Let me tell you a story of songs sung and pictures drawn in a time long ago and a place far away.

“How long ago?” you ask.

Oh, very, very long ago. So long ago that I can’t even remember how long ago it was. But, this I know: it was a time of kingdoms, princes, magic and a flying horse.

“How far away?” Is that what you ask?

It was far away, but not really, really far away.  Just far away from here. At least I think it was.

This place far away and long ago was called Dirge, or to be more exact: the Kingdom of Dirge. As a place it was very, very dull and dreary. Maybe this was because it had so little color. Almost no color was to be seen there. As a matter of fact there was so little color that the flowers were few and tiny. They were so small that you had to look very, very hard to even hope find one. And when you did find a flower its color was faint. Faint and not at all pretty. Even the grass and trees were a mere tepid turquoise. It was as if everything was dirty and needed someone to scrub and shine it. 

As if that weren’t bad enough, in Dirge it seemed as if the birds had forgotten how to sing and streams to gurgle joyfully. The only sounds the birds and streams made were like moans – as if they ached from old age.

The very oldest people of Dirge would tell you it hadn’t always been that way. They would say that Dirge was once a bright and colorful place with many, many flowers, song singing birds, joyful sounding streams and happy people.

“What happened?” did you ask? “What happened to change Dirge?”

Well, the old people of Dirge say it was the work of the evil Sorceress Minerva. They say that it had to do with one of the greatest joys of Dirge. That joy was Pegasus – a flying horse. It was a beautiful golden horse and a horse of great size. Even its wings were large and golden in color.

No one owned the flying horse Pegasus. Instead, Pegasus belonged to everyone. It lived in the village square and spent its days playing with the children of the village. The very young ones could be put on Pegasus’ back and he would carefully give them a ride around the square all the while holding the young rider safely on his back with his wings.