The Glockborogon

There’s nothing I can tell you about the glockborogon the town gossips haven’t already sung. I don’t wish to repeat their words. Not to someone with teeth as white as yours. Pieces of cloud, they are. Have you not a single false tooth? Not gold or silver or wood? My granna always said only learned folk had good teeth, and they were less trustworthy than a cock that didn’t crow.

What’s that?

You say you’re hunting the thing? Ha! Damned bit of good a flintlock will do. Or whatever foul bottles clink in your rucksack. I’ve seen your kind before. You’re best marching your silver-threaded tunic down the valley, back to where you came from. We take care of our own affairs in the foothills.

Am I not aggrieved enough, for you, is that it? After all, what good is a goatherd without her goats? Oh, they’re gone, dear hunter, nibbling grass at the feet of angels, and there is nothing you can do. The glockborogon has taken them, and I will never get them back.  

    What?

You’re going to stay several turns of the moon? Until you have answers? That’s an awfully long time, hunter, are you sure you don’t have more important business, maybe somewhere in the flatcountry?  

    No? You must be a very boring man.  

But fine. Have a seat, I’ll start some tea.

***

The glockborogon came on the second night of a hook moon.

    My goats had been bleating properly since I put them to bed. Snoring, maybe. Good goats, they were.

I always slept with the windows open, in case a lion wandered in from the woods and needed a torch waved at it. You are skeptical. Well, that’s because you’re a hunter, not a protector. And at the end of the day, that’s what all us goatherds and shepherds are: we’re protectors.

We try to keep things alive.

 “Goatherd! Goatherd!” A voice called from the barn, clear as a spring stream. “Goatherd, goatherd, we need to talk to you!” 

There, I thought, was the voice of a dream. To be sure, I plucked the longest hair from my head.

Pain tugged at my skin.

“Goatherd!”

Whatever this was, it was no trick of consciousness. I threw on my boots, grabbed my brightest torch, and rushed to the barn.

The goats were waiting, all lined up in neat little rows. I stared through puffs of my own breath, slackjawed. Heart spasming. I don’t know how much you know about goats, but they are not orderly.

One stepped forward and stamped her feet. My finest doe: Helenhoof. Mother of over a dozen kids—the one who called if I whistled, who nudged others to follow with beautifully crooked horns. She was acorn brown, and a big white circle stretched over her back.

“Goatherd, we have requested your presence to levy our demands. I think you’ll find them most agreeable,” Helenhoof said, her words as unmistakable as my own.

We’ve all heard stories of shepherds in the mountains who speak to their flocks, and hear their flocks speak back. They are cautionary tales. Despite what the town doctor says, mountain madness is very real.

But hill madness? That was embarrassing.  

I grasped for sanity. “Y-you have demands?”

Helenhoof nodded. “And now that the glockborogon has given us the ability to articulate them, we can finally share them with you, goatherd. Isn’t it wonderful?” She spoke the last bit with giddiness. And, well, hunter, may I say that Helenhoof’s enthusiasm was more than a little infectious. These were my goats, after all. I’d raised them all from kids, watched as their horns came in, brushed their knotted coats, moved them from pasture to pasture, sat with them as they ate. Now they were talking, and I was listening.

I gave Helenhoof a single nod. No words were adequate.

“Firstly,” she said. “We require an increase in daily grazing time, effective immediately. Secondly, when it comes to milking, some of us wish you to leave more for our children to suckle, so they may grow strong and start herds of their own.” A few of the other goats gave cries of assent. Helenhoof quieted them with a gentle bleat. “And lastly, we would like an assembly of pens, parchment, and bookbinding equipment. I trust we make ourselves clear, goatherd?”

Were my goats really so discontent? Had I been judged by the spirits of the ancestral goatherds, of my father, and his mother, and her mother, and so on, what would they have seen? An unhappy herd. A foolish old widow, oblivious of her shortcomings. I hoped they would at least understand that I did bear love for my goats, if nothing else. How many other goatherds in the valley had never sold an old goat to the meat market? How many buried their dead goats on a small plot up the road, and marked their graves with stones?

My mind turned to the matter at hand. The grass, the milk. I settled on the third request. “What use have you for parchments and pens?” I asked.

“It has been brought to our attention that we have much wisdom to share, and we’d like to write some of it down.” Helenhoof bleated an exclamation.

“But, how will you write?” As far as I could tell, the goats had not grown thumbs.

Helenhoof and another goat—Bramblethorn the Buck, normally so aggressive that I had to play my flute to placate him—exchanged glances. Bramblethorn snorted. I gulped. I couldn’t help myself. I was greatly outnumbered.

