#david montefiore

[lacnunga]

✨The most annoying fairy in the woorld✨

[lacnunga]

voted 1780's most unpredictable couple

[tom-brightwind-blog]

Rückkehrunruhe

It’s different with every visit, wherever he goes. Cities rise, fall, another takes their place. Similar in ways and vastly different in others. Villages spring up and turn into towns, grow and grow until crowding turns them into bustling trade centers. He notes every change, every new face, people, flora, fauna. When he returns they’re all gone, and there’s barely a sign they were ever there at all, replaced by something new, bigger, louder, different.He steps out of one tower and there’s a shoemaker’s shop across the cobblestone street from him, and he wonders just how long has that been there?Rome changes slowly, and maybe it’s because he doesn’t dare look away for too long. Links his arm with David’s and let’s the doctor show him around the city like he hasn’t been there before. And perhaps he hasn’t, he’s seen Rome but he hasn’t seen David’s Rome. They begin and end the trip in the Piazza Navona, and Tom promises over coffee never to forget any of it.He looks away and when he returns he’s alone, wandering the streets looking for all those places he knew before, but it’s never quite the same. He feels as though he’s walked into one of his rooms only to find that someone has completely replaced the furnishings with a brand new suite. There was a sweets shop here once, one that David had taken care to point out to him and they had spent some time shopping and sampling and left with boxes and boxes of candies that David had insisted, really, Tom, this is excessive.He squints at the window and tries to recall what the place had looked like then, frowns at the coat on display in the now tailor shop that has claimed the space. The door opens and a bell chimes, and a feeling of familiarity washed over him and then just as quickly it fades. Had there been a bell, or had the shopkeeper waved to them, smiled and welcomed them inside? He turns away, hands deep in his coat pockets and continues down the street.

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

David Montefiore had counted the innumerable towers in 1764. There were fourteen of them.

“Tom Brightwind, or How the Fairy Bridge was Built at Thoresby”

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

"And are you married, sir?" Mrs Winstanley asked Tom. "Oh, no, madam!" said Tom. "Yes," David reminded him. "You are, you know."Tom made a motion with his hand to suggest that it was a situation susceptible to different interpretations.The truth was that he had a Christian wife. At fifteen she had had a wicked little face, almond-shaped eyes and a most capricious nature. Tom had constantly compared her to a kitten. In her twenties she had been a swan; in her thirties a vixen; and then in rapid succession a bitch, a viper, a cockatrice and, finally, a pig. What animals he might have compared her to now no one knew. She was well past ninety now and for forty years or more she had been confined to a set of apartments in a distant part of the Castel des Tours saunz Nowmbre under strict instructions not to shew herself, while her husband waited impatiently for someone to come and tell him she was dead.

Tom Brightwind, or How the Fairy Bridge was Built at Thoresby

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

"Rome! The Piazza Navona!" cried David, delighted to find himself in his native Italy... "But will that happen to everyone who crosses the bridge?"Tom said something in Sidhe,* a language David did not know.

*The language of the fairies of the brugh. Considering Tom Brightwind’s character, it is doubtful that what he said was anything reassuring. Lucius Winstanley, the son of the prominent Winstanley family in Thoresby (the town where this fairy bridge was built) one year rode upon it and was never heard from again.

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

My children are certainly all very foolish and most of them are good-for-nothing, but perhaps in future it would be gracious of me to provide them with responsibilities, useful occupation, etc., etc. Who knows? Perhaps they will derive some advantage from it.*

*Despite Tom’s low opinion of his offspring, some of his sons and daughters contrived to have quite successful careers without any help from him. A few years after the period of this tale, at more or less the same time, several scholarly gentlemen made a number of important discoveries about electricity. Among them was a shy, retiring sort of person who lived in the town of Dresden in Saxony. The name of this person was Prince Valentine Brightwind. Tom was most interested to learn that this person was his own son, born in 1511. Tom told Miriam Montefiore (David’s wife), “This is the first instance that I recall any of my children doing any thing in the least remarkable. Several of them have spent remarkably large amounts of money and some of them have waged wars against me for remarkably long periods of time, but that is all. I could not be more delighted or surprized. Several people have tried to persuade me that I remember him--but I do not.”

[fyeahjsmnquotesandfootnotes]

By two o'clock Tom and David had reached Nottinghamshire...*

*In the late eighteenth century a journey from London to Nottinghamshire might be expected to take two or three days. Tom and David seem to have arrived after a couple of hours: this presumably is one of the advantages of choosing as your travelling companion a powerful fairy prince.