Crabbit Faery Tales and Folk Tales of Forumshire

Finally had time to catch up with this, and go back and read previous portions again, much of which I had forgot. Some of the best stuff, as ever.

{{{{Thanks Halfy- apologises about the time between instalments, but between being on the run and work I either don't have the time, or when I do my brain is so fried I cant get anything meaningful down }}

Bite size pieces mean I dont miss an instalment which is great I also am running around like a blue arsed fly so, 'episodes' are good for me

In another part of Scotshobbitland the road between McTyrants lands and Greetin' Blue ran along the bottom of a thickly wooded glen.

Amarie sighed. She lent against the tree which was an outlier of the thicker birch woods behind her that covered the glens floor. At her feet the road ran, pitted, and muddied with weather and the passage of travel.

Things had she knew gone astoundingly well so far, so well in fact she had done little in the way of orchestration and a lot more of observation.

But no longer. It was she supposed only a matter of time before one of the strands did something unexpected and began to unravel, and typically it involved love.

Her pointed ears pricked at the distant sound of hooves and wheels.

She withdrew soundlessly behind the trees and the screen of tall scrub grasses and low bushes which grew there on the verges.

One piece was out of place and needed redirected. Fortunately on the Dark Planet they were good at putting people in their right places.

On the road below her a cart swung into view, on-board it was Norc and Ringo. Norc had the reigns and was whooping in delight. Ringo bore a look that was one part trepidation, one part exhilaration one part love, and one part pure terror, which made for a face that was mainly eyeballs and gritted teeth, as Norc whipped the horse on to greater speeds and into the now dusty distance.

Amarie stepped back out from the shadows. Not far behind, but too far away to catch Norc in time, she knew rode Norc's father and his Viking horde, she needed them to catch up.

She raised her hands before her face and blew between them and a dark smoke gathered. All it took to get quickly from one place in another was to punch a hole in reality at one point, and then at another where you needed things to be, then with a little Dark Magic- she twisted her hands and the black smoke took on a viscous, physical quality- you build a tunnel between the two.


A cloud of dust swearing and the neighing of horses marked the passage of the Viking horde and so speedily was it going that it had no chance of stopping in time or to prevent its entire angry membership disappearing at speed straight into the colossal black rift in space that had suddenly opened up unexpectedly across the road right before them.


Norc pulled frantically on the reigns of the horse which began a spirited attempt to slow down without its back-end crashing into its front, she stared ahead bewildered.

Half a mile ahead on the, moments ago, empty road, there was now a charging horde of bewildered, angry Vikings led by her father. He spotted his daughter, let out a roar, and bewildered or not about how they had gotten where they had gotten, they at least now knew where they were going, and renewed their efforts of pursuit with a mighty roar.

“Oh fuckity fuck, fuck!” Norc cried, and without slowing their own cart further reigned the horse round in a tight turn and the horse cried out in protest and tired desperately to count its legs.

The cart swung up onto two wheels, ”Help ma boab McCrivvens!” Ringo cried as the world swung sickeningly in a hundred and eighty degree arc around him before the cart thumped back onto all four wheels in a distressing squealing, crunching and cracking of wood and carried them miraculously back the way it had came.

The cart clattered back towards McTyrant lands, five minutes later the Viking horde followed them. And just as the dust was settling back upon the ravaged road Amarie stepped back out from the shadows and smiled.

But she had little time to revel in any achievement she had a meeting to attend with some very discreet ladies.

Scottish Ringdrotten still weirds me out a little since I can't help but think of him as the quintessential Fjordian manly man. Great fun regardless!

{{{A lot of Vikings have a Scottish cousin or two, and in the northern islands very hard to tell whose a Scot descendant and whose a Viking}}}}

True that.

Figg woke with a start. The room was dark save where a soft shaft of yellow sun struck the far wall and alighted half upon a mirror, which shone sharply in response causing the dust around it to sparkle in the air.

Figg stared blankly up whilst her tired brain tried to catch up with recent events. And it was with a slow dawning therefore that she realised that she was staring up at herself, and that herself was staring back down at her.

There was a mirror on the ceiling, directly above the bed.

She looked on her prone form with some critical regard, her face was dark with dirt and grime, her hair, which usually she fastidiously brushed before bed, was as it always was upon awaking brush or no, spread out about her in a radiant mess of ginger curls, tangles and knots. Recent events meant it was even wilder than usual, and distressingly there seemed to be a lot of plant life from the forest caught up and entwined in it. It gave her the rather disconcerting impression, staring upwards at herself, that she was submerged below water.

This she considered was probably a fitting metaphor for recent events.

She was broken from her revere by a sudden and loud banging on the bedroom door.

“Git up yi lazy Sassenach!” the shrill piping voice of Petty cried out from the other side,”yu've work tae dae Maw says.”

Figg ground her teeth in annoyance. Her eye traced along the length of the sunbeam, following it back to its source through the gap in the curtain and to the window and beyond that to freedom.

And then what?

She had been free before she got here, and starving, and wet, and half drowned, and attacked by pirates, police, drunks, scotshobbits and encountered witches and kelpies along the way. And she would still be alone and lost and in McTyrant lands if she ran away again now.

It was possible she considered that freedom was overrated, and the promise at least for now of warmth and breakfast might be worth the price of slavery. It wasn't much different so far from school. And she reassured herself it was only until something better presented itself. She had after all a few days, and her trip to market. She decided not to think about that part now and instead dragged herself from the bed.

