Publishing

“A long, long, time ago when the earth was still young, and the land was clean and the skies blue and clear. It was a time when the Pucca still lived among people. A time when people believed that the Pucca was a giant hare. People knew too that the Pucca was a trickster and a shape shifter that could change its form. It could make itself look like a young boy or an old man, a young girl or an old woman. Pucca’s loved to change their shape to play tricks on people and especially children.”

The history of Tomos’s story began a long time ago – almost thirty five years.  Over the years as I told the story it began to change and grow. I was interested in Jung’s concept of the Archetype and in particular the Trickster and the way in which trust is destroyed. Jung was interested in Celtic mythology and mentions the Pucca – the shape shifting giant hare and the stories attached to these curious figures.

When I began to tell this story of a little boy who became lost I didn’t give the little boy a name. Which, thinking about it now, was very remiss of me. I suppose that my thoughts at the time I first started telling this story was that I wanted the person listening young or old to understand that it might be part of their story. It was only when I came to write the story down that I realised that this little boy needed a name. I was writing at a time when I too had suffered a loss and was searching for a degree of certainty when my life was in turmoil. The name Tomos came to me. It is a Welsh first name and as I thought of the Pucca and its Celtic connection it felt appropriate to give the child the name Tomos.

As with so many good stories as one writes, reads and listens meaning emerges. I first heard a story about a little boy who was lost from a psychologist who as a child had been separated from his parents and taken to Auschwitz. So it will be no surprise that “Tomos and the Field of Enchantment” is a story which involves the playing of a trick and betrayal at its heart. Aspects of the story that I had not appreciated became prominent to me and I gained further insight into the way in which a story can be understood. People listen to the story and take their own meaning and not necessarily the one intended by the story teller.

“Tomos and the Field of Enchantment” @Rob Cullen – A Children’s story waiting publication)