Fleagrave’s Christmas

MIDWINTER, SCOTLAND, 1745

On Christmas E’en, Fleagrave took the royal pack of wulvers carolling. She rode a shaggy, squat pony because mortals are too big for empty hazelnuts. (As are wulvers, but being in their wolf form, transport posed no issue for them).

The wulvers ran on feet grey as headstones, their eyes bright as blades and hearts kind as Granny’s. They crossed the silver burn into Atholl and soon the woods rang with their merry singing.

Presently, Fleagrave and the wulvers came to a hole in the ground filled with gore.

“I wish I had a bird red as blood,“ said Fleagrave.

They rode on, the wulvers leaving girdle cakes on the doorsteps of the poor. A lantern swung from a lintel nail.

“I wish I had a bird as bright as that lamp,“ said Fleagrave.

Close to midnight they halted under an oak tree. Snow had begun to fall, evaporating the instant it touched the wulvers’ humid, furred skulls.

Wistful as a wishbone, Fleagrave said, “I wish I had a bird swift as snow.”

No sooner had Fleagrave completed her description than the majestic bird appeared. Fleagrave shielded her eyes from its brilliance. But the bird was not a bird, but Queen Vanora, ruler of Empty-home and Fleagrave’s present employer. Queen Vanora flew at her mortal servant’s head, belting Fleagrave across the face with a set of bone-bruising brass keys.

“Hackit gowk. Is your head mince? You do not wish, you do not think. You especially do not take the wulvers carolling or Christianing. Take them home. I would make a brose from all your brains combined if I didn’t think a half bowl would be the sum of my efforts.”

The queen of Empty-home threw the keys to the wulvers’ cage at Fleagrave’s feet. For good measure she skelped Fleagrave once, twice, thrice then rocketed into the brittle night, her wings a veined whirr of transparent movement. Raw-cheeked, shame-hearted, Fleagrave plodded back the way they had come, ordering the snivelling wulvers to steal back the cakes they had left as a kindness.

This fairy story was inspired by The Snow Child by Angela Carter, local yule traditions and Scotland’s gentle werewolves (wulvers).