“Can your hand hold a pen, goatherd?” Helenhoof asked.

It might not surprise you, hunter, that us goatherds are believed by many to be simple and uneducated. Good for meat, milk, cheese, and pragmatism. Not for poetry. To hear the sentiment from my own goats was heartbreaking.

“Of course,” I said, sweating in my nightcap.

“Then it is settled!” Helenhoof flashed her horns, “You will be our scribe.”

I couldn’t mistake the certainty in her voice: she was not asking.

***

     Ah, dear hunter, I do not mistake the look of disgust in your bright, robin’s egg eyes. You might keep your face calm, implacable, but I see through it like the stars on a foggy night. You were tasked to kill a beast, were you not? And I have not even described it. I thought hunters had to be patient, had to wait in one spot for a very long time, very still, for their prize to trot before them. Alas, you are right, I know very little of your craft. But I am not mistaken, am I, hunter? So, please, let me continue.

***

As with everything new, my agreement with the goats had a period of adjustment. The glockborogon had transformed them into intellectuals, but it did not give them manners.

They woke me every morning, clomping into my bedroom with shouted greetings. “How’d you sleep, goatherd? I heard something rustling outside last night. A raccoon, perhaps. Would you look into it?”     

“Please, let me wake with the sun,” I’d say, rubbing life into my knees.

And they’d angle their heads and snort: “No!”

I spent afternoons hunched in the barn, trying to put their ramblings to writing. They had good thoughts, but unfocused. There would be paragraphs upon paragraphs on why all goats should roam free in their own lands, sheep, too, and how they would dig great, underground cities beneath their fields of eternal green. And then they would get distracted, and switch topics abruptly. “Why are dewdrops on the grass so sweet? Is it because morning fairies sprinkle sugar upon them?”

I do not know where these fantastical notions came from. Had they been in the goats all along? Or were they another consequence of the glockborogon?   

After every goat had a turn, they asked for copies.

There’s a single damned press in the whole of the foothills. A half-day walk from my field by main road, and an uncomfortable gift for aching bones. I’d have rather copied their manifesto by hand and dropped dead from arthritis after the second book was filled, but Bramblethorn shredded an old chair with his horns as he begged please, please, please.

You see, hunter, if nothing else, my goats were persuasive.

I paid good coin for copies enough for all surrounding farms, as requested, and even endured the endless gossip of the press boys.

“You hear about Kristo?” One asked the other, smudges of ink like warpaint upon his cheeks.

“The drunk? Did he fall asleep in a chimney again?”

“No,” the other looked with wide eyes as he gripped a wooden lever. “He’s cleaned up. Been brewing, not drinking. Said he got inspired by a dream, or something.”

“Don’t know if I’d trust ale made with his grubby fingers.”

“I didn’t believe til’ I tasted it. Like drinking pure gold.”

I sat with my hands folded, and wondered if it were true. If the glockborogon could change my goats, could it change a person, as well? Old Kristo was a famous fool. But anyone who drank as much as he did certainly had some insight on the subject.

By the time I’d lugged the dozen books back up the valley, braving heavy gray skies and afternoon drizzle, it was dark. I wheezed back into my cottage, and collapsed into an armchair.

“Only a dozen?” Bramblethorn the Buck kicked at my bag with his front hoof.

“You’ll have to be judicious,” I said, though it raised a bigger question: who were these books for?

I tried to explain to Helenhoof. Other goats would not be able to read their words.

“We cannot rely on the glockborogon for everything,” she said.

     How misguided she was.

***

I remember the gunshots. Flame rising down the road. I stayed with my goats to provide whatever comfort I could. For once, we shared anxiety.

“Sometimes,” I explained, “hill neighbors have disagreements. Such is the way of things.”

Helenhoof looked at me with square, skeptical eyes. Ever the doubter, that goat—more wits than a brown toothed seer. “Have you ever had one of these disagreements?”  

“Once or twice,” I said. Widow is not just a title.

We were interrupted by a hen, flapping out of the night. “Anger! Betrayal! Death!” She squawked madly, landing on a fence post.

It took great effort to calm the poor chicken. I fished out a jar of dried corn and let her eat from my hand, all while I brushed small, loose feathers from her back. The goats tried to provide their own consolation, but the hen was too frightened to hear. She shivered in my arms. Eventually, after the distant fire became a glowing column of moonlit smoke, she finally spoke.

“The glockborogon! Told us to speak. So we did.” The hen raised her head. “Farmer Alton. Called us demons! Tainted! Our—our own farmer. Hadn’t seen the sheep, yet.”

