WHOLESOME TALES

THE WHOLESOME TALE OF THE COLORFUL MRS FIGG

Once upon a time (approximately a month ago - Forumshire Reckoning) Mrs Figg, the doughty wife of Mr Figg of Bree, left her husband and horde of children, to seek out a new life in a new and exciting town-cum-country-cum-universe: Forumshire that is. It was a long walk, but it did not rain often, and the roadside flowers were pungent with the scent of freedom. Along the way she met a Black Rider, who rode up clad in a dark cloak on the East Road, this not far from the Brandywine Bridge, or so it's said.

"Mrs Figg! Mrs Figg!" hissed the Black Rider. "What be you a'doin' so far from home?"

"Well," says Mrs Figg, blushing, and not wishing to divulge the ambandonment of her kith and kin to just any Black Rider she met, said, "Well, that would be My business, wouldn't it be, and not yours. And, anyhow, what about you? As far as I knew, you was demoted to a puff a evil nothingness, back when Frodo 'stroyed the ring?

"That's true," said the Black Rider and faded into thin air. (Now you may be thinking, that was a rather pointless scene, and you'd be right, of course).

Mrs Figg plodded on, and at last, on weary feet, she attended "Bankses Realty" in the Bywater Road.

Mr Gorbadoc Banks (the cousin of the Honorable Odo Banks, esquire of Rushock Bog, below Needlehole), attended the ringing of his door bell and met Mrs Figg in the foyer.

"Well, good afternoon, Miss," says he.

"That would be, 'Missus', good sir." Mrs Figg said demurely.

"Well, well met then, and how might I help you, dear Lady?"

"Oh I'm not dear at all, or don't plan to be, and I'm looking for a comfortable hole to rent, but not a bare sandy hole with nothing to sit down on or to eat, nor yet a wet, muddy hole smelling of bat droppings or mamukil farts."

"Mmm... I don't think you need trouble yourself on that score. This is a respectable place, Forumshire, and not some hamlet in Swansea. Now excuse me a moment while I check my register... We have a nice art deco split level hole in Archet free at the moment..."

"Is it anyhere near the paper factory, as I've heard of, where The Archet Bugle gets it's paper?"

"Yes, I think that's the case..."

"No, thank you. I'm looking for something quieter and more out of the way."

"Yes, I suppose I should have asked how big a hole you want..."

"Not that I think that that is any of your business...." (Now Gorbadoc was quite bemused by that response, and well he might). "Now Mr Banks," Mrs Figg continued, "as I have recently become a Single Lady, I'll need something comfortable, with it's own barrel and a jacuzzi if I might."

Gorbadoc's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "That kind of hole is not to be had in Forumshire, dear Lady," answers he, somewhat frigidly. "You must go up to the Far North for that kind of hospitality; up, indeed, to the unrespectable Scottish Hebrides, or so it's said. Scotshobbiton would be my suggestion... Now, Mrs Figg, good day." And while he was talking, Gorbadoc was escorting Mrs Figg firmly out his door.

In a trice, Mrs Figg heard a key turn in a lock and she found herself out in the Bywater Road, quite surprised at the turn of events.

I'm not sure what happpened after that.

The End (or Beginning?)

I've reported this issue of the Bugle to the Scotshobbiton Tourist and Merchants Board. You will be hearing from them rest assured, once they sober up...

"the holes are muddy,
the blankets oozy,
the filth quite deep
in every jacuzzi

the kilts are short
the buckie, sour,
adulterated with
talcum powder

the bees are drunk
the women frigid
their men's manly bits
are oh so rigid

the tyrant yawns
with nought to do
his heart is heavy
Scotshobbiton blue

oh do we blame him?
it's a horrid place
poor old tyrant
ol' gargoyle-face"

"Old Scotshobbiton Drinking Song" as reprinted in a Hobbiton Travel Brochure (source unknown).

