Hund of the Morraine

(All Them Witches)

In the hither Northwest, where mountain hames perch 'midst the bluffs of the groaning vale, and the trails are marked by cairns of unknown heritage, there are some who insist that not all stones are as they seem.

These are regarded by their neighbors as—at best—eccentric. Ever are they moonlight-rambling up the trails and passes with leathern satchels of bizarre tools: tiny hammers, calipers, bits of colored chalk.

When happens a likely-looking boulder, these instruments they will use to tickle and to prod the belly of the stone. If one were to ask, for instance, 'Dear Rooblin, why is it that you so vex the stones?' He might reply: 'because this stone, THIS stone is just pretending.

'At it's heart is the wily soul of a primeval beast, forefathers of the hund, or the geit, or the ochse, that was deposited here when the world was but an icy thought in the mind of god...'

And here will they become pensive, perhaps winding and unwinding the handle of their tiny chisel in the tangles of their beard. 'I could show you...if I could but make the creature pay heed. Many is the time that I've seen a stone rouse into the form of a many-hornéd beast and slake itself at the lip of a black mountain tarn...' 

Glimmergulch

In radiance set the sun, pursued at a careful distance by the pinkish mist that obliterated cairn and chasm even in their moment of crepuscular glory. The only thing exempt from the forgetfulness of dusk was the hunched but significant figure of a man as he sat on the brow of a knoll above the fog, tending the nascent curl of a campfire, his back against the stump of a wasted tree.

To this prominent figure, as to a beacon, young Soupcrumb made his way along the sodden track. He was hungry and tired, and his feet were scraped and raw. There was black mud between his toes.

Soupcrumb crawled into the fire's gathering radiance without remark, but without bothering to hide either. For a while the huge man did not seem to notice his presence, but at last he broke the silence with a not unfriendly grunt: "And what finds you here, little waif? Fey thing, are you? Come out of the mist to play my eyes for fools? Some Spinney-scamp come to lead me into a depthy swale?” The question did not seem serious to Soupcrumb. It was as though the big man had been expecting him, and that his surprise was some ineffable kind of joke.

Soupcrumb was not scared, and the big man seemed to notice this. “My name is Glimmergulch, boy. Now tell me why you soil my fireside.”

At last Soupcrumb spoke: "No Spinney-scamp am I, though as much I may become. I was a Skeldkryk farmer's son. But I stole away. Raising cabbages is a shit life, and my Pa's a cruel arse. I set fire to his shed and then I ran."

There was a voluminous pouch by the Glimmergulch’s side, partially concealed in the many hides which he wore draped about him. Shifting the stave that protruded from its mouth, he produced a crust of dark bread and an ale skin, which he offered to Soupcrumb. The boy filled himself eagerly.

Glimmergulch scratched his copious whiskers as he watched the boy drink. "So you are here now, and hoping your Pa will forget about you. There are many such in these parts. Mark me boy!" Soupcrumb looked dizzily up from his meal, for the ale had been strong and it clouded his wits. As his eyes climbed, the giant shifted aside his great hide cloak to reveal a polished gut-plate of a somnolent emerald luster and the size of a well cover. A black spiral was cunningly inlaid into the lacquer, and it seemed to Soupcrumb that this spiral traversed an incomprehensible dimension. His jaw grew slack. He was aware--faintly--that the man was speaking.

"My name may be Glimmergulch, thing, but none call me that anymore. What they call me, when they remember to call me anything, is the Overlooked. I know what it's like to be well and truly forgotten. You see, even you've forgotten me.” The clod released a low chuckle. Soupcrumb’s head bobbed in hypnotized time with the motion of his diaphragm. “I saw you but yesterday morning. I saw your Da' take up the thresher. He saw me too, which is what stayed his ire. But he doesn’t remember me either. I handed you the torch that kindled your Da's shed, do you not remember you miserable child? Of course not. None remember me. But you remembered where I told you to find me, though you hardly knew it. And now you'll never have to see your mean old Da' again."

The unfortunate boy finally collapsed in a heap by the cold embers of the fire. The night had already passed away, not wishing to linger on such a scene. From Glimmergulch’s pouch came a tittering. He withdrew the wooden stave which was his cudgel and It winked and gibbered at him. " More fuel for the fire, eh Glim? A tasty morsel you've won tonight," it sang. " Do let me crack his eggbasket, do."

"Nay twig. This one's to be laid by, for I have on the morrow to bargain with Toads, and they like their currency fresh."

“Tender! Tender tender for the toads,” giggled his cudgel.

Glimmergulch swept the unconscious Soupcrumb into his sack with the crook of a massive elbow, and swung it over his shoulder as he began slowly to plod down the cold little hill. Around him the dawn gathered and the mist began to disperse, revealing the faint outlines of berms and barrows like the traces of a haunting memory.

Greer

Hiding in the dank and mold

or perched up in the mountain's fold...

I'll find those creatures folk call great

and gladly cut them down a bit. 

