devise a sign

[marycatelli]

Ah, the oddities you need.  For instance, I need an inn sign.

It's not an important inn.  It's just a waystation at which something bad happens, if it hadn't happen there, it would have happened somewhere else. . . .

So I was pondering what sort of sign and name to give it.  Too blatant -- the Necromancer's Rest -- and our hero looks a fool.  But something like The Hound and the Hare, or the Fox and the Grapes -- no, I want something that the hero will think bitterly ironic after.  If he doesn't blame himself for trusting it in an inn named that in a fit of excessive guilt.

I think I'm aiming for something with a Raven in it.

Comments

[whitefangedwolf.livejournal.com]

The Raven and the Writing Desk?

[marycatelli]

:D

Unfortunately, a high fantasy world, so that's breaking the fourth wall in a way that -- would not benefit the scene.

[whitefangedwolf.livejournal.com]

I figured it would be a stretch, at best, but I couldn't resist suggesting it. ^_^

Hmmm, if other corvids are okay, The Crow and the Pitcher might be a suitable name. The tale is considered to be positive due to the crow's ingenuity, but the obstacle of a pitcher that the crow couldn't drink out of makes it problematic for an inn.

[marycatelli]

Hmmm. . . a possibility.

I was also thinking about the Raven and the Tower, with our hero too preoccupied up front to notice the tower's being struck by lightning ala the Tarot card.

[hibiscusrose.livejournal.com]

Have you ever heard the rhyme: "One for sorrow, two for joy..."? It usually refers to magpies, but also crows and ravens.

Lone Raven? Three Ravens?

Here's another version: One for sorrow,/Two for mirth,/Three for a funeral/And four for birth

[marycatelli]

I shall definitely ensure there is an odd number. . .

Though I shall have to slip in the rhyme earlier. It would be horrible to have him thinking, "Three ravens" and have the reader go, "Huh? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girl, four for boy."