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The Myth of Agni Boggarts

Act 1

The perilous marshlands, heaths, and moors of England. Here the Baltic bog-moss flourishes in the wetlands. A beautiful multi-coloured living carpet of sphagnum covers the area and provides essential nutrients that help prevent the decay of dead plant-material (and humans) throughout history.

In the marshes the Agni Boggarts rule their territory. Supernatural creatures that inhabit the land beyond the town’s boundary. Villagers tell stories of bird like shapes in the mist that at a second glance become rocks, clumps of vegetation or vanish completely. Witnesses describe them as human-sized, invisible, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. One man tells his tale of a boggart who is half human, half heron.  

A two headed lamb is born in your home.

Act 2

This night, something stirs you from your bed and you leave your house to look across the marshland.

You do not heed the warnings to travel only in daylight. You ignore cautionary advice that you must stray no further than the ring of rocks at the periphery of the marsh.

You are lost on the marshes in the darkness of a night that is unlit by the New Moon. You see a distant, shimmering flame and instinctively move towards the light. Perhaps, this is a dwelling, a place to rest and to gather your thoughts.

But here the Agni Boggarts hide. They lay in wait. The firelight you see is an illusion. A strange gas that rises from the marshlands and tricks the eye into believing you are close to fellow humans, shelter, and safety.

On this night you vanish.  

Act 3

The villagers’ frantic search for you is hopeless. The rescue dogs pick up a feint scent of you but refuse to cross the border between the town and the marshlands. The villagers are silently relieved.

Your family - who have been hiding the two headed lamb - tell the other villagers about its birth and your subsequent disappearance. The lamb is pulled from your home bleating and the villagers drown the creature in the marshes.

Beyond the boundary that separates the humans from the Agni Boggarts - a heron takes flight.

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Gayab

Marsh mist cloaks sunken danger

Flames flicker in the far reaches

Tempting travellers towards lost not found.

In the murk your eye follows rising smoke

dissolving in mid-air as you approach.

A cackling Agni Boggart grips you in their hand

Feel your feet, an anchored ship tethering to land.

Drawing you in with false idols of fire

Drowning you whole in a flooded pyre.

Trapped inside the creep of spongy marshes

Sphagnum lays his gaudy carpet over you.  

An eerie fallow land fruiting bodies

Preserving you in hidden perpetuity

Supplanting your blood with its mud.

K Moss. 24 Apr. 22

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