These Our Monsters Read online

  Godwin was resting, evening was coming down, when a hare appeared before him. I don’t suppose he paid it very much attention until it began to circle him. Clockwise it went, according to the records. It circled him continually, watching him always from its side-on eyes. Perhaps the moon was rising. The hare continued circling the shepherd, but now it began to stamp its hind legs as it did so. Its speed seemed to increase with every circle it made around him, the stamping got faster. The hare appeared to be dancing in a circle around the shepherd, who sat, barely breathing, simply watching. And then the moon was high and the hare was gone and John Godwin was hurrying back across the plains of grass to Imber, to tell his neighbours what he had seen. Godwin’s wife had died earlier that year; his one daughter just two years before her. As he moved over the plains in the brightening moon, his heart felt somehow lightened for the first time in years.

  This is what I see.

  What we don’t know is whether John Godwin was the first to see the dancing hare of the plain, or whether he was merely the first to record it. I favour the latter theory. I believe the hare’s dance is very much older than any records we have access to. I believe it may date, even, to the times when the henge was in use. Can the henge’s proximity to the site be coincidence? It could, but I doubt it. The whole plain is a great magical landscape, perhaps the pre-eminent one in these islands. I have no evidence upon which to base this theory. All I have is a hunch.

  now with flames rising

  sound of the circle rising

  moon rising

  I step to the fire

  raise the anointed one in my arms

  ears down, eyes wide

  power in her stillness

  Become! I say again

  I offer her body to the flames

  From the fourteenth century onward it is possible to track the dancing hare right up to the present. In parish records, in newspaper reports, in stories passed down through families, claims are made by those who have seen, or believe they have seen, her dancing up high when the moon is full. From the middle of the twentieth century the reports decline – partly, I suspect, for fear of appearing superstitious, partly due to the decline of rural culture and partly because the Army’s colonisation of the plain made her territory inaccessible to the unarmed. Still, in the late 1960s a local newspaper gives us the tale of another farmer, out in his fields one full moon night, who met with the hare and witnessed the same dance that John Godwin had witnessed six hundred years before. This farmer, it seems, had also recently lost his wife.

  I may as well say what I think at this point. I may as well lay out my theory about this dancing hare, drawn from my years of research. As I say, nothing can be proven. I speak about this to few people, and not only because I speak to few people about anything. But I believe that the hare appears to the grieving, to the worthy, to the lost in soul and body. I believe it comes when it is needed. I believe its dance is an offering, as old as time. In some way, I know this. In some way, in some way, I have seen it before.

  Do not ask me to explain anything.

  the hare does not draw back

  the music of the circle grows louder

  the flames are high

  the stones dance

  the hare kicks in my arms

  its back legs thump into my breast

  it leaps in to the fire

  There is a rather wonderful twelfth-century poem, apparently from Shropshire, which appears to function as a hare charm. If a hunter, upon encountering a hare, is to have any luck capturing him, instructs the poem, he must lay upon the ground with his weapon in his hand, and utter the following seventy-seven names for the animal. Thus will the hare’s strength be ‘put down’, enabling him to be captured.

  The poem is in Middle English, and the names of the hare, most of them insulting, are captivating in this older version of our language. Scotewine, babbart, wodecat, westlokere, wint-swifft, wortcroppere, gobigrounde, deuhoppere. The modern English version is equally entertaining. Old big bum, fellow in the dew, cat of the wood, hedge frisker, swift-as-wind, squatter in the hedge, covenant breaker, stag with the leathery horns. Old Goibert is my particular favourite. I have no notion of the origin of this word, nor its precise meaning, but it is rather beautiful. Old Goibert. It sounds like an invocation.

  One name missing is that given to us by Bede four centuries before: the name of a supposed Anglo-Saxon goddess whose memory lingers in the modern Easter, and which is regularly ritually abused by hordes of ridiculous modern so-called Druids and Pagans wandering about on the downs, polluting the circles and barrows with their incense sticks and magic crystals. I suppose I should be more charitable to these people. They are lost like everyone else. At least it gets them out of the house. But why is it necessary to dress up like vampires?