Wisey Banks

THE SAD EMIGRATION OF TOBOLD FIGG

Once upon a time there lived a worthy hobbit of Bree and his eighteen rosy cheeked daughters. He had had a wife, a slatternly kind of woman, by name Harriot Hardknuckle, formerly a kitchen wench at the Muck and Duck, this before she fled whatever part of Forumshire the Muck and Duck was in, under a cloud of salacious innuendo and suspicion. Tobold made a respectable woman of her by marrying her in a stately Eruvian Wedding Ceremony at the Prancing Pony. For the next three years the former Miss Hardknuckle bore a skein of children at a remarkable rate - eighteen in fact, as stated, by triplet and quadruple and quintuplet 'tis said. (Details are, admittedly, sketchy).

One day Tobold had cause to throw Mrs Figg out of their comfortable hobbit hole. The reasons were suppresed. The Bree folk, for all their reticence on the matter, still nod with approval at the leavetaking, and let's leave it at that.

The upshot was, Mr Figg, feeling embarrassed deeply by whatever had occurred, lived on for a short time in Bree, but in a state of deep melancholy. He turned to buckie - which is never a good plan, one only needs to visit Scotshobbiton to realize that.

One day Mr Figg was sculling a dram or several at the Prancing Pony, when in struts Orwell McOdo himself, the seafarer, also called Yellowbeard, and famously also known as a notorious Privateer, by the very few who had heard of him. Mr Figg was weeping into his cup at that very moment.

Orwell McOdo strode up on his powerfully masculine legs and drew a chair at the table Mr Figg was at a'maudlin at.

"Dear Sir, why do you weep so, for your weeping touches my gentle yet manly heart."

"Oh you seem an honorable trustworthy gentlehobbit," says Mr Figg. "At least, if those things can be judged by your obvious masculine beauty and fine heterosexual legs. I think I can trust you with my innermost thoughts and secrets."

"That you can," Orwell replied with a smile that seemed very trustworthy.

So Mr Figg told Orwell McOdo of his travails, of his wife and her "doings", of their eighteen beautiful daughters aged between 16 and 18 and not one of them married, and of the downturn in potato farming since he had fallen into the vice-like grip of buckie.

"Oh I see," said Orwell McOdo when he finished. "What I think you and your daughters need - especially your daughters - is a change of climate and culture. I'm about to sail my three master to Skattykatzenfjord in Fjordianlandia, a place where men-hobbits are very friendly to other men-hobbits and lady-hobbits are almost always safe from unwanted advances."

"Oh I have heard of that place, Mr McOdo. Who shall my daughters wed in Holy Matrimony at the time given when such linear age and maturity be upon them?"

"Are you, perchance, a relative of a certain Whelsh girl, AllY?"

"Noo, I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

"Never mind. You must not be troubled by the gay folk of Skattykatzenfjord, as I'm sure we can find eighteen men-hobbits at the right and proper time who can be press-ganged, however unwillingly, into marriage. They're wealthy, you know, as the herring trade is booming. As to herring oil, they don't keep it all for personal use on their fellow men-hobbits - no, they sell much to the Danes, who value it highly, and use it for altogether different purposes."

"I'll do it!" Mr Figg cries. "Oh thank you, Captain McOdo. You are a Saint among hobbits."

"Yes," Orwell McOdo said vaguely. "I haven't actually been called that before but... never you mind. We sail at dawn."

And so the very next day Mr Figg and his skein of incredibly attractive daughters filed down to the quays at Fornost (or somewhere like that) and boarded Orwell McOdo's ship, the "Sweet Louise of Saint Trapeze"; one of the sleekest, fastest and elegant three masters of that or any other Age, whether slightly before or after.

The voyage began in fine weather, though the breezes were brisk, and it was not long before the White Cliffs of Dover were left behind, descending out of sight beneath the briney horizon. The Sweet Louise ran with the wind in it's taut sails east'o'north for many days. A few storms crossed it's bows (and once it's stern) but nothing of a magnitude to trouble the experienced, doughty, good looking captain of the ship (Orwelll McOdo that is).

However, one day, in calm weather, with the sun shining, a most inexplicable accident occurred. Mr Figg fell overboard, somehow wrapped in a pinnaker sail and a lump of concrete, and was drownded.

Soonafter, Orwell gathered poor Mr Figg's daughters together on the poop-free deck (the Captain ran a clean ship) and broke the sad news to them.

"I don't know how it happened, sweet nubile girls," he said in a voice that sounded kindly and sincere, "but your father's dead. The good news, however, is I've now decided to take you to Daneland."

