The final day of the challenge. Thank you to Paul Brookes for this fascinating October folklore challenge. You can see today’s images and read the responses here.

Inspired by 2.31 The Sack Man

The Sack Man

The Sack Man will take you away,
if you are not good, if you do not obey,

he’ll toss you in his sack
and never ever bring you back.

So say parents, teachers, priests, and nuns–
while their children cry at night,

see shapes in shadows,
ghouls and ghosts that glower–
midnight’s power–

frozen in fear, tongue-tied in terror,
they wait for daylight,
forever–

they feel love mixed with panic,
hope rusts, never gleams–
they are too scared to dream.

Inspired by E2.29 Caboclos

River Protector

Born of last wishes
of river blues-greens, and
the hopes of fins and feathered things.

He protects with fierceness,
the cost of creating a monster,
is rage. His anger born of loneliness,
of being singular and strange.

Like a fish, he has one eye—
on either side of his head,
and he lives surrounded by gold,
that you will never find.

He’s the river’s challenger,
without breath of his own.
Only humans try to claim him,
the river’s creatures leave him alone.

For Paul Brookes’ Folktober Challenge. We’re getting near the end! You can see the images and read the responses here. This one was another one new to me.

Inspired by F2. 28 Kunekune

Kunekune

Have you seen it? Slender, twisting,
in the rice field, like a ghostly figured light
when the plants are green, the sky bright blue.
It’s mesmerizing as it dances,
when no wind is there. You yawn over lunch,
think you dreamt what you’d seen.

But there’s your friend,
standing where it was. His eyes now blank,
his mind now gone, and you know
what you saw–it wasn’t a dream.

For Paul Brookes’ Folktober Challenge. You can see the images and read the other responses here.

Inspired by 1.26 Ollipheist and F2.26 Boto Encanto

Water Creatures
1.
The sea serpent swallowed the girl
who angered the salmon of knowledge,
the salmon, seemingly less than full of wisdom
and the serpent a monster with little brain.
He ate the piper, who went on
playing—till the Oilliphéist spit him out
perhaps even monsters cannot silence a piper.

2.
The river holds secrets,
not all is what it seems
a handsome man may drink and flirt,
but he will not take off his hat.
The women he seduces, left brooding,
expecting more—
as he tosses his hat, takes his dolphin form,
dives back into the river.

For Paul Brookes’ Folktober Challenge. You can see the images and read the responses here.

Inspired by 1.25, Salmon of Knowledge

Salmon of Knowledge

Wisdom dropped from the hazel tree
in weighty nuts the salmon ate.
He swam through water wide and blue,
until the young man cast and viewed
bright silver-scales caught with his bait.

Do not eat it, Fionn was told.
but fry-burned, raised his thumb to lips,
gained wisdom from the tree and fish.
I wonder what the salmon wished–
a legend by hero eclipsed.

For Paul Brookes’ month-long Folktober Challenge. You can see the images and read the other responses here.

Inspired by F2. 24 Boitata and F3.24, Black-eyed Children

Eyes of Fire and Chill

Eyes take in the light, reflect and refract,
heated observation burns with fury–
a gaze that combusts to protect,
regenerating by fire to make the world right,

and then the opposite,

dead souls with eyes of bottomless black.
What makes us turn children into demons—
brightest hope dashed and fears projected,
we see the monsters within.

For Paul Brookes’ Folktober Challenge. You can see the images and read the other responses here.

Inspired by all three images

How We See Them

Our basest natures conjure up
the one-legged imps, foul-smelling
creatures of the night,
and grief-stricken women in white,
who tend the ill with guilt-tinged care–
but the white-maned waves gallop
across the world, into the air, magnificent,
the swiftest creatures,
nature and imagination, alive.

For Paul Brookes’ Folktober Challenge. You can see the images and read the responses here.