Raw Head was a razorback hog, big and ugly and Old Betty’s only true friend. Old Betty was a conjurer, always crafting spells, potions, using herbs and spices. Once a week she would make her way into town from cottage off in the wooded hills, Raw Head always trotting right behind her. The merchant in town would fill her supply of ingredients and gives food scraps to the animal. Despite his size and appearance, Raw Head was a nice and caring beast. The townsfolk even enjoyed Old Bettys visits, even though she practiced witchcraft.



One day the Old Betty made her weekly trip into town. Everyone gave her odd looks along the way, she knew why. When she arrived at the general store, the merchant asked: ”where’s ol’ Raw Head?”



Old Betty told him she hadn’t seen him for a few and asked if anyone in town had. The merchant replied telling her Raw Head had not come through for he surely would have heard about it. The townsfolk said they would keep watch for Raw Head. Warmed inside, Old Betty thanked the kind people and made her way to her home.



Deep in the woods stood her old wooden den. Her door made of banded together sticks closed behind her as she made her way to her spell table. Old Betty poured a peculiar purple liquid into a carved stone bowl. She began to chant ”Raw Hide” repeatedly and a thick white fog lifted from the bowl. She saw a vision in the smoke, night, a herd of boar, a man with a gun, the sound of a shot, and many of the hogs hanging from hooks at a butchery in the next town.



Old Betty’s eyes filled with tears and her heart with rage when she saw her beloved Raw Head swinging on a hook, his belly cut and his skin flayed. Below his dangling corpse laid a pile of bones, stained with blood. Old Betty practiced white magic, the power of healing, but she spells of the darker black magic. She concocted an ugly, sour-looking mixture that smelled foul, but Betty did not notice any of it. She stood for a long time, chanting, raw head and bloody bones. Over and over she said the words, all while looking into the most at her murdered friend, standing over her newest potion.



The daylight dimmed as clouds rolled in over her home. A light drizzle began to fall with the sound of mild thunder. The storm continued, gently, until a flash burst from the bowl of liquid. A pure silver bolt of lightning arched from her grounds to the next town, into the building where raw head was hanging dead. The lighting crashed against the bone of his skull. For moments nothing happened, then a gruff voice came from the skull. It said ”dance my bones, rise and dance for me.”



The pile of blood-red bones connected and stood up on its hind legs. The skeleton, still dripping with fresh blood, lifted the skull and placed it on the neck bones. Raw Head now called bloody bones, ventured into the stormy forest to find weapons, for he was now hunting the hunter.



Raw head came across a mountain lion, wounded and dying. The cat told Raw Head a hunter had come through and tried to kill her children, but she stopped him. She said the hunter had laughed as he left her to die. With that she gifted Raw Head her very fangs to avenge them both.



Next, Raw Head came across a raccoon who was missing a back foot. The animal said he was caught in the hunter’s trap and when the hunter found him, he took only a foot and left the raccoon to suffer. The raccoon granted Raw Head use of its tail to seek its revenge.



Last, Raw Head came across the skeleton of a long-gone bear. It was riddled with small holes from shotgun pellets. Raw Head swore vengeance for the bear as took its claws.



That night the hunter returned home from a day of drinking in town. The man stabled his horse in the barn and began to dry his coats of the rain when he heard an awful rumbling voice, deep and throaty and raspy and hissing with anger. ”Huntsman, the animals of the forest have come for you.”



The man saw glowing green eyes in his loft. The man drunkenly screamed at the eyes, thinking they were kids playing a prank. When Raw Head screamed at the man in his tormented voice, the man ran out the barn door and toward his farmhouse.



Raw Head quietly slipped out the back. He was easily able to outrun the drunken hunter, but the man did not notice until he spotted the green eyes again. A great crack of thunder accompanied by a bolt of lightning that lit the entire property. The hunter caught only a quick flash of a skeleton. The man yelled, ”What are you?”



Raw Head stepped toward the man, ”I am bloody bones, the spirit of all you have wronged.”



Old Betty sat cozied up by her fireplace as the storm raged on. She smiled when she heard the hunter scream in the distance.



Bloody Bones now stalks the forested mountains of Arkansas, protecting the wildlife as he sees fit. Claws and bones and fangs were left at Old Betty’s house as she grew old, gifts of thanks from her old friend Raw Head.