The Story and the Drawing

To see the Korrigan's story online in an MSWord-generated web page (complete with fun fonts and possibly even a couple extra clues), click here.

To download a DOC file of the story, right-click here and choose, "Save".

To download an RTF (Rich Text) file of the story, right-click here and choose, "Save".

Here is our korrigan in his sketch (click him for a larger image), and the text of the story is found below, in straight-text (non-embellished with fancy fonts) form.

Pfeifenigma 1 – The Korrigan’s Riddle

The boy went walking under the Breton moon.  His mother forbade him, telling stories of wicked goblins and worse, but when the silver light slipped into his room and slid across his blankets like the tide, he was gone out the window.  Outside, the night was cold and the wind blew silently, yet bit at the corners of his eyes and froze each breath in his throat.  All around him lay the barren moor, miles upon miles of empty marshland marked only by dark standing stones and the occasional curl of chimney smoke from lonely cottages.

At the third dolmen, the korrigan was waiting.  It crouched on the rock, a squat reptilian panther of green and black, archaic armor reflecting none of the full moon.  “Where are you going, little Jack Hare?” it snickered.

 “I’m ‘a walking on the moor,” said the boy, a little afraid.

“I know your father, boy,” it whispered, hopping down off of the stone to the path.  It eyed the boy, its long talons flexing and digging into the soft earth.  “Long ago, he and I made a deal, we told a tale, and we matched wits and rhymes under this same moon.  He won a pipe from me, most fair, and now’s the second part of our parlay.  You’ve but to guess my name, boy, and you’ll win your father a pretty treat, a tamper to match his pipe.  Guess wrong, and he’ll lose a thing he cherishes more than baubles.”  The korrigan cackled low in its throat, a sound like a piglet run mad.

  “Riddle my name for your father’s sake.  Riddle it not, and one dark night it’ll be I creep-creeping into your house, claws tap-tapping by your headboard, watching you in your dreaming sleep.”

 “Mine is a name of meaning, with letters first of fantasy, nothingness, the end of you, and the beginning of all ravages.  With pipe and drawing, you’ll find my start if you mind your curves and cast your eyes to where the smoke is tasted.  Among these letters it lies!”

 And with that, the korrigan hooked a claw into the earth and drew this:

The boy stepped backwards, afraid, hearing the calls of the night creatures all round, and the korrigan laughed again.  A little laugh…  Short, cruel, hard, and full of nastiness, the laugh of a thing that spent its days living under the shadows of porches, under flooring, under beds with long fingers just at the edges.

 “It would take you half a century’s count to know my second letter.
Clever, clever boy, can you prove you’re better?”

 “Third stands the first of the first of all,
Children of Sun, o’er earth they sprawl.”

 “I end with the secret that korrigans hold,
what the Roar King lacks, past all of his gold.”

 “Solve my name, boy, lest your covers be no shelter, and some dark night you’ll feel the tickle of my fingernails ‘gainst your tender feet under all your piled blankets!”

 The boy turned and ran, white, terrified, and the korrigan’s greedy laughter carried over the moors with him all the way home.