The Wisps of the Fen

Day 14 of the 30 Days of Fantasy

Auld Mairi sits at the edge of the village, eyes fixed on the tree line of the wooded fens where the mist never lifts. The lights have returned flickering over the water like lanterns beckoning to children and the unwise. But everyone in the village knows Auld Mairi’s stories about The Wisps of the Fen.

They shimmer where the cattails grow
In marshes thick with fog and peat,
With laughter soft and lantern glow,
They drift on air where dark paths meet.

They dance like stars on twilight’s breath,
So fair, so small, so quick to flee,
Yet many a soul has met their death
While chasing lights they thought were free.

The stories say they’re spirits lost,
Of sailors drowned or children gone,
Who paid the woods a crueler cost
For treading paths they lingered on.

Or fae folk, wild with trickster glee,
That weave delight in doom’s disguise,
They’ll lead you far where none can see
And vanish just as day shall rise.

But hush, if ever one draws near,
And beckons with its glowing call,
You must not follow, though it’s clear
It means no harm, no threat at all.

For though it hums a haunting tune,
And lights a trail so sweetly spun,
That path may end beneath the moon
Where fens are deep and breath is none.

So leave them to the wood or fen,
Those little ghosts of wind and flame.
They do not wish to trap you, yet
They never learned another game.

And though the woods blink back watching, they find no welcome, no wandering soul to tempt beneath Mairi’s watchful gaze. So the wisps slip away to blacker fens, where no elder waits and no stories hold.

~by Heather Patton / The Verdant Butterfly

30 Days of Fantasy — A Writing Challenge for the Wonder-Hungry

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