Z is for Zaffre, alchemy, and coming full circle in the end

We started the month with blue, and we end it with blue as well. I totally planned it that way.
(I didn't.)

Zaffre is a shade of dark blue, and also a substance used in alchemy, usually meaning cobalt oxide or cobalt arseniate. While zaffre itself does not have a story to go with it, alchemy definitely does. A while ago I did a storytelling program about alchemy for high school chemistry classes. One of the most fun topics I ever worked on.
One of my favorite alchemy stories comes from the Italian epic Orlando Furioso. It tells us about a wizard-alchemist names Atlantes who lives in a tower, searching for the secrets of the Philosopher's Stone. One day his experiment (getting a bunch of substances hit by lightning) leads to unexpected results: Instead of the Stone, he accidentally creates a hippogriff (don't you just hate it when that happens?). With the help of his new pet, he builds himself a magical castle, and starts enchanting and kidnapping people to keep him company. After a whole bunch of folks go missing, his spells brings to him the knight Astolpho, who is smart and well-equipped enough to break the spell, steal the hippogriff, and go off to have many adventures, now that the owns a flying mount. The adventures include a trip to the Moon where all lost things can be found (including the knight Orlando's wits, who had recently lost them, and some of Astolpho's own wits, which he did not know were missing). The story is long, but fun to tell, you can read a re-worked version of it here.

Thank you all for sticking around from A to Z! Until next April, I will be blogging about storytelling, stories, storytellers, books, travels, and the occasional SCA event. If you would like to learn more about the world of the word, you can click Follow (to the left to the left) or follow via email or Twitter. You can also check out my other blog, the MopDog, where I write about weird Hungarian things.
Cheers!