(no subject)
Stories were passed down from those who were old ones when the old ones were young ones. They told cautionary tales about the masked men in the woods.
The masked men in the woods would come hidden from behind the trees at the edge of the wood, slowly at first, creeping, skulking and silent until they would launch into a horrifying gallop towards the towns. They were hard to see with attentive eyes but you could catch a quick sight if you were caught off guard. "They were thieves! Dirty rotten thieves!" The old ones would say, "Taking things that don't belong to them!". Trinkets and baubles mostly, little things you would miss and they presumed you would go looking for. The search would lead you deep into the woods, much deeper than decent folk dare to wander and slightly deeper than young boys claim to have gone. Once you've gone that far they'll come down from the trees, "and you won't even know because they sound like the wind in the leaves and nothing more!" What happens next is anyone's guess.
We caught one once, but he faded away as we held him down and all that was left was this.