Introduction:
I remember as I was growing up how my grandmother would tell us stories that she had heard growing up in North Carolina. It wasn't until I was older that I truly began to appreciate the history and the culture that these stories contained and preserved.
In the Appalachian Mountains, the oral story-telling tradition is as old as Sunday go-to-meeting, and just as treasured. Therefore, these stories shall be written here in the vernacular in which they were told in order to lend to you, the reader, a voice similar to the one in which I always heard these stories recounted.
Because of this, some of your favorite X-Men characters may seem to be a bit OOC, but I tried to keep them true to both the tale in which they are placed and their most identifiable of personal traits; i.e. those with foreign accents will adopt Appalachian accents for the sake of the story, but the characters will still be recognizable. Some, however, you will have to guess at their identity if I do not explicitly state their name, but I will give you hints in the text.
Enjoy!
A/N: My thanks to Richard Chase, who worked so hard collecting these stories and finally capturing them in words on paper so that others could also enjoy these wonderful tales.
Disclaimer: The X-Men are the property of Marvel, not me. If they were, Kitty and Peter would be married by now, just like they are in every single alternate future timeline.
A/N: This first story is a variation of "Whitebear Whittington," an Appalachian version of Beauty and the Beast. This one was always my favorite, and so it shall feature my favorite couple. Cheers
Sterling Rasputin
One time there was a man, name of Charles, who had three daughters. His wife was dead, and the three girls, they kept house for him. And one day he was fixin' to go to town, so he called his girls, asked 'em what did they want him to bring 'em. The oldest, her name was Jean, told him, says, "I want a silk dress the color of every bird in the sky."
The second girl, name of Anna Marie, said, "I want you to bring me a silk dress made out of every color in a rainbow."
The youngest 'un – she went by the name of Kitty – she didn't say anything. So directly he went and asked her didn't she want him to bring her something too. She studied a minute, says, "All I want is some cream-white roses. If you see a white rosebush anywhere you might break me a basketful."
Well, he took him a basket of eggs and got on his horse and went on to town. Got all his tradin' done and started back. Rode on, rode on, come to where there was a thick wilderness of a place, saw a big rosebush 'side the road, full of cream-white roses. So he got off his horse and broke off a few. Thought he heard something behind him, says:
"You break them and I'll break you!"
So he stopped, looked around, waited awhile and tried to see what it was spoke, didn't see anybody nor hear it again, so he broke off some more. Then he heard it real plain – sounded like it was back in the wilderness –
"You break them and I'll break you!"
He started to quit that time, but he still couldn't see anybody or anything, and the prettiest roses were still on the bush, so he reached out his hand to break them off – and that thing said:
"Give me what meets you
first at the gate,
you can break all you want
till your basket is full."
He thought a minute or two – and he knew that his old dog always came lopin' out in the road whenever he got in home. The old hound wasn't much good anyway – so he answered, says:
"Whatever meets me
first at the gate,
you can come take it
whenever you want."
Went ahead and broke white rosebuds till his basket was full. Got on his horse and rode on in home.
He kept lookin' for his dog to come out but the old hound was up under the house asleep and before he could whistle for it here came his youngest girl flyin' out the gate to meet him.
He hollered to her and motioned her to go back but she wasn't payin' him any mind, came right on. She took his basket and was a-carryin' on over how pretty the roses were. So she thanked him and went to helpin' him unload his saddlebags, and when they got to the house she saw he was lookin' troubled, says, "What's the matter, Daddy?" But he wouldn't tell her.
And he never came to the dinner table when the called him to supper, just sat there on the porch lookin' back down the holler. So the girls, they ate their supper, and it got dark directly and they lit the lamp. Sat there sewin' and talkin', and all at once they heard a voice out in the road –
"Send out my pay!"
Charles came in the house then, and told 'em what'n-all he had heard when he broke the roses. Then Jean she said to him, says, "Aw, just send out the dog. How could it know what met you first?"
So they called the dog and sicked him out toward the gate. He ran out barkin' and then they heard him come back a-howlin', scared to death, and he crawled way back under the floor and stayed there. Then they heard it again –
"Send out my pay!"
So Jean and Anna Marie said they wasn't afraid, said they'd go see what it was. Out they went, and directly there was a commotion at the gate and the two girls came tearin' back to the house so scared they couldn't speak. Then it hollered louder –
"Send out my pay!"
Then Kitty said, "I'll have to go, Daddy, but don't you worry; I'll come back some way or other."
So she gathered her up a few things in a budget and kissed her father and went on out to the gate. There stood a giant metal man, and as soon as he set his eyes on her, he was in love with her.
"I'll carry you up on my back," he told her. So he lifted her up on his back and he started off.
Kitty was cryin' so hard her nose bled and three drops of blood fell on the silver giant's back and stained it. They went on, went on, and 'way up in the night she made out how they went past a big white rosebush out in a thick wilderness. Came to a fine house out there and the silver giant stopped and set her down.
When she was set down she went on in the house. The metal giant came in behind her, says, "Light that lamp there on the table." So she lit the lamp, and when she turned back around there stood a good lookin' young man with raven-black hair and eyes bluer than the noonday sky. The minute she looked at him she thought the world of him. He said to her then, says, "This house and everything in it belongs to you now, and there's nothing here to hurt you."
