“My Valley”: World-building the Magic Carpet Realm

When we sat down to write down the Magic Carpet stories, we’d just encountered a lovely children’s book called My Valley by Claude Ponti. Originally written in French, this charming book reads somewhat like a world-building document, with descriptions of places and people, and features a smattering of vignettes and mini-stories along the way. The narrative voice is childish and conversational, but also wise and well-informed about the world of the “Twims,” small furry creatures from whose perspective the story is told.

If you ever have a chance, I urge you to check out this book — it is wonderful. It also seemed like a great way to start putting the Magic Carpet world on paper. I set out to blatantly imitate the format of My Valley, while capturing as many moments and details about the carpet kids’ world as I could within a short format. It was really helpful for distilling the world to its essence - and so much fun! Each entry has a hook, or multiple hooks, for creating stories, and this feels like a great jumping off point for us. The result is a book unto itself, and we hope to generate illustrations soon…

The Big Blue Castle

We live in a big blue castle on the side of the mountain. There’s us kids, Daniel and Ruby, along with our mom and dad. Our castle has lots of rooms. In the basement, there’s the library. Most of our family’s spellbooks won’t open for me until I’m older - they just stay shut when I try - but there are some I can read now. Next to the library is the storeroom, where we keep all our magical items and artifacts. That’s where we found our magic carpets on our birthday.

Above the basement is the great room with the fireplace, the kitchen with the stone hearth, and the balcony where we watch the sunsets and take off on our journeys. Above that are our bedrooms - mom and dad share the eastern room, and we share the western room.

The Elvish Forest

Across the valley from our home is the Elvish Forest, where the elves live. In order to meet the elves, you have to think about them first. And then you can see them. They tend the plants in the forest like a garden, and take care of everything. Once, when there was a fungus that was making the plants sick, my sister and I went to find a magic crystal from under the mountains and some ingredients for a potion to help the plants get better.

In the summer, and again in the fall when the leaves turn orange and gold, the elves have a big party with music, food, and dancing. They invite all the creatures of the forest. We were invited too because we’re friends with the elves, and because we help them. The bears and the frogs danced, and I even saw the owls at the party, sitting in the trees and listening.

The elves can make flying carpets too, but theirs are different. They weave the carpets out of grass, and fly them around in the forest, but just for fun. Their carpets aren’t as fast as ours, and they won’t work outside the Elvish Forest. The elves don’t like to leave the forest much either, though their ancestors did a long time ago. They lived in a forest far to the south but had to leave their old forest when the rains stopped falling and the streams dried up. That’s how they got here. Some of them kept going, and made it all the way to the Redwood Forest up north.

The Redwood Forest

When my brother and I were exploring, we found another forest with elves in it. It happened like this: we were searching for a way through the caves under the mountains north of our castle. When we came out of a long passage, we were on the side of the mountain surrounded by tall trees we didn’t recognize. We found out they are called redwoods, and they’re the tallest trees in the world. Pretty soon we heard voices from above us, and saw elves in the trees. They had a whole city built of wooden platforms and bridges. At first they didn’t trust us. But then we told them about the Elvish Forest and how we were friends with the elves there and helped them. Then they looked at each other and their eyes smiled, and they offered to show us their city.

The Crystal Caverns

Underneath the mountains where we live, there are caverns - lots of them! We used to think they were small, like the cave our bear friend lives in with his family. But then one day we found a passageway, and it took us deep into the caverns. There were rooms with brightly glowing crystals of all different colors. Later, we found out there are entrances to the caverns all over our mountain range.

The Crystal Tiger

We found a giant room with a lake in the middle, and that’s where we met the Crystal Tiger. Her fur is like a rainbow, except it never seems to be the same color, and it’s always changing. Every time you look at it, it’s different. Even though we know how to use the air to make a magic shield around ourselves that’s hard like a rock, we were frightened when we saw the Crystal Tiger. Then she talked to us. She was kind, and she let us ride on her back. She ran so fast, and took us all the way under the mountains and out the other side. We came out from underground near our castle. Sometimes, when we go into the caverns now, we see her, but not always.

The Dwarves

We had been exploring the Crystal Caverns for a long time before we ever met the dwarves. They are shy, and don’t like to be seen. We heard the soft clinking of their hammers before we ever saw them, but we didn’t know what the sound was. The dwarves tend to the crystals that grow here, they plant them and help keep them healthy. The dwarves didn’t make the crystals, but they can’t remember a time when the crystals weren’t here.

The crystals in the Crystal Caverns are magical. Some can heal a person or animal when they are sick, and others can help people cast spells and do other magic. Once, when we found a bird with a broken wing that couldn’t fly we brought it to the dwarves and they gave us a long blue crystal that made the bird’s wing better.

A long time ago the elves and the dwarves were friends, but they don’t see each other anymore since the dwarves stay in their caves and the elves stay in their forests. We’d like to help them be friends again.

The Elvish Farmer

We met one elf who doesn’t live in the forest. He has a farm south of our castle where he grows potatoes, squash, corn, melons, carrots, and the most delicious tomatoes. He told us that he got tired of living under the trees, with leaves above him all the time. He wanted to see the wide open blue sky and feel the sun on his skin. The other elves don’t really understand why he left. They love the forest and the way the plants grow all over, one on top of the other. Sometimes they visit and bring him herbs and berries.

Greta and Gertrude

Once when we were flying high above the mountains, we saw something whizz by in the distance, so we followed. It was another kid on a magic carpet! She was so fast! We had never met other kids who could fly on magic carpets - we thought it was only us! We followed her around the tops of the mountains for a while before we all landed in a clearing.

