by Darryl Fabia
“You fools!” Nemmit shouted, his fist knocking both of the errant children on their ears. “We’ve been blessed and what do you do? Bring us to ruin again!”
The siblings who’d ruined the Horn were made to sit in the sun from dawn to dusk, while Nemmit’s mother and other sisters worked to restore the cornucopia to its old state. Yet they did not have wicker on hand and their threads could not hold the Horn together. By the evening, the Horn was as broken as in the morning, and the family went without a proper supper for the first time in many months.
“In the morning, I’ll head to town and find a wicker master,” Nemmit said. “I won’t tell about its magic, but we must pray that restoring its shape will restore its power as well.”
The farm workers left for the day, the crops almost ready for harvesting. The Trunts went to bed having only eaten some of the ripe vegetables from the field when they were used to meat, cheeses, and sweets. Many had trouble sleeping, and now and then one of Nemmit’s brothers would wake up to check the Horn in hopes of a small morsel of food having fallen loose. Finally they all went to sleep and the sun set outside.
Nemmit was the only one left awake. He had eaten normally from the Horn. He hadn’t grown used to eating richly or grown large off the Horn’s bounty, so he wasn’t as hungry as his family. He thought of the stranger who’d brought him to the Horn and wondered if the man with wicker baskets might be able to mend the magic cornucopia.
As he was about to head to bed himself, he heard a scraping at the table and saw the Horn of Plenty twitching on the wooden surface. Its torn ends quivered to and fro, as if searching for where to connect. “Go on,” Nemmit urged the Horn. “Put yourself back together.”
The Horn twisted violently, rolling over, and then its torn sides circled around its outside before clinging together. The Horn’s shape returned as before, only now it formed inside-out, baring a black and charred-looking surface. Before Nemmit could inspect it to see what food might come from its mouth this time, he heard a familiar ticking and buzzing—the sounds of a locust swarm.
Hundreds of the devil insects poured from the Horn of Plenty, sweeping through the kitchen and then out through the windows, clouding across the field of crops. Nemmit ran to shut the house’s windows and contain the vermin, but he was too late. The locusts swept through the crops like a flood, leaving only chewed up remains standing in the field. Then came a croaking and Nemmit looked back to the Horn, where dozens of frogs crawled from the mouth, leaping out the doors and windows to ravage what remained of the field. When the field was reduced to a patch of mud, smoke brimmed from within the Horn, choking the air and sending Nemmit into a gagging fit.
The Trunts awakened in the middle of all this, finding locusts and frogs in their beds and smoke billowing across the ceiling. Nemmit grabbed up the Horn from the table and ran outside, grasping a shovel from the porch as he left. He dropped the Horn on the ground next to him, dug a shallow hole, and thrust the wicker miracle inside, burying it.
“We have wasted a glorious gift,” he said to himself, listening to insects and frogs chew away the work of the hired hands. “Perhaps we will find ourselves on the right track now that our miracle is gone.”
Nemmit spoke as if all was done, but even beneath the earth, the Horn’s bounty flowed. The soil beneath his feet darkened and he began to sink in a mud formed of rot and weeds. The darkness spread across the crop rows, turning the field into a swamp, and a tremor rocked the house as fluid muck sucked at its foundation. Frogs and worms emerged from the sludge, writhing at the base of Nemmit’s home and the soles of his feet.
“Destroy it!” Nemmit’s father called from the sinking farmhouse.
Reluctantly, Nemmit dug his hands into the wet earth that clung to his skin like blood and pulled the Horn of Plenty from its grave. Worms and rotten meat flowed from its mouth, and Nemmit tossed it to his side. He lifted the shovel again, high over his head, his eyes never leaving the Horn, and then swung down, striking the cornucopia and splitting its blackened wicker apart, ending the stream of filth.
“There will be no repairing it,” he said, dropping the shovel and returning to his home, which had ceased to sink. “All of us should sleep, thinking on what we’ve done and how we will move on from here.”
