

Oh, I wish she would, said the child, who was quite unhappy about it.

I should be glad.

I would give up my doll into all my playthings if she could only come up here again.

Poor Inga.

It is so dreadful for her.

These pitying words penetrated the Inga's inmost heart and seemed to do her good.

It was the first time anyone had said poor Inga without saying something about her faults.

A little innocent child was weeping and praying for mercy for her.

It made her feel quite strange, and she would gladly have wept herself, and it added to her torment to find she could not do so.

And while she thus suffered in a place where nothing changed, years passed away on earth, and she heard her name less frequently mentioned.

But one day a sigh reached her ear and the words inga.

Inga.

What a grief thou hast been to me.

I said it would be so.

It was the last sigh of her dying mother.

After this, Inga heard her kind mistress say ah, poor Inga, shall I ever see thee again?

Perhaps I may, for we know not what may happen in the future.

But Inga knew right well that her mistress would never come to that dreadful place.

Time passed, a long, bitter time.

Then Inga heard her name pronounced once more and saw what seemed too bright stars shining above her.

They were two gentle eyes closing on earth.

Many years had passed since the little girl had lamented and wept about poor Inga.

That child was now an old woman whom God was taking to himself in the last hour of existence.

The events of a whole life often appear before us in this hour.

The old woman remembered how, when a child she had shed tears over the story of Inga, and she prayed for her.

Now, as the eyes of the old woman closed to earth, the eyes of the soul opened upon the hidden things of eternity.

And then she, and whose last thoughts Inga had been so vividly present saw how deeply the pearl girl had sunk.

She burst into tears at the sight and in heaven, as she had done when a little child on earth.

She wept and prayed for poor Inga.

Her tears and her prayers echoed through the dark void that surrounded the tormented captive soul, and the unexpected mercy was obtained for it through an angel's tears.

As in thought, inga seemed to act over again every sin she had committed on earth.

She trembled, and tears that she had never yet been able to weep rushed to her eyes.

It seemed impossible that the gates of mercy could ever be opened to her.

But while she acknowledged this in deep penitence, a beam of radiant light shot suddenly into the depths upon her.

More powerful than the sunbeam that dissolves the man of snow, which the children have raised more quickly than the snowflake melts and becomes a drop of water.

On the warm lips of a child was the stony form of inga changed, and as a little bird she soared with the speed of lightning upward to the world of mortals.

A bird that felt timid and shy to all things around it, that seemed to shrink with shame from meeting any living creature and hurriedly sought to conceal itself in a dark corner of an old ruined wall.

There it sat, cowering and unable to utter a sound, for it was voiceless.

Yet how quickly the little bird discovered the beauty of everything around it the sweet, fresh air, the soft radiance of the moon as its light spread over the earth.

The fragrance which exhaled from bush and tree made it feel happy.

As it sat there, clothed in its fresh, bright plumage, all creation seemed to speak of beneficiace and love.

The bird wanted to give utterance to thoughts that stirred in his breast as the cuckoo and the nightingale in the spring.

But it could not.

Yet in heaven can be heard the song of praise, even from a worm.

And the notes trembling in the breast of the bird were as audible to heaven even as the psalms of David before they had fashioned themselves into words and song.

Christmas time drew near, and a peasant who dwelt close by the old wall stuck up a pole with some ears of corn fastened to the top, that the birds of heaven might have feasts and rejoice in the happy blessed time.

And on Christmas morning the sun arose and shone upon the ears of corn, which were quickly surrounded by a number of twittering birds.

Then from a hole in the wall gushed forth in song the swelling thoughts of the bird as he issued from his hiding place to perform his first good deed.

On earth and in heaven.

It was well known who that bird was.

The winter was very hard, the ponds were covered with ice, and there was very little food for either the beasts of the field or the birds of the air.

Our little bird flew away into the public roads and found here and there in the ruts of the sledges a grain of corn, and at the halting places some crumbs.

Of these he ate only a few.

But he called around him the other birds and the hungry sparrows, that they too might have food.

He flew into the towns and looked about, and wherever a kind hand had strewed bread on the windowsill for the birds, he only ate a single crumb himself, and gave all the rest to the rest of the other birds.

In the course of the winter, the bird had in this way collected many crumbs and given them to other birds, till they equalled the weight of the loaf on which Inga had trod to keep her shoes clean.

And when the last breadcrumb had been found and given, the gray wings of the bird became white and spread themselves out for flight.

See yonder is a seagull, cried the children when they saw the white bird as it dived into the sea and rose again into the clear sunlight, white and glittering, but no one could tell whither it went then, although some declared it flew straight to the sun.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.