pur-port-ed-ly
adverb
purportedly (adverb)
as appears or is stated to be true though not necessarily so; allegedly:
Part One:
The School of Lake Things
Little James takes over the official tourist welcome turning it into an outdoor barefoot lesson on the lake's moods how to skip stones and the local Irish words for blackbird wet and magic. Mrs. Clancy is forced to accept that visitors leave happier (and damper) than they would from reading laminated facts in the ferry shed. The “Lake School" sign goes up.
(FLM August 22nd 2025)
Little Jamea and the School of Lake Things
The Magpie Report No. 6
“The Note That Called Him Home"
Filed from The Echo Shelf. Fiddle refused to sing it. Hobs listened twice.
WEATHER:
Clear skies fractured slightly after noon.
The light bent in the shape of a violin’s back.
No birds spoke for seven minutes. We noted it.
Purrport Log Entry #342-G
Subject: Apple Beth
Category: Unexpected Arrivals | Meteorological Mysticism | Domestic Disruption
Time of Event: Just before six bells Monday morning
Weather: Dew heavy rainbow suspiciously early
Report:
At dawn a full atmospheric glory (sky-looped rainbow known to be temperamental) unfurled without notice over the eastern hayfield. Witness: Conal O’Byrne who was in the act of saving hay pitchfork aloft.
First arrival: A red-furred dhole-species unverified though appears foxlike and fond of barking at nothing. Landed cleanly in haystack #4. No damage to stack reported.
Second arrival: A young woman of unknown origin name given as Apple Beth. Landed moments later in the same stack. Witnesses describe her demeanor as “bright-eyed grass-strewn and entirely unapologetic." May have been steaming lightly.
Apple Beth declined to explain her method of transport but did accept a cup of tea a scone and a borrowed cardigan. She is currently lodging in the spare room at the O’Byrne’s and has expressed an interest in “sorting spoons chasing geese and starting over."
Additional Notes:
-The dhole answers to no known name.
- Maudie O’Byrne has claimed this is “not the strangest thing-to happen to her kitchen before breakfast.
- Orla Merrin has placed a blue star on her village map beside the haystack.
- Apple Beth’s favorite word so far appears to be “yes."
Status: Settled in (temporarily). Further observation recommended. Spoon audit pending.
Five Works from our Autumn Sholf (The Echo Chamber)
Notice (unsigned slightly scented of coal soap and violets):
Elsin’s Song heard again near the chapel ruins.
Air thick with longing memory and an old tune no one taught.
Children skipping without knowing why. Radios playing what shouldn’t be.
Reeds unsettled. Past rehearsing itself.
Old paths stirring. Gingerbread recommended.
(Maeve has a fresh batch at the porch--question mark shaped of course.)
FOUND:
Scorched scroll tied in lace sealed with a red bead.
Discovered behind Nell’s cottage beneath the blackthorn tree.
“We don’t go near that place after dusk. Some say she sings still… Orla Merrin
Filed under: The Tower at the Edge of the Hill
Name on parchment: Lady Bluebeard
Approach with curiosity and caution.
Memo from The Purrport
stamped in sardine oil:
Effective immediately entry visas for seagulls have been suspended pending investigation into last Thursday’s pastry incident.
Purrport Response
& Public Comments: Between the Rushes
Inspector Finn (Feline Officer):
No official delivery was made.
Pawprint evidence suggests minor trespass by a rook or lesser fairy.
Orla Merrin:
This woman by the reeds... I’ve drawn her before I think.
In chalk on the back of my wardrobe. She was crying but the tear fell up.
Mrs. Doolan (retired drama teacher):
Sounds like Moira-from-the-well. She vanished in 1967. I still have her teacup.
Whiskers McFluff (Archivist-in-Fur):
Requesting a formal investigation into unfiled music.
The line "Some things root deeper when you don’t name them" may indicate ancient orchard magic.
Maeve (from the Tearoom):
Made a pie to honour her. Gooseberry and silence. Left it by the reeds.
Maeve who knew the reeds needed time to forget last year’s heartbreak and this week’s argument had baked the pie to draw out the silence and keep it safely contained until the village was ready for it again. Now the silence was loose. Which meant the memories might come with it. "
Welcome to the Purrport the storytelling heart of Lough Owel Village a landscape where poems drift on reeds and stories echo through worn wood and rain-washed stones. Below is a placement guide to help readers discover the treasures found in our magazine each one housed where it naturally belongs in our village by the lake.
