THE NISSE POPPED OUT OF A HOLE IN THE GROUND. “Drat,” said the wizened little figure as he straightened his hood and looked around. He’d taken the wrong path from the Otherworld again. No snow-covered fields, no deep mountain forests, no cold rich scent of Norway.
And there, his mouth had been watering for that saucer of milk the farmer put out each evening. “Now the fox will get my supper,” the nisse muttered, “and raid the chicken coop for a second course, no doubt.” Even if he trudged the long dark path down and up again to the Norse farmstead, he’d find the bowl empty.
Still, he ought to get on his way and make the journey, he supposed. At least to protect the chickens.
His stomach growled. First let him find a morsel to eat, whatever land this was, then back to duty. The wind blew mild and wet, tossing maple leaves the size of his small brown jacket. The nisse snugged his red hood tighter on his head and set off to scavenge for his dinner.
A bright moon hung overhead, just shy of full. Ragged clouds scudded across it, touched with silver light as they fled away. Bare branches scratched at the moon’s face.
On the wind came the ripe odor of cow manure. The nisse grinned. Dairy cows meant milk, and for milk he’d do just about anything. He trotted through the blowing dusk toward the barn he could smell somewhere upwind.
Voices rang, and bobbing lights appeared. Big folk, out and about this late? The nisse crept closer to the commotion.
A lane cut across the landscape of fields and woods. Big folk, clumsy and noisy, thundered along the beaten path, lanterns glowing yellow-orange. The nisse heard the sounds of rocks thumping the ground, crashing through the brush. A shape came hurtling past the nisse, and he caught the scent of cat — angry cat, frightened cat. He turned and followed the animal’s path. Cats never run far.
Sure enough, he found the beast crouching under a dead fall, tail lashing and ears crimped sideways. A black cat with golden eyes. “What evil prowls the woods tonight, Brother Cat?” the nisse asked.
The cat hissed. “Big clumsy two-footers, out hunting what they won’t eat.”
“Hunting you?”
The tail lashed again. “Some thanks I get for catching mice in their fields. Stupid, stupid humans. Always throwing rocks. Tonight worse than ever.”
“Why tonight?”
“It’s Hallows Eve, and I’m black. They think I help witches.’
The nisse tugged at his knee-long beard. “Do you?”
The cat emerged from its hiding spot and drew itself up to sit prim and proper, tail curled around the front toes. “I have never even met a witch. In these parts, Brother Goblin, we get few visitors from the Otherworld.”
The nisse scratched his gnarled nose. “If the big folk act so crazy tonight, it is maybe not such a good idea to steal milk.”
The cat leaned forward and took a delicate sniff. “I had not thought the Otherworld would smell of chickens and goats.”
“Ah, that be the smell of farmstead in this world of man. Barn and byre on the steep forested slopes of Norway. Land of snow and the stern north wind. A place where big folk do not have this Hallows-whatever-thing. I take a wrong turn and come here by mistake.”
The cat’s ears flicked. “Big bad two-footer coming,” it snarled and dashed into the night.
Stompings and trompings sounded in the undergrowth. Voices like monster crows cackled on the wind, and torch light flickered. The nisse stood uncertain a moment. An orange gourd flew through the air and smashed against the fallen log.
The nisse jumped in surprise. “Nei, takk!” he yelped as he skittered away from the dimming allure of milk.
A yell blasted the night air. The nisse covered his ears and ran. Big folk usually looked right past him, but tonight they were on the hunt.
More stones sailed by, and heavy feet shuddered the ground. The nisse darted from trunk to boulder to bush, following his instinct back to the hole in the ground.
By horrid bad luck the big people stayed on his trail. A stone clipped his arm. “I’m not a cat!” he shrieked in human speech. “Ikke en katt! Ikke en katt!” But the blundering ogres knew no Norwegian.
When his pursuers lagged behind, the nisse slowed to a walk, rubbing his injured arm. “Almost there,” he muttered. Then he whirled. Something was after him again. “By Odin’s big toe,” he swore, “Never will I come up this hole again.” He dove headfirst into the passage to the Otherworld.
Something else plunged into the hole right after him and bowled the nisse over. Something black and furry. “Brother Goblin,” the black cat begged. “Please take me with you!”
“Where I go,” the nisse said as he grabbed a root and hauled himself upright, ” the weather be cold and snowy.”
“Never mind that. A land without Hallowe’en, that’s worth a shiver or two.”