She shivered at the sudden chill on her skin and felt the seductive draw of the warmth of the bed that she had to fight strenuously to resist, and then realised in a moment of horror that her clothes were missing. Her bustle was nowhere to be seen.

She turned her eye frantically to every corner of the room but no, her bustle was gone.

Finally in desperation and for lack of anything better, she stripped the sheets from the bed and wound them tightly around herself and opened the bedroom door just wide enough to stick her head out.

Petty who had been loitering just outside the door let a high pitched squeal as Figg's wild head of ginger hair suddenly appeared around the door like a live medusa.

He teetered and fell over backward onto the floor with a frightened cry.

A Moment later Maw appeared crying, “Petty! Whit is it noo?...” she stopped short at the sight of Figg's wild head around the door, then at Petty who was crawling backwards on the floor  away from Figg.

“Um,” Figg said, “My clothes appear to be missing.”

“Aye lass,” Maw replied, “I'm geing them a gud scrubbing. Whit on earth yud been dain in them A've nae idea, but yon bustle was as filthy as Petty's kilt and heart combined.”

“Maw!” Petty protested from the ground.

“Well actually I have been through rather a lot,” Figg explained hoping to play a sympathy card early, and hoping Scotshobbits had some sympathy to play on, “why just recently I met a witch and got into a terrible fight with the...”

“Yi can tell me aw aboot it later hen, wi'll huv plenty time whilst yer daeing the bakin', yi'll find some o' Pretty's claethes in the wardrobe,” she nodded at Figg, “and a brush in the top drawer of the cabinet,” she added,then after a moment's thought said, “Dinnae try tae go intae the bottom drawer, its locked fir a reason an A'll ken if yi've been in there, it's no fir yi, no at yir age.”

Figg frowned at this and withdrew into her room.

She flew open the wardrobe resigned to the fact that whatever was in there she was going to be wearing tartan no matter what. What she was not preprepared for was having so much of her own flesh on the outside where other people could see it.

Pretty owned nothing it seemed which did not expose acres of flesh. The skirts did not pass the knee, or often the thigh, or often the top of the hips. And as for the tops, they were clearly designed to contain and display things which Figg in her youthfulness did not in fact yet possess, and she considered had she possessed them she would certainly not be displaying them like goods on the shop shelf. Why would anyone want to do that and be ogled at by strangers in the street?

She considered that thought a second, then glanced up again at the mirror on the ceiling above the bed. Something told her there was a connection there and she was dancing once more around the molasses of the thing no one who talk about but everyone but her seemed to know about and be doing.

A mad impulse suddenly took her and letting fall the bedsheet she pulled on one of the tiniest tops and pulled one of the shortest of the short skirts on and flung herself onto the bed and stared up.

A moment later she got back up, went to the small sink in the corner where there was a water jug of freeing cold water and scrubbed herself lean from head to foot, after which she went to the cabinet opened the top drawer and got the brush, she quickly, urgently and with more than a wince or two at a tight tangle encountered brushed her hair back into a semblance of control, got most of the twigs out of it and returned to the bed.

She stared upwards at her reflection and it seemed to her, for a moment, a women several years her age, no longer  a girl, was staring back at her. And then the sensation was shattered by a banging on the door, “Maw says yi've tae git a move on!” Petty yelled through the door at her.

She stared back up at the mirror. There was not a chance in hell she was going out there dressed like this with that odious little toad Petty out there to gawk at her.

A few minutes later she emerged from the room, she was wearing two of Pretty's tops one over the other for added security and the longest skirt she could find, not that anyone would have known as she had also used the bed sheet to make a toga style dress which successfully covered her, wrapped several times around, from neck to ankle.

“Maw!” Petty cried out in protest, shouting out of the hall and through to the kitchen, “Maw! She's wuring oor bedsheet fur claethes.”

Ma emerged from the kitchen in an apron which had on it the words “Crabbit cooking requires a Crabbit Chef! Complaints will be met with violence!” and looked at Petty and laughed, “Aw poor Petty, yi disappointed son?”

“Whit?!” Petty cried going red in a hot flush from ears down,”Nooo!”

“Aw look at yir brass neck! Paw! Cum an' see Petty's brassie!”

Paw lumbered into the hall and looked down at Petty squirming and getting redder at the attention by the moment. Figg stared on in a sort of fascinated wonderment of discomfort.

“Beetroot!” Paw laughed pointing at Petty, “Yir the colour o' beetroot lad! An aw jist fae seeing  a lass in a bedsheet! Eru help yi son!”

“Yir a couple of bastards!” Petty cried and leapt off the floor and ran out the hall. A moment later the front door of the barrel slammed shut..

“Gi efter him Paw,” Maw said, “yi ken its aboot time yi were geing him the talk oanyways.”

“Aw noo,” Paw protested, “wi  spoke aboot this.”

“Aye and yi said yi'd gei him the talk,” Maw replied folding her arms across her chest in a opening hostile gambit, her mouth becoming a firm hard line.

“Aye, bit that wis jist sae yi'd stop asking me tae,” Paw shrugged unwisely.

“PAW McTYRANT!” Maw roared.

Paw's eyes fell to the floor and seemed to take a keen interest in the grain of the wood there, “Aye,  A'll jist gae an catch up wi him then shull A?” He backed carefully out of the room, “A'll jist be awa' an' dain that the noo,” he backed out completely leaving Maw and Figg alone in the hall.

