“The Goddess & The Pig” (in Amazon Kindle format, independently published) is the story of Boris the Boar, “not a boring bore—not one who talks and talks without saying anything….” Boris “lived in a pen in back of monsieur and madame’s house, in a quiet little village beside a stream.”
That hadn’t always been his home. “He didn’t remember being found in the woods as a tiny piglet” and being “given to madame to raise and butcher (for monsieur thought boar meat tasted very, very good.)” But years pass, and madame becomes attached to Boris, pampering him until, one day, she leaves for a time to visit her sister. And monsieur can hardly wait to delight her with boar sausage when she returns.
Boris escapes and later meets up with a charming young girl who calls him “Pig.” “You are in my home,” she tells him. “I am Diana, goddess of the hunt and the hunted; so named by the Romans who long ago built a temple on this hill.” Her goddess-powers are much reduced, though, because few wild animals are left in the woods. Yet she promises to help Pig.
But, Boris asks, doesn’t she help people like monsieur? Yes, she says, “For hunters must eat. But the hunted must live as well. To keep everything in balance was my job. Now, there is only disarray.”
To restore order, Diana must help Boris find a proper family. With rabbits? Not a match. Badgers? No. Then monsieur appears in the woods, with a rifle, and Boris and Diana have, one might say, an arrow escape. Boris resolves to live by himself. “But everyone needs a family,” Diana tells him.
And it will be so in this charming tale of a wise goddess and a Pig who finds his true home.