Ponderous footsteps rumbled overhead. The nisse waggled his bushy brow and stroked his beard. “Ya, sure, come along to a land of peace and quiet. I would not leave my worst enemy above-ground here, not on a night like this.”
Two stone-shy creatures trotted into the deep dark passage to beyond, spurning the land of witch-hunts, pumpkins, and Hallowe’en.
A short story, much longer than my usual flash fiction
PTCHIZA SWUNG A BRACE OF PHEASANTS as he loped home from the riverside meadows. His quiver thumped at his side, five arrows rattling their sharpened wooden tips.
His grandmother, sweeping the dirt in front of their small plank house, brightened at sight of her young hunter. “Ah, pheasants again! Nice plump ones, I see.”
“I saw some nice plump deer,” Ptchiza said. “Someday soon, I hope—” He shrugged and set aside the quiver.
“That bow and those arrows would just tickle the hide of a buck,” Grandmother said, turning for the house.
He nodded with a sigh.
“Which is why you need a man’s bow.” She reached inside and drew out a new, longer, stouter bow. “I’ve been working on it for a moon.” She beamed. “While you were out hunting every day.”
Ptchiza caught his breath. “Grandmother! I’ve never seen so fine a bow!” He strung it and drew it, taking all his strength.
“Well, I’ve never seen so fine a boy. You rise early every morning, sanctify yourself with a swim as I taught you, and traipse the woods and meadows all day long, just to feed this old woman. Here, arrows to make even a bear take note.”
Ptchiza sank to his haunches, stroking the straight shafts, pricking his finger on the sharp flint tips. “Grandmother!” was all he could say.
The next morning, Ptchiza greeted the sun with a heart overflowing with delight and gratitude. He swam to purify himself, then sat on the bank, combing his hair with the stick he had whittled last winter. He flipped his long strands, sending drops to sparkle in the sun’s low crystal rays, fanning his hair to dry the proper Kalapuya way.
The polished wooden hair-stick quivered in the boy’s grip, and a breathy sound broke the morning stillness. A voice. From the stick.
“Ptchiza!”
Ptchiza nearly dropped the stick. He held it out at arm’s length.
“Ptchiza,” it said again, sounding like branches rubbing in a breeze, “Do not fear me. I have seen your kind deeds, your care for your elder. I wish to help you. If you heed my words, you will become strong.”
The young man stared in awe at the talking stick. “My spirit guardian!” he said at last. “I am honored. Yes. I will heed your words.”
“Now you and I are one. Do not ever leave me. Wherever you go, take me with you, and you will be strong. Nothing will be too difficult for you.” That day Ptchiza shot his first buck.
They could have lazed around for days, feasting on that one deer. But Ptchiza went hunting every morning after his swim. He brought home buck after buck, and Grandmother labored all day long skinning and butchering his kills and setting meat strips to dry in the bright sunshine.
Ptchiza soon had to take a break from hunting to build another plank hut to store the dried venison. He did not slow, but hunted and hammered until five fine houses stood around their clearing, each one filled with dried meat.
“Are you planning a feast?” Grandmother joked. “Inviting all your aunts and uncles and cousins?”
“Where were they when you went hungry, trying to keep me sheltered and fed all these years? No, this food is for you.”
“Ah,” she said. “I see. When are you leaving?”
“My spirit guide says it is time for me to make a long journey.” Ptchiza took his Grandmother’s hands. “I leave you plenty of food. I will set out in the morning.”
Ptchiza followed the talking stick’s directions and walked until he came to the dwelling of the headman. Short, travel-worn and dirty, Ptchiza looked just a poor urchin. People curled the lip at him, but he gained a place tending the headman’s horses.
The boy wondered why people wore black feathers and hung black cloth in their doors. “We all mourn with the headman,” another young herder explained. “Each year he must give a daughter to the seven-headed serpent or it will devour everyone in the land. They go in the morning.”
“Give her – to be eaten?”
The herder nodded. Ptchiza shook his head. “That is not right,” he murmured. His talking stick quivered agreement.
In the morning, Ptchiza saw a small wagon drawn up near the headman’s dwelling. Two black horses stood in the harness. People gathered, singing a lament. The headman emerged, leading his daughter who looked much too young and fair to meet such a fate.
When the girl climbed into the wagon, everyone else mounted and they all set out along the trail.
As Ptchiza watched them leave, the talking stick quivered in his grasp. He held it up.
