Time to switch gears from cosmic horror to cautionary fairy tale. What's better than a fervently sensuous Victorian gothic poem with queer subtext? A fervently sensuous Victorian gothic poem that swaps that subtext for beautifully open queerness.

Welcome to an unabashedly sapphic AND gender-inclusive rendition of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market. This is a truly singular and exquisitely decadent aural treat!

By the way, if you aren't already listening to Liminal Flares using headphones/earbuds, we strongly encourage you to do so - in general, but especially for this tantalizing episode.

If you're enjoying Liminal Flares, please share us with others who might enjoy our haunted and haunting, gender-inclusive story time!

New here and wondering what this podcast is all about? Check out our first episode, "A Prelude at the Threshold."

Writing/Editing & Narration by Maika

Music by The Parlour Trick

Audio Engineering by Meredith Yayanos

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New episodes every Thursday.

Gather round and welcome.

This is Liminal Flares, bedtime stories from beyond and in between,

readings of eldritch literature drawn from the public public domain and amended to be gender-inclusive.

My name is Maika, and I am your queer, trans, nonbinary narrator.

Today we are reading Goblin Market, a narrative poem by English poet Christina Rossetti,

written in 1859, and published in 1862.

A brief note about my edits before we begin:

If you're unfamiliar with this poem, Goblin Market is a Victorian gothic tale of Laura and Lizzie,

about the temptations, the intense but short-lived pleasures,

and the dire consequences of buying from fairy merchants,

as well as the restorative power of love and devotion.

Depending on who's doing the critiquing,

this poem has been both criticized and celebrated for its queer subtext.

It should surprise no one to learn that I've always been among those who feel that,

if Laura and Lizzie are indeed sisters, then it's in a decidedly sapphic sense.

Which makes the ending of the poem, where we learn that they've long since parted and each married men,

strike me as disappointingly, albeit predictably, conventional and heteronormative.

Granted, it's still an atypically happy ending,

considering how Victorian stories involving the "fallen woman" trope usually end.

But for me, a truly happy ending for this devoted pair is one that does not separate them.

So, while I was amending the poem to make it gender-inclusive,

I decided to fully queer it as well,

making a few small changes that remove any ambiguity about the nature of Laura and Lizzie's relationship

in what is already a deeply sensual poem.

To be very clear,

I didn't add to any of the physical intimacy or overall sensuousness of the poem.

That's all Christina Rossetti.

I also amended one line containing ableist language,

because I decided I couldn't leave something like that alone while editing for gender-inclusivity.

Speaking of the poem's sensuality, one last note, a piece of context:

When Goblin Market was originally published back in the mid 19th century,

most Victorians weren't able to purchase fresh fruit.

This makes the exotic and enticing nature of the goblin traders' goods

much more intense than they might seem to a modern palate,

with our access to grocery store produce sections and,

if we are especially fortunate,

farmers markets and orchards and so on.

And with that, are you ready?

Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti, published in 1862

Morning and evening they heard the goblins cry:

'Come buy our orchard fruits,

come buy, come buy:

Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpecked cherries,

Melons and raspberries,

Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

Swart-headed, mulberries,

Wild free-born cranberries,

Crab-apples, dewberries,

Pine-apples, blackberries,

Apricots, strawberries;

All ripe together in summer weather,

Morns that pass by,

Fair eves that fly;

Come buy, come buy:

Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries;

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the south,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

Come buy, come buy.'

Evening by evening among the brookside rushes

Laura bowed their head to hear,

Lizzie veiled her blushes,

Crouching close together in the cooling weather,

With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

With tingling cheeks and fingertips

'Lie close,' Laura said,

Pricking up their golden head.

'We must not look at goblin folk,

We must not buy their fruits.

Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry, thirsty roots?'

'Come buy,' call the goblins, hobbling down the glen.

'Oh,' cried Lizzie, 'Laura, Laura, you should not peep at goblins then.'

Lizzie covered up their eyes,

Covered close, lest they should look.

Laura reared their glossy head

And whispered like the restless brook:

'Look, Lizzie, look, lizzie,

Down the glen tramp little souls,

One holds 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.

'No,' said Lizzie, 'no, no, no;

Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us.'

She thrust a dimpled finger in each ear, shut eyes, and ran.

Curious Laura chose to linger, wondering at each merchant then.

One had a cat's face, one whisked a tail,

One tramped at a rat's pace, one crawled like a snail,

One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

One like a ratel tumbled hurry scurry.

