Serpents and Werewolves (9 page)

The arrow struck the wolf in the shoulder. The wolf fell out of the air, howling in pain, and rolled over in the grass.

The archer jumped over the wall. The wolf ran off, limping.

The archer had no more arrows.

And the girl was screaming in shock. So he picked her up, carried her to the farmhouse at the end of the meadow and put her in the arms of her mother.

Then he continued on his way home.

His family were delighted to see him. They prepared a feast to celebrate his return. “There haven't been so many lambs recently,” said his father, as they prepared the meat for roasting, “because we've been troubled by wolf attacks. There's one beast that takes children, if they stray too far from home.”

The archer mentioned, quietly, the wolf he had shot. His father patted his shoulder and said, “Yet another reason to celebrate.”

The
archer's mother invited all the neighbours, including the little girl's family, to the homecoming feast. Everyone in the district came, all but their next door neighbour, from the farm down the track.

“Where's our next door neighbour?” the archer's mother wondered. “He normally has a great appetite for other people's food!” Everyone laughed and waited for the neighbour to turn up.

But he never arrived, not when the smell of perfectly roasted meat wafted across the fields, not when the flames of the bonfire rose high in the sky, not when the singing got a bit too loud.

The archer and his father decided to check if their neighbour was alright. “It's not like him to miss a feast,” said the archer's father, as they crossed the fields.

When they reached the neighbour's house, the back door was wide open, so the archer and his father walked in.

Their neighbour was lying on the stone floor of the kitchen. Stretched out, stiff and
cold,
with blood pooled under his chest and an arrow in his shoulder.

“That's my arrow,” said the archer. “That's the arrow I shot at the wolf.”

That's how they discovered their neighbour had feasted on stolen lambs and perhaps even stolen children.

The archer kept his one last arrow, not as a reminder of the wars he'd fought, but as a reminder that he had shot a werewolf and a warning that he could do it again.

For the rest of his long peaceful life, on his family's farm and on the farms around, the lambs grew fat all summer and the children played in safety.

And the wolf-grey arrow was never needed again.

Buzzard Boy

Mexican folktale

Once there was a boy who lived on a farm at the edge of the forest, with his mum and dad.

One day, his dad said it was time for the boy to break ground and grow his own crops. His dad gave him an axe and his mum gave him a pile of warm tortillas and they said, “Go to the edge of the trees, and clear a field for yourself. Cut down the trees, cut down the bushes, burn the scrub, then you can
plant
these seeds and grow yourself a field of corn.”

The boy walked towards the forest. When he reached the best place for a field, he lifted the axe and swung it at a tree.

Thunk. The axe hit the trunk. “Ouch! That was sore on my hands.”

Thunk, again. “Ouch!”

Thunk, one more time. His hands were stinging and the tree still hadn't fallen over.

The boy sighed. This was going to be hard work and he didn't feel like hard work. So he left the axe sticking out of the tree, sat down at the edge of the forest and ate one of his tortillas.

Then he lay down and gazed up past the trees at the cool blue sky.

He saw birds flying above him. “Birds don't have to work,” he muttered. “They're free to fly about all day and go wherever they want.”

He saw a big bird circle above him.

“Oi! Buzzard! You don't know how lucky you are, up there with no work to do! I wish we could swap.”

The
buzzard circled lower.

“Oi? Buzzard? Do you want to swap? You come down here and be a boy, and I'll go up there and be a buzzard, free as the air.”

The buzzard circled even lower.

“Come on, buzzard. It'll be fun! Swap your feathers for my clothes and eat my mum's warm tortillas for lunch.”

The buzzard landed beside him. The big black and red bird looked at the axe, at the tortillas and at the boy.

The buzzard nodded. “Let's swap.”

The buzzard pulled off his feathers and the boy pulled off his shirt, and they swapped.

The boy's nose became a beak; the buzzard's claws became toes. Soon the boy who was now a buzzard was testing out his wide wings, and the buzzard who was now a boy was wrapping his fingers around the axe handle.

“Thanks!” said the brand new buzzard and flapped his wings to fly off.

“Hold on!” said the brand new boy. “Tell me how to be a boy.”

“
You've been watching me, just do what I did.”

“But all you've done this morning is lie about and eat. There must be more to being a boy than that.”

