January 25 is Robbie Burns Day. Birthday of the Scottish poet and infamous Tarbolton werewolf Robbie Burns, who officially turned werewolf at the age of 22 before turning poet a few years later. Robbie spent much of his life roaming the countryside of Scotland, famous for both his romantic poetry and his quicksilver transformations.
“There’s good evidence that Robbie Burns poetic genius may have been rooted in his struggle to accept and control his lycanthropy,” says Raymond Stephanson, Professor of Were-Lit. “Traumatized by early “cribbing” experiments, Robbie became obsessed with maintaining his freedom, at great cost to his personal life.”
He died of a tooth extraction some fifteen years later when an inexperienced dentist used a real silver filling on his rotten eye-tooth and the metal travelled to his brain, killing him 24 hours later. Luckily Robbie’s poetry remains with us, a source of inspiration and comfort to humans and werewolves alike.
So for a holiday based on a werewolf poet, what better way to celebrate than with a poem written by a werewolf?
Werewolf poet, Shewolf, goes by Sydney in human form, is herself obsessed with personal freedom. This enigmatic and mercurial bitten werewolf first came to the site around a year ago and quickly became known for her brooding stories and anti-cribbing and anti-pack advocacy. On the run for several months now, Shewolf now prefers to stay in touch with encoded messages in poetry, like this poem below.
WOLF
“Child tread softly through this wood.
You poor sweet thing. You smell so good.
I could not miss you standing there
with scarlet red atop your hair.
Were you not warned of beasts the like of me
who snatch up such pretty young things,
For who couldn’t resist that doe-eyed stare,
your pink flushed cheeks, or silken hair
and I doubt those fine legs could carry you far
from my violent demons known only to mar,
the weak and innocent young things like you.
Your quivering shoulders suggest that you rue
ever coming here and perhaps you should,
for before me here where you once stood,
They’ll find nothing but your cold red blood…
And whatever might be left of that little red hood.”