They heard a voice like voice of doves cooing all together:

They sounded kind and full of loves in the pleasant weather.

Laura stretched their gleaming neck like a rush-imbedded swan,

Like a lily from the back, like a moonlit poplar branch,

Like a vessel at the launch when its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen turned and trooped the goblins then,

With their shrill repeated cry, 'Come buy, come buy.'

When they reached where Laura was, they stood stock still upon the moss,

Leering at each other, hawker with weird hawker,

Signaling each other, peddler with sly peddler.

One set their basket down, one reared their plate,

One began to weave a crown of tendrils, leaves and rough nuts brown.

Humans sell not such in any town.

One heaved the golden weight of dish and fruit to offer them:

'Come buy, come buy,' was still their cry.

Laura stared, but did not stir,

Longed, but had no money.

The whisk-tailed merchant bade them taste in tones as smooth as honey.

The cat-faced purred, the rat-faced spoke a word of welcome,

And the snail-paced even was heard.

One parrot-voiced and jolly cried, 'Pretty Goblin,' still for 'Pretty Polly,'

One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste,

'Good folk, I have no coin; to take were to perloin:

I have no copper in my purse, I have no silver either,

And all my gold is on the furze that shakes in windy weather

Above the rusty heather.

'You have much gold upon your head,' they answered all together:

'Buy from us with a golden curl.'

Laura clipped a precious golden lock,

They dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red,

Sweeter than honey from the rock,

Stronger than human-rejoicing wine,

Clearer than water flowed that juice;

They never tasted such beforeh

How should it cloy with length of use?

They sucked and sucked and sucked the more

Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

They sucked until their lips were sore,

Then flung the emptied rinds away,

But gathered up one kernel stone,

And knew not was it night or day as they turned home, alone.

Lizzie met them at the gate full of wise upbraidings,

'Dear, you should not stay so late, twilight is not good for mortal beings;

Should not loiter in the glen in the haunts of goblins then.

Do you not remember Jeanie,

How she met them in the moonlight,

Took their gifts both choice and many,

Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

Plucked from bowers where summer ripens at all hours?

But ever in the noonlight she pined and pined away;

Sought them by night and day, found them no more,

But dwindled and grew grey;

Then fell with the first snow,

While to this day no grass will grow where she lies low:

I planted daisies there a year ago that never blow.

You should not loiter so.'

'Nay, hush,' said Laura, 'nay, hush, my dear,

I ate and ate my fill, yet my mouth waters still;

Tomorrow night I will buy more:'

And kissed her:

'Have done with sorrow; I'll bring you plums tomorrow

Fresh on their parent twigs, cherries worth getting;

You cannot think what figs my teeth have met in,

What melons icy-cold

Piled on a dish of gold too huge for me to hold,

What peaches with a velvet nap

Pellucid grapes without one seed:

Odorous indeed must be the mead whereon they grow,

And pure the wave they drink with lilies at the brink,

And sugar-sweet their sap.'

Golden head by golden head,

Llike two pigeons in one nest folded in each other's wings,

They lay down in their curtained bed:

Like two blossoms on one stem,

Like two flakes of new-fallen snow,

Like two wands of ivory tipped with gold for awful monarchs.

Moon and stars gazed in at them,

Wind sang to them lullaby,

Lumbering owls forbore to fly,

Not a bat flapped to and fro round their rest,

Cheek to cheek and breast to breast,

Locked together in one nest.

Early in the morning, when the first cock crowed his warning,

Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,

Laura rose with Lizzie:

Fetched in honey, milked the cows,

Aired and set to rights the house,

Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,

Cakes for dainty mouths to eat.

Next churned butter, whipped up cream,

Fed their poultry, sat and sewed,

Talked as humble companions should:

Lizzie with an open heart,

Laura in an absent dream,

One content, one sick in part,

One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,

One longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:

They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;

Lizzie most placid in her look,

Laura most like a leaping flame.

They drew the gurgling water from its deep;

Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,

Then turning homeward said,

'The sunset flushes those furthest loftiest crags;

Come, Laura, not another mortal lags, no wilful squirrel wags,

The beasts and birds are fast asleep.'

But Laura loitered still among the rushes and said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,

The dew not fallen, the wind not chill:

Listening ever, but not catching the customary cry,

'Come buy, come buy,'

With its iterated jingle of sugar-baited words:

Not for all their watching once discerning even one goblin,

Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;

Let alone the herds that used to tramp along the pasture in groups or single,

Of brisk fruit vendors

Tll Lizzie urged 'O, Laura, come; I hear the fruit call, but I dare not look:

You should not loiter longer at this brook:

Come with me home.

