The Fetching of Spring

The Golden Bird has been stolen (apparently) and Tik-Tak is sent to fetch it. The naive and dreamy youth rides southwards (it’s warmer in that direction), gets kicked out of two kingdoms, meets Erce-Ma, loses his hopeless steed, gains a (much) better one, stumbles into the Undwelling and its townships, descends into Akkman’s Dwell, rescues the bird (and other abductees), returns (still not fully awake) with the bird, refuses the hand of the Princess (what!), becomes a successful entrepreneur, is jailed > is released > then steals the bird (wrong order, I know, but that’s the truth), returns to Spring, returns to Tansa, gets familied, assumes the kingship and unites the Three Kingdoms (well, it’s a work in progress).

The Fetching of Spring, written with a humorous nod to the fairy tale, has a deadly serious subtext. Setting out from the Kingdom of the Golden Bird, our hero descends via the earthly into contemporary sub-earthly realms to confront Akkman, the ruling spirit of materialism.

Reg Down grew up in Canada, Namibia, South Africa and Ireland. He trained as a eurythmist, an art of movement and gesture, in England and Germany. The father of three, he has taught eurythmy in Waldorf schools in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as at Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento, California. He is the author of Leaving Room for the Angels, a book on eurythmy and artistic pedagogy, Color and Gesture - the Inner Life of Color, and a novel, The Fetching of Spring. He now lives in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada after spending many years in the USA.