Get inspired with this week’s Fantasy Art Wednesday, where fun fantasy artwork is combined with a writing prompt to get your creative juices flowing.

If you follow my blog at all, you know that I love anything medieval. This image reminded me of my time in Europe, walking along cobbled streets in winter, the old timber framed and stone structures still surviving amidst the modern ones. Touching them always brought about a sense of amazement and wonder.  Hundreds of years later, I could still run my fingers along the grooves and marks made by chisels and axes belonging to someone now forgotten. If only the buildings had a voice, they could tell me who made them, and about all the generations of people who had used them since. Such stories they would be…

Those old buildings had character to be sure, full of oddly shaped rooms and cubbies, narrow hallways, and circular staircases. Ceilings were low, sometimes with uneven slopes. Window glass warped and discolored, thicker at the bottom as time gradually changed its shape. Floors creaked, and doors were smaller–not made for the average height of a modern day person. Sometimes those doors were tiny, or in odd places, or even went nowhere at all–at least not anymore. Surely they had a practical function of some kind in their day. But the sense of mystery was often the greatest inspiration of all. As much as I longed to know what those buildings would say if they could speak, it was the not knowing that fueled my imagination. Since I didn’t, and couldn’t know, the longing pressed me to fill in the details for myself.

The warmth of that door, and the stone around it, contrasts with the cold and gloom of a winter day. It’s clearly not the main entrance to this city–it’s one of those mysterious little back gates, or side doors. Who uses it, and for what purpose? Where does the road beyond it lead? There are no guards on watch, and the wall isn’t overly high. In the background the spires of a church rise above everything else. I can imagine that on the other side of the door I will find a cobbled walkway. It will twist through back alleys and narrow streets, wedged between corbeled buildings pressed too close together, leaning out above everything. Every little crevice and arch I pass by contains layers of history, and mystery too. I’d love to take a stroll through this picture, even if only in my mind, and weave a few tales as I go. Of days, and people long passed into history. What will you find on the other side? Or is it your destiny to emerge from the door, to leave the village behind, and follow the snowy path into winter’s gloom?

Artwork by Edmund Koken