The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  At the mere hearing of the word “ham,” the sea anemone became so nauseated that she had to squeeze her lips tight. In vain. A choking sensation seized her (the seahorse glanced discreetly aside) and she vomited. The Blamol pill, undigested, came up, soared among air bubbles, and disappeared upward.

  Thank God the seahorse had not noticed. The invalid suddenly felt well again, good as new.

  She curled up comfortably.

  Oh, wonder, she could curl up again, move her limbs like she used to. Delight and more delight! Beads of air filled the eyes of the overjoyed seahorse. “Christmas, it’s really Christmas today,” the cheering continued, “and I’ll have to report to the squid what happened, right away. In the meantime, I trust you will sleep well.”

  * * *

  —

  “What do you find so wonderful about the sea anemone’s sudden recovery, my dear seahorse?” asked the squid, with a benign smile. “You are an enthusiast, my young friend! Although I do not speak, in principle, with laypeople (you, perch, fetch a chair for the gentleman) about medical science, this time I shall make an exception and I shall seek to adapt my language to your comprehension as much as possible. So, you think Blamol is a poison and its effect is paralysis. Oh, what a mistake! Incidentally, Blamol has long been dismissed, it is a remedy of yesterday, today Idiotine Chloride is usually prescribed (in other words, medicine progresses inexorably). The fact that the illness coincided with the swallowing of the pill was mere coincidence—everything, it is a well-known fact, is coincidence—because, first of all, sub-lateral sclerosis has completely different causes, although discretion forbids me to mention them, and secondly, like all these remedies, Blamol does not work untill it is spat out. Even so, of course, it is only beneficial.

  “And finally, as far as the healing is concerned—well, there’s a definite case of autosuggestion here. In reality (you see what I mean: the thing in itself, after Kant) the lady is just as sick as yesterday, even if she does not notice it. Autosuggestion often works, especially with people with inferior thinking. Of course I have said nothing of the sort, you know that I appreciate the ladies very highly: Honor the women, They plait and weave—As Schiller puts it.

  “And now, my young friend, enough of this subject, it would just upset you unnecessarily—By the way, will you do me the great pleasure of this evening? It’s Christmas and my marriage.”

  “Wha—? Marr…” the seahorse blurted out, but he caught himself in time: “Oh, it will be an honor, Mister Mediconsult.”

  “Who is he marrying?” he asked the perch while floating away.

  “You don’t say: the lousy mussel??”

  “…Why not! Another marriage of convenience.”

  When, in the evening, the sea anemone, arriving a little late but with a radiant complexion, swam into the room, holding the seahorse’s fin, the guests’ jubilation seemed never to end. Everyone embraced her; even the veil snails and the cockles that acted as bridesmaids put their girlish shyness aside.

  It was a brilliant party, of the kind only rich people can throw. The mussel’s parents were billionaires and had even ordered marine luminescence. Four long banks of oysters had been laid out. After a full hour of feasting, more dishes were still brought to the tables. The perch never ceased to swim around, serving a hundred-year-old air salvaged from the cabin of a submerged wreck. She went about pouring from a shimmering pitcher (held, of course, upside down). Everyone was already tipsy. The toasts dedicated to the mussel and her groom were completely lost in the popping of the corkpolyps and the clatter of the knifeshells.

  The seahorse and the sea anemone sat at the far end of the table, completely in the shade, and in their merriment they paid little attention to what happened around them.

  “He” sometimes furtively squeezed one of “her” tentacles, and then another, and she rewarded him with a provocative glance. Then toward the end of the meal the music ensemble played this beautiful song:

  “Yes, to kiss,…

  to frolick

  with young gentl’men

  is all the more for ladies

  very modern,”

  —and while the mischievous guests traded winks, no one could dismiss the impression that everyone here fantasized all sorts of tender relationships.