August Mapping
Purrport Entry No. 27: Aortha
The map bends westward for a moment where Connemara's wind still rattles in the ears. There lies Loch Con Aortha the hound of the heart vein or so the old scholars say. Some call it a lake but to us it is a breath a steady beat in the chest of Ireland. The sand there remembers footsteps even from long ago and the tide still teaches Irish in a tongue of foam and rock. They say if you walk its shore with the wind behind you your heart will keep pace with the sea and for a time you’ll feel younger than you are. We mark it here so that Lough Owel knows it too a kinship between waters a shared pulse.
And Hiding in The Weaver's Cottage
"The Russian Girl" by William Falo
Her scarf might be found caught in a thornbush near the stream. Her story is written in scraps inside the Weaver’s pattern book. A haunting portrait of survival and the thin hope of transformation beneath the surface of a city still bearing scars.
"Lady Bluebeard" by Laura Solomon
Behind the cottage lies a hedge gate. Don’t open it. Not unless you’re ready. Gothic and glittering with menace this feminist fable peers into the loneliness of power and the hungers it conceals.
The Pier and Beneath |
Escapes grief-tides and dog-eared redemption.
"Driving With Disaster" by Tyler McMahon" Told around a campfire beneath the pier. Mr. Empty’s old collar hangs from a driftwood post. An odyssey of brotherhood memory and rage set against volcanic beaches and the quietly rising tide of personal reckoning.
"Sea Party" by Chris Crittenden
Found scribbled on the back of a salt-warped playing card in a net. A briny imagistic slip of a poem the sea in celebration and revolt.
The Church Steps
Mind the stones here don’t just hold your weight they’ll hold your words too. Best to speak kindly for echoes travel further than you think.
The Church Steps (Sanctuary & Sorrow)
“A Dear Bud Letter" by Elizabeth P. Glixman This could be found pressed into a prayer book left beside a bench or scrawled into a flower press left behind at the altar.
“Leitrim’s Sands" by Stan Long Naturally this one can be carved into a bench facing the lake. It’s the home soil of the magazine after all.
July in Focus
A New Constellation |
Orla’s Annotation (in faint pencil margin left of the Gulliver section):
They said Gulliver was big but I don’t trust measurements. You can be giant-tall and still stepped on. Mam says people used to whisper in each other’s ears and not worry who was listening.
Maybe the shrinking starts when you start believing you’re too small to matter. I found a thread in the hedge today. Tied it round my finger so I wouldn’t forget. But I forget what.
The first-ever Reconciliation Tea at Brighton Bothan ended not in banishment or bewitchment--but in excuses and second helpings. |
NOTICE: The Fairyfolk from Brighton have arrived. Please secure all teaspoons and advise the linnets to keep their songs cryptic. |
This week’s highlights:
Lost: One jar of pickled thunder. May respond to lullabies. Please return to Maudie O’Byrne’s back porch--if you dare.
NOTICE: All complaints regarding the Moon’s lateness must be submitted in triplicate. Address to Fitz (Callagain division) who is refusing to file anything written in pencil.
Found: One glove. Right-hand velvet embroidered with the phrase “I’m not sorry." Currently pinned under a rock behind Whim Wharf.
Orla's Corner: The Return of the Pickled Thunder
Letter of Concern:
To Whom It May Purr
I have reason to believe my neighbour has been hiding a small dragon in her pantry. I heard it humming. I smelled scorched honey. I demand action or at the very least biscuits.
Yours With Anxious Regards
Mrs. Terpsichore McGnash (retired)
Found Correspondence No. 1
Discovered by Orla Merrin transcribed into the Purrport Ledger
Pinned with a rusted brooch to the office corkboard just below the "Lost Wellies & Found Promises" section.
Date received: Unknown
Date discovered: This morning after light rain
Delivered by: Unverified. (Cat scratch marks suggest Inspector Finn.)
The Letter (Extracted from the Archive)
Originally Redacted from The Linnet’s Wings Spring Issue 2011 under the title “Between the Rushes".
I saw her again by the reeds.
That woman with the dark shawl who hums a tune
no one quite recalls.
She doesn’t ask for help. She never looks behind.
Only once did she speak and I believe the words were:
“Some things root deeper when you don’t name them."
After that I never tried.
I simply sat and listened.
The song changed with the weather.
I think she’s watching for someone.
Or waiting to be remembered.