The judges for Casilda's Hat Contest have spoken! Casilda's hat has found its master.

To win this toothy hat, many of you submitted excellent stories explaining its origin. I suppose it's a cliche to say that choosing a winner wasn't easy, but it's true all the same: this was a tough one. So tough, in fact, that we've picked a first AND second place winner. "Well, get on with it!" you say. Oh, all right. If you insist.

In 1st place, winning the prized hat: "Casilda's Hat" by Rena

In 2nd place, winning a signed print of the El Despertar poster: An untitled work by Mike Kolachny (who wins bonus points for working in all those Skary references so deftly)

Congratulations, you two! If you haven't already, please send me your mailing addresses. And congratulations to everyone else as well! Each and every entry was wonderful in its own way. We thoroughly enjoyed reading them all! And now the winning entries: (more...)

The infamous Casilda hat is complete, teeth and all. Are you its rightful owner? Prove it by telling us the origin of its trophy teeth, and the hat could be yours.

What to do:

Casilda's hat bears three bloodied human teeth as sinister trophies. But whose teeth were they? What terrible thing did Casilda do to acquire them... or was it even Casilda's doing? This is your task - write a short story that answers these questions. If you need a refresher on the original tale, watch the video for El Despertar here.

You win:

A real-life hat just like Casilda's, hand-decorated by yours truly with teeth sculpted from polymer clay and painted with acrylics, bound together by red suede. The hat is sized small-to-medium but is still pretty large and should fit most heads if the winner wishes to wear it. It will be delivered by mail in a lovely scarlet hat box and comes with a signed card.

Rules:

1. Your story must be between 700-1000 words long
2. Must be written by you and you alone!
3. MUST mention Casilda's hat, the teeth and obviously Casilda. You may also use any other character from El Despertar - or any other Skary character - or invent your own.
4. Have fun with it!
5. Anyone from any country may enter, but the story must be in English (getting help with translations is fine)
6. When your story is finished, post it to your own blog, Facebook profile (must be public, though!), site or wherever you want*, preferably with a link back to skary.net.
7. Send us a link to your entry. You can use the contact form, send a direct message or reply via twitter @katytowell, or leave a comment at Facebook
8. You may enter as many times as you like, but the winning entry will be based on quality, not quantity.
9. The winner will be chosen within two weeks after the deadline and announced on skary.net, at which time said winner will be contacted for a mailing address.
10. Some legal stuff: by entering, you acknowledge that your story may be posted to any Childrin R Skary site at any time. Childrin R Skary, Skary, Casilda, the hat and teeth you're writing about and El Despertar all belong to Katy Towell, so don't do anything silly with your story like turn it into a major motion picture and make millions without so much as a by-your-leave. Also, you can't return your hat if you win it and don't like it, and no, you can't have the monetary equivalent. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, they say.
    

New Deadline: 11:59 PM Pacific, June 24th, 2009. Don't be late!

*If you want to, you can even video yourself reading your story and post it to YouTube. That won't give you any advantage, but it would be pretty cool. If you do this, please post a written version somewhere else, though.

Photos of the prize (there's only one, you know):