The First Wanderer at Foxglove Cottage

The teller of tales, myths and legends - passed down to him by the ancestors - had finally found the land of the fox. The legend of Foxglove Cottage was the most requested, yet he had never truly researched it. But with the help of an older teller of tales, he was here to learn the truth. The old women had told him to go to the land of the cornfields and to find the only field with fox gloves in it, and there he would find the tale of the fox.

He sat on the fence and waited and watched as a wander came into sight, walked onto a barren patch of land, and surveyed it with an eye to the future. He then set about marking the boundary of the land, and while he did so, he dreamt of the cottage he was to build and the life he would lead with his wife and the children they dreamt of having. The man saw in his mind the foxgloves he would plant, a new variety of flowers that had been created by a master gardener only five years before. They were always created a few years before the fox was due to awake; this had been played out so many times before. The next day he planted a white picket fence around the edge of the land, which he then painted a fiery orange with black tips. He did not know why he had chosen that combination, but it looked and felt so right as if it had been destined.

The cottage took shape with bygone windows and a thatched roof; he was puzzled why he had called the windows bygone after all; they were the new and upcoming style for the younger generation. He shrugged and pushed the uneasy feeling of death to the back of his mind. He tilled the ground next for vegetables and the all-important foxgloves; he then went to fetch his wife.

As the man had worked, the fox stirred; he remembered dying – or had he been killed - he could not remember which. His soul had waited patiently for this day as it had so many times before. The fox yawned and snarled his way awake then, after a groom, he made his way to the surface and surveyed what had been done to his land. The fence was a good touch and an acknowledgement that here he was king and would never be defeated.

He waited for the man and his wife to come home and salivated at the thought of feeding off their souls. Once they were asleep, he went for their throats and, with one bite, killed them. They followed him to the land of death, and there with his words of love spoken over him, they entwined and tenderly made love. The child was born in the land of death and was cared for by her parents until it was time for her to enter the land of the living as many had done before her. Her parents became the first of many foxgloves in the field, and nothing but foxgloves would grow there again.

The fire that burnt the cottage to dust was called inhuman, and no one ever lived there again; the land was condemend as unclean and evil. The fox had reclaimed his kingdom and went hunting for souls to feed off once more.

The man sat on the fence and wrote down all he had seen; he desired more, so he returned the next day to see what other horrors would unfold.