These Our Monsters

by Katherine Davey

  Similar, if dimly felt, earthquakes produce Carey’s astonishing ‘These Our Monsters’. Drawing on a 12th-century legend of two green children that appeared by the Wolfpits near Bury St Edmunds, Carey’s story feels like a Hammer House of Comedy narrated by Gollum crossed with Alf Garnett.

  One can read the story as a tart and timely satire on racism. ‘Our skin, to make all right clear, is like any other,’ Carey’s narrator says, meaning pink, before proceeding chaotically on. ‘A little darker in the summer when the sun gets at it and whiter in winter like unto the bones, yes, when it is the winter and the old die before the warm comes back again. Yellowish on occasion due to a sickness, a little blueish if the cold is biting hard. But usual pink like the English we are.’

  This reading of the two green children intersects deftly with another: their appearance exposes how the village’s sense of community relies on its being hermetically sealed from the outside world: ‘We are from here, Suffolk everyone. Been to Bury Saint Edmonds, many of us. Not to London. Not one among us. It is a big place sure. We cannot say what happens there. Not our business. We have no place in it. We do not care for it and seek it not.’

  Carey’s careful distribution of negatives throughout the story presents an abstract form of clarity (‘We’ and ‘here’ versus ‘there’ and ‘not’) that is simply impossible to maintain. Some of these doubts are already being voiced. Take the technological marvel that is the abbey in far-off Bury St Edmunds: ‘Our first impossible strange thing. But man done it, bit by bit. Took a while. It looks impossible and yet, we have to think about this …’

  This tremor is followed by the earthquake that is the two children – ‘otherness’ in supernaturally verdant forms. Suddenly, it isn’t just Suffolk that is under assault, but the fabric of reality itself: ‘GOBLINS ARE TRUE. LOOK, LOOK: WE HAVE GREEN! WE HAVE GOBLINS AT HOME. Goblins in August. Goblins on a Thursday. Some time between two and three are we having goblins.’

  The wild mood grows wilder still as the villagers’ certainties are eroded still further in the ensuing frenzy, culminating in questions whose terrifying irrationality resist any laughter: ‘But are they children, we wonder? Do we kill children? We think, no, on the whole.’

  The reader, hopefully, can maintain a cool-enough head to see that the impossible infant monsters are inventions made entirely of the villagers’ own monstrous disbelief, which gallops from astonishment to fear to homicidal hatred. ‘Though they are no longer in our village, still we think on them. And we do wonder over them. The wondering, you see, comes back thick and fast.’

  This is not the first time that the fantastical visions of folklore have been generated by inner turmoil: see Macrae Burnet’s Bram Stoker and Hall’s Monica. How many of the myths, legends and fairytales here concern interior mysteries of mind and feeling that are manifested in external forms? This question is perhaps the final answer in the reader’s quest, the search for what these eight stories share: the imagination.

  In Tolkien’s 1936 lecture it was the quality of imagination that he found in the much-maligned dragon in Beowulf. ‘A dragon is no idle fancy. Whatever may be his origins, in fact or invention, the dragon in legend is a potent creation of men’s imagination, richer in significance than his barrow of gold.’ The dragon that confronts Beowulf at the end of his own epic quest is, Tolkien concludes, ‘A thing made by the imagination for just such a purpose.’

  Almost every writer in this book invents a similar ‘thing made by the imagination’ for their own purposes – the undead ‘Horror’ haunting Bram Stoker, the beautiful princess in Dame Ragnelle’s clothing, the two green children breaking down the walls of a Suffolk village.

  In Thorpe’s ‘Capture’, these are the ‘vivid flashes’ that assault Louisa in the midst of a day whose unexceptional surfaces hide folkloric promise: ‘clouds of cerulean blue billowing out like the myth of a Cornish summer.’ Like Stoker, Hall’s Monica or Kingsnorth’s narrator, Louisa is unusually susceptible to the visions vouchsafed by legend: ‘huge men covered in dark plates clanking and shouting, the occasional limb sliced through, blood jetting out onto the grass which sprouted on the broken walls as well as underfoot’.

