Mother Skeleton

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Introduction

This frightening tale from the far north is told often by travelers. It is believed that the story came from true events following a severe case of Flinthora, a mental disease that causes the victim to hunger for uncooked flesh and skin.

Mother Skeleton

In the Lands of Ice, far away, there was a family that lived all alone. There was a mother, a father, and two children, Hara and Gint. One winter, the ice and snow was so bad that they could not go out to hunt. As they all began to starve, the husband said to his wife, "There is no need for all of us to die. If I know that my family is well, I may go peacefully on. I will kill myself that you may eat."

And so the father went outside into the snow, laid down in a drift, and went to sleep. He died, and the mother prepared his flesh. The children were horrified and refused to eat, but the mother consumed her husband for some time, leaving the last of the bread to the children. In the beginning, she fully cooked his flesh, but as time went by she began to eat him raw. When the last of her husband was consumed, a time passed, and the family was near-starvation again. The mother turned to her children and said, "There is no need for all of us to starve. But you cannot take care of yourselves, and so one of you must give yourself up so that your sibling and I might live."

The children were both frightened, for neither wished to die, and so they fled into the night. As they raced through the snow, they would often look behind them, and every time they did they could see their wicked mother pursuing them. Gradually, the distance got further and further away until they could no longer see their mother. Each night they would stop and rest in caves or abandoned houses. They would drink melted snow, but ate nothing. Some days later, they arrived at a home with people inside. Gint looked at Hara and said, "Let us go inside. Surely they will have pity on children like us."

And so they entered the house, where the family inside gave them food and warm beds. The family was very wealthy, and so they had much food to share. Soon the children were no longer starving, but very healthy. When they were well, they and the other children went out to play in the snow, for it was beginning to melt and become warm.

Hara and Gint happened to wander from the others, and were wandering the nearby woods. In the stillness of the wood, they began to hear the noise of footsteps. Thinking it to be from their new family, they went toward the noise. But as they came around a tree, a skeleton jumped out at them. It was covered in strands of meat and flesh, and its teeth were sharpened points. "My children," the skeleton cried,"I have found you at last! See how I have resorted to consuming myself to live? You look so very well, and I have become so thin, surely you will give yourselves up for your poor mother!"

The children were terrified and fled to the safety of their home. They told the family what had happened, but they believed that the children were exhausted from their play after being inside so long. But the next morning, they heard that in the nearby village, two children had been stripped of flesh in the night.

The family now believed the children, but did not know what to do. So they asked their clever grandfather how to solve the problem. He gave them wise advice, and so they did as he said.

The next night, they sent the children out to the woods again with a torch. They were out for a long time, and at first they believed their skeletal mother would not return, but she finally appeared, though more flesh filled her frame. "My children," she said,"see how I become whole as I consume? Please, you must see that only your flesh of my flesh can make me whole again!"

The skeleton took a leap at the children, who gave a yell. Suddenly, the family rushed in with torches and spells to light the bones aflame. The skeleton, wreathed in flame, ran screeching into the night.

While the family and children never saw the skeleton mother again, rumors came to them now and again of children dying mysteriously, and so they wondered. The family warned their friends, and so the story still persists. Perhaps the mother still seeks to make herself whole again. It is said that in the night, out in snow-drifted woods, you can hear her muffled footsteps, and a whisper said through a lipless mouth, "my children..."