as recounted by Benjazet Johnson, eshu herald of the Barony of Ben Bison Brugh
When I was young, before the Shining Ones returned, there was
no Baywood... There was the Tangleroot Wood, and folks avoided it, mostly. It was wild
country, and aside for a few farms around Galax town, not much there to bother with.
Well, back when I was still a youngster, government men made the WPA. Works Projects Administration,
and they put the Blue Ridge Parkway through, to give the people jobs. I helped.
That's when I first saw the Tangleroot Woods myself, although old Widder Bramble... Have you met
Old Mother Bramble? She knows more than I do, but she's particular.... Old Mother Bramble
had told me it was wild with haints - by which she means the things most of us are lucky
to meet only in sleep after eating too much. She's Melungeon, and a boggan, and from
around Wytheville, I think... that's in Nunnehi territory now, but being Melungeon, she passes.
Anyhow, I saw it for myself, building the WPA parkway back then... And it
was hainted. So we avoided it. Nothing came up on Buffalo Mountain, we being on the Silver Path and all, and I didn't give Tangleroot Wood much thought everafter, except when some trapper
asked for hunting rights there, and then I told him he was welcome to them.... Was it always dangerous?
well, not always, but that's a-gettin' ahead of my tale...
Now, it was after I'd gotten my discharge from Korea with this plate in my head that I was running things here. And I had to give that up after the War. Trappers mostly didn't come back. Some did.
The furry part of a horripiliant makes a fine fur, and the scaley part makes leather. Had a fine pair or horripiliant boots, 'til I wore them out... But we're talking about history, not habersashery, so I'll be moving along with my tale....Where was I?
Oh, yes... the War. Well, you'll pardon if I gloss over that bit, seeing as you are both heighty folks yourselves, I'll just stick to essentials. While Barabas of Eiluned was taking the coast, we didn't much notice... Trods had opened. New trods! And a one of them was right along the path of that same self WPA road as I had helped build as a youngster. We were very excited to have a trod hereabout, not having had but a scrap of one on the Mountain afore that.
We were none too happy to have a bunch of Gentlefolk ride up it in gear of war, and there was trouble, and in the end I bowed to the fealty of Malcolm Mac Dougal, but we still didn't give him the Mountain. It
was he who built a freehold in Baywood, and made the haints scarce. We prefered that to him making us
scarce, you see, and helped. There were more fae here then, and we were younger mostly except for Miz Bramble ... You'll remember I mentioned the good Widder Bramble... and Old Mother Bramble had always been old, leastawise as well as we remember.
So, Dougal made the Baywood safe, and it stayed that way for a while. But his enchantments
were all tied to his Hearth-stone. Now Dougal went questing and never came back, and his steward, Brickie... You know Elmer Brickie, he keeps the Pine Tavern Lodge out in Floyd... had the care of it, for a time. But then came Count Vathek, bad man he was, and he was no lord save in name and arrogance.
He set his pennon over Baywood, then gave that to his man, Tybalt ap Eiluned, to hold the south end of his County. I don't think you'll have met old Tybalt, he went questing before Brickie was made Lord Mayor. His sister Quave is still with us, and she was part of the trouble.Tybalt brought Glamour to Baywood. He loved music and the old country dances.
His sister called him a Philistine, and squandered all he stored up. So even when it was thriving, Baywood was short of Glamour, between Quave needing half-a-dozen enchanted serving maids - none of us would serve her without trying to poison her tea, you see, and she knew it... And then Count Vathek levied a terrible tithe of Glamour over all his vassals to make a hunting lodge - that's where Brickie wound up.
Well, Vathek took too much from Baywood, and the freehold fire went out. And when the fire
went out, the Hearth-stone cracked, and old Lord Malcolm's cantrips went with it. Vathek got himself killed trying to settle a river-dragon, Miz Rosie, who was a newcomer and an outlander, wound up with the County. Tybalt and Quave got Count Vathek's freehold of Fair Oaks, and Quave is there still.
'Bout then, a lot of mills were closed down near Galax, and folks moved away, or at any rate, stopped having the Friday night jamborees, which Tybalt started up at Cochrane's Store in Floyd instead. No one realized that Baywood was in danger, much, because we common folk thought the trouble had been fixed, and the noble folks didn't know there had been
one.
And since there was no freehold, and no one around there, no one noticed the wild portals until, oh, a few years ago.: And now there's no Baywood Hold to keep things safe, and too few of us to lark around in the woods hunting horripiliants and bandersnatches and such. In any case, as fine as a horripiliant's pelt is, they're tough to kill, and there's never been nothing worth having off a bandersnatch....
At a guess, I'd say it's Lord Clay who opened the gates as much as they've been opened. But since no one has seen Clay in years, or knows where his freehold is, except to the west of Baywood somewhere, there's no telling.
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