Hex 27.09
Connects to: 29.07.
This bleak cobble path leading into the Kingswood is called the Orphans’ March. According to the old tomes when the elves ruled beyond the forest this was the road taken by the children sent as tribute to the elves. An elf piper led the way while the children played their silver bells.
Of course, the elves only took copperhair children, and to this day expectant mothers pray to the Green Lady for ravenhair, goldhair or even mudhair. The superstitious will dye their child’s hair green for the first few years of his or her life, to ‘ward off fay eyes’.
Beyond the forest, the Orphan’s Road is in disrepair. Where is enters the Kingswod, however, appears to have been carefully maintained. According to folk tales, a traveller carrying a single lit candle and who never strays from the Orphans’ March will find himself or herself in front of the Holt (29.07) as the candle burns down to its stump. How the traveller can then make his or her way back is in no folk tale I know of.
Hooks:
- Why did the elves want human children? What happened to them? And why did they only want copperhairs?
- Is the folk tale true?
- Is the Orphans’ Road one of the paths that pass through the Fey-Realm or one of the thousand doors? Are those two forms of quick passage one and the same?
- What would happen if the Orphans’ Road were to be repaired?