"Oh! But aren't the Danes the worst kind of womanizers who never baulk at buying young pretty hobbit-girls into the worst kind of depraved sexual slavery?" said the eldest girl, Betty Bobkin Figg.

"Sadly, that's only too true."

"Oh Captain McOdo. Did you murder our father so that you could abduct us for your own foul money making purposes?"

"That is is a harsh accusement," McOdo exclaimed in seemingly honest earnestness. "Fate is merely forcing my hand. How else can I defray the cost of your transport to Skattykatzenfjord?"

"But you're not taking us to Skattykatzenfjord."

"Not now, no."

"Not ever, I say!" Betty Bobkin Figg said firmly. "You had this planned all along!"

"Well, that may be true to a point - but enough! The die has been cast. We land in Daneland three days hence... and now that your father is no longer with us, I think it only fair that two or three of you join me in my cabin tonight - for mourning purposes - among other things."

"That is NOT an acceptable arrangement!" cried Betty Bobkin Figg. "Girls! Arm yourselves!"

And to Orwell McOdo's great surprise, all eighteen Figg daughters (who took after their mother in several ways) produced nasty looking cutlasses from out their pantaloons and set to on the Captain. Poor Orwell was swiftly castrated and thrown overboard - a fate he neither expected nor desired.

The First Mate, Billy Brown of Porstmouth ran forward.

"What are you lovely lasses doin'?"

"We are taking over the ship," cries Betty Bobkin Figg firmly. "And what we just did to Captain Orwell McOdo we'll do to anyone else who tries to stop us."

The crew peered over the gunwale only to observe Captain Orwell McOdo's testicles bobbing on the waves, and his body being dragged off under the water by a huge White Pointer shark. The crew put on their best smiles and said as one: "Aye! Aye! Captain Betty Bobkin! As you wish, Captain Betty Bobkin."

And so the ship's course was changed and before long the Figg girls landed in Skattykatzenfjord, where they conquered the town and set things right, choosing the best specimens for husbands. Fortunately, most of the eighteen gay lads they selected were only gay through peer group pressure, and were very pleased to come out of the closet and admit to their heterosexuality. As to the ones who weren't, they were forced to grin and bear it; either that, or have their throats cut.

It's said that after that Skattykatzenfjord was a far more cosmopolitan town.

Rather a nasty tale for the Bugle? Definently a moral in this one though, I somehow usually fail to spot the moral in them but I think I know what it is this time- 'never trust a McOdo or any of their descendents because they will sell you out or steal your coalscuttle.' Or alternatively the moral might be 'always keep your testicles well away from a horde of angry young women.' Mmm now I'm sure which it is.

Must you always on on about that Coal Scuttle... Meaningless drivel. We only keep it because a principle is involved - and that principle being it's ours not yours!

It rankles Odo, it rankles. As well you know.

THE TRUEST TALE YET OF THE COAL SCUTTLE

Long ago (long before that handsome lady hobbit, the colourful Mrs Figg came to Bree from Tuscany in the Forumshire Alps) there lived two Scotshobbits. One was named Cannastoplyin McTyrant and the other Trewword McBanks. They lived on the banks of the Anduin River, in Lower East Scotshobbiton, near the Hebridean tip of the Great Greenwood, Mirkwood.

Trewword lived in a wonderful cvilized hole which he had dug himself, having pannelled the walls himself in mock-Moroccon teak, and artfully crafted its comfortable furniture from thistles and acorns. At that time, Cannastoplyin was living at a woodcutters cottage. Well, not in a woodcutter's cottage, but in a pigsty abutting it.

Now, one day Trew found Canna lying dead drunk and asleep in the woodcutter's pigsty. The man who had the pigsty was a worthy woodcutter who had always mistaken Canna for a hog, and anyone could have misaken him for one. You see, Canna drank from the same trough as the pigs, and he was terribly fond of one of the sows, so much that he often lay with her. (Buckie was at least half the problem for Canna's predicament, it's said, though being a McTyrant, who can be sure?)

Anyhow, where was I? Oh yes. Trew found Canna in the pigsty and so Trew rescued him. (The sow has never recovered and is still, it's said, on anti-depressants even to this day).

