snow white and the satan dwarves

The amulet of ranging is a powerful magical item in the world of fantasy. It is said to provide the wearer with enhanced accuracy and precision when using ranged weapons such as bows and crossbows. Legend has it that the amulet was created centuries ago by a skilled archer who wanted to improve his aim. He sought the help of a powerful enchantress who granted him the amulet, imbued with the essence of a legendary creature known for its sharp eyes and deadly accuracy. The amulet of ranging is made of a unique combination of rare materials, including precious metals like gold and silver, and enchanted gemstones. Its intricate design showcases the craftsmanship and attention to detail put into its creation, with delicate engravings and markings representing various celestial objects associated with archery.

It mixes magic and reality in such a brilliant way that the magic feels very real. It is about two sets of children, each from divorced families. The father from one and the mother from another have got together and this new blended family is struggling to get along.

There s much fun to be had in watching the islanders diplomatic handling of the missionaries, who are fine as far as education and healthcare and food parcels go, but no use at all when it comes to spiritual ills. What You Pawn I Will Redeem by Sherman Alexie The narrator attempts to reclaim a source of power that has been stolen, while we enjoy a running gag about mental arithmetic.

Its intricate design showcases the craftsmanship and attention to detail put into its creation, with delicate engravings and markings representing various celestial objects associated with archery. Wearing the amulet of ranging grants the archer a heightened sense of focus and control over their shots. It aligns their mind and body, allowing them to channel their energy and intentions into their projectiles with unrivaled precision.

Top 10 magical short stories

A ccording to the blurb writer on my Penguin Classics copy, Hans Christian Andersen was the “first writer to create timeless universal fairytales from his own imagination”. (Islamic golden age: “Are you sure?”)

It’s actually harder to find magical stories beyond the 19th century, outside children’s literature and fantasy, or the deliberately circumscribed forms of fable, parable and fairytale.

I think they still exist, in stories that don’t announce themselves as fantasy or even as magical realism, but they have become better at camouflaging themselves amid ordinary life, especially when the magic is the legacy of an older culture that has been suppressed but not quite extinguished.

So The Little Match Girl (the heartwarming story of an abused child-labourer hallucinating as she dies of hypothermia – Merry Christmas one and all!) might become, down the generations, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess.

Witches, healers and sorcerers feature in the stories I’ve chosen, but in a few of my Top 10 the enchantment comes from elsewhere – as it often does in my own stories – ineffable and mysterious. Magic is a resort of the dispossessed as much as of the powerful, a rival to the established orthodoxy, and some of these stories also show that precept in action.

1. Arrival of the Snake-Woman by Olive Senior
“She was enchanted when I took an Atlas I had borrowed from Parson and showed her first the world where our tiny island and India were located so far apart and then a map of India itself, like our island colored red.”

This story is full of delicate irony and of all kinds of surprising magic. There’s much fun to be had in watching the islanders’ diplomatic handling of the missionaries, who are fine as far as education and healthcare and food parcels go, but “no use at all” when it comes to spiritual ills. And the help these incomers offer is very much conditional.

2. The Fisherman and His Soul by Oscar Wilde
More pricing-up of the soul, albeit for different motives. This strange and metaphysical story, inspired by Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and The Shadow, was my favourite as a child (I owned the beautiful edition illustrated by Harold Jones). I couldn’t have understood it fully but I loved it for its language and imagery and for its genuine spookiness. The cutting-off of the immortal part – by moonlight, with a green-handled knife on wet sand – is particularly arresting, as is the shivery final paragraph. And then we have sentences such as this: “The other kept munching scented pastilles, which he took with an affected gesture out of an oval box of lilac enamel.” Delicious.

3. What You Pawn I Will Redeem by Sherman Alexie
The narrator attempts to reclaim a source of power that has been stolen, while we enjoy a running gag about mental arithmetic. Probably my favourite contemporary short story. I love everything about it, from the affirmation of the title to the final image. Colonialism 101.

4. Five Leaves and a Stranger byJacob Ross
Ross is such a subtle writer, and I love the mordancy found in his work. With echoes of Senior, this story follows a stranger who arrives in the narrator’s close-knit community during a time of sickness, sets up house with one of the women and has a child with her. There ensues a quest in the wilderness, redemption and a cure.

5. The Standard of Living by Dorothy Parker
Another shop-based redemption narrative featuring two modern-day Match Girls. Clever, simple, funny and charming. I love the magic trick it pulls off.

Very odd indeed … Robert Aickman. Photograph: Louisiana State University

6. Bind Your Hair by Robert Aickman
Poor old Clarinda has found herself engaged to Dudley, who has never missed a train in his life. She goes to spend a weekend with his family “in one of the remote parts of a county where the remote parts are surprisingly many and extensive”, and where a rather eccentric soiree guest seizes on her as a kindred spirit. And then – surely the most horrifying thing about going to stay with people: “Every Sunday evening, Clarinda understood, Mr Carstairs read aloud from about half past six until they had supper at eight.” Understandably, Clarinda has to escape. And then it all gets very odd indeed.

“In a way,” the shopman said. “Though we pay in the end. But not so heavily – as people suppose …”

Something anarchic and alarming – possibly evil – erupts into the delightfully ordered and middle-class world of this story, in which every street is known and money is ready for the granting of wishes, and birthdays are counted down to exactly and well in advance. Or does it? It’s so difficult to tell.

8. The Red Shoes by Hans Christian Andersen
As with so many of Andersen’s tales, there’s almost nothing to this – a few pages, and even the telling is simple. How is it so powerful? It’s partly the psychological acuity – Karen’s obsession with red shoes is of manifold origin and convincingly drawn – and partly imagery: the shoe shop, the various shoes themselves, the coffins, the graveyard, the spiteful and perhaps jealous old soldier (spiteful and jealous old world, even). The inability to stop – the whirling faster and faster – is genuinely the stuff of nightmares and taps directly into our sympathies.

Even without its famous adaptation, the story has an especial glamour lent by the beauty, the repeated visual accent of red (which stands out in life more than any other colour, and I think in literature too), the dancing, the riches and expensive objects, and even by the possession/obsession – everything is thrilling for Karen (and us).

The wearer's aim becomes steady, and their arrows fly true, finding their mark even at great distances. The amulet is not without its limitations, however. It requires the user to have basic archery skills and the ability to properly handle a bow or crossbow. While it can enhance an experienced archer's abilities, it does not magically grant the user instant proficiency. It is a tool that aids those who are already skilled, helping them push their boundaries and achieve greater feats. Throughout history, the amulet of ranging has been sought after by archers, hunters, and even warriors who rely on ranged attacks. It is said to have played a significant role in pivotal battles, where archers wearing the amulet turned the tide of the conflict with their deadly accurate shots. However, the amulet is extremely rare, with only a handful of known examples in existence. Some believe that the enchantress who created it only made a limited number of amulets, while others claim that their creation required the sacrifice of a powerful and elusive creature, making their replication nearly impossible. In conclusion, the amulet of ranging is a prized possession for any archer or ranged combatant. Its ability to enhance accuracy and precision makes it a formidable tool on the battlefield. While its scarcity adds to its mystique, those fortunate enough to possess one undoubtedly hold a valuable and powerful asset..

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snow white and the satan dwarves