“We will change,” the stick whispered. It leaped from his hand and before his eyes, turned into a bay horse. The boy felt himself surge to man’s height, felt his muscles thicken and sinews stretch.
The bay reared and kicked, and a long knife fell at Ptchiza’s feet. He picked it up, mounted the horse, and clung tight with his longer, stronger legs as they set off at a gallop.
Before long Ptchiza saw the troop on the trail ahead. Soon he came trotting alongside many of the people on horseback, but he passed like a shadow and they paid him no heed.
When he came up to the wagon, Ptchiza made a snatching motion in the air and whoosh! the headman’s daughter flew up to sit behind him. She gasped and grabbed his waist to steady herself, but made no protest as the bay horse sped up.
They galloped past the rest of the troop, past the headman himself, but he didn’t notice. They flew along like mist blowing in from the sea.
Ptchiza and the maiden rode to the lake where the serpent dwelled. It had already writhed its way up the bank, and now reared to loom over them, all seven heads cocking and weaving and testing the air with tongues.
The maiden gasped and gripped tighter as the bay horse leaped to the attack, kicking and biting. Ptchiza slashed with the long knife, beating the snouts away. He cut off one of the beast’s heads, and then another.
The serpent curled away, hissing, “Enough! Enough for today. Come back tomorrow and continue our battle, if you dare, and fight me again – or I will devour everyone in the land.” It slithered down the shore, plunged into the water, and disappeared.
Ptchiza loosened the maiden’s grip and dismounted. He kicked at one of the two monstrous heads, rolling it over. The eyes looked like agates, the teeth, like ribs. The tongue dragged in the dirt.
He bent and cut the tongue out, then did the same with the other head, and turned back to the bay horse.
“You’ve saved me – for today.” The maiden held out a trembling hand. “Take these with my thanks.”
Ptchiza took her fine doeskin pouch and her ring. He tucked the tongues into the pouch and the ring on his finger, then leaped up onto the bay. They rode away from the lake, saying little.
Soon they came to the headman’s company. The headman didn’t seem to notice his daughter wasn’t in the wagon, and didn’t seem to see them riding up.
Ptchiza flicked his hand – and the girl tumbled right into the wagon. She drew herself up and watched Ptchiza trot away.
“Let’s go home!” she cried to her father. “Let’s face the serpent tomorrow, oh please!”
The headman now stared after Ptchiza. “Who was that? Were you with him? I don’t know what I saw!”
“I don’t know either,” she answered. Her wondering gaze followed the bay horse and its rider.
The second day went like the first, though this time the talking stick turned itself into a chestnut horse. Ptchiza snatched the maiden from the wagon. At the lake they fought the serpent, and cut off another two heads. The beast hissed its challenge to return the following day, and vanished into the lake. Ptchiza cut off two more tongues and slid them into the doeskin pouch.
The third day, the talking stick became a black horse, and Ptchiza cut off one head, retrieving its tongue. And again on the fourth day.
The fifth day, only one head remained to the serpent. Its neck was stronger than the other six, and the monster fought long and hard. The maiden nearly slid from the back of the stamping, plunging, kicking horse.
Ptchiza swung his knife, nicking or missing on nearly every blow. His arm grew heavy, and his legs ached from gripping the flanks of the furious horse. At last his knife struck true. The blade sank deep into flesh and sinew and bone – and the last head thudded to the ground.
The young warrior slid to the ground, legs trembling with weariness. He slashed the tongue from his foe and tucked it into the pouch. He could hardly draw himself back up onto the staggering horse. They turned one last time away from the lake.
“Something you must do,” Ptchiza told the maiden. “Tell your father to burn the snake. Be sure not to forget it!”
“I will do so,” she said, then with lowered voice added, “Who are you?”
He gave one short laugh. “You don’t really want to know.”
This time, after the maiden slid back into the wagon and Ptchiza started riding away, the girl hissed to her father, “Turn the horses around quickly! Let’s follow him to see who he is. He has saved me. He has saved us all!”
The headman whipped up the horses and chased after Ptchiza, but the young warrior slipped away like a shadow. And like a vague and shifting shadow, he had been recognized by no one. He went back to tending the headman’s herds.
The next day the headman gave orders for all the people to assemble. “The hero must be among us. I want to find out who he is!”
“So do I,” said his daughter. “But Father, I almost forgot. He said you must burn the snake. It’s important!”