  In Temporum Ratione, Bede tells us that April was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Eosturmonath, for this reason:

  Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘Paschal month’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month.

  Hence the modern Easter. But this supposed goddess, Eostre, appears in no other source. Why not? Bede is unlikely to have invented her. Perhaps she was a localised deity. There are other such in Bede’s writings – Erce, for example, possibly a goddess of the Earth, who is found nowhere outside his work. Bede is good at rooting out old pagan customs, I think. He is fascinated by them, even as he seeks to bury them with his own religion. If Eostre ever existed, Bede would find her.

  As for the hare – well, moon goddesses, Earth goddesses, hare goddesses are often tied up together. Eostre’s month is the time when hares mate, box, leap in the fields. The Easter Bunny is a memory of the old hare goddess, shrunk down to fit the withered glare of modernity, tied up in ribbons for children. I can prove nothing. But several old English rural tales tell of hares being born from eggs. This may be because hares nest in fields, where ground-nesting birds laid their eggs before the coming of the tractors. Easter eggs, Easter rabbits. And then we hear of the one hare story that is common in old cultures all around the world: that the hare can transform at will into a woman; and a woman into a hare.

  Who is it that dances up there?

  at this, the fire flares and rises

  the circle draws back

  moon’s eye is now wide and full above us

  the flames cycle through colours

  orange to red

  purple

  white

  the fire is white and high

  we step back further

  in the flames now, a shape moves

  our music falls silent

  we wait

  The saddest story from Imber is that of Albert Nash. Albert was the village’s last blacksmith. From the old pictures it is possible to see how close-knit this village was. It is possible to see how little must have changed since the hare charm was written in Middle English. Scarcely more than a hundred and fifty people, living up on the high plain. A blacksmith, an inn, the old windmill. Granny Staples’ old shop. Jabez Early, maker of dew ponds. The Deans at Seagram’s farm. And Albert. When the villagers were ordered to evacuate, Albert was found weeping, it is said, over his anvil. Of all the people of Imber, he found it hardest to break his ties with the land his family had lived on since before any recorded memory.

  Albert lived less than six months after his exile. A strange thing happened. I can prove nothing. But it is said that his wife, Martha, awoke one night to find him dressed and pacing the bedroom. He wore his boots, as if he had been outside; they were wet with dew. The moon was full; I would place money on this, though I can prove nothing. Albert paced the boards, wideeyed. He had seen something, I think. He had been out, and seen something. Martha asked him what he was doing. Albert said only: I am going home.

  Martha persuaded him to undress and return to bed. When she awoke the next morning, she found Albert dead beside her.

  from the fire the
n she comes

  the White Lady

  she stands before us

  all in the circle fall to our knees

  flames white

  stones white

  moon white

  She stands before us

  none dare look at her face

  we bow our heads

  Hare-women are not always goddesses, of course, and they are not always benevolent. I know of no god or goddess who is always benevolent. But in any case, many of the old suspicions that surrounded the hare in British folk culture seem to come from her association with the witch. There is a variant on a single story which is found in dozens of places across these islands. A hunter is out with his dogs when they encounter a hare. The dogs give chase and manage to injure the animal, biting it on the leg or pulling off a piece of its fur, but the hare escapes. The next day the old woman of the village, long suspected of witchcraft, is nursing an injury in the same place the hare was bitten.

  There is the negative aspect of these small, isolated villages in one common tale. God protect the old woman who made too many enemies. Nobody can ever quite be trusted. I have learnt this in my long life. There is a darkness about this world. It is wiser to live alone. Stay silent, walk with your head down. Speak only when spoken to. That way, many of life’s arrows may miss you, if you are lucky.