“Right hen, kitchen wi yi, wi've porridge tae maik and baking tae dae.”




Amarie stepped out of the shadows in the cellar beneath the Clan Chief Castle of the Mctyrants.

Lance was already there with two of the eel wranglers.

“You made it,” Lance greeted.

“Yes,” Amarie replied, feeling just a little smug that he did not seem to know she had been there observing in the darkness for some time.

“I was worried you might find it difficult to get in.”

Amarie laughed, “I am an Ambassador, getting into Royal Palaces is rather one of my assets. Easier for me than for you. In what guise are you in the Chief's Court?”

Lance smiled, “Rich playboy,” he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her, “Her Majesty's government provides me with a sizeable allowance for such occasions, as far as the clan are concerned I am a rich investor, on the look out for new crabbit inventions to poor large sums of gold into it. If there is one thing a Scotshobbit can't resist it's easy money.”

“And do you have a plan?”

Lance turned to the eel-wranglers beside him. “This is Margarete, she is the new Head Eel-wrangler.”

“I will avenge the loss of my friend and former Head of our Association,” Margarete said fiercely out of porcelain lips, “as there crabbit took her so we will take from all Scotshobbits.”

“Who?” Lance queried with an arched brow.

“The woman they threw overboard for you on the ship,” Amarie prompted.

“Oh yes, the traitor! Her, of course,” Lance added hurriedly, “brave, noble and a great loss,”  he paused a moment in recollection and then pondered aloud, “I think I slept with her.”

“And for my sisters,” Margarete added ignoring Lance's last comment with an eel-wranglers diplomacy but spoken through gritted teeth.

“Why what happened to them?” Lance asked.

“Two lost at sea in the wreck, and one to a beautiful horse of the sea whose charms beguiled her to a watery grave,” she said sadly, “this accursed land has taken all three from us. I do this for them, and the money,” she added just in-case they thought her fine words were motivation enough for her, “Actually, mainly for the money,” she shrugged her perfect shoulders in a perfect shrug, “its only because their dead I've got the Head job after-all to be frank with you. So it's definitely mainly for the money.”

“And what is it these talented ladies be doing for their money?”

“Distracting the guards, those left in the palace.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning the main court will be at the Casino, I have challenged the Chief of the McTyrants to a game. Scotshobbits cannot resist a gamble.”

“Can you play?”

“Why Madam Ambassador, I am the finest player of poker, roulette and black jack in her Majesty's Service, and with her Majesty's Royal temper you have to be. No agent wants to return to Her Hjighness to to tell her they have lost the Crowns gold on a bad poker hand.”

“What and this happens a lot does it? You have to challenge people to games?”

“Oh,yes,” Lance replied with a brisk nod, “you'd be surprised how many foes, nemesis, enemies and general thugs and bandits I encounter where it all come down in the end to a nail-biting high pressured, high-stake winner takes all hand of poker or spin of a roulette wheel.”

“Really?” Amarie said with a shake of the head at this hitherto unknown aspect of a spy's work, “I would never have guessed. So,” she said returning to business, “you amuse the court at the Casino playing the playboy, the girls here distract the scuttle guards playing themselves- but how do we get in? That chamber is sealed by dwarven doors, imbued with magic. No unauthorised person can pass them.”

“Yes, that is rather where we encounter a problem.”

“You cant get in?”

“No, there is a way. There is an anti-chamber just off the relic room.”

“An anti-room.”

“Well, ok, its a privy, one of the previous Chiefs had rather a weak bladder where buckie was concerned and would have to nip out often during ceremonies. The privy has a chute leading outside to the moat, there is an iron grate at either end to prevent entrance this way but my chap Blue has something that will deal with those in short order.”

“So what's the problem?”

“Scale. The waste chute is too small. None of the wranglers will fit. And I only have until the weekend to find someone small enough and whom we can trust to carry it out.”



Figg stretched up on tiptoes, her right arm extended out as far as she could reach and her fingertips just brushed the outside of the bottle of buckie, which sat on the top shelf of the large wooden dresser with several others.

“Stand oan a chair hen,” Maw tutted and continued as Figg dragged a stool over to the shelf and gingerly got up onto it and snatched the bottle, “A' huv tae put them up there or Petty sneaks in and drinks it, oh, he's a bugger for the buckie,” she said proudly.

Maw swung a huge pot from the stove that was full of white bubbling porridge, she ladled it out into four bowls and Maw added increasing amounts of buckie to three of them but at Figg's insistence not the fourth. She was quite sure she did not have a head for buckie and even the smell of it made her stomach squirm.

Maw handed Figg the pot which still had a substantial amount of porridge left in it.

“Pour it in yon drawers,” Maw said indicating a large chest of drawers which stood against one wall and contained dishes on shelves and three large drawers beneath.

“What?” Figg asked confused.

“They drawers there,” Maw said pointing at them.

Figg shrugged and pulled open the first drawer, “Noo that wan,” Maw said tutting again, “the next wan doon.”

In the first drawer was porridge, old porridge. The drawer was full of cold porridge which had congealed and hardened, forming a solid rectangular block of drawer shaped porridge.

“That's yesterdays, wu'll cut it up an' huv it for oor elvenses way sum buckie.”

Figg shuddered at this prospect and closed the drawer and opened the one below. It was empty and lined with old fading newspapers, Figg could just read on one page “News of the...” and “What a pair of...” on another as she poured the contents of the pot into the drawer and they covered up the headlines, she kept pouring until it was half full of cooling porridge and the pot was empty.