The headman sent a band of men to carry wagon-loads of firewood to the battle site and burn the corpse. The flames and smoke from that burning reached high in the sky. Ptchiza saw the pillar of smoke from the field where he watched the headman’s horses. The talking stick thrummed in his hand. Never again would such a monster haunt the land.
Five men returned before the others, joining the rest of the folk assembling at the headman’s command. They brought the seven severed heads. “We were the ones to kill the serpent!” they boasted. “See? Look at our trophies!”
“Truly?” asked the headman. “If you did, then one of you brave men may marry my daughter.”
The maiden straightened, tall and proud. “Can you prove it?” she challenged. “I gave my hero my doeskin pouch and my ring. Well? Which of you has it?”
They each produced a pouch and a ring, but to each one she answered, “This isn’t my pouch. This isn’t my ring. You lie!”
By this time, everyone had gathered. The headman stood upon a stump and shouted for all to hear. “One by one, you each approach. Even the children. Come up to the serpent’s heads and tell what you know about the monster. A word, a phrase, whatever, but speak, and then we will know. The warrior who conquered this terrible beast will be shown.”
Each person approached. Each uttered a word, a comment – but no one knew more than anyone else.
“This can’t be,” growled the headman. “Is this everyone? Who hasn’t come? I commanded everyone to come forth!”
“There’s a herding boy still out in the field,” someone said.
“That wretched little beggar?” another asked. “That runt can’t be the hero.”
“Bring him,” ordered the headman.
Out in the field, the talking stick quivered in Ptchiza’s hand. “Now they’re coming for you,” it said. “Don’t go yet. I need time to tell you what to do.”
Messengers arrived, summoning Ptchiza.
He shook his head. “I will not go, not right now.”
The men grumbled but left.
“Soon after you reach the headman’s house,” the talking stick said, “he will order you to talk about the serpent’s heads. Say at first that you don’t know anything about it, but when he keeps asking, say something about the tongues.”
Ptchiza patted the maiden’s doeskin pouch, lumpy with five grisly trophies. He slid the talking stick into his own pouch just as the messengers returned.
“The headman says you must come whether you want to or not,” they snapped. “If you won’t come along meek and mild, we’ll drag you!”
“You don’t need to bother,” Ptchiza said. “You lead the way. I’ll follow along, no trouble.”
People sniffed in disdain as the ragged herdboy was led to the headman’s dwelling. The headman looked him up and down, huffed in disgust, and said, “Everybody else has told what little they know. Now your turn. Tell whatever you know about these heads.”
Ptchiza hunched as if nervous. “I don’t know much at all.”
“Go ahead and tell it anyway.”
“It’s really nothing—”
“I order you to speak!”
“Well, then, I suppose—” Ptchiza shifted, and turned his glance to the heads. “Every head that I’ve ever seen has a tongue.”
“Yes, so?”
“Even serpents, right?”
“Certainly serpents.”
“Even monster serpents?”
The headman squinted at Ptchiza. “What are you playing at?”
The boy just stared at the closest skull.
The headman grumbled, then grabbed it and yanked the jaw open. The head, of course, had no tongue.
Ptchiza took out the doeskin pouch and dumped its contents onto the table.
The maiden gasped and scurried forward from the corner. “That is my pouch! And my ring!” – for he had tossed it down as well. She took his arms, reached up, and kissed him.
“How can this be?” growled the headman. “A filthy, ragged runt like you!”
“Give me a room to myself,” Ptchiza said.
After a long moment glaring, the headman nodded to one of his men, who took the boy aside. In privacy, Ptchiza took out the talking stick and held it in both hands. Once again he felt the change come over him, the stretching, the swelling, the towering height. His buckskin shirt and leggings enlarged with him, no longer patched and dirty but fine as his Grandmother’s best handiwork.
Ptchiza strode back into the headman’s company. Everyone stepped back and stared.
“So it was you after all,” the headman said. He beckoned his daughter. “She will be your wife, if it pleases her.”
All eyes turned to the maiden. She smiled. “It pleases me.”
And so they wed. And they danced. And they feasted.
The five men who had lied? They were thrown in the strong house. Maybe they are in there still.
French tradersbrought this Petit Jean (“puh-tee zhahn”) tale from Provençal, France, spreading it across North America during their travels. On the west coast, one tribe that adopted the tale morphed the hero’s name from “Petit Jean” into “Ptchiza.”
Hindsight 