The Kinderfass

An ancient Germanic folkloric being brought to life in vivid and humorous prose.

In medieval Germany, every peasant household employed a peculiar kind of nanny called a "Kinderfass" (meaning, in the German, "Child-barrel"). The Kinderfass was a member of a now extinct race of strange fey creatures that lived in the deep woods. A specially trained huntsman would coax them out of their hideouts with bits of cheese and bread and then tame them by playing a precisely tuned accordion. Once enthralled in this manner, a household could make use of the Kinderfass' unique physiology, which consisted of a deep nourishing abdominal pouch in which up to six children could be stored and sustained. The Kinderfass would then wander the woods for days or even weeks, using its powerful maw and tough teeth to wrench nutrient dense tubers out of the earth to sustain itself, leaving the children's parents with ample time for raucous, procreative lovemaking. When they were finished, they would summon the Kinderfass from the woods with a bugle call to return their children. The only drawback was that the children would be invariably coated in the Kinderfass' warm, sappy pouch-slime, necessitating a fairly labour intensive clean-up. Kinderfasser were rarely attacked during their woodland wanderings, as their thick hide, muscular frame, and capacity to spray a repellent acrid fluid from the back creases of their knees served to deter most predatory animals and bandits.


This system worked well for a while until the Kinderfass were eventually condemned by the Roman Church as abominations and rooted out and zealously exterminated by the Teutonic Knights over several centuries. The last recorded interaction with any Kinderfass came from the early days of the Third Reich when the newly established Waffen SS, with the aid of Heinrich Himmler and his knowledge of occult techniques such as astral projection and dowsing, raided a previously hidden fey grove in the nether regions of the Black Forest. Since at this point Nazi science was sufficiently advanced that Germans no longer needed to have sex to procreate, these Kinderfasser were determined to have no utility to the German people, and so as not to become potential burdens upon the state were transported to secluded camps and gassed.