“Noo wash the pot,” Maw said and nodded at the large ceramic sink with its scrubbing board.

Maw strode over to the kitchen window and pushed it up letting in a refreshing blast of cool morning air. Maw stuck her head and broad shoulders completely out the window and bellowed for Paw and Petty and coming back in she took the largest and smallest of the three McTyrant's bowls and sat them steaming on the window sill.

A moment later the top half of Petty's head appeared at the window and he reached up for his porridge. Paw appeared alongside him and leant down for his.

“Did she maik this?!” Petty began complaining, “cause A'm no eating it if she hus.”

“Then yi'll no be eatin' aw day,” Maw retorted, “and as she'll be helping me wi the bakin' this efternoon that means yi'll noo be wanting oany tablet either.”

Petty's face froze a moment, or at least the visible top half of it did, “well A cun maebbies huv a bit o' this,” Petty carefully reconsidered, “but we shudnae firget she's a sassenach an' she probably wants tae poison us aw, yi shudnae huv her bakin Maw, she shud be cleaning the bog.”

Figg pulled a face at him from he rpositon by the sink and his eyebrows scowled back at her over the window sill.

“She'll be dain the privvy the morrow,” Maw said and Figg's face fell and then she saw the amusement in Petty's eyes and seethed within at him.

“Gud!” Petty said gleefully.

“Cum oan son,” Paw said to Petty, “we'll huv oors oot here oan the couch,” and they turned and went back the way they came, Figg heard Paw say as their voices faded away, “Mind yi've that bag tae take tae the river son,” and Petty's whining voice replying, “Aw noo, Paw,” before being abruptly cut off with, “Yi huv tae start being a man some time Petty boy.”

This all registered somewhere in Figg's thoughts as being something interesting to find out more about but she was suddenly mainly preoccupied by the porridge before her. Whilst she had ate her fill the night before it seemed several days without food was going to take more than one large meal to cure and make amends for. She took up her spoon and eagerly dove in and wondered what tablet was.



Amarie sat at a desk in the Ambassadorial wing of the McTyrant's Chiefs castle in Dunfuckinaboot. So named she had discovered because in their distant past the McTyrants had no homeland, but were instead a wandering clan. A little further delving into the clan archives had revealed the enlightening information that this was because they could not settle anywhere without finding so much at fault, so much to get crabbit about that it led, inevitably each time to crabbit explosions on such a scale that their new lands would be decimated and once more they would have to take to the roads.

That told Amarie much about the McTyrant character, but the next period of their history proved even more enlightening. For it was during this second phase of wandering and fighting everyone they met and declaring their crabbit at all they found that they developed the pillars of crabbit mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy.

They settled their people here, called it Dunfuckinaboot and dedicated themselves to finding fault in everything they could with the belief that turning their crabbit on it, fuelled by the inspiration to be found at the bottom of a buckie bottle, would result in them fixing all that was wrong. And so finally they would have a utopian home that would not make them instantly crabbit.

Of course it had not actually worked. It was not that the McTyrant's were not inventive, they were certainly that. It was just that whenever they solved one problem the solution tended to lead to new unforeseen ones, which made them crabbit all over again.

And the number of good inventions inspired by crabbit and buckie, versus the number who just got very drunk a lot and got in fights was disproportionate in favour of the drunks. And everyone getting drunk and fighting all the time gave everyone a whole new round of stuff to be crabbit about. And so it went on.

It was Amarie considered with her Ambassadorial eye a complex land, and that was before you took into account its various feuds, most notable of which was with the McBanks clan, and its political system which involved drinking competitions and something called tossing their caber, which she was quite sure she did not want to see. The McBanks connection however. That was something she intended to use.

She placed a sheet of blank parchment on the desk and took up her quill. As Ambassador she had certain privileges, one of which was the use of the Chief's message service. And the Chief dare not refuse because, oddly enough, the laws of Queen Tinuviel forbade it and protected her.  And even the McTyrants knew disobeying the Queen was not worth the crabbit. But it was these very laws of the Queen Amarie was about to make use of against her.

She set quill to Parchment-

'Greetings Queen Tinuviel in whose nose all delight,

from Ambassador Amarie of the Dark Planet.

It has come to our attention of a dangerous plot to be carried out by a group of thieves against the McTyrant clan, which I fear may unbalance power in this region of your most honourable realm. To whit the theft of the Sacred Coal Scuttle of the McTyrants by a gang of notorious eel-wranlgers, who make us of their skills and training to steal rare and valuable items..

To this end I request your orders, to be sent by Royal Seal, to enlist the aid of Officer Ringo McRotten of Her Majesty's Glesgae Constabulary who is in the area, to have jurisdiction to apprehend the thieves in the act.

Please reply post-haste as time is off the essence if we are to prevent this foul plot from succeeding.

Yours in deepest respect and good wishes between our realms, Ambassador Amarie.'

As this was a Royal message it would go immediately and by Golden Eagle. The next message she sent would not warrant even a rat carrier from the McTyrants, so it would not in fact go by official post at all, but by her own means.

'Offo Banks,

Greetings from Ambassador Amarie,

further to our previous meetings I am happy to inform you that the Scuttle is finally within our grasp. This Saturday you must enter Dunfuckinaboot in disguise and in secret and proceed to the lower base of the Scuttle Tower where you will, at the time I shall provide you, there encounter a small group of eel-wranglers and a hired thief who will already be in possession of the scuttle. All you and your men need do is seize it from them.

