CHAPTER THREE
The Autobiography of a Retired Druid
Greebie Piggleman had never actually had anything published. This was partly due to the exorbitant costs involved in the publishing industry and the fact that publishing companies had all but lost interest in handling unheard of and little known authors13. It was also due to the fact that he had not actually fully completed any work to date. He was the sort of author who had brilliant ideas for themes and little enough time to complete a novel before the next brilliant theme popped into his head. This explained the seventeen unfinished novels which lay dormant stockpiled in the library; “shelved” as he described it, while he began the eighteenth, an autobiography. Whole worlds lay suspended in time in the midst of their creation as if the gods had knocked off for a smoko break; heroes froze motionless on liana vines while swinging between trees; lovers were left in mid kiss, lips glued together as Greebie took up his pen to a fresh manuscript.
His wife hated it. She hated his continual writing because it seemed to be such a flagrant waste of time; and she loathed his seventeen unfinished novels because they were always underfoot. Marjorie Andoreena Piggleman was not a romantic neither was she a dreamer like Greebie. She was a wife and possibly being that, endowed her with an insight of a magnitude that poor old Greebie could never hope to understand. The logic which uttered forth from her purse-like mouth at times was undeniably, well, logical. It was she who once said “If there’s one thing I hate it’s something I won’t be liking!” and again “How are you ever going to earn any money if you don’t get a job?” and yet again “If it’s too big it won’t fit!” or “If you don’t do it now you’ll have to do it later!”
Greebie had heard them all and marvelled at the pure unadulterated logic of them. He had even written some of them down and collected them as one collects butterflies. He had sorted them into groups and categories and planned to one day write a book of logical sayings which he would publish and would then make a fortune and probably become famous for, but until then he shelved them. After all, anything that is worth doing is worth the wait!
For the present however Greebie had thrust himself wholeheartedly into his latest inspiration “A History of Greebie Piggleman”. The title had a nice ring to it.
“Chapter One;
- The First Decade –
I was born; at least I think I was born. I can’t actually remember being born but my mother Mrs Philegrey Piggleman told me I was born on the day before Def: Pink Solstice noun each of the four times in the year, on pink and blue years respectively at midsummer and midwinter, when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest days. DERIVATIVES solstitial adjective ORIGIN Middle Anadamish: from Old French, from concept solstitium, from sol 'sun' + stit-, sistere 'stop, be stationary'. pink solstice at 3a.m. on the morning after the night before. She remembered it distinctly she said. It was a Pink-Sunday she recalled and raining. She had been couped up in the house all week and was thoroughly bored stiff. Having nothing better to do she decided she might as well give birth to a son. It would make a nice surprise for when her husband returned home from his journey at sea. He was a well-known sailor, a Captain; Captain Hornbuckle Piggleman Master Map Maker of Skard. He had been away five years.
Surprise was not the right word for it; shock; horror; bewilderment even disappointment and despair would be perfectly adequate to use to describe his reaction. You see; because it was a pink year! Oh Damn! Now I shall need to explain what a pink year is;” wrote Greebie. Isn’t it a shame that so much explanation is necessary in a novel before the author finally gets down to the really smutty bits! Ah well!
“Anadam, the planet is a sphere of air, water, fire and earth trapped in a non-concluding orbit around two suns. Well not two suns actually one is a red giant the other is really an enormous planet which has exploded and now burns fiercely with a blue light caused by the high copper concentrations in its core. The orbit that Anadam takes is called a mobius ellipse. It’s not a true ellipse either more like a ‘figure of eight’ which turns itself inside out every turn. The important thing is that Anadam circles the pink star one year and the blue star the next. It has always been thus a pink year then a blue year. By some quirk of nature called genetic selection boys are only born on blue years and girls on pink years. If on the other hand a child is born out of season, that is, on a year contrary to their sex all manner of strife will befall the family. I was such a child;” writes Greebie.
“This was also the cause of Father’s great disappointment. I should have been a girl or at least born on the following year!
Another source of embarrassment to Father was the fact that Mother created me without so much as a iota of his help. Def.iota noun 1 the ninth letter of the Anadamese alphabet (, ), transliterated as 'i'. 2[usually with negative] an extremely small amount. ORIGIN from Anadmese iota; sense 2 derives from iota being the smallest letter of the Anadamese alphabet (cf. jot) He was at sea. But then Mother always was an independent individual. For instance she raised me totally without so much as an iota of His help. He was at sea. She built the entire house without so much of an iota of his help. She made it out of wattle and daub and constructed furniture from used wine kegs.