Nemmit slept fitfully, filled with regret for having ruined the stranger’s gift. Unlike his siblings, he remembered clearly the days of drought and hardship, the famine and the plague. Before the dawn came, he packed up a change of clothes and a few coins, and then he hit the road, heading the way the stranger had gone. He left his family better than they were when he’d brought the Horn of Plenty to them. They had many paid helpers to keep the farm running despite this season’s setback, and they had a great deal of money remaining to tide them over until the farm could be made better again, so he couldn’t feel sorry for them. He didn’t want to leave them, but he felt it was time he sought his own path, one that didn’t depend on miracles.
Yet he still behaved as if the Horn of Plenty was gone.
When his father woke up at sunrise, as he always did, he happened to stroll over to where the Horn lay on the ground, its black surface split by the shovel. He noticed a red tinge on the Horn’s innards, unlike how it began, but also unlike what it had become. He thought at first that the coloring came from the dawn’s glare, but looking closer, he realized the wicker had turned as red as freshly-spilled blood.
As he was about to head to the fields to inspect the night’s damage, he heard a scraping on the ground and saw the Horn of Plenty twitching in the earth. Its torn ends quivered to and fro, as if searching for where to connect. “Go on,” the father urged the Horn, hoping an easy life would return to the Trunt family. “Put yourself back together.”
The Horn flopped over and the ends curled and mended around the black wicker, so that the Horn regained its old shape but with a red color. The father held out his hands, hoping for some kind of food to spill from the mouth, like the kind he’d tasted in his soldiering days, when suddenly two hands stuck out through the Horn to meet his. They were red and scaly, and their grip broke his fingers like twigs.
The father of the Trunts screamed in pain and his family awoke quickly, rushing to the porch where they saw a creature emerging from the Horn of Plenty. Its arms slid through first, stretching twice as long as the father’s body, and its legs emerged next, stretching even longer. A body and a head of black hair, red skin, goat’s horns, and white eyes pulled free from the Horn’s mouth after the limbs. The creature grinned with jagged white teeth as it grabbed up the father.
The mother and children screamed helplessly at first, and then ran into the house as another lanky devil crawled up from the Horn of Plenty. Soon came a third, and a fourth, and within moments there were enough fiends to match the size of the remaining family now that Nemmit had left. Ducking into the house, they crept through the rooms on walls and ceilings like hellish spiders. Their long limbs snatched up a boy here, a girl there, holding them tight and dragging them outside. The mother was the last to be pulled from the house to where every devil stood, and the children cried fearfully as they were dragged toward the red cornucopia.
The first of the devils, still clutching the father with one arm, shoved his horned head into the mouth of the Horn of Plenty and somehow fit inside. His neck followed, and shoulders, and his limbs and body soon squeezed inside as if being sucked up by the blood-red cornucopia. As the creature’s last hand slid into the Horn’s mouth, so did the father’s hand. Then his wrist slipped in, and his arm, and he shrieked and cursed as the devil took him into the Horn of Plenty. His head squeezed inside swiftly, muffling his cries, and then the rest of his body followed as smoothly as a snake. Soon the cries faded, never to be heard again.
Each child followed, screaming as loudly as their father. One by one, the devils crawled into the Horn’s mouth, dragging along an unwilling member of the Trunt family. Some kicked off their shoes, others tore uselessly at their captor or the Horn
itself, but each vanished into the cornucopia’s mouth, never to be seen again.
The mother was last and she was the only one to realize that Nemmit was missing. “Did you take him first?” she asked. “Where is my eldest boy?”
The last devil would not answer, only grinning silently as he stuffed the mother into the Horn, shoving her head first, then her shoulders, and then prodding her from behind with his horns until the cornucopia had swallowed her up. The devil followed close behind, silent as ever, and the Trunt family was gone. The Horn of Plenty quivered on the ground and a thin trickle of blood ran from the wicker, pooling beneath the Horn’s mouth. The red of its wicker faded little by little, and soon it resembled the light brown it had been when Nemmit found it months ago.