Yours in good faith Ambassador Amarie.

She sat back and sighed. All the pieces were being slid into their places. She closed her eyes and envisioned how they all moved and in her minds eye each slotted into their places with a satisfying click fixing them in place.

Now all she need do was wait on the replies and then make everything move.

Dum Dum Darrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

{{{ Glad you are in for the long haul Azriel! It is heading towards a finale- just not sure how many chapters it will take to get there so hang in there }}}}

It's been a great ride so far so I certainly don't mind a greater number of chapters. Thanks for keeping this going, Petty.

Agreed I enjoy these stories

{{Thanks you two! More to come soonish... I hope }}

when I buy my castle I will call it Castello Dunfuckinaboot. its going to have cannons that scare the natives shitless.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Thanks you two! More to come soonish... I hope  }}

Hee hee Figgy And vats on the battlements filled with Uhu glue & fish guts just in case the Avon Lady tries to call

and lots of men with big swords

Oh fuckity the fuck fuck, I say! Had a bit of catching up to do, (a bit each day!), but it's been worth it.

I just spent the morning catching up. Hard work picking out my favorite parts.

Petty dear, Im hanging, lovey, Im hanging !

{{Your wish is my command Azriel!}}}




Figg spent the afternoon in the kitchen with Maw McTyrant, baking. This meant Figg had been forced to don atop her ginger curls a white fluffy hat with a tartan band because Maw insisted there be 'nae ginger locks in mae tablet!”

Figg had not really minded the hat at first, not until Petty had strolled past the window and laughed at her so hard he fell over. After that she fumed for some time, and it was made worse by his persistence reappearances to gloat and pull childish faces at her, until finally as the tablet preparation took shape he remained fixed staring in the window.

Tablet it turned out was what happened to a variety of especially sweet ingredients, largely focused around sugar, when you baked them all together in an oven.

When preparing in the huge ceramic bowl, the vigorous whisking required naturally fell to Figg to do, it looked to Figg unpleasantly like a large bowl of beige snot and smelt so sweet it was sickeningly intoxicating. This concoction of tooth rotting ingredients was then poured into a large baking tray greased heavily in fatty butter and placed in the oven of the range where it could presumably do no more harm.

Figg was glad to see the back of it and could not think what it was about the stuff that had Petty drooling in so much anticipation.

For most of its cooking time Petty was pressed with his nose up against the window, which left an unpleasant and ever growing green smear.

It was not until the now golden coloured and very solid block of tablet emerged and was cut up and the sweet aroma of it filtered into Figg's nostrils that she began to appreciate Petty's window pressing keenness. And it was upon been giving her first bite that she realised, that on a bad day, she might just kill for this stuff.

For Petty, whose nose was now so tightly pressed to the window pane that it was squashed into an ugly button of knobbly flesh this was too much and he could bear it no longer.

Seeing Figg, the sassenach slave girl, getting tablet before him he cried out in crabbit rage and with a ' schluck' noise detached his nose from the glass and moments later barrelled through the back door of the barrel and hungrily into the kitchen.

Maw cut Petty a slab of the tablet whilst he hopped impatiently from foot to foot kilt flapping and then snatched it greedy from her hand when proffered it.

“Petty! Yi'll choke!” Maw admonished as Petty stuffed as much of the large slab into his mouth as he could fit, “A'll get us aw a drink.”

“Cun a huv buckie?” Petty pleaded through a mouth full of tablet.

Maw frowned at him, “Noo Petty yi ken yi arnae old enough fir buckie.”

“Aww Maw!”

“Yi cun git aff the shandies an ontae proper buckie when yi're a man, huve yi dun wit Paw asked yi tae yit?”

Petty suddenly stared at the ground his face the perfect example of the studied sulk.

“Well then, till yi can prove yi're old enough yi're huvin shandy,” she turned to Figg, “it'll be milk fer yi lass.”

Figg was not sure if this was Maw being gracious and letting her opt out of the buckie or if it was meant as an insult because she was a slave and not worth the buckie, but either way she sighed a breath of relief.

With a sudden bang that startled Figg but seemed to Figg to startle Petty even more, the front door of the barrel flew open and Paw strode down the hall and into the kitchen.

He grasped a chunk of tablet straight from the tray, took the buckie Maw had poured for herself and drunk heavily from it, and then pointed a finger at Petty, “Huv yi dun wit A asked?” he demanded.

Petty did not answer but his gaze fell once more to the flagstones of the floor.

“An didnae lie tae me, A cun go oot tae the shed an' look fir maeself an see if thur still there. An if yi've lied, it'll be the back o' ma hand.”

Petty lifted his head and with some difficulty but a determination that Figg could not help but admire as it reminded her somewhat of herself facing down the Little Sisters at school, he said “Naw, A huvnae,” with some dark belligerence in his voice, a dare to challenge.

“Dinae yi take that tone wi me lad!” Paw growled, then his own tone softened somewhat, “look, a ken its hard on yi son but its aye that way, it's aw difficult, thats aw part a growing up, facing up tae it the proper crabbit way. Sae A'll gie yi tae the end of week, if yi huvnae done it by then yi arnae commin intae toon wi us. A'd be tae ashamed tae huv yi walking by ma side not huving grown the balls enough tae be a man an' cawed ma son and a true McTyrant. Till yi dae it, yir jist a wee boy yet.”

