The Bone Punt

Nobody builds in Tanglefoot Marsh, and nobody sensible walks into it, but there is one way through the black water that the bog hags leave alone. At the dead-tree edge of the marsh there is a stump with a hollow in the top, and if a traveller sets a small bone in the hollow and waits, the Bone Punt comes out of the mist. It is a long, narrow punt that looks as if it were built of old white bones lashed together with reeds, and it is poled by a tall, hooded figure that never speaks and never shows its face.

The fare is the bone. A chicken's wishbone will do, or a fishbone, or a knucklebone from a stew. Coin left in the hollow is still there the next morning, and there is no haggling with a figure that does not speak. The punt carries its passengers through the mist and the drowned trees to the far edge of the marsh, and it never goes the same way twice. Some say the trip takes an hour and some swear it took all night. Travellers who have made it say the bog hags watch it pass, and do not follow.