Another thing that Mother did without any iota’s of Dads help was to earn money. Every day she went off into the mines to work with the other peasants. Now I do remember something of these days although I was extremely young at the time. Memories are very hazy from such early years and can hardly be called reliable. Nevertheless I do recall I was bought up by a wet nurse. I don’t know her name. I barely recall what she looked like. I know she had a young voice and peculiarly enough she was totally bald. I can almost feel her soft white skin again as I recall how she cradled me in her arms. She would hold me firmly yet in a comforting way and I would look up into her petit face.
I remember now, how odd she seemed. She had no ears and neither had she any eyes? And no hair! I didn’t think this strange at the time however but she also had no mouth. I don’t know where the songs emanated from that she sang to me in those days. I do remember her nose; her pink little nose, as cylindrical as an oil drum and as wrinkly as a prune. It was a cute little nose slightly upturned, surrounded by the white fleshly plumpness of her face and to make my amazement complete, I recall that odd game we played that when I sucked her on the nose how it tasted of milk!
Such are the distortions of early memories; and so life went on. By the time I was fully two years old nothing extraordinary had happened to me and when I reach three the nothing that had happened to me at two continued. It was in such motion that it even spilled over into my fourth year of life. This however is not exactly true. It’s obvious that some things did indeed happen to me. I learned to walk and I learned how to talk for instance. Full credit of these achievements must go to my Mother for her superb tutoring. It never ceases to amaze me however that she chose to teach me to walk BEFORE she taught me to talk! The task must have been made doubly difficult not being able to communicate with me. Apart from these two momentous accomplishments however, nothing happened.
Something was happening to me at this time that although I was unaware of, would have drastic and lasting effects upon my whole being and livelihood. I speak of nothing less than the psychological development of a fatherless child born out of season. It is not uncommon for such a child to blame himself for the absence of the Father. Little did I realize what I was doing to myself in those early years?
If I were to say that I returned to the place of my birth in order to write my memoirs it would be a lie. So I shan’t say it. The truth is that I inherited this bed bug and daub house when Mother passed away. I therefore took up residence here for cheap rent. This may not be very glamorous but it keeps my wife busy. She also enjoys the view out over the craggy mountainous rooftop of Skard.
Through habitation I maintain possession of the land. It is Skard Law that any uninhabited premises are reclaimed by the shire clerk and put to use for the common good. Not wanting the commoners to get the good of my land, I am forced to live here. I do have other options but it is too soon in the story to manifest them yet. For the present, it will suffice that I am here, where I was born.
The house fronts onto a mountainous and treacherous pathway through the Razorback Gorge to the township of Kab-Ababa, five miles away. From there the track winds its way down through eighty odd miles of rain forest to the sea. By travelling east along the same path a pilgrim will eventually descend into the lowlands of Skard, after many days journey. Such a journey is not undertaken lightly as there are many dark and ferocious animals to be encountered on the way. Travellers are few…”
Suddenly Greebie Piggleman ceased writing and lifted his head to stare at the blank grey earth of the wall in front of him. His face went pale. The kind of paleness one achieves upon hearing a blood curdling scream. (Not all screams can curdle blood. The scream that Greebie heard may have been able to curdle blood but since there were no pots of blood in the vicinity we shall never know). What he actually heard was in fact his own name hacksawing its way through the twelve inch thick studs of the house. His wife was calling. He listened.
“Greebie! Greebie Pigleman! Ha’ ye hitched up Bessie to’ the’ cart? Where are ye Greebie?”
It is said that panic is caused by an airborne virus which is carried by the four winds to the abode of man. If this is so, then such a virus, was at that moment, surfing on the crest of Greebie’s own name wave, as it flung itself towards his ears. Yea it had already infected him because he had all the symptoms. At first there was the slamming of the book, then the stuffing of papers into an already overcrowded drawer, then the flinging of pencils into a case and the compulsive tidying up of the desk; and then the wife came in.
“Ah there you are!
Trembling he coughed.
“Yes dear?
…and then the cold sweat slithering over the nodules of raw nerve fibres which lay just under his skin.
“Ye aren’t even dressed yet! Ha’ ye forgotten we’re t’ go into yon village. Ha’ye forgotten that ye’ha t’take the wine barrels into t’Inn. And Mrs Crabtree is a’waitin fer ya t’pay fer them mountain berries? And yer promised t’take her a shoppin at t’market! Ha ye forgotten that too?”
….and then the stammering of unco-operative lips…
This would be opportune moment to interrupt. It would be unfair to Marjorie Andoreena Piggleman to allow the reader to draw the wrong conclusion about her character. She is a kindly and good natured lady. She is in fact the backbone of the community. She said so. She is always helping those who are less fortunate than herself. She thinks nothing of raising money (as long as it is not hers) for any charitable cause. She is at the forefront of trouble-spots in the township. She is the president of the Kab-Ababa Women’s Guild. Nothing happens in Kab-Ababa without her knowing about it; (and her permission). She is the wife of the once great Druid Greebie Piggleman and daren’t he forget it. She is a big woman in the eyes of the people. Eighteen stone of authority.