And pausing only to grab a second handful of tablet Paw strode from the kitchen.

Petty stood for a moment his face white and then he noticed Figg was staring at him and he flushed red, “A'm no a wee boy! This aw yir fault!” he cried at her and turning fled out the back door.

Figg felt embarrassed for him, but curious about what it was Petty had to do to prove he was a man and how on earth any of this could be her fault, she wondered if it had anything to do with what no-one would talk about. But it did not seem to be the same sort of thing somehow, this was something different she felt, something Scottish maybe she mused, or maybe just something male and so alien.

She glanced through the window and was just in time to see Petty slipping into the shed outside and shutting the door.

She wondered what was in there that could possibly make a man out of Petty?





Dawn arrived over the Ambassadorial apartments of the McTyrant keep in Dunfuckinaboot with a flurry of golden feathers and landed on the balcony.

Ambassador Amarie arose from the chair where she had been sitting waiting. One thing you could count on with Royal mail was it was prompt.

She saw immediately there were two messages, one attached to either leg, and so guessed at once their contents. She smiled and carefully took the mail from its feathered postman, who was eyeballing her with a look that reminded her that it expected reward or her face would be parting company with her head.

She took a slab of raw meat from a dish and threw it out and up into the air above the balcony. Majestically the golden eagle rose up and snatched it from the air in its massive yellow talons and swept away on a thermal.

She unclasped the cannisters. One letter was sealed with wax and addressed to her, the other, likewise sealed, was addressed to Sergeant Ringo McRotten. She smiled again and broke the seal on her own letter.

“Dear Ambassador Amarie,

Greetings from Her Majesty and Holder of the Fairest Nose in the Land Queen Tinuviel,

We thank you greatly for the information regarding this most terrible plot to destabilise the McTyrant region of Scotshobbitland and so Forumshire.

We have dispatched orders to place Sergeant Ringo McRotten of the Glesgae Constabulary in charge of apprehending the miscreants poste-haste, and with it we grant him legal jurisdiction within McTyrant lands which not even the Chief of the McTyrant's would dare oppose.

I wish you and Sergeant McRotten all the best in this dangerous endeavour,

from Her Majesty Queen Tinuvel, Ruler of Forumshire, and Valinor Seniors Golf Champion for the Four Hundredth and Sixty-fifth year running.


Amarie smiled again. It was proving to be a smiling sort of morning.

She patted the other sealed letter thoughtfully and absent mindedly against her bare arm then reached for her Dark Palantir and bending her mind upon it she focused on the whereabouts of Sergeant Ringo McRotten. She was going to have to pay him visit.

A moment later the palantir's swirling darkness gave way to the interior of a shabby inn the sort which Dunfuckinaboot specialised in and focused on Ringo and as it turned out, Norc.

Amarie blushed.

“Well,” she thought, looking away, “no-one was coming out of that without some bruising.”



Lance sighed wearily and put a hand to his head. He was sitting at a table in a poorly lit smoky room in an inn considered cheap by a race of people to whom thriftiness came instinctively and often with four hours of haggling.

He was here, had been here all morning, to try to hire, from among Dunfuckinaboot's nefarious villains and low level scum, a thief small enough to gain entry to the Scuttle Chamber.

The problem was he was in Scotshobbitland, and he was more used to far flung exotic locations Not that Scotshobbitland was not exotic, it was at times violently exotic, it was just it was also full of Scots.

Of those he had interviewed so far he could not work out half of what half of them said, and the other half were crazy.

A large part of the problem, and one he had under-estimated, was no good thief would work for a Sassenach, so the only people who would were the sort of people no one else would hire.

The door to the room opened and three people came in, they seemed in the poor yellow tallow heavy light, young to Lance, late teens at most and they sort of smirked in unison at him in a manner that seemed carefully tuned to be irksome. They wore flat caps on their heads, backwards and baggy ill-fitting sackcloth clothing onto which they had painted long stripes down either side.

“Terribly sorry chaps,” Lance began looking up at them, they snorted  nasally at him, stifling laughs at this, though what he had said that was funny he had no idea, “but this job is only for one person I am afraid.”

“Aye,” all three said in unison with  variety of pitches of nasal twangs to their voices and snorted again with bare contained glee.

“There are three of you,” Lance pointed out.

“Nae there isnae,” one of the three said much to the seeming amusement of the other two.

“Yes there is,” Lance countered feeling his temperature begin to rise.

“Naw, there isnae” one of them said infuriatingly, “Cun yi no count? Mebbies yi need tae git yer eyes checked oot pal,” and all three snorted at him in their condescending manner, the speaker waved a hand in front of Lance's face, “seeeing as yer dead old and decrepit like man, cun yi see this mister?” he waved his hand some more and Lance fought his own instinctive secret agent training to snap it off at the elbow. He tried to keep his rising annoyance at these idiots down and reminded himself he had to hire someone before the end of the week.

“Bet if yi pulled yir knob oot he'd sniff that faster than a wee scottie dug sniffs an arse-hole,” another chipped in to more laughter that did not seem so much shared between them as directed at Lance. Only the Scots would develop a form of humour that was an offensive weapon he thought.

Lance took a deep breath, and decided just to press ahead and get the out the room so he could interview the next fool, “you are unsuitable for the job chaps,” he said and they their hunched shoulders shook again with laughter at his words, “I am looking for someone smaller.”

