I’ve not yet determined the necessity of an introduction to every post.  To be sure, they certainly help get the juices flowing.  I will, of course, discard this preference amid topical irrelevance if ever I spot so foolish a calamity . . . so how about this:

     The cyclical reality of self-destruction and the pursuit of individuality necessitate one another, the haunting discoveries of which often belatedly manifest.

     Now lemme scare the shit out of you.  This is:

Leshy
The losts’ keeper

If ever you’ve heard of the Leshy
You’ll certainly know to be true
A moment of fear in his woodland
And his smell and taste are for you

 

Part One

     So long ago, in the wee hours of our colonial yesteryears, where a meager brook abandoned its maritime charge and descended amid the earth, a stone church—St. Gibb’s Chapel—was set atop the marshy woodland.  Yet it would not keep.  Small but lofty, this fortification was condemned to regular submersion, its weight being much for the mireous sod.  Lo, the builders ceased construction not—their manifestory Vortigernous persistence saw the sanctuary’s assembly thrice, and thrice it cumbled until no celestial accordance could stay absolute abandonment.

     To be sure, something else plagued St. Gibb’s erection.  Many laborers and artisans vanished during the continued construction.  It must have been a demon to have condemned so holy a venture.  And soon word had spread of a dreadful forest horror—a guardian of the bog . . . the Leshy.

 

     “I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too […] if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow…”

-Starbuck

     “Stranger, you are a simple fool, or come from far off, when you tell me to avoid the wrath of the gods or fear them.”

-Polyphemos

 

     Now four score before our good man Washington, ‘alayhi as-salām, managed America’s eventual secessionatory declaration, St. Gibb’s ruins had long lingered amid a demonic perception.  And on one autumn’s evening, a clothly Sheriff, called Monck, stole away his wife and her lover to atone their sins before the Abbadonic apparition.

     “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” quoth the Sheriff.

     Moultine Monck may have been religious but stayed not did this charge his malevolence, for he had his foot upon a stool—the only thing staying the rope around Penson Furst’s neck—his youthfully adulterous deputy.

     “If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman.”

     “Moultie . . . honey . . . I beg you . . . please!”

     Berkeley Monck was not noosed, but rather lashed to a chair beyond the ruins, sobbing for her enchanted lover impending beneath the nearly-felled archway.

     “A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a muddied spring.”

     And with that, Sheriff Moultine Monck shoved the stool from beneath the terrified boy.  The swinger’s gaze begged the Sherriff’s wife for a long last moment of restrained affection.

     “Creature!” Cried the Sheriff.  “Come upon me and washeth mine life of this debaucherous swine and her dangling trough.”

     The marsh roots crooked and the bog bubbled with the voices of the consumed.  The bound Sheriff’s wife’s desperate shrieks produced only the hastened  arrival of her mudland executioner.  His figure rolled upon the ruins in a wave of swamp and stench.

     “I have tasted the smell of fear in my wood and have gathered here to collect its consequence.  Who is here for me?”

     “Foulest kraken, taketh mine wife and this corpse which lingereth before her.”

     “It fears me not, thus it shall remain.  But this Lilithian Yuki-onna, send her to me.”

     Monck’s foot shoved his wife’s chair as he had her lover’s stool.  “I commit thy soul into this waste and weep for thou not.”

     The Leshy clutched Berkeley around the mouth amid her final howl of misfortune.  “Come hither, tasty child, and embrace what fear thou hast.”

     Sheriff Moultine caught the shimmer of his wife’s tears before the beast’s mouth shut to a gulp and the adulterous bride was no more.

     Since few dared the bog at St. Gibb’s, Sheriff Moultine ever evaded persecution for his deeds.  He died of diphtheria at 74—a ripe old age in those days indeed.

     So grim a tale, should this be the end . . . but it is not—there is more to tell.  Before even Sheriff Moultine departed this earth, another soul joined the Leshy’s spirituous ranks.  But we’ll leave it here for now . . .

 

Copyright © 2016 Matthew Bell. All Rights Reserved.

Title quote by Opeth.