The Boggan's Tale

by Kirk McLeod
To my liege, The Baroness Lorisia ap Fionna, friend of the weeping moon, ruler of the Barony of Kaia, Kingdom of Grass. 
As your geas allows me the chance to say this only once a month, I once again wish to proclaim my displeasure of what I would consider an extremely severe punishment for the incident involving myself, the Eshu Chandra ibn Ahmed and our friendly rivalry. I must stress again that the damage done to your sisters' freehold was largely the fault of the eshu. 
As amusing as reversing our positions at court must be for you, I can hardly see how traipsing around Concordia collecting his tales while he is surely relaxing in, and most likely destroying my library at home is distressing to say the least. Consider this merely the word of of a humble Sluagh, but how can forcing me into this bright, loud world possibly compare to the comfort that damnable Eshu is hosting a full years worth of my tea parties? Please respond as soon as possible, of course I will respect any desicion you make, 
Your humble servent 
Isaac Toadkisser 
Now my lady, as per your request I now send the first story from my journeys amoung the kithain of Concordia. I truly hope it pleases you; 
The Boggans' Tale 
(told to me by a loud, drunked, interestingly scented Boggun Grump by the name of Ernie behind his freehold over a glass of "moonshine", in an unnamed Duchy in the Ozark mountains in the Kingdom of Willows) 
HAW HAW HAW! NOW AINT THAT FUNNY, A SCRAWNY LITTLE SLUAGH, oops sluagh, you got them sensitive ears dontcha boy, runnin around gettin stories like an eshu. Anyway, I think your damn smart to start with us boggans, we got better stories than anyone one else I ever met!!! 
Now listen up boy, I'm gonna tell you a pretty old story amoung us Boggans, one about my poor old, Great-Great-Great-Great-Grannie. You see she lived back in one of them old countries with my Great-Great- Great-Great-Grampie and they were bakers. Oh yeah, they baked better than I make this here moonshine! Anyway, they would make bread and biscuits and all sorts of things but mostly they made deserts. They would make cakes and cookies and pies and fudge and syrup and just about anything else you could think of. 
Now like I was saying, they were very good at what they did and everyone in there little village loved them for it. But they were both grumps and getting on in years and to make a long story a little shorter my Great-Great-Great-Great-Grampie died. Now he had left Grannie a lot of debt and she had to sell most of what she had to pay it all off,. by the end of it she lost the shop, her house and even her cat-pooka Gerdie. All she had left was her oven. Now if she were one of them other kiths she probably would have went the way of banality and lived a sad, old life. 
But she wasn't another kith, she was a Boggan. Well she picked that great big oven up (Boggans were strong as Trolls back then) and went out into the woods to see what she could do. 
On her second day out she found a good clearing and just up and moved in. As she didn't have no tools she couldn't build nothing so she made do, she baked it. 
Let me tell you that house was incredible, shortbread tables and cotton candy covered chairs, mint frosted windows and a beautiful rock candy floor, and don't you even get me started on the chocolate china dishes. I believe I can honestly say that the world hasn't seen a more beautiful gingerbread house ever. 
Anyway, one night grannie was sleeping peacefully when she heard something, some sort of sucking sound. Well she got up and looked around but there was nothing to see so she went back to sleep, that is until she heard that crunch. Well now grannie had been a baker for a long time and she knew that sound, the most horrible sound the world has ever heard. 
Yup, it was the sound of a couple of filthy redcap childlings. These particular two were called Jacob and Wilhelm. 
Well Grannie went out there to put a stop to it but those horrible things just tied her up in her knitting licorice. Over the next few hours she watched them eat her shortbread tables and cotton candy covered chairs, her mint frosted windows and the beautiful rock candy floor, and yes, even the chocolate china dishes. 
By the next morning Grannie was sitting on the forest floor next to her oven and was watching those redcaps eat the last of the licorice off of here. Then one of them spoke. 
"No munchings left, hag. Time to see how boggans taste" His candy covered smile grew wider and wider. 
But Grannie was far too whiley to be eaten by a couple of redcaps so she came up with a plan. 
"Now listen my little sweetpeas, why would you eat me raw when I could bake you a Boggan cake?" 
Now those Redcaps looked at each other and then back at Grannie and then smiled. 
"MAKE IT!!!" 
"Well, first thing I need is some water," she said, "Boggan cake needs lots of water but how will I get it to the stove? You horrib--wonderful little things ate everything." 
So those greedy little Redcaps went out and brought her all the water she could ever need and filled the oven with it until it overflowed and drenched all of the wood inside and underneath. Then, not willing to wait a moment longer they pushed old Grannie into the oven and slammed the door shut. 
The last thing they expected to hear was her laughing. 
You see, those two Redcaps were childlings and couldn't get their mouths around the oven, nor could they light the soaking wood to start the oven so all they could do was curse, and Grannie had been cursed by some of the greatest nockers of all time for refusing to let them fix her oven so that Redcap cursing just made her laugh harder. 
Yep, eventually those two Redcap boys took off and Grannie never did hear from them Grimm brothers again!! 
HAW HAW HAW!!