Prophecy

I was thinking yesterday about the use of prophecy in fantasy novels, in particular the AA Route Planner type of prophecy. (I like to imagine a hero logging onto the relevant website, putting in "rustic farmstead" as their starting location and "Dark Lord's fastness" as their destination, clicking "show me my prophecy," and then following the printout scrupulously through every stage.) I was going do a little rant, but instead ended up giving a sneak preview of my forthcoming fantasy masterpiece.

( Scenes from an epic novel of heroes and prophecies )

Cats and blackbirds

In recent weeks, I have frequently seen a slightly threadbare blackbird standing on the lawn, only yards away from a stationary cat. Usually the cat has had its back to the bird, but today the bird was standing only feet away from a stationary cat that was watching it with great interest. Since the bird frequently makes very loud alarm calls when a cat is on the move, this inability to see a stationary cat as a threat may well make it a Very Stupid Blackbird. However, since I'm not watching the garden for most of the day, it's reasonable to assume that such incidents have happened far more often than I've witnessed, but the blackbird remains alive, so perhaps we're looking instead at some Very Stupid Cats. Or maybe the cats have taken a vow not to harm the birdies, and the alarm call thing is just for appearances' sake, to announce to the world that all is as it should be in feline-avian relations, while, united, they plot dreadful things.