Greebie was wise. He studied all forms of wisdom at the Lake Tower, from infantile to the great ultimate wisdom of the mountain hermit Ben Ufi. With such knowledge he knew that Mrs Piggleman would one day outgrow her assumed command of the household, and the district and Skard and well, Anadam itsef. He sighed.
The goat Bessie which pulled his tiny cart along the rocky track to Kab-Ababa couldn’t care less. Bessie was so familiar with the sound of ‘The Voice’ that she accepted it as part of the journey. Occasionally she would wonder where it came from. She knew it was not part of the cart. She was often hitched to the cart and more often than not could not hear ‘The Voice’. Bessie thought it might have been caused by something beside the track to Kab-Ababa but that did not seem plausible either. They would have passed it and ‘The Voice’ would have died away as the distance increased. It was a mystery to Bessie. Mountain goats are not known for their intelligence. ‘The Voice’ continued all the way to Mrs Crabtree’s where it strangely stopped. Mrs Piggleman had got off and Mrs Crabtree had got on in her place. The rest of the journey to Kab-Ababa was quiet and uneventful. The load seemed lighter too. Bessie thought had Greebie oiled the axles or something?
A large sign flapped on two hinges in the breeze above the door of the Inn. There was always a breeze above the door. It blew up the mountain slopes especially to be there. It was sharp and cold and waited above the door, poised, ready to pounce on the clientele as they came out from the warmth within the Inn. Inside the Inn, Roberto Wainwright Jnr. The owner greeted Greebie from behind the bar. 15A long family history of serving customers had cultivated the opinion that it was easier to serve them from behind the bar rather than in front of it.
“Aye Oo-aye, Druid Piggleman, nice to see ya’agin squire!”
“Don’t call me Druid, Bob. You know I’ve retired!”
“Right ye’are Druid. Anything ye say squire! Did ye bring the mountain berry with ye?”
“Aye that I did, but before I unload I might have an Ale! Ale was made from a particular shrub ‘Youforia Elevatus’ which Roberto Wainwright Seenya imported from the mainland.
“Of course Druid, of course” said Bob as he drew up a mug of greenish coloured liquid.
“Don’t call me Druid” snapped Greebie.
“OO-aye I do beg ye pardon Master. It’s just that we is all proud o’ye in these ‘ere parts; Thart we are! Ye deserve respect ye do. Why it were right ‘ere in this ere Inn Thar Druid Mogie promised t’prentice ye if ye recall! When ye were’t a lard of eight year old ye were.”
“I recall, I do recall” answered Greebie with some pleasure whilst sipping the snot-like drink.
“An thart plaque on’t wall there is in ye honour an all it are!”
Greebie looked at the wall. It occurred to him that the plaque that Bill referred to was not the ridges of mould that covered most of the slate wall, rather he spoke of a brass plate commemorating the Druid Mogie’s visit.
“yes; Yes”
“And them thart do come in who be strangers in these ‘ere parts, they is all told of Druid Piggleman they is.”
“Yes Yes but I wish you wouldn’t its, its embarrassing!” answered Greebie.
“Oy don’t be barrassed Master. You has made it you has. Thart be nothing to be barrassed ‘bout, it ain’t. Why there be men round ‘ere twould give their roight arms to be Druid they would. Some just to have you dine in their kitchen to be sure!”
“Yes Yes I know but…”
“No need t’be barrassed Master”
“Thanks responded Greebie as he tried to hide behind his ale”. This of course was impossible. Greebie was at least 500 times larger than the mug of Ale although given enough time the Ale would probably outgrow him
It seemed to Greebie that every time he came to the Inn he was confronted by the same conversation, or variations on a theme. It was tiring but it was all parts and parcel to living in the town of his birth. Most Druids never did. Most Druids became hermits in mysterious mountain caves or far away castles or were lost at sea. The latter being the most favoured as it left the hope open that the Druid would return. Greebie chose to return to his birthplace. At times he perceived this to be a mistake but having been trained in wisdom knew that perceptions aren’t always how they are perceived. He also knew that authors have a tendency to rave on about absolute rubbish at times. The fact of the matter was that he returned to the town of his birth for the single minded purpose of seeking his revenge. He did not know this. It was a psychological desire which had thus far, successfully masqueraded itself as a wish to upkeep his mother’s cockroach and daub hut, for the reward of free rent. A Druid can have free rent anywhere for a small price. He did not consider this either. What he actually considered as he sipped or chewed on his Ale was the very thing that Bob had been talking about.