  I cannot say I have really been lucky. But it was a long time ago. Most things were a long time ago now. This is one of the few benefits of advanced age.

  my head still lowered

  I stand as others kneel

  I speak

  White Lady, I say,

  bless us

  bless our people

  bless our land

  bless this sanctuary

  accept in exchange

  our offering

  there is silence

  and then there is movement

  a wind blows from the west

  we wait

  when we look up, She is gone

  I have been preparing for a long time. For all of these years, I suppose, I have been preparing. Since I first came across the story of the dancing hare, since my interest became what some might call an obsession. I would prefer to call it a preoccupation. I don’t know how many years it has been now. Does it matter?

  I have been looking for her before, of course. Casual trips at first, up on to the downs. Visits to Imber, when the public was allowed. But it’s no good just wandering about. There are calculations to be made. There is serious research to be done. She will not simply reveal herself to any casual passer-by. It has been necessary to track down and consult all the published tales and square them with the old maps, in order to effectively calculate where these events occurred. It has been necessary also, as far as has been possible, to align the stories with the dates, and even times, of the incidents. It has been complex and time-consuming. But time is something I have at my disposal, for now. And it has been enjoyable. I will miss it, I think.

  But it is done now. I have identified a relatively small area, between the henge and the village, where I believe the sightings to have occurred over a period of several centuries. They have all occurred, as best I can see, under a full March moon – the hare moon, to use its folk name – at dusk.

  It is a hare moon tonight.

  I am waiting for dusk now. Up here, it creeps in across the hills like some being. I have chosen a site within my prescribed area. A standing stone, long fallen on its side, on the long shoulder of the plain. The view to all sides is beautiful. Imber is hidden beneath the brow of the next hill. Skylarks call as dusk approaches.

  Date, time and place: I am as close, I believe, as anyone could ever be. But there is one variable I cannot control. She appears to those who need her. That much is certain. She offers something to them. It is clear enough from the tales that nobody expects or asks for what she brings. I suppose you could sit here through a hundred moons and never see a thing. She decides. She knows what you need.

  The moon is rising now above the plain. The night is purple.

  I am determined not to hunt. I am not a hunter. I did not bring binoculars, a camera, a notebook. None of that. I will sit on this stone with my hip flask, I will warm my body as the night grows cold.

  What will be will be.

  And then, suddenly, it is. I almost do not turn my head. It is impossible, really, that this should be anything more than a way to pass my time at this late stage in my life. Impossible that my games in the library and museum could come to anything.

  But there she sits. In front of me and to my left, perhaps twenty yards away. A hare.

  The evening is darkening as she begins to move to my right. She is a big one. The tips of her ears are coal black, her eyes saucer-like. She completes the first circle around me as I sit on the stone. I dare not move. She circles again. Faster this time. And again. Now her feet begin to thump on the ground. Her back feet push up, her rear end rises, now she rolls, as if somersaulting, faster, still faster, and now I can sit no longer, I raise myself up, I turn with her dance, I follow her as the night comes in and the moon brightens. The hare runs, faster still, faster than I have ever seen a hare run, she leaps, jumps, yes, she dances. She dances, and she keeps dancing as the night comes down and then she is dancing no longer, then she is standing before me and it is not a hare now.

  It is not a hare now.

  She approaches.

  I did not realise how heavy my heart was. I did not realise the weight I carried. All of these years. I had thought the weight was the world and everything in it, but it was the weight of my heart.

  It has been so heavy.

  She stands before me now. I dare not look. Somehow I find myself kneeling. The moon silvers the grass of the plain as if it were day beyond the veil.

  It is lighter now.

  It is much lighter now.