When the hired farmhands arrived and did not find the Trunts, some went seeking soldiers to report the disappearance, while others went looking for coins inside the house, and still others went in search of new work for the coming harvest season. Not one of them saw the cornucopia sitting at the edge of the field, its mouth flowing with grapes, berries, a cow’s cooked ribs, a hunk of foreign cheese, and a loaf of spiced bread.
But it’s said that Nemmit’s stranger found another lad from an unfortunate farming family and pointed him in the right direction. He told the boy that ogres had ransacked the farm and that he would have to contend with the creatures if he wanted to find prosperity in this venture. Yet this boy had little luck in finding ogres. He only found the Horn of Plenty sitting on the ground, its bounty untouched but by scavenging animals, and hoped it would bring him better prosperity than whoever had lost it to ogres.
Old Wolf and the Gremian
Some of the fairy-kin are old as time, like sprites, trolls, and goblins. Others split off from their brethren and became new fairy-kin that dwell in houses, like redcaps, hobgoblins, and gremians. They lived in human villages and had spent their days pestering or helping human folk for so long that many forgot the woods and hills and swamps, and so their own children never learned of these places.
So it came that one day, after knocking loose a plow from a horse and breaking the axle of a wagon, a gremian followed an unsuspecting soul into the dark woods, leaving the predictable village he’d known all his life. He hoped to have a little fun, misdirecting the young merchant and getting him a little lost, but after running through the trees in search of a good hiding place to whisper from, the gremian found himself lost and alone instead. The merchant was nowhere to be seen, and so the gremian had no idea which way was his own village, or any other.
“I will have to find my kin of these woods,” he said to himself. “They will hopefully not ask too great a price for aiding me.”
The wolf pack of these woods had dwindled in number until only one wolf remained. Old Wolf knew the ways of the wild, and he knew that a lone wolf past his prime didn’t survive long. They often resorted to hunting sheep in the fields, where the wolves were killed by dogs or shepherds.
Still, there was small prey that he might catch unsuspecting every now and then, or a lone man might wander through. Old Wolf found such a man at first and gave chase, but the man was too quick, his bags too light, and Old Wolf was left huffing and panting amid the trees. Then he found something even less suspecting than the man—the gremian. The little creature’s head looked every which way while he knocked at tree trunks and counted flowers in hopes of finding his wilder kin. He didn’t hear the wolf’s breathing, and didn’t know Old Wolf even existed until great gray paws had pinned him to the forest floor.
“Mercy, my forest friend!” the gremian cried as wolf jaws bore down on him. “I could be of great use to you!”
“You will be useful in my belly,” Old Wolf said.
“It is unwise to eat magical things, for I will make your belly ache.”
“My belly already aches with hunger,” Old Wolf growled.
“I could be more useful to you by putting other things in your belly. We gremians know the workings of a creature from inside and out. If you were to eat me, I would have you under my control, like a puppet. Instead, let me perform this trick on your food. I can get inside other creatures, work their limbs and bring them to you, and then you’ll have much more food than a tiny fair folk.”
More food sounded better than less, and so Old Wolf lifted his paws from the gremian. “I have a great hunger,” the wolf said.
“Then I will bring you great food,” the gremian said, and he hurried off into the woods.
Old Wolf trusted the gremian to return, for he and his pack had always been honest. He’d long forgotten how to be suspicious of anything but mortal men. Any other creature might have taken this as a chance to escape, but the gremian felt wronged and was subject to bouts of ill temper. While one path called for his freedom, to go back to his human town and never see another wolf, another path called for revenge over nearly being eaten, and he answered merrily.
After a little searching, the gremian found a big bull that must have wandered into the woods from a farmer’s pasture. He began kicking the bull’s jaw until the bull bellowed in fury. Horn and hoof swept after the gremian, but he was too quick and bounced up into the bull’s throat. Within moments, he’d worked his way deep into the bull’s body and gotten hold of all the wet strings that made the bull work. His puppetry was a bit jerky and he couldn’t make the bull walk straight, but he managed to guide the horned beast in Old Wolf’s direction.