You see, hunter, Farmer Alton is a bit of a king among the hill shepherds. Over two-hundred sheep. As well as a face like rotten squash, eyes like little beetles. No, Alton does not live in my good graces. Nor, I believe, in anyone’s. He isn’t a true shepherd, you see, merely a rich man who owns sheep.

I wrapped the chicken in blankets and let it sleep in front of my fireplace. When I returned to the goats, they were rattled.

“Why did the Farmer Alton react so?” Helenhoof asked.

“Superstition is a powerful burden to shed.” I took a seat on my shearing stool. “Some believe it is very bad luck to hear a goat, or a sheep, or a chicken speak. Or worse.” I spared her tales of demons cloaked in the skins of animals, who liked to steal grain from larders or kidnap firstborn children. I assume these tales exist where you come from, hunter? Perhaps you view them as inspiration.

Bramblethorn the Buck growled. “If he ever comes here, I’ll give Alton some bad luck.”

“Will his sheep be alright?” Helenhoof asked.

“With any luck some slipped into the woods,” I said, though it was pure speculation.

I spent a restless night in the barn.

The next morning, when I went in to fetch my tea and let the chicken out, someone banged on my cottage door.

Farmer Alton stared through the entrance, curves of sweaty hair plastered to his brow.

“I’m gathering all the folk in the hills,” he rasped. There was a crowd on the road behind him, all members of his expansive family. “It’s a sheep—demon—hunt.”

My heart pounded as I met his severe gaze. I hoped my goats would stay quiet, hoped the hen wouldn’t flap down and showcase her newfound verbosity. “Well, Farmer Alton,” I said. “I’d love to, but I took a spill a few days ago and my leg is still acting up. I’ll keep watch from here, though.”

A look of outrage passed over the man’s face.

“Is that him?” Bramblethorn had stepped around the corner.

I believe, dear hunter, in that moment, my soul and spirit left only bones standing in my doorway.

Bramblethorn brandished his horns—as long as scythes, they were—and other brave goats poised behind him. A formation. They bleated fiercely. I tried to wave them off, to no avail.

It wasn’t much of a battle. Yes, blood seeped into dead grass, and yes, I had to chase crows and vultures off with a bent broomstick for days afterward, but no, I do not think the event will go down in history by that name. A culling, perhaps. A massacre.

Muskets blazed, horns and hatchets flashed. They were even in number, both frothing with righteousness, but Alton had the benefit of weaponry, and experience. I believe he fancies himself a hunter, like you. The goats were strong, their horns were sharp.

It wasn’t enough.

***

Forgive me, hunter, but you’ve certainly heard the tale from one of Alton’s insipid nephews, or, perhaps, from the man himself. I’m sure he’s graced every nearby tavern with his own bloated account. His clash with demons. Bah!

What?

Farmer Alton is dead?

Well, as I said, he wasn’t the most popular man in the hills. If he died unnaturally I can think of at least a dozen disgruntled shepherds who may have had a hand. I’m sure his family will seek dramatic retribution.

They are dead, too? All of them? When did this happen?

Why, I agree. Such circumstance, an entire dead family, it seems nearly impossible. Do you think the vile glockborogon is somehow behind the attacks? Of course I still blame the creature! My goats would be alive, otherwise, and I wouldn’t be forced to sell baskets of carrots and potatoes to make my living.

You say you’ve—captured a sheep who claims to know me. They have a book with them? One bearing my name? Could it be true? Could some have escaped the Alton family’s wrath? Did they actually manage a retreat to the woods?

I don’t understand, it told you there were more? Did it speak of the battle?

I assure you, hunter, I did not instruct the mothers and children of my herd to run and live in the woods before they locked arms, nor have I had contact with any sheep. I most certainly did not see the glockborogon in the barn that terrible evening. Besides, I think the creature is gone. Fled into the mountains. There have been no other incidents for a while.

You stare with narrowed eyes, so hear me. It doesn’t matter if the beast has a head with fourteen mouths, or arms lined with porcupine spines, fangs stained red with blood. Now, I have your attention. Maybe it has these traits, maybe it does not. Maybe it is a little man who wears a flower for a hat and speaks backwards. This, I do not know.

What I do know is very simple: you will never, ever, find the glockborogon.

Ah, now you notice them, dear hunter. What is a simple goatherd doing with such white, shining teeth?

I assure you, I did not always have them. 

Do you hear that?

It sounds like—why, the bleat of a goat. And the ba of a sheep. Of many. How strange.

Will you come with me, hunter?

You could bring your flintlock, or your powders and bottles, but why? I doubt they’ll be of much use.