Jackalope Wives, a story by Ursula Vernon

[frogmarch]

http://www.apex-magazine.com/jackalope-wives/ At the link is a podcast link if you want to hear it read.

I happened onto to it today and loved it. It reminded me of selkies, the mythical beings from Irish and Scottish folklore who are half human and half seal.

Excerpt:

The moon came up and the sun went down. The moonbeams went shattering down to the ground and the jackalope wives took off their skins and danced.

They danced like young deer pawing the ground, they danced like devils let out of hell for the evening. They swung their hips and pranced and drank their fill of cactus–fruit wine.

They were shy creatures, the jackalope wives, though there was nothing shy about the way they danced. You could go your whole life and see no more of them than the flash of a tail vanishing around the backside of a boulder. If you were lucky, you might catch a whole line of them outlined against the sky, on the top of a bluff, the shadow of horns rising off their brows.

And on the half–moon, when new and full were balanced across the saguaro’s thorns, they’d come down to the desert and dance.

The young men used to get together and whisper, saying they were gonna catch them a jackalope wife. They’d lay belly down at the edge of the bluff and look down on the fire and the dancing shapes — and they’d go away aching, for all the good it did them.

The story might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it enchanting.

[panader0]

1. I've got lots of jackalopes around here.

[frogmarch]

2. Me too, but

I left most of them back in Wyoming when I moved to Nebraska.

[Wolf Frankula]

3. And Here's a Group of Basselopes

Be careful around basselopes. You could get slurped.

Wolf

[frogmarch]

4. :-)

I want one. At least one.

[hunter]

5. Excellent!

Thank you for posting this.

[Dont call me Shirley]

6. Shopping at the local Jackalope is always fun.

[NV Whino]

7. That's nice

Very lyrical.