“If you really want to work like a farm boy, chop down some trees and bushes, burn the scrub, then plant seeds.” The brand new buzzard flapped up into the air.

The brand new boy called after him, “Don't you want to know how to be a buzzard?”

“How hard can it be?” The brand new buzzard laughed as he flew away.

The brand new boy pulled the axe out of the tree and swung it, enjoying the strange new strength of his arms and legs, and the heavy solidity of his new body.

He cut down a dozen trees, ate tortillas for lunch, then cut down another dozen trees. As he piled them up, the farmer arrived and said, “That's an excellent day's work, son. Come home for your tea.”

So the brand new boy followed the farmer to the farmhouse for a hot meal, then lay in a
soft
bed all night, listening to rain on the roof.

He returned to the edge of the forest the next day to continue clearing his own field. As he chopped at the first tree of the day, the brand new buzzard flew down and asked, “How do buzzards stay warm and dry?”

“Buzzards don't. Birds live outside, so buzzards are cold at night and wet in the rain.”

“Ah. And who gives a buzzard his meals?”

“No one. You have to find your own food. That's why I accepted your offer to swap: now I sleep with a roof over my head and I eat your mother's lovely cooking.”

“You might have a roof and tortillas, but I can fly free above the forest.” The brand new buzzard flew off, while the brand new boy chopped down trees.

The next day, as the brand new boy started cutting down bushes, the brand new buzzard flapped into the clearing, looking a bit scrawny. “How do I find my own food? I tried to hunt rabbits but they're too fast. I tried to eat berries but my beak's too big.”

The brand new boy put down his axe
and
stretched his arms. Then he handed the brand new buzzard half a tortilla and said, “Buzzards don't hunt fresh meat or eat fresh fruit. Buzzards scavenge dead things. Buzzards eat corpses.”

“Yuck!” said the brand new buzzard. After a pause, he added, “I know that should be yuck, but actually my tummy is rumbling at the thought. How do I find a nice juicy corpse?”

“You have to hunt for gases, rising like smoke from a body as it cools, then follow the fumes down.” The brand new boy picked up the axe again. “I used to like the smell of cooling corpses, but now I prefer the smell of baking tortillas.”

The brand new boy cut down another bush and the brand new buzzard flew off to find and follow fumes.

That afternoon, as the brand new boy piled scrubby bits of bush around the field to burn it to the ground, the brand new buzzard tried to find fumes that would lead him to food.

First he dive-bombed a kettle as a traveller made coffee, then he got his talons caught in
a
girl's hair when she went to a party wearing too much perfume, then he nearly landed on a fresh steaming cowpat.

Finally he found a hot pillar of intriguing fumes and he thought, “That's it!” He dived down through the whirling warmth.

He dived right into the heart of the fire that the brand new boy had lit to clear the field.

The brand new buzzard dived into the centre of the flames. And he couldn't get out. His feathers were smouldering, his eyes were watering, he couldn't work out which way was up or down.

The brand new buzzard was burning.

Then two hands, blistered with hard work, dragged him out. The brand new boy pulled the brand new buzzard out of the fire.

The brand new boy said, “Do you want to swap again? I like being a farmer, and I like living in a house and eating tortillas. But if
you
want to swap again, if it's too hard to be a buzzard, I will give you back your clothes and your job.”

As the brand new buzzard preened his singed feathers, he looked at the hoe, the rake and the sacks of seeds at the edge of the new field. “Being a boy is too much work. I like being a buzzard, with the freedom of the sky. It's not easy, but I will learn to be the best buzzard I can be.”

The buzzard flew away.

The boy cleared the rest of the field, planted the seeds, harvested his crop, and eventually ate tortillas made from his own corn.

The boy never spoke to the buzzard again. But he often saw him, circling above the farm. The boy waved his arms, and the buzzard dipped his wings then danced in the air, being the best buzzard he could be.

Many years later, when his own children, his own boys and girls, looked up at the blue sky and said, “Wouldn't it be wonderful to be free as a bird?” the farmer who used to be a buzzard smiled. “It's not easy being a bird.
I
wouldn't swap it for a watertight house, a pile of warm tortillas and a bit of hard work. I wouldn't swap it at all.”