The stars rise, the moon bends their arc,

Each glowworm winks their spark,

Let us get home before the night grows dark,

for clouds may gather though this is summer weather,

Put out the lights and drench us through;

Then if we lost our way, what should we do?'

Laura turned cold as stone to find their love heard that cry alone,

That goblin cry, 'Come buy our fruits, come buy.'

Must they then by no more such dainty fruit?

Must they no more such succous pasture find, hunger ever unsatisfied?

Their tree of life drooped from the root:

They said not one word in their heart's sore ache;

But peering through the dimness, nought discerning,

Trudged home, their pitcher dripping all the way;

So Laura crept to bed and lay silent till Lizzie slept;

Then sat up in a passionate yearning,

And gnashed their teeth for baulked desire,

And wept as if their heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,

Laura kept watch in vain

In sullen silence of exceeding pain.

They never caught again the goblin cry, 'Come buy, come buy.'

They never spied the goblin hawkers peddling their fruits along the water:

But when the noon waxed bright their hair grew thin and gray;

They dwindled as the fair full moon doth turn to swift decay,

And burn their fire away.

One day, remembering their kernel stone,

They set it by a wall that faced the south;

Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,

Watched for a waxing shoot,

But there came none;

It never saw the sun, it never felt the trickling moisture run:

With sunk eyes and faded mouth they dreamed of melons,

As a traveler sees false waves in desert drouth,

With shade of leaf-crowned trees,

And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

They no more swept the house, tended the fowls or cows,

Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,

Brought water from the brook,

But sat down listless in the chimney-nook and would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear to watch her love's cankerous care

Yet not to share.

She night and evening caught the goblins' cry,

'Come buy our orchard fruits, come buy, come buy;'

Beside the brook, along the glen,

She heard the tramp of goblins then,

The voice and stir poor Laura could not hear;

Longed to buy fruit to comfort them,

But feared to pay too dear.

She thought of Jeanie in her grave, who should have been a bride,

But who, for joys brides hope to have

Fell sick and died in her gay prime in earliest winter time

With the first glazing rime,

With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

Till Laura dwindling seemed knocking at Death's door:

Then Lizzie weighed no more better and worse;

But put a silver penny in her purse,

Kissed Laura,

Crossed the heath with clumps of furze

At twilight, halted by the brook,

And for the first time in her life began to listen and look.

Laughed every goblin when they spied her peeping:

Came towards her hobbling, flying, running, leaping,

Puffing and blowing,

Chuckling, clapping, crowing,

Clucking and gobbling, mopping and mowing,

Full of airs and graces, pulling wry faces,

Demure grimaces, cat-like and rat-like,

Ratel- and wombat-like,

Snail-paced in a hurry,

Parrot-voiced and whistler,

Helter skelter, hurry skurry,

Chattering like magpies,

Fluttering like pigeons,

Gliding like fishes,

Hugged her and kissed her,

Squeezed and caressed her,

Stretched up their dishes, panniers, and plates:

'Look at our apples russet and dun,

Bob at our cherries, bite at our peaches,

Citrons and dates, grapes for the asking,

Pears red with basking out in the sun,

Plums on their twigs; pluck them and suck them,

Pomegranates, figs.'

'Good folk,' said Lizzie, mindful of Jeanie:

'Give me much and many:'

Held out her apron, tossed them her penny.

'Nay, take a seat with us, honor and eat with us,'

They answered, grinning:

'Our feast is but beginning,

Night yet is early, warm and dew-pearly,

Wakeful and starry:

Such fruits as these no person can carry;

Half their bloom would fly, half their dew would dry,

Half their flavour would pass by.

Sit down and feast with us, be welcome guest with us,

Cheer you and rest with us.'

'Thank you,' said Lizzie, 'but one waits at home alone for me:

So without further parleying,

If you will not sell me any of your fruits, though much and many,

Give me back my silver penny I tossed you for a fee.'

They began to scratch their pates,

No longer wagging, purring, but visibly demurring,

Grunting and snarling.

One called her proud, cross-grained, uncivil,

Their tones waxed loud, their looks were evil.

