Crabbit Faery Tales and Folk Tales of Forumshire

Already commented on this via Facebook but I just wanted to say again how glad I am that you're continuing this story, Petty. The Norwegian phrases are always fun, and it's nice that Google Translate can actually handle them for once!

{{ The google translate works very weirdly, or fails to work very weirdly to be more accurate.
I discovered if I put in a phrase, translate it to Norwegian, then take that translated phrase and translate it back into English I get something often wildly different back from the original English wording.
So I now have to keep altering the original English phrasing and feeding the translation back through until it translates as something that makes sense (and more importantly retains the joke).
Its a surprisingly lengthy and annoying process   }}

Terrible, terrible, terrible business, Petty... if one drops behind in your tales, one just can’t seem to find the time to ever catch up...

{{I do it seems need to confess some difficulty with the concept of a short tale! Not sure how long the original Puss in Boots is but I fear this may have already surpassed it, and with a lot more crabbit.

I kind of view it like getting a chance to publish in a magazine, like the Strand, or Amazing Stories, or some such: episodic and with occasional cliff-hangers, and you can always binge read them all when its finished    }}

Oh, this was supposed to be Puss in Boots? I keep losing track.

{{{ }}

You know, Petty, you must let me know when you start something new... if I start at the beginning I can keep up, you see... Though, if I start at the beginning, I could read some every few days and pretend I am reading it Iike you adding to it every few days... that could work I guess...

{{{Seems a very sensible idea to me Orwell- and way real life is getting in the way- last chapter has been 3/4 done for 2 weeks now! ) you'll probably catch up just in time for the end! }}

I started at the beginning of the thread.... First story down. Only about fourty to go, all eighty pages long...each part that is...

{{whilst I tip my hat to you, if I had one, suppose I could lift my kilt to you instead at your brave endeavour Orwell,I feel it only fair to say that you might want to put Gingerlocks and the Three McTyrants aside for later unless you've got the time, it being the first full length Forumshire novel!  (Also its available in a handy pdf format provided by Amarie, and as part of the Forumshire collection compiled by Eldo, A Green and Pleasant Land, and available in the link in my sig for almost as good as free! }}

What story are we on again ? I think Ive lost the plot ?

(((   Fine! Before the next chapter here's a recap- (and next chapter will be soon,barring LIFE ( ) I should have time to finish it tomorrow!

Halfy in Boots a recap-

Paw McTyrant the sole owner of Forumshire's only, and largest buckie factory has passed away. On his death bed he broke with all tradition and gave his inheritance not to his eldest son , Petty, who he considers a drunken useless arse, but to Petty's psychotic, selfish, violent sister Pretty. Who was the apple of her fathers eye.

To Petty he gave only his pet mutant haggis, Halfwise, who it turns out is not a mutant haggis at all but a lot smarter than he had let on. And American.

Halfy convinces Petty he has a plan to get him the buckie factory back and remove Pretty- to this end he seeks to impress the Ambassador of Forumshire Amarie with a special, personal gift- a rare Fjordian dish from her small home village. How this will result in Petty gaining the factory, remains a mystery to Petty, but then most things do.

After various shenanigans involving Odo Banks, Mrs Figg and her pussy and cross-dressing, they take up with a ship of Vikings led by the very sweary Norc. They set sail for the frozen ice-lands of Northern Fjordainland in pursuit of an ice troll, with the aim of removing a crucial and rare ingredient from it, one of its testicles. Its rarity being due to how reluctant trolls are to give them up.

Upon arriving in Fjordianland they recruit Ringo, a local troll hunter, as their guide, and meet two members of the Forumshire Press that Halfy had arranged to be there for unknown purposes.
This haphazard band of ball of fur, drunk Scotshobbit, Viking, press and Ringo set off into the heart of Fjordianland in search of an ice troll which Petty must part from its testicles. Or at least, one of them!

And that's your recap- though its better with all the jokes still in!! }}

Oh yeah !! I remember now Thank you

Very useful.

I just glanced back over some of the previous pages of this thread as a result of this exchange and I notice it's been exactly one year since Halfwise in Boots began! I knew it had been close, but time certainly flies. Congrats to Petty for keeping it alive and moving forward, at whatever pace!

{{{LIADW isn't that far off from being a year old too, but it's pretty much dead and buried, so }}}

Also, if anyone other than me (and maybe Petty?) used A Green and Pleasant Land as a reference work I would be super-tickled (just ignore the instances of my deadname in it).

{{ I glanced down at my sig when I wrote that Eldy to check I had the title correct and it still says Eldorion of course and my buckied brain simply wrote what it say without auto-correct on! My apologies-still shaking about ten years of habit! }}

No worries, but thank you. I was largely thinking of the PDF which is full of instances of my former username and, in a few places, legal name (starting with the first two pages ). I'd never go back and edit the stories themselves, but even just changing instances of my name in the editorial comments and titles/bylines would be a pain given how huge the document is. I feel a little weird rereading it now, but still, I put a lot of work into it and it's always nice to know when I'm not the only person to see something I did.