"I'll be takin' you back to my hole in the bank, methinks," sayth Treword McBanks, him always having been a most handsome person, both inside and out (saving for a gallstone or two, which wasn't his fault). "For this is NOT a place fit for a Scotshobbit - not eén a McTyrant, for all that in later days it may turn out to be the norm."

Cannastoplyin cocked open an eye, and a tear was shed from it, some say for pure thankfulness at his rescue from depravity, some say for the sow who he already was a'missing.

Once home, Trew washed Canna's testicles and other protuberances, and laid him a comfortable bed in the Best Room in his comfortable hobbit hole.

Next morning, Trew went in to see how Canna was. To his utmost horror, Trew found that both the fallen Scotshobbit and the much beloved (unmagical and monetarily valueless) Banks family coal scuttle was missing.

Trew fell to his knees and weeped a torrent of angst-ridden tears at the hideous act of that thankless and treacherous Scotshobbit.

Fortunately, Trew found Canna shortly after, dead drunk and asleep again, on the bank of the Anduin, and shortly after Canna got accidentally drownded there, and Trew recovered the family owned coal scuttle. So, as it turned out, all was well that ended well.

Now, the problem was, little Barney McTyrant - a loonish boy who was hiding in a bush nearby - saw some of what happened, and he misconstrued the evidence of his own eyes, as relating to Trew's involvement in the drownding. The (mentally deficicient) boy snuck off and told the rest of the McTyrant Clan his own (deluded) version of events, making up a ridiculous story that Canna had been asleep on the bank of the river since earlier the previous day, Canna having had a flagon or two too many buckie's - and never having been to a pigsty in his whole life - and that Trew had found him and stole his (supposedly 'magical') coal scuttle, brained him with a meat cleaver, and then kicked his corpse into the river.

(This, of course, was patently not true, and definitely not the reason the McBankses left Scotshobbiton for Needlehole, and changed their name to Banks).

Now there are many tales told subsequent to this event, not all of which are accurate. The coal scuttle has been the bone of contention for years and (Forumshire) years, but I can assure you that this is ther One Story that is irrefutably true. Of course, the peculiar and unrespectable McTyrants have always sought to regain it's possession, thinking it belonged to them once upon a time, but it's rubbish; and any number of Bankses will swear to it.

Anyway, I hope this Wholesome Tale clears up the matter once and for all.

I have taken the time to at least skim over all these Coal Scuttle tales. They seem very diverse. Can they all be true? I don't see all this as being a case of "history". The stories are all so different. Always it's McBanks and McTyrants I know, that aspect is consistent, but it's never the same protagonists. Has history become story, and story become legend, and legend become mythology? I guess we'll never know the absolute truth of what occurred? One thing I'd really like to know though, is if the coal scuttle is really "magical" or not. I distrust the Bugle version for some reason.

Truth Anne- Wholesome Tales has no truck with truth! Does Lesbo ever even check these stories for truth? Obviously not! A pack of lies! A complete pack of twaddle, however amusing!
(And yes the coal scuttle is magical Anne, you don't think the Tyrants would maintain such a feud over something trivial? What do you think I am a Petty Tyrant? Um, oh, I'll get back to you on that one...)

EDITORIAL NOTE AND PREFACE

There have been many tales about the McBanks-McTyrant Feud, and how the McBanks came to own the Coal Scuttle. Also, many strange things have been alleged from the McTyrant side. Like, the coal scuttle being something special, of gold and magical, and not just a rusty old unmagical worthless piece of rubbish. Even recently, a member of the McTyrant Clan has revisited that silliness. And I cite Mr Petty Tyrant himself:

"All the facts you need to know Mrs Figg (yes Odo, facts!) is that the coal scuttle is magical and it belonged to a McTyrant of yore. But it was stolen one snowy winters day by a McBanks who then emigrated with it to Ozhobbistan.

(Well I say emigrated but back in those days you only got sent to Ozhobbitland if you were lacking in respectability or couldn't hold your buckie- which is the same thing).

The McTyrants nearly died in that winters cold, saved only by Grandads emergency, and not to savoury, buckie stash and we have never forgiven the McBanks clan for it. And there has been a feud ever since.

Odo still has the scuttle today- but it will one day be returned to its rightful Scothobbitland home."

Yes, it's a verbatim quote.