“I um small,” the tallest of he three retorted, “cun yi no see that either? I cu hurdly see over this table, like,” he said in a challenging tone.

“He's sae small yir maw uses him fir a sex toy,” one of them offered and they all shook with mirth.

“An yer Paw fur an arse-plug.”

“Right that is it!” Lance exploded as they exploded with laughter. Just then the door flew open and the innkeeper appeared framed by two burly bouncers and his own large ears.

“Aw cum oan noo, wi're jist playing wi him,” one of the youths protested with a nasal whine, “tell um mate,” he said trunig to Lance with a barely concealed snarl, “wi were huvin a laugh were we noo pal?” this last part came with menace and an implied threat.

“Sorry sir,” the innkeeper offered, “these Neds slipped by us, dinnae yi worry sir, they urnae dangerous in small numbers, mair a bloody annoyance.”

The Neds turned to the innkeeper, “check oot they ears man!” one exclaimed, “they ur wallapers!” offered another, “hey are yir ears yon way pal cause that's how yir Paw used tae huld yi when yi were going doon on him?”

The innkeepers face went red and he lunged at the nearest of the Neds grabbing him fiercely by the collar, the bouncers moved in.

“OI cum oan pal, wi were jist huvin a joke wi yi,  an yi've goat tae admit yi're never gonnae be short aw an ashtray or two,” the Neds protested as they were nosily and unceremoniously dragged out.

The door slammed closed again.

Lance went back to sitting with his head in his hands thinking this was going to be a thankless, and possibly useless task. He was not sure how much more Scotshobbit he could take.

The door opened and closed again, Lance looked up at nothing and then looked downwards at a small squat figure largely obscured by the desk, no more than four feet or so in height and bedecked head to foot in tartan. And what wasn't tartan was hair.

Lance sighed “Name?” he asked.

“Wee Mad Mental Malky,” Wee Mad Mental Malky replied.

Lance sighed again only deeper, “And why may I enquire do you call yourself that?”

“Haud oan A'll ask,” Wee Mad Mental Malky said and turned half away from Lance and Lance caught, mumbled in a variety of pitches a variety of phases, “shud jist belt him wan and steal his money”, “might be buckie innit,” “whit's wrang wi the colour purple?' Malky spun back round again, “efter careful consideration, and debate, wi oorself, and noo reflecting on the nature of said debate, we huv tae sae, we call oorself Wee Mad Mental Malky, case we ur wee, mad, and very, very mental.”

“And you are named Malky I suppose?”

“Who telt yi that?” Wee Mad Mental Malky demanded.

“Why you did, just now,” Lance replied through gritted teeth.

“Well A hud nae right tae! If yi see me afore A get here tell me noo tae dae that.”

Lance groaned inwardly, “Fine. Are you prepared to climb through a privy?”

Again Malky turned in conference and muttered seeming nonsense to himself before spinning back round and declaring, “If yu've enough buckie in it lad, we'll eat oor way through yir fucking privvy! Wi' ur mad and mental efter aw.” He paused for  moment to let this sink in then suddenly added, “A'm not. Shut up, yir mental, yi dinnae huv a say.”

“Right!” Lance said throwing up his arms, “I can't take any more Scotshobbits! I'm trained for cocktail parties, yachts, sandy beaches and ladies in bikinis serving small sticky drinks with umbrellas in them. Shaken not stirred. Not this! Not buckie addled dwarves, Neds out to rile me up, and how” he added in growing annoyance, “can a place be so cheap that even a simple wooden chair has bed bugs in it?!” he roared rising up from his chair and scratching at his clothing, “Oh Eru I've gone native!” he cried slapping a hand to his head, “everything is making me crabbit, well that is a rummy deal, I'm an Englishhobbit, a subject of Her Majesty, I should not be complaining, I should be stoically dealing with it whilst conveying my displeasure through a carefully calculated series of ever growing intensity of  glares at the host!” he sat back down with a thump into his seat and slumped there, “I have to get this job over with. I have to get out of this place before I start wearing a kilt. You're hired.”

“I um?!” Wee Mad Mental Malky cried in a startled tone of voice that gave away the fact it was the first time he had ever heard those words.

“Yes, yes,” Lance said waving a weary hand at him, “just tell the innkeeper no more interviews, ever!”



Figg did not have the best of mornings. If she were to compile a list of mornings she had not enjoyed, this morning would be quite high up on it, and whenever Petty was about right at the top.
It had been her task that morning to clean the privy.

This was not as bad as it sounded, well it was, but no worse really than cleaning any other privy. For all Petty's disgusting habits, and she thought, Paw's as well no doubt, Maw at least had some standards of hygiene that extended beyond the bounds of her kitchen.

So whilst the task was unpleasant it was not horrendously so, except for the smell. And Petty. Both of which kept turning up unexpectedly to make her morning that little bit more unpleasant.

To Petty the sight of Figg scrubbing the privy, cleaning up after this literal mess seemed a delight to be savoured in and source of endless pleasure and an entire mornings entertainment, and he seemed to make every excuse to both come by and grin at her or worse to insist he had to use the privy, leaving behind abominable smells. For someone whose diet seemed to consist almost exclusively of porridge and shandy it was amazing the smells he could generate. Figg fumed and broiled at him all morning, finding him the most instantly annoying and infuriating boy she had ever met.

