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Storyteller's Cabin |
Around midnight that very evening, Emmet rolled over in bed and found that his wife was gone. He did what his friend told him to do - he got up, went to the closet, and found his wife's skin hanging there, cold and slimy to his touch like a lizard's skin. He filled it with salt and pepper, hung it back in the closet, then went back to bed and waited for his wife to return.
Sure enough, as the sun was about to rise that morning, the door opened, and in walked his skinless wife. She opened the closet door, took her skin off the hook and spoke to it in a gravelly, witch-like hiss:
"I done been out and had my fun,
But I'm back now, and my work's all done.
So let me in, skin, for the sun's about to crest,
You knows I'm a boo-hag, and I needs my rest."
She then stepped into her skin and fastened it around her body. But after a while, that salt and pepper started to itch and burn her real bad. She tried to yank the skin off, but the more she tried, the tighter the skin pressed against her body. She screamed and hollered and jumped around the room, her skin burning her alive.
With that, Emmet leapt out of bed and said, "I got you now, you ol' boo-hag witch! You fooled me and tricked me into marrying you. So now I'm gonna kill you. Ain't nothin' else can be done!"
With that, he shoved the boo-hag into a large barrel of tar he had cooking on the hearth. And that boo-hag burned and melted, her screams filling the air for miles and miles.
After the boo-hag was dead, Emmet, being the handyman that he was, knew exactly what to do with that hot barrel of tar. As the sun rose that morning, he took that tar up to the top of his house, and poured himself a brand new roof.
So, all of you nice, hard working, fine-looking young men out there - the next time your eye is caught by a beautiful young girl, you'd better get to know her before you marry her. Because, one day, you, too, may wake up late in the midnight hour, roll over in bed, and find yourself sleeping next to a boo-hag!
To find out where this story came from, visit the cultural background page.