Anyway, it seems to me that a final and definitive version of events, availed of ALL the TRUE facts, is needed. So I and my unbiased researcher, Mr Odo Banks, esquire, have gone back through all the Banks family annals to establish once and for all the said TRUE facts of the matter.



THE VERY LAST WORD ON THE UNMAGICAL COAL SCUTTLE


Once upon a time, back in the Fell Winter of '22 - there lived two Clans of Scotshobbits, one by name, McBanks - even in those far off days wearers of trousers and herders of goats - and the other, McTyrant - even in those days the wearers of kilts and lovers of goats. The two Clans lived in a rustic hamlet in Scotsalpine, in the high neck of Scotshobbitvale.

The Clan Chiefs at that time were Abovzabord McBanks and Coodnaliestraytinbed McTyrant. Now Abovza and Coodna were the best of friends, believe it or not, and took turns at being Chief of the Village; six months of each year - Abovza in Summer, and Coodna in Winter. Not that this means anything in the context of the story.

One Winter, Coodna was herding the village flock down below the snowline at Crabbiol Ridge, when something peculiar caught his eye. He went down the ridge to is left and saw the opening of a cave he had never seen before. Not far inside, he saw the shimmer of gold. Climbing in, he discovered a most amazing object, a coal scuttle of purest gold. Coodna grabbed hold of it in glee, but was soon startled out of a greedy reverie by a very cultivated and refined voice, possibly angelic.

"Hey there, my unattractive bowlegged Scotshobbit, what would you be doing with my Magic Coal Scuttle?"

"Ock the noo!" Coodna cries in surprise. "Hooza hek be yu zen?

And out of the dark recesses of the cave appeared the most handsome woman that ever there were (some say even more handsome than Harriott Hardknuckle nee Figg, but that might be going too far).

"My name is Esmeralda the Most Fair, though my friends call me Ezzy."

"Un wot zafok are you doin' here, Lassie?"

And Ezzy gave a perfectly plausible account of what she was doing there, clad in a beautful white lowcut gown (a frilly one), with her coal scuttle of pure gold obtaining of magical qualities, in a cave high in a Hebridean Valley, back in '22 (First Age). After making her plausible explanation, Ezzy said, "Now, I am willing to hand over the Ancient Coal Scuttle of Aranor, but I must ask you who you are. Are you a McBanks, sir? For it is in the arms of a McBanks that the Prophecy shall be fulfilled."

'Unwotzafok is za Proffessy?

And Ezzy gave explained to him all about said Prophecy, and it was plausible too.

"So, if you are a McBanks, come lie with me a'time, to bring an Old Prophecy to fruition."

"Well, me name's Bigdoodle," says that deceitful rogue. "Bigdoodle McBanks."

And so Coodna came to that Pure Lady, and Ezzy very soon after lay back in sheer disappointment, while Coodna crawled away on all fours like a spider, as was his wont, Coal Scuttle under his arm.

(He was pleased to note it was full of coal and when he accidentally spilled any of it's contents, the scuttle magically refilled with same).

Not long after, Abovza dutifully came looking for Coodna (who was running three minutes late in bringing home the herd) and he found him walking sheepishly up the way. Coodna quickly thrust the coal scuttle up his kilt, sticking one of it's handles between his butt cheeks for grip).

"Are you alright, Coodna?" Abovza asked, for he had been concerned that his friend was three minutes late.

"Cors eye am, nock the nelly, an wy wooden eye bee?"

"Steady on, my good hobbit," says Abovza gently. "I was only asking."

"Well yu ussked in a funnee manner, says eye.. but na hard feelin's. Ime off home zen."

And Coodna hurried off.

Abovza McBanks found his behaviour odd to say the least. "He has something on his mind, clearly. Maybe he's hurt himself somehow - he certainly is walking with a strange gait, as if in pain, like someone has stuck something sharp up his arse - but maybe he has always walked that way and I hadn't noticed until now." But, nonethless, Abovza's suspicions had been roused. "He has always been a sneaky deceitful snivveling little prick, come to think," Abovza mused. "i might wander down the valley a parts, and see if there is a clue to be found regarding his funny behaviour just now."

And so the very discerning Abovza walked on regally down the goat path.