It all happened fifty years ago. As Bob said, he was eight years old himself. It was one of the few times that his Father was actually home; between commissions.
Those were the days of the great pilgrimage when men and elf alike fled the continents of the northern hemisphere and came they to Skard. There were many travellers at that time and all came by, passed through or stayed over at the Inn.
The Inn was crowded and Greebie earned extra money for himself in those times tending horses and sweeping the floors of the Inn. He earned two shillings and sixpence plus tips per week but that fact has little if any bearing on the actual happenings. Those were troubled times, the continents of the northern hemisphere were at war. Mogodawn the dark lord had roused his villainous armies of trolls and goblins and invaded the great countries. Men and elf alike fled the onslaught mostly arriving at the southern continent of Skard. The same became the pioneers of the lowlands and they all traversed the mountain trail of Kab-Ababa. All were seeking safe lodgings and news of the journey ahead or of lost relatives or how the wars were faring or of the possibility of work or of adequate country to settle or of a million other items of information such as pools numbers.
Newspapers would have made a fortune if someone had thought to publish them and if people could read. The best means of communication they had in those days was to gather at the Inn, which they did.
Prior to those days, Skard was basically a retreat of the Druids. It is the only continent in the southern hemisphere and since only Ark-wrights possessed the ships and skills necessary to cross the vast oceans it remained isolated for centuries. Nevertheless the Druids have occupied it for more than a thousand years (500 pink, 500 blue). They constructed the roadways. They built the hedges; constructed mountain habitats and huge hermitages but most impressive of all they built seven great castles of learning each of which had little hedges with a two tier effect leading up a driveway.
It was to one of these great castles that Druid Mogie was returning. He and his entourage of six camels, three horses, twenty six goats, two pigs (male and female) and one hundred and twenty manservants and a partridge in a pear tree. Roberto Wainwright Seenya of the Inn of Kab-Ababa was pleased to host such a fabulously wealthy party even though the menagerie were rather troublesome to the narrow mountain track and small stable area of the Inn. A Druid’s custom could and would put an Inn on the map. (Mainly because they were map making as they travelled). Druid Mogie was returning to his own castle and towers of learning, the Uni-Ver-city of the Pyx. Def. The Uni-Versity univer-city noun (plural multiver cities) a high-level educational institution in which students study for degrees and academic research is done. ORIGIN Middle Anadamese: from Old Skardian universite, from Skardian universitas 'the whole', in late Skard 'guild', from universus (see universe, multiversus, polyverisus and various other verses).
Something should be mentioned here of the Pyx; the Pyx; the Pyx; the glorious Pyx; the pride of all Druids. It is a gazebo shaped construction, situated on an isolated isthmus of rock on the southernmost pinnacle of land overlooking the Antarctic Sea and Ice. It is an extremely cold and lonely hole. Even so the Pyx building receives more care and attention, I’ll wager, than any other building on the planet. Within the Pyx on a pedestal, encased in a glass dome, is the Halfshard.
The Halfshard is a slither of fractured crystal, a magical stone, a fabulously valuable splinter of history and the object of Mogodawn’s lust and wrath. It is the lesser piece of the Motherstone so named because it is believed to be the Motherstone of creation. Mogodawn already possesses the Mainshard and with it he created many evil spirits and deformities. With it he drove men and elf from all the northern continents. Now he seeks the Halfshard and should he find it, he will conquer the whole planet and fill every last inch of soil with abominations and inventions of his nightmarish mind.
When Greebie was eight years old he knew nothing of this. Fifty years ago such knowledge was secret. The Druid Mogie knew this and more but did not reveal it to Greebie at the time of their first meeting. At that time also as has already been stated, Greebies Father was in town. He drank at the Inn almost every day, morning, noon and night.
The thought caused Greebie to realize that his own glass was empty. He thrust it towards Bob who by some unwritten understanding knew he had to refill it.
“Tell me about that day Bob; it’s all so hazy to me. I was only eight at the time” he said while waiting for more green sludge.
“Oo-Aye thart ye were . We were both young in them days we were. And this ‘ere Inn was nought but a one room tavern it were. And ye father were a reglar patron he were! When He was in town. He were a sailor he were. Ye know one of t’few people sailors; there were only the Arkwrights in them days, could hardly call them peoples! Anyways he ferried folks across the sea to Skard, he did. Them as were refugees, ye might say. He ferried me and most the folk who settled these parts. He ferried the Druid Mogie too an’all. The Druid an all his cattle and camels and horses and manservants. A whole shipload in one party! Aye ye Father were a good custom thart he were!” said Bob reflectively.
Suddenly both these men stared into space as their vision wriggled and went blurry while they reminisced.