Goblin Market

Have you ever tried turning a poem into a story? I tried to do this a few years ago with Christina Rosseti's poem "Goblin Market". Here is an excerpt from the story:

The moon’s light glanced off the faces of the merchants in the open glen. One had long whiskers, and pointed grey ears that twitched away above a cat’s face. Matted fur covered its back, and below, a white tail swung beneath tattered shorts. Another whisked between carts like a rat, his hands spread thick with brown fur, nails pricking plums like a thorny bush. Still another wobbled, a wombat-man, round and with a pig’s snout. Laura held her breath as one goblin man stopped, sniffed the air. He turned towards her, a red apple like a jewel in his hand.

“Laura, come quick.” Lizzie pulled at her sleeve again, her head bowed away from the market.

“Come buy,” the goblin men called. “Come see our orchard fruits. Apples and quinces, lemons and oranges. Come buy, come buy.”


From the poem "Goblin Market"

"Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds' weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes."




Laurence Housman, illustration from the 1893 London edition of "Goblin Market" published by Macmillan.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/gobmarket.html (for a full copy of the poem and illustrations)