  Louis-Honoré Fréchette (1839–1908) was a French Canadian poet, playwright, journalist, and writer of short fiction. This story, “Goblins: A Logging Camp Story,” is another story featuring Jos Violon and lutins (elves or goblins). Some of the more famous recurring images of the folktales of the logging camps were la bête à grand’queue/la Hère (a wild beast), fi-follet/fifolet/feux follets (will-o’-the-wisp), and the chasse-galerie (the flying canoe). All of these images were religious in nature. In French Canada, a person turns into a werewolf after failing to go to church (specifically confession and Easter) for seven years. In most cases the person turned into a werewolf (how often depends on the teller—sometimes each night, or once a week—but not really related to the moon) can be turned back into a human simply by drawing a drop of their blood. They can be permanently cured by returning to church. La bête à grand’queue is a monster that pursues Catholics who fail to attend church/confession for seven years. Fi-follets are often also connected to religion (can turn into one after failing to go to church for fourteen years), but can also simply be lost souls. Chasse-galerie is the most intriguing. The flying canoe is essentially powered by the devil, and there are specific terms to use it (no drinking, no swearing, no invoking the name of God, no touching church steeples). The flying canoe is largely a combination of indigenous myths surrounding flying canoes and the European Wild Hunt. “Goblins” is a story that doesn’t take place at a logging camp, but instead at a country farm.

  Goblins: A Logging Camp Story

  Louis Fréchette

  Translated by Gio Clairval

  GOBLINS, CHILDREN? Yer askin me if I know ’bout goblins? When ’un has traveled like I have, fer thirty good years in the woods, on timber rafts and in loggin camps, ’un’s got to know, ’un thing leadin ta another, all ’bout those types. Ay, Jos Violon knows ’bout that, a little!

  Needless to say it was precisely Jos Violon himself, our usual storyteller, who had the floor, and who was about to treat us to one of his winter camp stories, where he’d been an eyewitness when not having a central role in the events.

  “What are the goblins already?” someone in the audience asked. “Are they people? Demons?”

  “Bless my soul! That’s more than I could ever tell ya!” replied the veteran from the upper country. “All I know is that ya shouldn’t mess with em. They ain’t really maleficent, but when ya tease em, when ya badgerrupt / em too much, ya oughta watch out. They play tricks on ya, and not funny ’uns at all: take this young bride, they tramped her around on her weddin night, on hosseback, only ta bring her back breathless and almost unconscious at five o’clock in the mornin.

  First of all, em goblins, everyone who’s seen em, me included, will tell ya that, if they’re not demons, they’re little Jeesums even less. Imagine short ankle biters, eighteen inch tall, with only ’un eye in the middle of the forehead, noses like hazelnuts, bullfrog’s mouths slashed up ta the ears, the arms and feet of a toad, bellies like tomatoes, and big pointy hats that make em look like spring mushrooms.

  This ’un eye they have like that in the middle of their physiognomy burns like a real brand, and that’s what sheds light for em, ’cause that tribe sleeps durin the day, but durin the night they ferret about, makin—with all due respect—frickin mess of things. They live below ground, under logs, between two rocks, but patticularly underneath pavin stones in the stables, ’cause, if they have a penchant fer somethin’, it’s fer em hossies.

  Oh, when it comes ta tendin hosses, there’s no hoss dealer in the whole Beauce ta match em. When they make friends with a hossie, the hoss’s ma
nger is always full, and then ya’ve got ta see the coat, how it glows! Like a mirror, children, even down under the belly, not ta mention mane and tail beautified like any pretty critter with long braids; ya’ve got ta have glimpsed the scene, like I did. Listen ta what I’m goint tell ya, if ya don’t mind me takin the time ta light mesel a smoke.

  And after having tidily lit his pipe at the candle, the old storyteller proffered his usual preamble: “Tawkie, tawko, let’s tawk,” etc., and began his story as he always did:

  “So, I was tellin ya, children, that year we were winterin on the Oak River, in the service of old Gilmore, with a gang of lads from back home, rounded up in the hills above Pointe-Lévis and the Coves of Cap-Blanc.

  Even though our timber yard was near Saint-Maurice, the père Gilmore had refused ta hire the louts from Trois-Rivières. He wanted decent workers, no blasphemers, no drunks, and no sorcerers. Those miscreants that worry the sky in their infernal flying canoe, those cantankerous types that speak ta the devil and sell the black hen, he was fed up with em.

  So we were all good people, even tho’ we had not the chance ta attend a Low Mass every mornin.

  As ya surely know, children, the Oak River is not in the neighbor’s backyard, as they say, but it’s not in the back of nowhere either. Talkin ’bout Trois-Rivières, ya can get there easily in two days and a half: and, given that the trail is not too rough, ya can take hosses with ya, ta pull the cart.