Ogres, Pit-toads, Bears, and Wurms,

Sung in songs that make me squirm...

I'll stalk those legends that men fear

and make them curse the name of Greer... 

The Tainted Thegn and his Dire Men

Thus sang the mangled minstrel of the coming of Fulgid Glim during the time of Quaking and of Mourning in Qaarra:

He came upon us from the bruiséd North,

Leading forth a host of brigand knav'ry

Who once were only feuding petty-kings,

born to desp'rate battle and gloried death.

But Fulgid Glim gave to them many gifts

And each their bloody praises did he sing;

and forth they came under a new accord,

'Neath the flag of the Many-eyed, Mumbling Thing.

On Glim's brow the crown of cabbages he bore

And the Dire Men called him their Tainted Thegn;

They rode on us in darkness and unease

To throw down the nacreous towers of yore

Where dwelt the darkly dreaming deities.

Now our untimely bruised and bloodied night 

does Fulgid beset with his ugsome thegns:

Greer of dank and mossy mane, crusher of

brittle-bonéd men; and Thjornig Marrow,

who rides to cleave the face of death itself;

Ullidge Brood, who bears the beastly flag

In place of Blind Krell before him, who was slain;

Gorespindle, whose wicked barbs crave flesh;

And Ditherprank, whose mirthful cranium 

is born upon his oddly faithful mute;

And Toller Brigg with his loathsome ordure;

And Brinnae the Goad of rage-mad valour;

And many a blood-soaked tyrant beside.

They come to test our bones on edge of knife,

And beat into our skulls with shrieking axe;

To plunge our hapless land in deeper strife,

To unseam our sickly kerns and burn our shacks;

To rifle through the bones and carry forth

Our burnéd trinkets to the gory North.

Brittleghast the Cut-Pate

                                                 Beware the cut-pate's jovial axe.
                                                 It furrows brows with hilarious tracks,
                                                 vexes crowns with giggling seams,
                                                 lights Brittleghast's eyes with a mawkish gleam.

                                                 While stricken, bleeding onlookers drool,
                                                 he juggles his axe like a glorious fool
                                                 And - rather than ruin this act with a grin - 
                                                 lets the arc of his axe tell the story for him.

                                                 Sweating with mirth and convulsed with delight,
                                                 To watch Brittleghast work is a wonderful fright.
                                                 He shows us the thrill of such exquisite dread;
                                                 He shows us the joke in a well-cloven head;

                                                 Shows us how masters work only in red
                                                 Long after more reasonable colors have fled;

                                                 Heaps jest upon jest with the sweep of his axe.
                                                 ... Oh God help us, he's at it again.

The Heaper of Teeth

One finds strange things alone on the wold;
Rodent skulls arranged in spirals and figures of eight,

Low-growing trees tied from root to twig in colorfully died wool
And hung with trinkets of less identifiable origin,

And heaps of teeth, tall as a man or more, left to moulder darkly in the day,
And to glimmer yellowly at night.

One must then think to oneself, alone on the wold:
Something must be making these heaps...?
Something must be taking these teeth...?

The Keeper of Livers

Redly together they quiver,

preserved in a fumigant river,

released from your bowels to slither

and dance for the sorrow of men.

Through gullies with rocks all a-shiver,

past gardens he keeps just to wither,

where his hermitous adepts do dither

while singing their unquiet hymns.

Rejoice, child, for now he comes hither,

your succulent body to sliver.

They name him the KEEPER OF LIVERS

who sing of his slavering ways.

Flayer of Shins

                                             What is that pennant that waves side to side?
                                             Above yonder ravening, villanous tide?
                                             The icon depicting a Toad-o'-the-pit
                                             on a stitched fabric of cured, leggish hide.

                                             Growing, the scabrous image of dread,
                                             Before which the armies of sane men have fled,
                                             Before which the ravening legions have bled,
                                             Yea, growing, the mammet draws nigh.

                                             'Coming,' the ashen-faced messengers told,
                                             'Burning with fire and pissing on gold,
                                             The Flayer of Shins is consuming the 'wold,
                                             and bearing his foul banner high.'

Krynek, the Bloody Knell

Hide you well within the dale,

or in the muck below the swale,

or scale you down an empty well,

or tread the weald far off the trail.

Still will you hear the Bloody Knell;

Coming so near, the Bloody Knell.

The Warder of Wyrd

                                    And last there comes the Warder of the Wyrd

                                    Across the acrid fields and heaps of teeth,

                                    Before, the cries from throats of worms are heard,

                                    Behind, the prancing of his dwimmer-beasts;

                                    Might he vanish North and pass with peace?

                                    As lief he would unmake the very word.

Gorish the Gaveler

When passing in weald and wold, waste and wild, there is no better implement for maintaining order than a very large hammer.

The Creeping Scyther

                                    Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know

                                    not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your

                                    gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment,

                                    that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one

                                    now, to mock your own grinning?