Then he took the lamp and they went through all the rooms lookin' at all the fine things, and directly they came to a pretty bedroom and he told her, says, "Now I got a spell on me and I can't be a man but part of the time. From now on I can be a man of a night and stay with you here and be a giant of a day, or I can be a giant of a night and be a man of a day. Which had you rather I be?"
So Kitty thought about it and she didn't like the idea of a cold metal body layin' next to her in bed of a night so she told him she'd rather he'd be a man of a night. So that was the way it was. He was a metal giant in the daytime and worked around outside or painted while she kept house, and when dark came he'd be a man. He kept plenty of wood and water in the house and they'd talk together and he was good company.
So they kept on and she lived happy even if her husband did have to be a metal man half the time. He told her how it was he'd been witched, said he'd get out of it someday but he didn't know just how it would be. And after three or four years Kitty had three little babies, two boys and a girl. Then when her least one was big enough to walk she told her husband she wanted to go back to see her father again. It looked like that troubled him but he told her alright, they would go; but he said she would have to promise him not to tell anybody anything about him, and never to speak his name.
"If you speak my name to any living soul I'll have to go away. And you will see me going off over the mountain and it will be awful hard for us ever to get together again."
So she promised him and early the next mornin' he took her and their three children on his back and he let them off at her father's gate. He leaned down and kissed her and reminded her not to tell anyone anything about him, and she took her babes and went on in the house.
Now, while Kitty had been gone, her two older sisters had met and married two fine young men. Jean had married a handsome feller from up north who always seemed to be wearin' red glass lenses over his eyes, and Anna Marie had married a slick young charmer from down in Cajun country. Both Kitty's sisters and her father were all proud to see her again and told her how pretty her children were and commenced askin' her who her husband was and where they lived and all. She told 'em she couldn't tell. Well, they kept on at her and she kept tellin' 'em she couldn't possibly tell, so her sisters they started actin' mad and wouldn't speak to her. Still she wouldn't tell; but the next day Charles took her aside and spoke to her about it, says, "Just tell me his name."
She thought surely she ought to tell her own father what her man's name was, so she whispered it to him—
"Piotr Rasputin."
And she hadn't but spoke it when she looked up and saw her husband and he was in the shape of a normal man, and he was goin' off up the Piney Mountain, and on the back of his silver shirt were three drops of blood.
Well, she loved him, so she left the children there with her father and started out to try to find her man again. She took out the way he went over the Piney Mountain but she never did see him on ahead of her. But she went on, went on. Sometimes she'd think she was lost but silver bird would fly over and drop a silver feather with a red speck on it, so she'd go on the way that bird was headed. Then she'd stop at a house to stay the night and they'd tell her about the fine young man had stayed there the night before, had three drops of blood on his shirt.
So she went on, went on, for seven years and that bird would fly over whenever she got down-hearted, so she didn't give up. Then late one evening she stopped at a house and called to stay the night and an old, old woman awful stricken in age with snow-white hair and dark wrinkly skin came to the door, looked like she was over a hundred years old and she was walkin' on two sticks, told her to come on in. The old woman looked at her, says, "Girl, you're in bad trouble now, ain't ye?"
So Kitty told the old lady about what'n-all had happened, and how she'd been tryin' to find her man again, and directly the old woman told her, says, "You just stay here with me now, and get rested up a little, and it may be I can help you. I got a lot of wool to work and I need somebody. Will you stay and help me about my wool?"
Kitty said yes, she would. So the next day they got all the fleeces out and she helped pick put the burrs and trash, and washed the wool in the creek, while the old woman carded. Carded so fast Kitty had a time keepin' up with her and they got it all done by sundown. And that night the old woman, who was lookin' to be 'bout thirty years younger and wasn't walkin' around on her sticks, she gave Kitty a gold chinquapin. The next day, Kitty she helped with the spinnin': handed the rolls of carded wool to the old lady, and it was a sight in the world how she could spin. They got it all spun up about dark, and that night the old woman, who now looked to be about fifty years, handed Kitty a gold hickory nut. Then the third day the old woman she sat down at her loom and Kitty kept fixin' the bobbins and handin' 'em to her and the old loom went click! wham! click! wham! all day long, and just 'fore dark the weavin' was all done. By this time the old woman was now a beautiful young woman, but her hair was still the same snow-white and her dark skin was smoothed of all its wrinkles. So that night the beautiful woman gave Kitty a gold walnut, says, "Now you keep these three gold nuts and don't you crack 'em till you're in the most trouble you could ever be in. And if the first one don't get ye out, crack the next, and if you have to crack the last 'un you surely ought to be out of your trouble by then."
So Kitty thanked the beautiful lady and the next mornin' she left with the three gold nuts in her apron pocket. She went on, went on, and in three days she came to a river and she went along the river till she came to a washin' place where a great crowd of young women was gathered, and there in the middle of all them women she saw her husband. She got through the crowd and went up to him, but when he looked at her, it was just as if he never had known her before in all his life.
