MYTH-CELLANY
I
The Wandering Christmas Hag of Austria
Long ago, on Christmas Eve, a poor old woman stole the Christmas presents from under the tree of a wealthier family, in order to supply her own grandchildren with lovely gifts. For every gift she stole, she was cursed with another pair of hands. Now she wanders around, centipede-like, hoping merely to spend Christmas with a happy family, just watching them open up their presents. Sadly, she but frightens them away, and is left all alone, to stare at the glittering giftwrap and the sparkling bows all alone, with eyes which are yellow like the Christmas lights. But she never dares to touch the gifts.
II
Balalleño, with the Fasciating Goat-Heads
Balalleño lives in a cabin in a wide valley-meadow. His telescoping goat heads—surely his most wondrous feature—are typically collapsed into one, except in order to look closely at something, or to crop a flower which he cannot reach, or which he would otherwise prefer not to stoop to get at, in which cases he simply enumerates his head with perfectly little effort. Of the heads, there is no certain number.
It is said that he is extremely protective of his cabin, his land thereabout, and his deformed pet hare, from whom he almost cannot bear to be long out of physical contact. Apparently, also, he cultivates several strains of gigantic flora, which he not only does not eat, but prevents others from eating in this way: he approaches the potential threat very slowly, as though but curious, and then suddenly unsheathes his many necks one from the other, biting the ear firmly until the mischief-maker is subdued, and then, forcibly opening their mouth, bites the tongue away also, and sets them free to spread the word. Likely one interfering with his hare would receive far worse treatment.
III
Judgment Deferred; or, A Devil Blinds Abaddon
There is a medieval folk tale which seems an attempt to explain the inexplicable delay of God’s judgment, seeing the evil state of the world. It describes a great giant in the mountains, named Abaddon, who lies prone and sleeps—and only if one were to sit long, and watch very carefully, would one take note of the slight rise and fall of the whole snow-clad body of this Abaddon, which looks simply like the mountains roundabout him. Well, they say that a devil made his way up those mountains thanks to some secret intelligence, bringing with him a great bouquet of poison flowers, and dusted Abaddon’s sleeping eyes with their injurious pollen, effectively blinding this giant, this instrument of the judgment and apocalypse, in the devilish effort to defer the Last Day, or at the very least to generalize Abaddon’s destruction, to include those innocent as well as evil.
Charlie Dunn lived in Ypsilanti, and never succeeded in publishing his work. His father and friends are doing their best to get his writing into publication. For now, his works can be found on Amazon under the title The Book of Charlie: a friend’s posthumous publication.
Detroit Lit Mag 