Her name was Gertrude. She learned to fly magic carpets at a special school inside of a tree. There were teachers and other kids there who could do magic, but not all of them could fly carpets. She said she was the fastest one at the school on her carpet, which meant we were pretty fast too, since we caught up with her.

Gertrude lives with her sister Greta in a stone cottage in the foothills of the mountains we can see from our bedroom, on the other side of the elvish forest. There is a creek next to their house, and a mill that’s always turning.

The School Tree

The funny thing about the School Tree is that it is never in the same place - it’s always moving around. To find it, we use a special compass stone. We lay it out on our carpet, and it points to the School Tree, wherever it is.

When you get to the School Tree, there is a special branch we pull, then a door appears in the side of the tree’s trunk. The elvish Gatekeeper opens the door and lets us in. We walk down a short, dark hallway, and then out into the courtyard.

The courtyard is big, and wide, and open, and covered in grass. There are classrooms and laboratories. The tall tower is where the Professor of Mythical and Magical Animals lives. His class is our favorite, because we get to learn about all the animals that live here, even the ones we’ve never seen.

We go to school when we want to be in class and learn, which is sometimes. Other times we fly around on our carpets, explore and have adventures, or just stay home and play games by the fireplace. We always go when they have the magic carpet races, with the giant hoops floating in the air and the people below cheering as the wind breezes through our hair.

One time I asked the headmaster how they could fit an entire school inside a tree, and he just smiled and kept teaching our lesson on transmutation.

Bluebeard

If we fly up over the mountains and down again, across the grassland and over the big grassy dunes, we get to the beach. The ocean is big, blue, and cold, and sometimes we like to swim out into the waves and feel the cold water below us compete with the warm sun above us.

We see dolphins all the time, and sometimes they swim with us.

While we were visiting the beach with our whole family, we met Bluebeard. His ship was amazing! It was made of wood and had three bug blue sails. He had a little rowboat pulled up onto the beach, and he was fishing. He and my parents knew each other from a long time ago, and they talked for a long time while Bluebeard let us explore his ship.

Bluebeard sails around the ocean all the time. He catches fish, and he’ll trade them to people for vegetables or other things he needs. He has two brothers, Purplebeard and Redbeard, who also sail around in ships. Once, when we were all next to a fire on the beach at night, they played music. (Bluebeard played the violin, Purplebeard played the guitar, and Redbeard played the drums).

Purplebeard

Purplebeard has a ship too, and his is purple with a picture of a dragon on the hull. He mostly sails around on the rivers, like the one in our valley. He loves animals, and studies them. He also collects rocks and gemstones that he finds in the river. Purplebeard knows the dwarves, and they talk to him sometimes. There are rivers that flow all the way up into the caves under the mountains!

Once, we helped him find the shipwreck where his old ship sank. It was even bigger than his new ship, and it also had a picture of a dragon on the side.

Redbeard

Redbeard was gone for a long, long time. He sailed all the way around the world, and went to strange faraway places. Sometimes he tells us stories about people who are ten feet tall and live in giant sandstone castles, or dragons that live on the tops of mountains that are covered in clouds all the time, and swoop down to hunt deer at night when the moon is full.

Redbeard has the most amazing collection of clothes from all over the world. He’s away sailing most of the time, but when we see him he lets us play dress up.

The Sailors’ Island

Far out in the ocean there is an island where the sailors all go. There are docks all around it, and buildings and paths that cover the whole island. In the middle there’s a big courtyard with a grove of date palms and a pond with a little island in the middle you can row out to. The sailors’ island has everything - places to eat, drink, sleep, play music, read a book, fix your ship, nap in the sun. There are also shops with things from all over the world.

The City of Secrets

A while ago, we wondered where our magic carpets came from. Our parents said our family had had them for “generations” but they didn’t know where they came from. Then the elves told us about a city far to the south where magic carpets are made. So we went there. At first no one knew what we were talking about, and looked at us sideways as they walked away. We talked to a nice merchant and found out the carpets were a secret. We had to go to a special store and say a secret word to the clerk, and he showed us the room beneath the store where all the carpets were kept.

It wasn’t just the carpets that were secret in that city, it was all magic! The store clerk said it was because of the king there. Long ago, people used magic and made lots of wonderful and magical things, like the magic carpets. Over time, some of them forgot how, and then the king said that no one would be allowed to use magic at all. Some people still did, though, but it was a big secret. I wish we could make it so the city was how it used to be. The people there seemed worried and sad. We didn’t like it, so we left.

The Family of Mice

Once we discovered a family of mice living in our walls. We could hear them shuffling around under the floorboards, but we couldn’t see them. So Ruby had an idea - we could shrink ourselves down to mouse size with the shrinking spell we’d just learned at the School Tree. We found a crack in the floorboards and shrunk ourselves down to mice size.

We found lots of tunnels and pathways to explore, and eventually found the mice in their nice nest. It was made of wood shavings, feathers, and old drawings of ours the mice had collected. We explained to them that we loved their nest, but that they couldn’t stay here forever and would have to find a new home. The mice were sad, but we offered to help them find a new place to live in the forest, and we explained to them about the elves, and the summer party with the snacks and dancing, and they felt a little better.

We took the mouse family on our carpets and explored the Elvish Forest until we found a nice hollow tree with lots of dry grass around for them to make their nest with. Everyone agreed this would be a great place for the mice to make their home. They still live there and we visit them sometimes.