Before long he heard the sound of plaintiff weeping, and before long he found the most handsome woman he had seen in that or any other age - Ezzy that is - sitting upon a rock in the cave mouth.

"Dear Maiden," Abovza offered immediate succour. "Why do you weep so?"

And when her eyes fell on the gorgeous masculine hobbit before her, Ezzy fell instantly in love with him. "I will tell you everything."

"That would be good."

And Ezzy told him everything.

When she had finished, Abovza burst out, "The Ancient Coal Scuttle of Aranor? The Prophecy! My gawd, you've been hoodwinked! What name did that very quick-to-flick lover of yours give you?"

"It would be McBanks. Bigdoodle McBanks he called himself!"

And Abovza was horrified, for there had never been a Bigdoodle McBanks, ever. "You've been hoodwinked," that honorable Scotshobbit told her, fully aggrieved. "You've been briefly laid by a fraud!"

"I should have known," Ezzy answered, perking up and wiping her tears away. "I shall cast a spell and change that Miraculous Coal Scuttle into a rusty unmagical old thing."

And Ezzy stood to her full height and incantated this incantation:

"Oh Magic Scuttle full of coal,
You shall now have another role,
No more shall you be of gold,
But now a rusty scuttle and old,
Rusty, old, and very cold!"

And from somewhere up the valley came a plaintiff yelp.

"Ha! The spell worked," Ezzy cried with some satisfaction (at last).

"As to the Prophecy?" Abovza asked.

"Well, we could try, I guess..." said Ezzy.

And so then, for several golden hours, Ezzy was supplied with the greatest of physical joy. But sadly, the magic of the gold Coal Scuttle was broken. It would remain forever a mere worthless piece of junk. And this is how they found out. As Abovza was kissing Ezzy goodbye (she had decided to head back to Birmingham), Coodna came storming down the goat path, now useless scuttle in hand, walking awkwardly and painfully.

"Ock za nelly noo-noo, ya have sprung me a ruse!"

"Oh you cad," Ezzy cried. "It was you who played me a trick, giving me three minutes of your time, and even then offering no satisfaction at all."

"Well, nott nun, Ide zay," Coodna confessed, "Nott ut my end, anyhoo."

"You dastard beast," Abovza cried. "How dare you treat a Lady so dirtily, deceitfully and briefly. Be off with you."

Coodna growled and tossed the coal scuttle at Abovza's head, only just missing. But when Coodna saw the bleak gleam in Abovza's steely eyes, he ran off (on all fours), like the clackers.

"Bloody McTyrant!" Abovza cries after the craven coward. "Why don't you stay and fight?"

"Oh dear," Ezzy said. "There will be trouble now. I've heard of the McTyrants. A ghastly vicious untrustworthy breed, who'll slit your throats in the night, if indeed they just don't fight you in face-to-face in heroic battle, and then ravish your goats. You must flee, Abovza. Flee with all your respectable Clan."

"I flee from no hobbit," says Abovza stoutly. "But as it is, we were about to emigrate to the goldfields of Kalgoolie anyhow."

"Kalgoolie in Ozhobbitstan? I have heard vague rumour of a mysterious desert land..."

"Indeed, it's on the other side of the world."

"East of east?"

"Underneath, actually. Down under. Did you know, the world isn't flat, it's round! I only found out recently. It was in Forumshire Geographic."

"Then go, my lover, and make your fortune. And, one day, come back and see me in Birmingham, for your loving was long and stimulating, and surely worthy of a second helping some day."

"I shall take this totally useless rusty unmagical coal scuttle with me as a momento of our pure and joyous lovemaking," says our romantic hero.

After that, Abovza swiftly organized the McBanks Clan to hurry off to the underside of the world. This was in no way because of any fear the McBankses had of the McTyrantusses, but because of the Ozhobbitstan Gold Rush. And this is known to be True. Any number of McBankses will tell you that.

And so now, you have the True account of what happened, folk. And let it be the end of the matter, once and for all.


Lesbo Proudfoot
THe Archet Bugle

Once and for all? Can it really be so?

NO!

this will never end. Let me know when you've finished vomitting up different versions of the Coal Scuttle. If we are ever to get the straight truth, I think it should come from a 3rd party observer. Preferably not someone who currently is writing for AB.... preferably someone without bias... but who???

