The Snallygaster Tale

During the Great Depression, a young boy named Toby lives on a poor chicken farm with his father, Hank. While Toby helps his father collect eggs one morning, he takes a liking to one of the hens, and, breaking the cardinal rule of farm life, he gives it a name. Troubled by his son's new found affection, Hank warns Toby not to treat the birds as pets. As any chicken farmer knows, sometimes the hens themselves become food, particularly the ones that don't lay eggs. Despite Hank's admonition, however, Toby continues caring for his pet chicken - a white hen he's named Olly. And when Toby decides to get up early one morning to check on his new feathered friend-what he finds is something disturbing: a missing hen from the coop and a patch of blood on the hand of his father. Caught off guard and not wanting to strip away his son's innocence quite yet, Hank makes up a story about a ferocious being called a Snallygaster to explain both his 'wound' and the occasional disappearance of the hens. The story works, and Toby is convinced. But as his affection for Olly grows deeper, it becomes only a matter of time until the veil of innocence is lifted.