Otherlands surged over that part of Wales
drowning the quiet villages in dread,
in ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggety beasties
and things that go bump in the night.

There was no deliverance in sight,
and no one had a prayer to put things right.

Each river had its pair of long, green arms,
fangs longer still, and big round glowing eyes
the size of soup-plates, empty of food,
full of hunger to wake a man screaming

from any sleep, however sound, with dreaming
that he’d be served up, roasted red and steaming.

And every forest teeming
with red-caps and boggarts,
and howling with banshees,
and the village graveyard haunted by the
Great
Black
Hound
that they call Shuck.

His eyes burned like fire, and his grin
was razor sharp. That was when he had a head.
Sometimes he didn’t. Either way,
he growled fit to murder, and the bold man
who tried to murder him back watched in awe
as his oaken stick passed right through the dog
as though it would bludgeon a mist.

That man took to his bed and died.

And children shrieked their terror, and
would not be comforted, and their parents
offered no comfort but iron
to bolt their doors and a bowl of milk
to sate the unsatiable.

But eventually

Otherlands ebbed out from that part of Wales
draining the frightened villages of dread,
of goblin markets and of faerie gold,
washing them out to sea upon the foam.

All those horrors wended their way home
(or onto page of bestiary tome).

But ebbing tides leave tide pools in their wake,
drying in the sun, the days of their doomed
inhabitants numbered. So Black Shuck was abandoned,
left behind while elf and boggart fled,

left behind among the human dead,
and when he gnashed his razor teeth, he bled.

He howled. He woke the children in their beds. The children came.
They climbed the fence. They passed the lych-gate.
They trod the yellow whitlow underfoot.
They came to lean against the grimhound’s side,

to pat his ebon fur and stroke his hide,
to bear him company until he died.

[Nicole J. LeBoeuf is a New Orleanian writer of short speculative fiction and poetry appearing in such venues as Apex Magazine, Cast of Wonders, Star*Line, Dreams and Nightmares, and Sycorax Journal. Her poem “On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland” was a 2023 Rhysling Award finalist. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and their adorably criminal rabbit. Her not-so-secret superhero identity is skater Fleur de Beast with Boulder County Roller Derby. Find her online at nicolejleboeuf.com.]