Bethany was a Friesian, but she was none too happy about it. Probably if she’d been a Highland cow, this story would never have been written, mellow and fluffy as she would likely have been. But Bethany was a Friesian and had a temper to match, righteous though it was. She was also—hmm, how can I say?—well, she didn’t half go on a bit. Anyway, the first time it happened was the winter of 1928. Bethany had observed the way the farmhand treated the farmer’s daughter over the summer months and her temper was getting frayed. Truth be told, Bethany was in love with the farmer’s daughter: the way her plump and steady arms and her soft and gentle hands pulled gently at Bethany’s teats was endearing to her. Plus, the farmer’s daughter told Bethany all her secrets, and Bethany found herself believing she was the maiden’s protector. It’s why she
They’re called the Wiblets of Oldpark Wood, but as I am sure is obvious to a knowledgeable reader like you, they are really from AlphaZenturianSix. Their claim to be from Oldpark Wood is simply a ruse to lull us into a false sense of security. For if they belong to an earth locality, then we may be less inclined to monitor their behaviour. But monitor we should, fellow earthling, monitor we should, as there is more to the Wiblets than meets the eye. The Wiblets first came to earth forty-five years ago, when the M25 had burnt a hole in the soul of parts of southern England. The Wiblets spied it from space and saw their chance to begin their slow colonisation of a new planet. As the M25 had damaged, deaded, or dispersed a great many of the indigenous natural powers of certain parts of Surrey and Kent, the land
In Netley Park, you can find a log upon which rests a numberplate. Legend has it that the numberplate is a divination tool: whatever combination of numbers and letters you can see tells you something about your life. According to the lore, if you chance upon it on a Monday, you can learn about your past. Wednesdays reveal a meditation on the present, and Fridays a prediction for the future. No one’s quite sure what the other days of the week signify, which is bad luck for me as I encountered it on a Saturday. I say bad luck, but in reality, those letters were an arresting sight and I knew instantly what aspect of my life they referred to. There was no mistaking that the L stood for lemon scented, the 7 for the wise ducks of the Severn Valley, the 9 for the amount of seconds it takes for
According to a local folklorist, these glasses were left here by a trickster god named John. He’s been doing it since at least the seventeenth century, although many of the older wise ladies say it started long before that. Nevertheless, the locals have learnt the hard way to leave the spectacles alone, and there is a consistent and verifiable corpus of knowledge as to what happens to the unsuspecting wearer of the glasses covering the last four hundred years. To be honest, John is a rapscallion more than anything, but his pranks can still be traumatic, especially to the naive and humourless. Nowadays, some of the younger folk enjoy wearing them on a Saturday night, as youngsters from other villages might trip on ‘shrooms or acid, or get blind drunk. The folklorist said that, in 1962, a twenty-three year old mechanic called Bob figured out that the simple mantra “I see
Harry was electric, at least, that’s how he liked to think about himself. Sometimes he felt himself sizzle up to the sky, like the devil had stuck a fork in his roots. Other times he fizzled and popped with energy like a disco ball in the centre of a room. He was the centre too, even though most of the humans walking in Hackhurst Downs didn’t notice. Somewhere a snigger: ‘it’s not only the humans, you know.’ A side-eye of lichen; Harry concentrated on his ray beam curled boughs thrusting upwards to the sky. There was no-one pointing as hard as he was to the heavens. He’d got the power! Julius the tree spirit sighed. It was just like Harry to forget about him, forget about the bargain they had made long ago. It was his own fault: he’d known Harry was an egomaniac when he made the pact. He’d just