Chapter 5 — Page 6
How can you go through the Otherworld without bumping into Pooka? No, seriously, how? Fetch would like to know.
Pooka (or Puca, or Pookha, or whatever spelling you want it seems) is a well established figure in Irish folklore. Depending on who’s talking, “pooka” can refer to a single shapeshifting being who often assumes the form of a rabbit, a horse, a goat, an old man, or whatever else it wants to be; or “pooka” refers to a category of Fae goblins, each individual occupying a special place in the counties of Ireland. Some scholarship finds a linguistic link with Puck, the trickster faun of English folklore made famous by Shakespeare’s “On A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.”
You can find out more from a wide variety of online sources. Wikipedia, of course. There were two YouTube videos I liked on the subject: “Pooka The Irish Prankster” and “The Pooka — With Guest Steve Lalley”. And if you have access to JStor, this scholarly article, “The Púca: A Multi-Functional Irish Supernatural Entity” is a nice dive down a rabbit hole. No pun intended.
FETCH: Well, that’s a fight for later. We gotta get to the castle, where the visitor’s bur-
POOKA: [off-panel] Do my eyes deceive me?
PANEL 2: Pooka appears in his rabbit form, holding his arms out wide in a surprised greeting.
POOKA: Or has Fetch come back to Fairyland?
FETCH: Ugh! Hello, Pooka.
PANEL 3: Pooka looks Owen up and down, eyes bugging out, making Owen uncomfortable. Fetch gets annoyed.
POOKA: Gasp! And you brought a human child! How delightful! Is he your slave? Or just a plaything?
FETCH: Hey! Back off! He’s under my protection.
PANEL 4: Pooka laughs with a wide, toothy open mouth. Fetch is angry.
POOKA: Your “protection”?! Oh no! Is that what you told him? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
FETCH: Cut it out!
PANEL 5: Pooka gets in Owen’s face. Owen looks scared.
POOKA: Run, child. Find the nearest puddle and jump back home. This is no place for one so young and tender.
OWEN: Fe-e-e-etch!
see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(play) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(1950_film)
I first saw that movie on late night TV in the early 80s. At the time I was pretty young and identified with the imaginary friend aspect of the story. I learned much later that Harvey was a pooka, which gave the movie a little more depth to me.