But who, Tinuviel, who? I don't think the McBanks of McTyrant family can be seen as unbiased. Yes, what 3rd party is there?

Mine!!!

This should be good...

Squach wrote:Mine!!!

Ha! I'd like to see that! You can't even spell your own name properly, Squatch, how on earth could you write a factual history, let alone write! I flatulate in your general direction!

THE WHOLESOME TALE OF EVANGELINE AND PONTIFIX

Once upon a time, in the village of Kittyknockknock, in Angleshire, there lived a prosperous community of Anglehobbits. They were sturdy, industrious folk, of middling good wealth, being tater farmers and sheepherders dwelling in the fertile lowlands. The sweet waters of the Troutjumping River, clear waters pure, ran through the heart of the village.

Now there was one hobbit, Pontifix Bankson, a rather handsome specimen from a family directly descended from the Romans, whose family were wealthier than most, and he lived in a great manor, built in the Tudor style, with some Elizabeathan features.

Pontifix was a dissolute chap who often had naughty toga parties, where elvish maidens and hobbit lasses ran naked, performing interesting acrobatics, and buckie from Scotshobbiton was consumed by the barrel, flagon and bathtub-full.

Where most inhabitants of the village lead blameless lives, working hard, and behaving respectably and respectfully, Pontifix laughed, and burped, and bonked, and ate french fries and fatty warthog all the life long day. His health, left to his lifestyle, would surely have killed him young.

Peculiar baccalian rites in worship of Morgoth were said to be practiced, but this may just have been mere village gossip. The gossip of folk who thought his death could not come too soon.

However...

In a nice, comfortable hole in the village, a comfortable hole, by no means expansive or illustrious, lived a Lady hobbit by name Evangeline. She wa a Servant of Eru, and her habits, her hole and her mind were clean and without sin. Quietly, she lived there, keeping a tidy home where children visited in all joy and ate her wholesome food, vegetarian mostly, which was the produce of her lovely mixed cottage garden of perennials, shrubs, fruits and vegetables, grown organically, of course.

Now, from an early time, Evangeline knew of Pontifix's dissipation. Gossip flew hither and thither in the village. But instead of disgust, Evangeline, felt only friendship. (Pontifix had sat with her during their "Respectabily" classes in junior school). Every morning, she would take a barrow full of wholesome foods to Pontifix Manor, and there she would go to him wherever on his estate he had laid his exhausted, grog-heavied, body-fluid-spattered head. And she would feed him wholesome fruits and vegies. And in this way, she cured him every day of his booze-fatigue, physical exhaustion and all his assorted venereal diseases. The truth was, Pontifix would never have spent any money on anything that was in any way healthy; healthy living being anathema to him, healthy living being dull and boring as far as he was concerned. But he always ate Evangeline's food and accepted her natural medicines, for he never wanted to offend a Lady whose only joy was Kindness.

The truth is, if not for Evangeline's kind ministrations, he would surely have not lived very long at all. As it was, Pontifix lived until he was eighty two, much to the surprse of most villagers. But though he lived surprisngly long, his death was quick. He expired happily during an enegetic but dangerously fatal sex game involving elves and badgers.

As it turned out, to the bitter disgust of his cousins, Pontifix had spent every last penny of the family inheritance, and indeed, he was in such debt that his creditors had to sell his manor to regain at least some of what he owed.

Evangeline had to find some money to give him a half decent burial.

Good thing I drank some Bucckii33, otherwise I would have been disturbed by that!!!!

Love the new avatar, your Majesty. Cooooool is the word (though I'm not sure if there should be one more or one less "o").

Even by Wholesome Tales standards thats an odd un.

A mysterious person, that Anonymous Author of the Bugle, Petty, my now and again ally and fair weather friend. Odo tells me it was in some way inspired by conversations in Bree-land about Tom Bombadil, and also by the attitude of some guy called Jesus son of Eru. Mind, this knowledge only seems to make the tale all the more esoteric. (Odo said he personally prefers the Tale of the Eel Squeezer of Bree! Maybe it is about some kind of ogre, or fishmonger. I'm at a loss to say... Maybe the Bugle will publish it one day...)

Mmm well you can't go wrong with an eel-squeezing story I always say.

