A Winter March

Finally, someone has lived to tell the tale.

He remembers the cave. He remembers the way. He memorized everything. Such a good boy. He was missing his left leg and three fingers on his right hand when we found him. We were besides ourself with joy and fear regardless.

The Lads have never returned anyone alive.

He relates all that happened inside their lair. He describes the bones that litter the ground. The skulls adorning the walls. The old witch and her ogre of a man and the cauldron where they cook the children. The number of Lads who go hunting for dinner. He watched them dip a live babe in boiling water. He tells us of the grotesque cat that gets to gnaw the bones and feast on the marrow. The cat with a taste for human flesh. The cat that scratched and bit our boy, nibbling away at his fingers.

He explains that the witch and her ogre prefer their meat young. That is why they did not finish him. They chopped off his leg for a bite but found him too old for their liking. Fed the rest to the cat. When they found out about his little sister, they sent the Lads off to fetch her. They were planning to to fool us by making an offering of our elder child. The Lads brought back our son and demanded the babe in exchange.

But mother saved me, the boy says. She strangled the fiend and drove off his brothers. Mother saved us both, he says.

She is tending the boy’s wounds at the house, where our daughter now sleeps safely in her basket, blissfully ignorant of her close brush with death. We will protect them at all cost. There is little youth left in these parts. All of us have lost children to that abominable clan. Our family trees are on the brink of collapse.

This must go no further.

We have gathered what weapons we could muster. We have our directions and immediately set out for the mountaintop. Today we shall root out the devils’ den. We wade through the snow for hours before discovering the mouth of the cave, hidden within a narrow crevice. We march inside only to find their abode empty. The cave stinks. We see piles of bones. Skulls on the walls. Remains of a well-worn hearth. Feces and urine in the corners. The stench of death. The witch is gone. Left to seek new ground. A three day headstart. Likely on the other side of the island already. The whole rotten clan. We will never find them. They even took the pot.

We do what we can to gather the bones and assemble the bodies. None of us can identify the dead. None of us can find our children. There are more corpses than we dared imagine. We weep for the lot. We dig enough graves to make a mausoleum of the cave. The priest blesses the mountain. He has lost a daughter. The cave is now a holy place. No monster will enter here again.

Retreating down the hillside, I glimpse two of the Lads watching from afar. They immediately take flight. We give chase across the mountain and catch up with them soon enough, for they move slowly. One of them is short and takes small steps. The other is tall but walks with a limp. We drag them down to the village. These are different Lads than before, but clearly related. Their faces are evil and their smell repulsive.

They stink like the cave.

We force them to talk. They say they were out journeying and returned to find their family gone. We demand to know where they have fled. They refuse to answer. So we start pulling nails off fingers and toes. We cut into the kneecaps of the tall one and poke an eye out of the short one. Still they feign ignorance. We are in no hurry. The night is young and ripe for revenge. We pick up our shovels and dig a pit outside the village. The ground is frozen but we make do, delve deep and cast down the cannibals. From dust they have come and to dust they shall return, says the priest before he throws the first shovelful of dirt into the little one’s face. We circle the pit and start shoveling in unison. With each heap of dirt comes an opportunity to divulge their secrets, but still they refuse to talk. All they do is scream and howl as they begin their slow descent into the ground.

The little Lad is first to die.

He chokes on the dirt that has beset him on all sides. His big brother pulls him up, tries to keep his head above the sand. The little Lad whines and groans and finally goes silent when the soil fills his gullet. A final cry for help becomes a muted cough. He slips from his brother’s arms and the earth swallows him up. Then the big Lad finally breaks his silence. Tells us everything we want to hear. Pleads with us to show mercy and let him keep his wicked life. I have mercy on him. With a single blow of my hammer, I show mercy.

We have finished our work and filled in the pit. Set a large stone to mark the cursed spot. Wiped from the world, these sons of Grýla. Restored to the muck from whence they came. A blood-red morning sun shines upon our dark deeds.

We have a long walk ahead of us.