  The Hand

  Under

  the Stone

  Sarah Hall

  NOBODY BELIEVES YOU when you talk about the whispering. Oh, Monny, you are funny, they say, you’ve such an imagination. There’s a lot they don’t believe. Like when you say the river has very old creatures living in it, with great long jawbones and rainbow skin. You’ve seen them swim downstream between the weeds, not just during the fever when you had German measles, but other times. Or that one of your elbows, the one that got broken falling off the back of TJ’s bike, knows about rain: when it will rain, when it will stop raining. Twinge-twinge ache. Or that something in the garth near the Nissen hut, where TJ has his bonfires, is rotten and wrong and makes you feel ill.

  When you tell them about the tall stone whispering, they roll their eyes, or laugh, and won’t even play it as a game. Mum. Bethany and Florence. Even Aunty Ro, who has mermaid hair and smokes relaxing cigarettes, and who has taken you on a few trips round the county to see the other circles and henges, doesn’t believe. She smirks and nods. Wow, she says. Amazing. You’re very sensitive, Monny. Aunty Ro’s boyfriend Ed tuts and shakes his head. Not surprised this one’s starting to fray too. It’s ok. Sometimes it’s better to not know when something is true. People, including grown-ups, spend a lot of time pretending, to make life easier. TJ’s the only one who might have taken you seriously. He takes everything seriously. But you can’t tell him anything now.

  It isn’t a lie. If you walk round the circle twice, touching each stone and counting, and if it’s the same number both times, when you put your ear against the tallest, witchy looking one that stands to the side of the group, she whispers. You’re good at numbers. Your teacher, Mrs Callahan, always says so. Not so good at concentrating in assembly, eating your lunch, especially mince, or writing not mirror-way. A-C-I-N-O-M. You can go up to a thousand, no problem, more if you want, though it gets boring, like a road that goes on and on and on. The biggest number doesn’t exist anyway.

  In the circle, which is more like a big squashed egg, there are less than a hundred stones. You know who they are. Each stone is like a person. Each has b
umps, smooth bits, scrapes and chips; each has mountain-copied shapes, like the Castlerigg stones, flattopped, saddle-backed, peaky; each is booming over or is still upright, has beardy moss or sparkle crystals inside. You know them like you know your friends and relatives, all the people in the village.

  Apart from the farm and the Hall, yours is the closest house to the circle. The cottage belongs to the estate, where your dad used to work before he went, and your mum’s got a lifelong contract to rent it very cheap. Some kind of old tenant’s right that Ed says is rarer than hen’s teeth. Ed and Aunty Ro live in a bungalow on the Carleton estate in town. TJ has built his own home out of the metal Nissen hut in the garden. It’s got wooden extensions, an underground dugout entrance as well as the proper door, and it has a line off the cottage’s electricity supply. There were complaints when everyone realized he was actually living there, to your mum, then to the estate, then to the council. Ed says all the time that TJ’s hut looks like shantytown and is an eyesore. But it’s been a few years now, and people have got used to it.

  You can see the tall stone from your bedroom. The cottage radiators run on oil and the window streams with condensation, which is made of your breaths, in the mornings. When you’ve wiped it, you can see the top of her. And when the sky behind is stark blue, you can see the vee cut into the head of sandstone. She’s very, very old. In school, Mrs Callahan talked about the people who made the megaliths in Britain, thousands of years ago. She showed the class pictures of humans that were smaller, hairier, had axes, and lived in mossy huts quite like TJ’s. How they fetched the stones and built them and why and what they did there is a mystery, Mrs Callahan said. She showed you pictures of Rollright, Avebury and Stonehenge. Then the class talked about their magical stories, about kings and warriors, goblins and dancing ladies, which, when you think about your own village’s circle, seem truer somehow.

  The tall stone is warm, even in winter. When you put your hands on her she doesn’t feel chilly like the others. It’s as if she’s not quite gone out, like TJ’s bonfires the day after. She’s reddish and has spirals on one side. Mrs Callahan brought the class over from school to look and you were all supposed to make tracing paper rubs of the spiral patterns. That was upsetting, everyone touching her. You stood to the side and wouldn’t do it, even though Miss Cat, the teaching assistant, said, come on, Monica, join in.