  The boss, before leavin’, had garnished himsel with two. A big’un, black, half tamed, and a silver-grey little mare, smooth as silk. Hah name was Belzemir. An eel in the neck she had, children—and she was also a real whirl of dust on the road. It was so nice ta work with that little beast, I’m tellin ya! Everybody loved her. We vied with each other ta see who could steal a sugar lump from the caboose, ta give her.

  Did I tell ya that the big Zeb Roberge was a part of our gang? Well, he was in charge of the stable, in other words, he took care of the animals every day. A good lad, as ya know, our Zeb Roberge. Given we came from the same place, we were a pair of friends, and, Sundays, when the weather was fine, we often went ta smoke our pipes at the stable threshold, takin care not ta start a fire, ’course.

  “Père Jos,” ’un day he tells me, “d’ya believe in goblins?”

  “Ye askin if I believe in goblins?”

  “Ay.”

  “Why are ya askin?”

  “D’ya believe den?”

  “Oh, it depends, I tell ya. It’s not ’bout religion, the goblins, ya’re under no obligation ta believe.”

  “That’s what I thought, too,” says Zeb Roberge, “I thought, ‘It depends.’ In dis case, listen! It’s not religion, dat’s true, but, help me God…me, am startin ta believe all da same.”

  “In goblins?”

  “In goblins!”

  “Are ya kiddin me?”

  “Not at all, I swear! Why, put yersel in me shoes, père Jos. Every Monday mornin, fer some time, whatever hour I get up, guess what I find in da stable?”

  “Don’t tell me…”

  “As true as yer standin’ right dere, I don’t get it. Belzemir is already groomed, how come? Trough full of hay, manger full of rye, coat like silk, but she’s also breathless, as if she’s been runnin fifteen miles all in one go.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “Cross my heart! The sight frazzled my gourd at first, but I didn’t think ’bout it too much, ’cause I hadn’t noticed da main course; in a lantern light ya can’t see everythin, can ya? What set off the dinglin in my suspicion was what I heard, last Monday, France Lapointe sayin ta Pierre Fecteau: ‘Lookie how da Big Zeb takes care of his Belzemir! Ya’d dink he’s spendin’ his Sundays dollin’ her up and den pamperin’ her some more!’ Fact is, père Jos, da impish mare’s hair, mane and tail, was all combed up, crinkled and crimpled, and den braided, I kid ya not, it was…criminal. So I said ta mesel: ‘Here’s somethin’ odd. Gotta watch dat thing.’ ”

  “Have ya been watchin good?”

  “The whole week long, père Jos.”

  “So?”

  “Nothin!”

  “An’ what ’bout Monday mornin?”

  “Same, da mare with da skin on her belly stretched like drums, and da hair…Come see fer yersel, père Jos, it’s still full of waves.”

  Take my word for it, children, eyeballin the actual sight, a sudden fright scurried down my back. Can’t describe that hairdo as just “curly”: I would have sworn that the impious filly was all pomaded up, as ta go dancin. Only things missin: a pair of ear-pendants and maybe a brooch. We were wonderin, the Big Zeb and mesel, what was goin on, when we heard, near the door, a voice treatin us as fools. We turned ’round and it was Gingerbread.

  Gingerbread (dunno if I mentioned it, children), a type who was always puffin on his pipe, a man from the Coves, who called himsel Baptiste Lanouette, nicknamed Gingerbread by his chums, who knows why. A good lad, I believe, but a bit shifty, the way I saw it. He tiptoed up ta us and whispered in our ears:

  “Ya can see it’s em goblins!”

  “Uhun!”

  “Can’t ya see she’s been cared fer by goblins? It’s obvious, hey.”

  “I was just talkin’ ’bout it with da père Jos,” Zeb says.

  “Tut-tut!” said Gingerbread, “Since when ya’ve become so white-livered? Surely dere’s some spell of dat kind at da bottom o’ da bag…I almost feel like sendin all my concern ta…Tell me, did em hurt ya since the beginnin o’ da winter, em goblins? Nope! So let em be. They ain’t harmful, or tricky. Just don’t talk ’bout em. If ya don’t mess with deir business, they’ll be no problem at all. I know em, em goblins; I’ve seen plenty at my deceased father’s home. He was a carter.”

