A Novel 1992] - The Goblin Mirror

A WITCH WIND, COUNTRY FOLK CALLED THE SUDDEN STORM
that plunged Maggiar from autumn into winter, that stripped the colored
leaves from forest and orchard all in a night. Behind it came an ice wind,
edged with sleet and bitter cold— but that same winter brought a wealth of
game the like of which the old folk had never seen. Hunters trekked home
over the drifts with their pack ponies laden with meat and furs to keep old
and young well-fed and warm; and with ample stock besides for trade to
the west: deer and badger skins, marten and fox and ermine, from a
plenitude of game that never seemed diminished. By midwinter deer had
stripped the forest branches low enough to reach, foxes raided middens
and storehouses, and the hunters could not shoot or trap them fast enough.
Deer took to farmers’ fruit trees.