But still what she really wanted was to get a chance to see what was inside the shed, she thought about it all morning, but the opportunity never came in the morning as Paw was gardening, which consisted largely of him swearing a lot and hacking at the undergrowth at the edge of the lawn with a claymore whilst drinking buckie. Though this last bit could go without saying, as far as Figg could tell there was not an activity he didn't do without a buckie in hand, he took two into the privy every time.

But Paw at least gave her peace from Petty as he was notably absent whenever Paw was around. But annoyingly when Paw was not around Petty was. And Figg saw him go into the shed on at least two occasions, one of them carrying a large jug, she assumed full of stolen buckie. But it meant she never got close herself.

In the afternoon she beat carpets hanging over the washing line, choking on the surprising clouds of dust that arose from their garish tartan patterns.

The one small chance she did get to hurriedly slip over to the shed, when there was no sign of Petty and Paw had gone to relieve himself of some buckie in the privy, it was to discover that the door was locked, although she thought she could hear something moving inside she could not be certain and did not get time to ascertain as Paw choose that moment to return to assaulting the shrubbery.

Whatever the task Petty was to do it was clear by evening he still had not done so. There was a frosty silence between son and father, an unwritten rule it seemed that neither would speak to the other or even catch the others eye or stay longer than necessary in the others company, until either the deed was done, whatever it was, or the week ended and Petty failed to prove his manliness.

Figg went to sleep determined to find out what was in the shed the following day.

Unfortunately the next day she woke to a grey darkness and rain, rain which fell heavily all morning, with intermittent patches of really heavy, interspersed with torrential downpours and proceeded to repeat the performance for an afternoon encore until sunset. When then McTyrant family got even drunker and went to bed.

She spent the entire day inside the barrel scrubbing the floors and peeling potatoes for chips, potatoes being the only vegetable she had encountered since arriving, and which she suspected was only here because the McTyrant's did not realise they were actually vegetables. This was understandable as by the time they cooked a chip to a Scotshobbits tastes it had absorbed so much animal fat in the process it probably no longer counted as a plant at all.

Petty and Paw continued their war of silence and distance, Petty spent most of the day holed up in his own room. But Figg did catch him once going out to the shed and when he came back Paw glared at him and Petty glared back. But not a word was exchanged.

Figg lay in bed that night and mused. The weeks end approached. Petty had one more day to do whatever it was he had to do or else be left behind when she was taken into town and her sale. She cancelled out that last part of the thought, she did not want to think about that yet. It was easier to deal with the smaller things that were before her now than begin to think about the horrible fact she was going to be put on sale to the highest bidder.

She wanted to know what was in the shed, she wanted to know what Petty had to do to prove he was a man, she wanted to be distracted from thinking about the future and wondering about Petty's dilemma was all she had. And that in itself was odd she considered, as almost everything about Petty annoyed her, or make her fume. And yet, when she stopped to really be honest with herself, she had spent most of her time here either trying to work out what he was doing or reacting to him.

And that thought also annoyed her and made her fume as she lay there, and what was even more annoying about it was she did know why it was making her fume this way.

She fell asleep still very puzzled.

The following morning after breakfast she was set the tasks of lighting the fire in the main room. Paw was in there drinking his morning buckie and reading his copy of the Daily Purist. It was whilst Figg was down on her knees cleaning the clinker from the grating that Petty came in and approached Paw who looked up from his newspaper, his face betraying nothing but a stern unmoving frown.

“It's time Paw, A'm going tae dae it noo.” Petty said.

“Dinae stand there an' tell me whit yir goannie dae son, tell me when yi've done it.”

Petty bridled a bit at this but nodded and reluctantly Figg thought left the room, moments later he left the barrel too barrel via the back door. Figg was certain he would be going to the shed.

Figg continued to clean the grate for a few minutes, then standing she turned to Paw and said, “I need to get kindling from the kitchen.”

Paw grunted at her without looking up from his paper and she hurried out the room.
She could here Maw whistling out of tune to herself, she was folding laundry in the big flagstone wash-room. Good thought Figg heading straight for the back door and the garden.

The sky was still overcast and the low sun was a pale yellow and cloaked in rain clouds. Fortunately though it was not raining now but the very air felt damp and the surrounding trees and distant hills was blanketed in a haze of grey that obscured all but the closest of them.

Quickly she crossed the space of short grass to the shed. The door was unlocked and slightly ajar.

She pushed it further expecting perhaps to find Petty inside but instead there was just silence and darkness.

As her eyes adjusted they found nothing unexpected, some old gardening tools, empty buckie bottles, some on shelves with unusual liquids in them, more unusual even than their original contents that was. And stacks of old newspapers in one corner.

A huge ginger cat eyeballed her from the rafters and hissed when she entered.

Figg made some soothing cooing noises at it but it was clear the cat was in no mood for being soothed. Puzzled Figg closed the shed door and hurried towards the front of the barrel.

She was just in time to catch sight of Petty heading down the hill through the trees. He was carrying something quite large and cumbersome close to his chest in both arms.

Figg looked back towards the barrel, they had not noticed her absence yet, but they would soon enough. But then what the hell she thought, they were going to sell her tomorrow. What did she have to lose by following Petty? Besides she just had to know what he as up to before she left this place tomorrow.

With sudden determination she scurried quickly through the gate and hugging the undergrowth beneath the eaves of the trees she went in pursuit of Petty before he disappeared into the misty air.

Its the bit about the ears !
"" Just then the door flew open and the innkeeper appeared framed by two burly bouncers and his own large ears.""
just makes me squeal