smokingboot

I've been invited to participate in this:

https://cathtice.wixsite.com/thegoblinball2022?fbclid=IwAR11ZaDU_LungZSZX41jeMzbfN94vf5loatTa67AJbStpzcmsxRugPKohsw

Our group is the Winter Court; the pinterest page is gloriously goth. So who or what would I like to play?

I found myself looking at the Jackalope as a type of goblin, and a fairy story popped into my head straight away.

Now it came to pass that an old widow woman's daughter was very ill, and there seemed no cure for her. So the woman went out on a night deep in ice, and called to the woods that Prince Jackalope might hear her. She told him of her sorrow and left him his favourite drink, a boon of whisky, asking in return for the most magical thing the Lord of Hares and Rabbits has at his command; jackalope milk which is said to cure all sickness.

Out of the bare boned woods came the answer clear as a bell; that she should hurry home and not look back, and after snowfall sweep well around her cottage door.

She did as she was told, and just in time too, for the tempest came raging like the fever across her child's brow. By daybreak snow was piled up all around the widow woman's house. You can be sure she swept it away swiftly, only to find tucked against her step, a sparkling phial of starlight-tinted liquid with a rowan berry in it. This she took to her daughter, who drank it up, berry and all. And by the time the sun was high above the trees, the little one was well, laughing and smiling as though she had never known a day's sickness.

The widow wanted to find a way to express her gratitude, but how? For many of the hidden folk cannot bear to be thanked. So instead, she left him a little gift of whisky every day, and long she lived to see her girl, Isobel, grow into a fine young woman, strong and clever and beautiful.

Now Isobel had been told the tale of Prince Jackalope all her life, and grew up with a great interest in magic. After her mother's death, her head was full of the wondrous things she might do, if only she could cast spells! Endlessly she tried to coax him into meeting but the Lord of Hares never answered her call, not even for whisky. Angered at his silence, she joined a coven mighty in secrets, to serve a master who promised her power in return for her soul. Gladly she agreed, but she already had ideas about whose soul she could feed him rather than her own.

When Isobel's power had grown and she was Queen of all the Witches, when she had gold and silver and a fine farm and a grand house and many rich men laying their fortunes at the feet of her beauty, she felt the tingling air of winter close by, the growing pangs of her master's hunger, just before All Hallow's Eve. It seemed to her that little time was hers before she must needs fulfil her promise. So she laid a trap for the Prince of Hares, calling for him to aid her in the name of his old friend, Her Mother, the Widow Gowdie.
And it almost worked.

He slipped through the snare, though his foot bled some, yet he ran as he sang:

'Oh I shall go out in the shape of a hare,
with sorrow and sighing and mickle care!
For here you come in the Devil's Name,
But ne'er shall I be fetchèd hame.'

But Isobel changed her shape to pursue him singing:

'Prince, take heed of a bitch greyhound
Who will harry thee well all these fells around
For here come I in the Devil's Name
All but for to fetch thee hame!'

The greyhound chased the hare across the frost lands from here to the moon, singing, always singing. At the river's edge, Prince Jackalope turned himself into a trout, only to see Isobel close behind him in the form of an otter. Leaping out of the water as a frog, he caught sight of her behind him, following as the great grey heron. Seeing a house he knew ahead, he shrank to the form of a tiny beetle and scurried towards it. Isobel laughed, and swiftly became a sharp-eyed mouse, that she might not lose sight of him. The house, she noted was full of light and warmth and smelled of grain. Easily she scuttled under the door, singing

'Yes I shall go into a mouse
For my prize awaits in the miller’s house,
There indeed shall I have good game
And thou, my prince, be fetchèd hame.'

But oh! When inside, where were the lights, the warmth, the grain? All was empty and rotted and dark, a cottage she should have recognised though abandoned... Or almost abandoned. Before she could think, a piercing pain crunched through her back and seized around her limbs!

From just outside the door, she heard the last verse:

'Mouse, take heed of the old stray cat
That never was baulked of mouse or rat,
For she'll crack thy bones in the Devil's name:
Thus shalt thou be fetchèd hame.'

There sat Grimalkin chewing, and there lay Isobel, feeding cat and the devil himself at last.

But Prince Jackalope ran away from the Widow Gowdie's house into the frosty track of the moon. Some say that the Devil asks no further tithe of him, since he brought hame old Horny's errant servant. True or not, it is certain that from that day to this, Prince Jackalope has never again given help to mortals, whisky or none.

It's got all sorts of derivations involved, the Mabinogion, Graves' dubious citings of 17th century songs, the life of Isobel Gowdie, and of course Jackalope's predilection for whisky.

Another option, if I wanted to play this character at all, would be to go with its background. It is thought that rather than being a folk depiction of rabbits with a papilloma virus, the Jackalope may well have been a miracle moment of cryptid capitalism care of the Herrick Brothers in Wyoming, who were said to have discovered a cool combination of forms after a hunt, when one of them threw down a jackrabbit carcass next to a pair of deer antlers. This is where my head takes over: Delighted at their creation they sell the glued and stuffed result only to find by the next night, a strange visitor arrives: a dapper gunman, all bolo tie and smooth manners, remarkable only for his long ears and antlers. He politely asks for his son's return and they gibber... Next morning, the store boy comes in only to find no Herricks, but two weird looking horned hares sitting confused on the counter. One takes off for the hills, the other is just that bit too slow, and ends up as the assistant's dinner.

Trouble with this: It doesn't fit in so snugly with the vibe of the ball overall or the vibe of the Winter Court as I understand it. But in terms of fantasy gothic American faery it could work well, real possibilities if kept away from Donny Darko. Other issues: I might not be able to do any kind of American accent well, and also an old west style costume might need a hat to define it. So what would I do with those ears and antlers?

It's as well I have over a year to sort this out. I might discard Jackalope in the end but I'm pleased with a concept that gives me two different stories to consider in less than 24 hours. Sparky.