  These flashes are vivid enough to transform the otherwise stable reality surrounding Tintagel Castle into something ethereal, intangible, unreal: ‘The rushing clouds had brought a giddiness that, completely to her surprise, seemed to be physically forcing her legs away from the vertical and towards some nebulous state that appeared attracted to the waves below.’

  Although she is accused of being ‘too thoroughly trapped in modern times’, Louisa bears witness to ancient scenes that terrify, disorientate and thrill. Suddenly, she believes a ‘corner’ of all things ‘was pursuing her on thin legs, even though she was going nowhere’. Folkloric imagination shakes time as well as space: turning a short afternoon into an entire ‘lifetime’.

  Here perhaps is the rejoinder to those opponents of Tolkien who would relegate folklore to a reactionary form. The sheer, unwavering persistence of myth, legend and fairytale across history offers insight not only into the past but the future too. Having predated us by many thousands of years, folklore will in all likelihood outlive us too, something Louisa senses in the apocalyptic vision of England itself crumbling into the sea: ‘Louisa imagined the entire promontory as being swept free of people, followed by the rest of the island of Britain, and then terra firma in general.’

  While the land may vanish, its heritage will live on, even if only through the stories passed on of its history, its people and its folklore: the young lovers whose feelings collapse centuries, the whispers heard around magical stone circles, the shadowy creatures of the night that tap at our windows, the ghostly children that symbolise a world, and even a universe, beyond our borders.

  All of this, and more besides, has been dreamed up by the eight writers who visited just eight sites around England. Now that they have been recorded in this book, the stories can begin to live all over again.

  These

  Our

  Monsters

  Edward Carey

  THESE WE DO HAVE: Adam, Aymer, Oddo, Gilbert, Hemmet, Gerolt, Roger, Hugh, John, Ralf, Nicolas, Wilkin and Watty. These we don’t: Bonnacon, Basilisk, Chimera, Siths, Fauns, Devils, Leucrota, Ghosts and witches folk. Or either foul things in the forest. Or neither objects that don’t obey. Screaming in the houses – that we do. But not little people that are no bigger than a conker. Trees that have voices, never. Hunchedbacked longears – that we do too. Childers born with two heads, a pig with six legs, that sort of thing – no, no we do not.

  Not here. Not for us. Of a general we say no to magicals and satanicals both. True, it does come dark here longtimes and we sit in in the blackness with our little firelights and our weak candlesuns and then sometimes we do wonder about those other things but then in the mornings we always come straight again. True, we sometimes have seen a strange smoke or mist rising from a brook and have wondered over if it meant something other than a bit of fog. We do sometimes ponder over the meaning of things, but our wonderings have never given us any solid result only more wonderings. In short, we cannot say for certain.

  Now, in truth. Our village is a sensible village. Our village is to be trusted. We are decent people, and God fearing. We should rather it never happened: the particular occasion. We are not proud of it, we would prefer to shun the business and have no part in it. And yet we cannot, and yet we must not. It happened to us and to no other. We do own it. And how upsetting that it should happen to us. Mostly, you see, we are: ordinary.

  Our skin, to make all right clear, is like any other. We take no especial notice of it. A little darker in the summer when the sun gets at it and whiter in winter like unto the bones, yes when it is the winter and the old die before the warm comes back again. Yellowish on occasion due to a sickness, a little blueish if the cold is biting hard. But usual pink like the English we are. We are from here, Suffolk everyone. Been to Bury Saint Edmonds, many of
us. Not to London. Not one among us. It is a big place sure. We cannot say what happens there. Not our business. We have no place in it. We do not care for it and seek it not.

