Tonight I have a wonderful opportunity to share some local folklore with the world. These old stories are often unsettling, of course, but they sometimes hide a lesson that folk would do well not to forget. Unfortunately, those like my mother–who doesn’t know English and has never used a computer–are often the only ones who still remember.
She’s sitting down in front of the tall red candle now, which means the tale is about to begin. I will type and translate as she speaks, and I can’t imagine a better environment for this dark winter fable. The cabin is quiet, and outside are only snowdrifts, pine forests, and icy mountaintops beneath a starry night sky. And so, without further ado–
The Outsider’s Tale.
Hundreds of years ago, this Village was a very different place than it is today. Each person had their place. There were butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. Blacksmiths, grocers, coopers and carpenters. Folk supported each other, because they depended on each other. They understood–like the spider understands–that if one strand of the web fails, the dinner escapes.
And who wants to go hungry?
That also meant that neighbors kept a close eye on each other, since one person’s sin was the sin of the whole community. And that’s how our story begins.
One winter’s day, an Outsider came to the Village. Suddenly, there was a new person in town, one who had no place. She came up the winding road in a covered wagon, fleeing death and danger. She needed help–but folk are suspicious of Outsiders.
She had to find a way to support herself until summer, when the snow would melt and she could cross the mountain pass.
She tried playing music in the local tavern, but the barkeep turned her out. He was sorry, he said, but the wives in town didn’t like the way their husbands looked at the Outsider.
She tried working the looms and storehouses, but the Outsider’s hands were delicate, and she did not know the language of the Village. She couldn’t share in their gossip, which made her a threat. They turned her out as well.
Snow piled up on her cold covered wagon. The Outsider took on the most disagreeable jobs in order to survive. She mucked stables, swept streets, and cleaned houses for next to nothing, but it still wasn’t enough to provide food and warmth for the winter. She resorted to meaner things: fortune-telling, potion-selling, card scams…
And each night, the men of the Village snuck over to the covered wagon with a pitiful handful of coins. They brushed their steps out of the snow with a pine branch to protect their reputations, but everyone knew what happened in the Outsider’s covered wagon.
One of these men was different from the others. He was the Butcher, and he brought gifts of food and fuel, instead of coins. It wasn’t clear what he was after. Maybe he just wanted someone to talk to, because he wasn’t happy in the Village either. The Butcher and the Outsider grew close, and they made plans to leave the Village together as soon as the passes cleared.
Rumors travelled fast in the Village. The Butcher’s family and friends were furious about his plot to abandon them. What right did he have to abandon his place in the Village? Folk depended on him! It could not be allowed, and they knew that the Outsider was to blame.
They did not know that the Butcher was with the Outsider on the night they set flame to her covered wagon. He came out in his shirtsleeves to stop them, and things got violent. The Butcher was left in a pool of his own blood beside the burning wagon, and the outsider ran, screaming, into the mountains and into the night.
There was no food or shelter in those freezing high places, and the Outsider was no survivalist. She did the best she could–digging a branch covered tunnel to sleep in, eating roots and berries–but the berries made her sick, and soon the Outsider realized: she was going to die.
But she could not allow that to happen. It was already obvious when she looked at her shivering, starving belly: the Outsider carried the Butcher’s child in her womb.
A desperate madness took hold of the Outsider. She climbed to the top of a twisted peak, and there–surrounded by the howling wind and absolute darkness of a new-moon winter’s night–she called upon any Power that could hear her. She offered everything, and asked for only two things:
Life, and Revenge.
Well, something out there must’ve been listening, because she was granted both. The Outsider and her Kin would live, but on the opposite side of the Cycle.
The folk of the Village craved warmth and light; the Outsider and her Kin would thrive in dark and cold.
The folk of the Village grew old and dreaded death; the Outsider and her Kin would age slowly and fear no mortal weapon.
The folk of the village felt hunger and thirst; the Outsider and her Kin would need nourishment but once per year, and it would come from the flesh of the living.
And so it was, and is.
When the winter nights are longest, the Outsider and her Kin come down from the frozen peaks to hunt. It is always a mystery who the prey will be.
It might be a foolish, misbehaving child who didn’t heed his mother’s warnings to come inside at dark. Cold hands that grab his neck from behind are the last thing he ever feels.
It might be a stubborn farmer out fixing his fence by the dark treeline. A scream, fingernails dragging in the frosty dirt–and he’s gone! Swallowed up by the shadows under the trees as though he’d never been born.
Or it might be someone special, who the Outsiders have stalked in the night for many moons.
The folk of this Village aren’t always eaten where they’re caught–that would be too messy! Some are dragged away by the Outsiders for breeding purposes, to create more of their own kind. Others are just used for sport. After they’ve served their purpose, the glacial caves keep their meat fresh all year long.
The Village has changed since the Outsider first arrived in her covered wagon. There are electric lights and metal towers. Plastics, escalators, and wireless internet. The Village has grown, but the folk are very much the same:
Prey for the Outsiders.
And so every year, when the days grow shorter and the nights are cold, the people of this Village stay indoors after sunset. Folk lock their doors, shutter their windows, and light a tall red candle in remembrance of their Sin. Folk try to forget about all the folk who go missing this time of year, because the Outsiders are always there: full of Life, and full of Revenge.
So ends the tale.
My mother blows out the candle that the inhabitants of this cabin had lit, foolishly thinking it would protect them from us. We have feasted well, but we must go now; it is nearly dawn.
Perhaps I’ll have another story to tell when we come down again to feed next year.
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