The wolf waited faithfully where he’d found the gremian and salivated as the meaty bull came stumbling through the forest. “You’ve brought me a feast, little friend,” said Old Wolf. “You are indeed useful for putting things in my belly.”
When the bull had nearly reached Old Wolf, the gremian inside pulled other muscles and nerves that commanded the bull’s body, and tried swinging the beast’s horns at the gray-furred predator. Yet the bull’s head jerked as clumsily as the legs, and the gremian ended up turning the creature away from the wolf. Old Wolf took one look at the bull’s side and opened his mouth wide, tearing off huge strips of meat. The wolf swallowed the bull so fast that the gremian barely had time to escape the bull’s innards before there was no more bull at all.
“A delicious meal from a good gremian,” said Old Wolf. “But why did you make the bull begin to run?”
“You are gaunt and starved,” the gremian said. “You’ll need your muscles back if you’re to hunt again.”
“I only need food.”
“Then I will bring you more.” The gremian hurried off into the woods again. After a little searching, he found an unthreatening rabbit, which he forcibly climbed inside of. Pulling at the rabbit’s strings, he sent it dashing into open meadows within the forest, where the woods were not so dark and the trees parted to let in the sun and sky. An eagle soaring through this sky spotted the rabbit and swooped down to devour it.
Once the rabbit was inside the eagle, the gremian climbed out of the rabbit and began commanding the eagle from within. Though he could see his village plainly now beyond the forest, the path of revenge still called to him, and he answered by bringing the eagle down to Old Wolf.
The wolf waited faithfully where he’d eaten the bull and salivated as the thick eagle came soaring from above. “You’ve brought me an odd morsel, little friend,” said Old Wolf. “You are indeed useful for putting things in my belly.”
When the eagle had nearly reached Old Wolf, the gremian inside pulled other muscles and nerves that commanded the eagle’s body, and tried baring the eagle’s talons so they might slash out the wolf’s eyes. Yet the eagle’s talons threw off her balance and the gremian sent her swooping into a tree. Old Wolf charged after his feathery meal and swallowed the eagle so fast that the gremian barely had time to escape her innards before there was no more eagle at all.
“A delicious meal from a good server,” said Old Wolf. “But why did you make the eagle begin to fight?”
“You are alone and aged,” the gremian said. “You’ll need to remember your surv
ival skills if you’re to hunt again.”
“I only need food.”
“Then I will bring you more.” The gremian hurried off into the woods again, this time in search of a man. He knew men well and their weapons too, and hoped he could take command of a hunter. Soon he heard a voice among the trees.
“I had that deer by rights!” the voice bellowed. “He’ll have lion’s teeth around his throat and a tiger’s gullet to drop down once I bring him back to my castle.”
“A royal huntsman,” the gremian said to himself. “Perfect!” He ran through the trees, following the voice.
Yet when he reached the clearing where the voice’s owner stood, he found no mortal man, but a great ogre holding a broken tree limb in his hands. The gremian thought first of hiding in a tree’s hollow until the giant passed, but then he remembered that ogres are shape-shifters.
“Greetings, good sir!” the gremian called. “I have a proposition for you.”
“And what proposition would that be, little cousin?” the ogre asked.
“I will find and fetch your deer, climbing inside and steering it toward you. Then you may smash its skull open, or become a lion and tiger at once and tear it to pieces. In return, I’d like a minute of your time in vexing an old wolf.”
“Those wolves are the ones who made all the deer here skittish,” the ogre grumbled. “I’d have had an easy time changing into a stag or doe, whatever the occasion called for, but the deer don’t even trust their own anymore. I’d be happy to smash his head in.”
“Better yet, why not change into something so small that he’d swallow you in one bite,” the gremian asked. “Then, when he thinks his belly’s full for good reason, change back to yourself and make him pop from the inside.”
The ogre and the gremian laughed a while. Then the ogre changed his shape to that of a pheasant and followed the gremian through the woods, back to Old Wolf.