  We hear on a good clear day the bells of the Edmond’s Abbey and that to us is the soundslike of great population. Our saint there. Our claim to be close to God. Special people, you see. When go to the Abbey we are with God and we know Him then for the Abbey is so huge and tall and grey and fine and keepout and it worries us and we are proud of it and we know we are small for the Abbey tells us so again and again and we know there is God up there because how else could there be such a colossus? It is the tallest thing in the history of tallness. It reaches to the sky. It prods – very near – the sun. It is a wonder and too long there makes us nervous and we are glad to get away from it and back to things that are a size sensible. But there’s no doubting it: that’s where God is, the Abbey. The Abbey. Our first impossible strange thing. But man done it, bit by bit. Took a while. It looks impossible and yet, we have to think about this, it was made by people the same size as us. Dreams come solid. See there, Abbey. Hallo, Abbey. And then go home to where we belong where our buildings have no ideas and keeps the outside outside but not much more. Home where the smell of God is not quite so strong and our fear of Him is a little less.

  So then. So you know. That is us. Ordinary folk. We also wish to declare: we did not invite them. And yet even so they did come. And so we want to say unto all the world, something that we know and can let all the rest learn by our experience: we know the monsters and strange things are very true. And so: look out. And so: watch you behind you. And so: don’t you be alone much. And so: beware please you. And so: we shall never be as we were, never again.

  Well then Woolpit, our village is called, get on now, get on. Yes, we are about ready now. Shall we then. Yes. The occasion. The event. Straight forward how.

  It was summer hot. Clear day. No wind. So still that something feels not right about it. So still you may hear the faraway bells on such a one. Crops were being cut, reaping men, coming down, gathering up. Fields in stubble. It was one of them fields near some of our wolf pits, which are deep bricked in holes to trap the wolves and stop them coming into the village. It is how our village came to its name. Just there like. One man seen something of a sudden. What’s that? There then. What is? I thought I saw sommat. What now? O! Where then? Look! Childers? No not. Like but not! On the edge there. By the wolf pit. Standing there. Two on them. Not children. Something wrong.

  Beggars!

  Worse than!

  We’ll have no beggars.

  Worse! Worse!

  What then?

  O, monsters! There are monsters! Actual! Local monsters!

  Help! Help ho! Someone yelled. And all come running then.

  Had scythes. Brought them.

  What strange.

  Here in this bit we make a full description of what it was that we found just by the wolf well: wrong, ugly, unnatural, horrid, foul, stinky, lost, hagly, devilbegot, lizardlike. Not Wollpit. Not Suffolk.

  Now we have it: the proof of the strange things. Certain. We here captured among our people true, the real, the actual. GOBLINS ARE TRUE. LOOK, LOOK:

  WE HAVE GREEN!

  WE HAVE GOBLINS AT HOME. Goblins in August. Goblins on a Thursday. Some time between two and three are we having goblins. And will the three bells sound for three of the clock now – or is all halted because of green people? Are we to die now, soonish? Will there never be another three o’clock? Instead shall the sky open and flames pour out? Is the world at the end? The earth tipped? The heavens broke and men are donefordead? How come it? How come this? Is it true, check then, do check. Close eyes. Yes, that’s it our eyes are closed. Then open again. Eyes open. Are they there: yes, yes. LOOK: DEVIL CHILDREN!

  Dong a dong a dong a. Time still works then.

  They make noise the devilbrood, they shriek and spit, horrible gutter sounds. Whispers of hell no doubt and how they stink, stink like a dirty, rotting place, like mould. They are mould we think. Mould in human form. Again we look. But can it be true? Monsters, goblins, childers with green flesh. And helpless too and frightened. They are frightened of us. They do yell. We are frightened of them. We do yell likewise. We are such foreigners each to the other.

  What to do then?

  With such ugliness, with such newness, with such strange, with such terror before us though yet of childsize and shape. Shove them. Yes. How they fall! Pick them up. Up they get. Shove them again. And down they go! And now? Lock them up. Yes.

  We march them to our village.

  Done.

  What now?

  Into the old barn! The old cramped one with no window where we put old Margaret when she went violent.

  Done! What now!

  Cut them up. What, murther? Yes, pierce gut them, pull out their stinking within and burn quick and then: tell no one.