Lashing their tails they trod and hustled her,

Elbowed and jostled her,

Clawed with their nails,

Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,

Twitched her hair out by the roots,

Stamped upon her tender feet,

Held her hands and squeezed their fruits against her mouth

To make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,

Like a lily in a flood,

Like a rock of blue-veined stone lashed by tides obstreporously,

Like a beacon left alone in a hoary roaring sea, sending up a golden fire,

Like a fruit-crowned orange tree white with blossoms honey-sweet

Sore beset by wasp and bee,

Like a royal virgin town topped with gilded dome and spire,

Close beleaguered by a fleet mad to tug their standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,

Twenty cannot make them drink.

Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

Coaxed and fought her, bullied and besought her,

Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

Kicked and knocked her, mauled and mocked her,

Lizzie uttered not a word;

Would not open lip from lip lest they should cram a mouthful in:

But laughed in heart to feel the drip of juice that syrupped all her face,

And lodged in dimples of her chin,

And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

At last the evil people, worn out by her resistance,

Flung back her penny,

Kicked their fruit along whichever road they took,

Not leaving root or stone or shoot;

Some writhed into the ground,

Some dived into the brook with ring and ripple,

Some scudded on the gale without a sound,

Some vanished in the distance.

In a smart ache tingle, Lizzie went her way;

Knew not was at night or day;

Aprang up the bank, tore through the furze,

Threaded copse and dingle, and heard her penny jingle

Bouncing in her purse,

Its bounce was music to her ear.

She ran and ran

As if she feared some goblin folk dogged her with jibe or curse

Or something worse:

But not one goblin skurried after,

Nor was she pricked by fear;

The kind heart made her windy-paced

That urged her home quite out of breath with haste and inward laughter.

She cried 'Laura,' up the garden.

'Did you miss me? Come and kiss me.

Never mind my bruises,

Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,

Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

Eat me, drink me, love me,

Laura, make much of me:

For your sake I have braved the glen

And had to do with goblin traders then.'

Laura started from their chair,

Flung their arms up in the air, clutched their hair:

"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted for my sake the fruit forbidden?

Must your light like mine be hidden,

Your young life like mine be wasted,

Undone in mine undoing, and ruined in my ruin,

Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?'

Laura clung about her partner,

Kissed and kissed and kissed her:

Tears once again refreshed her shrunken eyes

Dropping like rain after long sultry drouth,

Shaking with aguish, fear and pain,

They kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

Their lips began to scorch,

That juice was wormwood to their tongue,

They loathed the feast:

Writhing as one possessed they leaped and sung,

Rent all their robe, and wrung their hands in lamentable haste,

And beat their breast.

Their locks streamed like the torch borne by a racer at full speed,

Or like the mane of horses in their flight,

Or like an eagle when they stem the light straight toward the sun,

Or like a caged thing freed,

Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through their veins, knocked at their heart,

Met the fire smouldering there and overbore its lesser flame;

They gorged on bitterness without a name:

Ah! fool, to choose such part of soul-consuming care!

Sense failed in the mortal strife:

Like the watch-tower of a town which an earthquake shatters down,

Like a lightning-stricken mast,

Like a wind-uprooted tree spun about,

Like a foam-topped water spout cast down headlong in the sea,

They fell at last;

Pleasure past and anguish past

Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.

That night long Lizzie watched by them,

Counted their pulse's flagging stir,

Felt for their breath, held water to their lips,

And cooled their face with tears and fanning leaves:

But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

And early reapers plodded to the place of golden sheaves,

And dew-wet grass bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

And new buds with new day opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

Laura awoke as from a dream,

Laughed in the innocent old way,

Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;

Their gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,

Their breath was sweet as May

And light danced in their eyes.

Days, weeks, months, years afterwards,

When they were wives and with children of their own,

Their parent hearts beset with fears,

Their lives bound up in tender lives,

Laura would call their little ones and tell them of their early prime,

Those pleasant days long gone of not-returning time:

Would talk about the haunted valley,

The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant party,

Their fruits like honey to the throat,

But poison in the blood;

Humans sell not such in any town:

Would tell them how their partner stood in deadly peril to do them good,

And win the fiery antidote:

Then joining hands to little hands

Would bid them cling together,

'For there is no bond like love in calm or stormy weather,

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.'

Thank you for listening to Liminal Flares.

Our music is by The Parlour Trick.

Audio Engineering by Meredith Yayanos.

I hope you've enjoyed our time together in this twilit space.

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Next week, we begin reading a suspenseful short story entitled Dracula's Guest,

written by the one and only Bram Stoker.