He didn't have any shirt on and she saw the women lined up before the washin' place and one girl was down on her knees washin' his shirt with all her might. She listened and heard 'em talkin' about how that young man had said he'd marry the one could wash the blood out of his shirt. So Kitty got in line and finally got down to the washin' place. The one ahead of her was a tall blonde woman and she was down on her knees a-washin' that shirt so hard it looked like she'd tear it apart. Soap it and maul it with the battlin' stick and rinse it and soap it and maul it again, but the blood just got darker and darker. So directly Kitty said she'd like to have her turn. That other woman didn't get up off her knees, looked at her, says, "Humph! If I can't get this blood out I know a puny thing like you can't do it."
Well, Kitty just leaned down and took hold on his shirt and gave it one rub and it was pure silver once again. But before she could turn around the icy blonde woman grabbed it and ran with it, says, "Look! Look! I washed it out!"
So Piotr had to go home with her.
His real wife knew now she was in the most trouble she could ever be in. So she followed 'em and saw what house it was, and about dark she went there, went right in the door and cracked her gold chinquapin. It coiled out the finest gold wool you ever saw – just one long carded roll ready to be spun. So she started pullin' out the gold wool and pretty soon that other woman came in and saw it, says, "Oh, I must have that! What will you take for it?"
"Why, I couldn't part with my gold nut."
"You name any price you want now, and I'll give it to ye."
"Let me stay this night with your man and you can have it."
"Well! I must have that gold chinquapin. You go on out and wait till I call you."
So she took the gold chinquapin and put it away. Then she put a sleepy pillow on Piotr's bed and just before he went to bed she gave him a sleepy dram, and then she called Kitty, and when she went in to him he was sound asleep. She sat down beside him and tried to wake him up but he slept right on. So she stayed there by him all night cryin' and singin':
"Three drops of blood I've shed for thee!
Three little babes I've born for thee!
Piotr Rasputin! Turn to me!"
And when daylight came that other woman made her leave. Well, Kitty came back that next evening and broke the gold hickory nut. A fine spinning wheel came out of it, stood right up in the floor and started spinnin'. All you had to do was put the gold chinquapin in a crack in the legs and set the end of the wool on the spindle, and it spun right on – spin and wind, spin and wind all by itself. It was the finest gold thread you ever saw. And when that blonde woman came in and saw, she said she just had to have the wheel. So Kitty let her have it for another night with her man. But when she went to him he slept right on through the night because that sleepy pillow was still under his head and that blonde woman had gone and given him another sleepy dram. So all night his wife stayed by him tryin' to wake him up –
"Three drops of blood I've shed for thee!
Three little babes I've born for thee!
Piotr Rasputin! Turn to me!"
And early in the morning that other woman came, said, "Get on out now. Your time is up."
Well, the next evening the father of that blonde woman called the young man just before bedtime. Said he wanted to have a word with him. So they walked out a ways and the old man said to him, says, "I couldn't sleep a bit the last two nights. There's some kind of a cryin' noise been goin' on in your room, and somebody singin' a mournful song right on up through the night."
Piotr said he had slept uncommon sound the last two nights, hadn't heard a thing.
"Well now," says the old man, "I want you to be sure to stay awake tonight, and listen and see what all that carryin' on is."
So that night Kitty came and cracked the gold walnut and a big loom came out of it – just r'ared up in the house time she broke the nut. It was warped with gold warp and all you had to do was feed it bobbins of that gold thread and it wove right on – all by itself. The blonde woman she heard it a-beatin' and she came running.
"Oh, my! I must have that! What'll you take for your loom?"
Kitty told her.
"Well!" she says, real hateful-like, "You can stay with him tonight but I'll tell ye right now it's the last time."
So she made Kitty go out and then she looked about that sleepy pillow still bein' on the bed, went and fixed that sleepy dram, made it real strong, and when Piotr came in to go to bed she handed it to him, made him drink it; but he kept it in his mouth and when she left he spit it out. Then he looked at that pillow and threw it off the bed. Laid down and closed his eyes. The blonde woman she looked in at him to make sure he was asleep, then she let Kitty in. She came in the room and saw him there with his eyes shut and the grief nearly killed her. She didn't know what she'd do. She came and sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on his shoulder and started cryin':
"Three drops of blood I've shed for thee!
Three little babes I've born for thee!
Piotr Rasputin!—"
Well, time she called his name he opened his eyes and turned to her, and then he knew her. So he put his arms around her and pulled her into the bed with him, kissin' her and tellin' her how much he loved her and had missed her.
The next morning that other woman came and found the door locked and she was mad as time. And after they got up, Piotr came and called that woman's father, said, "Let's step outside. I want a word with you."
So they went out and he told the old man, says, "If you had a lock and a key, and the key fitted the lock perfect, and you lost that key and got a new one; then you found the old key again, and it fitted the lock much better than the new one – which key would you keep?"
The old man answered him, says, "Why, I'd keep the old one."
"Well," says Piotr, "I found my wife last night and she suits me a lot better than your daughter does, so you can just have her back."
So Kitty and Piotr left and got their three children and went on home, and that spell on him was broke so he never was a metal giant again, and they lived happy.