  But are they children, we wonder? Do we kill children? We think, no, on the whole. They look like children. Bit. But very soiled children. Very wrong, very naughty little children. Stained children. No scrubbing the wrong out. Some of us would like to try and it is decided then the women do go about with rags and hard brushes and pumice stones. And do scrub and scrape. But the green no matter how they try will not be persuaded.

  To be clear: there are two of them.

  To be clear (we have pulled their strange garments away): one is male and one is woman. No hairs between either legs and filthy and stinking. Outhouse sewer childers.

  Sharpened sticks are brought. And with these we do prick. The skin is broken soon enough. Red it comes, just a little of it – we did wonder you see.

  Ah we forgot to say: they do scream when we do cut them.

  Well, is good is not one of us. They pretend most like.

  Something else. Their teeth are yellow and brown – and some are missing. Well, so what then, that’s as true of our teeth. Yes, that’s maybe, but we’re not talking about our teeth.

  On seeing them, a tally:

  Three of us, two women, one man: vomited copious. One of our own children sobs and cannot be silenced until he is taken under his father and given stick, when the stick finds the boy all the more noisome a thick cloth to his mouth does work good. Old Charley: floods his breeches.

  Trying to comprehend:

  Not child, no, but childsize. We have, we Woolpit people, about us each to a person: arms two, legs two, eyes two, ears two, nose just the one, head, body, all the human things right and correct. Them have, those other ones we mean: just like us, same numbers, only this … them are green.

  Now here we list the greens, for we have been most thoughtful on this colour ever since they did come. Here we are: grass, clover, moss, shamrock, pear, emerald, lime, mistletoe, sea, sparagi, cumber, mint, kelp. And also: goblingreen, uglygreen, humanylikegreen, nightmaregreen, greengroan.

  We discuss them in loud voices amongst one another. They have made us very shouty. And some are weepy too. It is not good omen we say over and over. Keep them shut up we think, lock them, they’ll quiet in the end. Will they curse us? True, they might. What then? Worst is: we all die. But if we starve them then maybe they will just be good to us and get along and die, quite like. We are wondering loud and severally.

  Slice their throats.

  Stab them frequently.

  Sack them, with stones, in the river deep.

  All good ideas, we agree, so we can’t decide betwixt them.

  So then we return to an earlier thought. We don’t feed them until we come to agreement.

  Three days. Day One: Groaning, much of. We are firm. Day Two: seem less strange, give some brackish water. Day Three: they don’t move much save to scratch with their long nails on the wall. Their noise scratching nerves us so. It makes our teeth ache. We would rather they didn’t. Day four: we can bear it no more, we shall break our secret. We shall tell on them.

  Priest then. Yes, we say. Let us bring God in on the argument. We do fall on ou
r knees and weep for God in sight of such a horrid vision. We tried ourselves, us Woolpit, to work it out just private but we found ourselves wanting in such a circumstance, thus we go higher. Thus we go highest, yes so to God then. The priest, the priest.

  Our priest, nervous, round, our priest says his Latin. Latin again and again and looks close at the two green ones and tries to work out what they are in fact and looks into his Book to see if the answer is there and drips them with words and holy water. And the green ones look up and mutter mutter.

  While our priest is making a decision with what is to be done with the colour green here we stop a moment – thus allowing our priest some time to find an answer – to meantime make open some observations on our own everyday children before the great green came: some are very hairy, some grow spots and die, others turn white as bone and die, a very few have huge strange heads like their brain is too large for its casement, a very few knees that buckle, a handful walk funny, some do not see, others cannot hear, some have no hair, one smell like fish and no body can tell why, one got lost and never could be found, several fall down a well, drowned dead many in river, but never yet green before now.

  And the priest? Still thinking.

  And us? What do we do?, we ask.

  And the priest he makes a decision: feed them. Calls them, perhaps, our guests. Do we sup with the devil now? They may not be devil says he. Let us feed them.

  Can we not starve them? We wonder.

  They look close to starving already he says. And it is only then that we notice how very boney they are. And there are certainly ribs to these beasts of ours. And it is dead certain what their skull may look like underneath their pelt. Could we open the skin a little further to see if their bones are green too?