THE GRIPPING TALE OF THE EEL SQUEEZER OF BREE

Once upon a time, just down the lane from the Prancing Pony, there lived a fair young hobbit lass by name, Meredith Melons, a hobbit of good but vulgar stock. Some think she was more Stoor than Fallohide, not that anyone nowadays gives a hoot, for the modern audience is far more interested in her fame as the Eel Squeezer of Bree.

How Meredith came to love eels so much, no one can say, but her expertise was of a great magnitude, and her energy for it at least three quarters as magnitudous. Every year, from the time she was old enough to fix a worthy grip, Meredith would attend the Bree-lander Eel Festival.

You may not know this, but at the Bree-lander Eel Festival all the hobbit lads and men of Bree would line cup in Bree Square in their best trousers. At the appointed time, all the lasses of Bree would walk along the line. The hobbit lads and Men would drop their trousers as one and produce their eels, which each lass squeezed firmly as she sauntered past in her bonnet and uggboots. (The eels were imported from the Grey Havens, 'tis said, else no one knows where they came from. And why the lasses wore bonnets or uggboots, while the hobbit lads and men kept their eels hidden in their trousers, is anyone's guess. It's true that many details of this tale are sketchy).

Now, it's believed that those hobbit lads and Men who decided that a lass had squeezed his eel in a profesional manner, might very well choose that lass to be his wife. So I guess it was some kind of fertility rite, though calling it that does not seem to give justice to the amount of fun the particpants derived from the Festival. (Strangely, it's also said, once married, those same lasses lost much of their interest in eel squeezing).

The curious thing about Meredith, howver, was that, while nearly every hobbit lad and Man enjoyed her eel squeezing to the highest degree, and nearly all of them wished to make her their wife, she shunned their advances every time.

"I am no hobbit lass who wants settlin' down," she would tell them all, "but if you wish to befriend me, you know my address."

And for many years she lived alone. Mind you, dear reader, "alone" does seem a strange term, for often (three to four times a day) she was visited by many hobbit lads and Men, and it's said there was always aroused in her hole the sounds of song and laughter and deep sighing. We don't know what they were doing in there, but it's believed they were playing Cluedo, Scrabble and Whist - oh, and yes, and at the wheel doing Singing Practice.

The fame of Meredith went out to the world, and every year, more and more and more hobbit lads and Men came to the Festival. And then, as the years passed, there came also dwarves, elves, and Nazguls (refortmed ones with huge eels).

"We come here to have our eels squeezed by the Eel Squeezer of Bree," said they.

And Meredith was pleased. And without fail, at every Festival, she set to with hand, foot or mouth, gaily squeezing every eel that was ropped out before her - and never was she ever less than professional and accommodating.

One year, however, a tall, handsome hobbit came to town. His name was Orwellian Figg, and his eel was as big as a python, probably bigger. Where he got his eel, no one knows, but he had to wear trousers with four times the waist to conceal it. Indeed, who Orwellioan Figg was himself is a mystery, for he seemed tall for a hobbit (six foot) and his feet were not hairy. Some thought him a God and others a Man pretending to be a hobbit. Whatever the case, on Festival Day he stood in line in Bree Square, and at the appointed signal, he dropped his trousers, and out fell his absolutely amazing eel. Long, sleek, but of a fleshiness not often seen in Bree, or even in Forumshire.

Now when all the lasses came along, they all of them, one after the other, went to a'squeezing Orwellian's enormous eel, and all fell exhausted, one after the other.

Then came Meredith Melons. Her eyes positively lit up. And she set to with gusto. First with hand, then hands, then foot, then feet, then mouth. It was amazing that she could even fit in such an eel for mouth-squeezing.

"My goodness," cried Orwellian Figg, "Never has a person, whether hobbit lass, woman, or lady badger, shown such energetic profesionalism in the Art of Eeel Squeezing. Will you marry me, Miss Melons?"

But Meredith could not speak, not with such a large eel plunged into her mouth, so she held up her hands and gave him a very delighted thumbs up, even as her eyes a'glittered.

And not long after the happy sound of Wedding Bells resounded all over Bree Hill.

And they lived happpily ever after for about two months, until marriage set in, and Mrs Figg lost her ardour.