  Well, I’m tellin ya, children, this business was chewin on me, bad.

  “What he says makes sense,” I tell Zeb Roberge, the next evenin. “And I wouldn’t mind seein some of those goblins. It ain’t really evil, it ain’t dangerous, and I also heard that if ya nab one, ya become wicked rich. Ye roll in dough. Handfuls and handfuls of coins! Patticularly when it’s a female.—That’s what happened ta a big merchant of the Ouelle River—ya can exchange it fer a barrel full of gold. Now, Zeb, if we are smart enough, ya understand…”

  At first, Zeb made a face, but when he heard ’bout the barrel full of gold, I sensed the thought was startin ta wrap iself ’round his temper. Finally, ta make it short, we decided ta hide in the stable, on Sunday evenin, ta spy the little devils when they’d come ta play their little tricks on our Belzemir.

  As planned, Sunday evenin come, at seven and a half, here we are, the both of us, Zeb Roberge and me, crouchin in a corner, behind two bales of straw, while our lantern (we needed some light, right?) sat on the shelf, as if forgotten, behind the filly.

  We didn’t remain on the lookout fer long. It wasn’t eight of clock yet when we heard like a sort of tiny bustle that seemed ta come from right under us. And here we were, shakin like leaves. No matter how brave ya are…

  Jos Violon and a wimp are beasts of a different color, ya know that, but, well, dunno what kept me in place.

  It must have been Zeb who held me back ’cause I noticed his hand was cold like ice cubes. I even thought him unconscious. Patticularly when I spotted, two steps away from our hidin place, guess what, children, ’un of the floor beams that was risin slow, slow, like somebody was pushin it up from underneath. It couldn’t be rats. We jumped, as we should. And, crack! here’s the beam fallin back in place. I thought I’d been dreamin.

  “Didd’ya see that?” I say quietly ta Zeb.

  His voice sounded like he’d barely the strength ta speak.

  “Ay, père Jos. It’s da end of us. Fer sure.”

  “Let’s keep still!” I say, while Zeb, who had a wholesome fear ’o God, crossed hissel with his two hands.

  Out of the big
nothin, here’s the floor beam that starts movin again. We looked on. This time the sight slammed us right in the eyeballs. It was all too visible in the glow of our lantern. First we glimpsed the top of a pointy hat, then a large brim half pushed over somethin’ that glowed like ember, which looked like a lit pipe, but it was in fact that kind of flamin eye those folks have in the middle of the forehead. Barrin that detail, I almost believed it was Gingerbread with his cakehole-burner between his clenched teeth. That’s what imagination can do ta a fella! I even believed I’d heard him mutter: “Drats. Da Zeb went and forgot ta put his lantern off.”

  I didn’t stop ta think, but put my hand in my pocket ta grab my rosary. Bang! Here’s my damned sprung-knife that biffs on the ground, Zeb screams, the pointy hat disappears, and I find the door at full speed, my partner right behind me—he’d forgotten all ’bout em handfuls of coins and barrels full of gold. I’ll sign my report thrice ’cause ’tis all true.

  Ya can imagine, children, why we weren’t keen on talkin ’bout our adventure. Nowhere in Hell were we goint annoy the infernal society we’d just glimpsed. We knew all we wanted ta know, right? It wasn’t worth it puttin the whole circus hot on our trail. We let the business continue as it’d started.

  Every Monday mornin, Zeb found Belzemir all groomed and curried. But it got much worse on New Year’s Day: Belzemir was nowhere in sight! She resurfaced the mornin’ after, fresh like a daisy. What happened ta her in the meantime? Ginjiabread, who’d been away huntin all day, swore on all the Saints that he’d seen her careenin in the distance, jumpin over trees as if the devil was carryin her off.

  The followin days, I inquired ’bout the matter once or thrice, but each time I opened my mouth…

  “Please, père Jos,” said the big Zeb, “let’s not talk ’bout it. ’Tis better dis way. Each time I set foot in da stable, I get weak at da knees, thinkin dat da frickin beam is ’bout ta rise and da damned pointy hat is goin’ ta show up. It’ll be a hundred years before I wander back ta dis place. Da all of Saint-Maurice is hexed, one would dink!”