You know, there has been a hell of a lot of ‘creativism’ going on here over the years... catching up will be nigh on impossible... what with the pots needing pottering and so forth... Maybe, I’ll stick to dabbling and just reading the newer stuff and just going with the flow... luckily, it’s like I know all these characters and it’s a bit like watching Neighbours or Coronation Street... except with kilts or frocks... if, indeed, they are different things...

Petty trudged. Trudged was a good word for it he thought. The snow was thigh deep, he was not so much walking through it as he was heaving it out the way. Every step was leaden and none of it helped by the fact his backside was still smarting from the buckie glass and all the extra padding provided by the bandages made him feel all the more heavy.

His crabbit at this state of affairs was made all the worse when he glanced ahead to Halfwise who seemed, despite being on stilts, to have little trouble cutting confidently through the snow.

“How cum yi cun walk sae well?” Petty grumbled.

“What's that kiddo,” Halfy called back to him, striding ahead.

“Mu legs ur like twa big stanes, way weights oan thum, weights made o' mair big stanes, but yir cutting through the snaw like its noo thur.”

“It's these boots of your Paws,” Halfy replied cheerily, “there so big and thick soled with such large grips its like the snows not even there.”

“Aye, Paw aways hud the best shiniest muckle boots buckie cud buy,” Petty reminisced, “ah a'ways gut a cheap pair sae A hud mair buckie money, the holes huv holes in thum,” he complained, “an' noo like it even works, A've gone through loads o' cheap pairs whilst Paws still hud they muckle boats frae the start. If A hud jist bought a gud pair at the start tae it wid huv cost mae less in the lang run. Forty an' a half bottles of buckie less tae be precise.”

Ringo who was leading the party with Norc and the Vikings shouted back to them, “We must hurry our pace,” he said and waved ahead of them, “we must reach the lee of that small hill before we can stop to camp.”

Petty strained his neck to see the hill indicted but all he saw was what he saw all around them already, indistinct white humps, lumps, and domes, the 'hill' Ringo was indicting was a bit larger and a bit longer than most of the white humps they have passed by and over so far, but to Petty's mind it would never qualify as a proper Scottish hill.

“We have to increase our pace,” Ringo warned, “night has already fallen.”

They moved on again at a quicker pace, the newsmen bringing up the rear with their laden pony. Petty wondered how Ringo knew night had fallen, if it had Petty had not noticed it happening. It was possible the air was very slightly greyer than it had been, and the snow was perhaps now just blindingly white rather than surprisingly and painfully blindingly white as it had been. And he had to admit the sun whilst it had not set by any normal definition of the word, as he could still see the top of it, had at least rolled further along the horizon. This is seemed counted as night here.

He had heard that the night-sky in northern Fjordianland was one of the wonders of nature and a beauty not to be missed. Which was odd Petty considered in that they didn't actually appear to have a night to speak of let alone one filled with any wonders. There were stars up there but it was not dark enough and the glare reflected from the snow still so strong that only the brightest could be seen. He couldn't see what all the fuss was about. You couldn't even see the glittering ribbon of the Buckie-Way.

Three-quarters of their hike to the lee of the snowy hillside, which now loomed larger before them, the sky woke up.

Petty stared at it, stopping dead in his tracks.

“Um, Halfy!” he croaked, but Halfwise too had stopped and was letting out a low whistle, “Well would you look at that kiddo,” he said.

“Huv a fallen o'er an' hit ma heid?” Petty asked stunned, his eyes fixed skywards, “or maybe hud sum bad fisk?”

“Nope you are really seeing that kiddo.”

“Aye, but whit am A seeing?”

Above them the sky had become a shimmering blaze of greens and purples and blues, the entire night sky was a constantly shifting and changing sea of colours in huge bands that stretched horizon to horizon and the dazzling colours were so bright they reflected back dancing from the snow all around them, turning the night landscape into an eerie, yet beautiful kaleidoscope of shimmering hues.

“In the name o' the wee man!” Petty exclaimed in wonder.

Some way ahead of them Ringo shouted back, “Why have you stopped? We have to make camp.”

Petty tore his eyes away from the transfixing sky to Ringo, “Why?” he pointed at the sky “ luk at it?”

Ringo glanced upwards, “Oh that, its just the Fjordian Lights,” he shrugged, “come on, we don't want to meet our ice troll unprepared and in the dark of night.”

Petty looked around at the blazing sky, the shimmering bright snow, “whit bloody dark?” he demanded crabbitly and trudged on, but now taking every opportunity to look upwards as he went in wonder, even though that meant he now often fell over face first into the cold and frosty snow.

Camp when they finally made it turned out to be quite a surprise to Petty. He would never believed that it was possible to be warm in snow, yet here he was, a mere hour after they had arrived in a small dell formed by a crook in the snow covered hillside, sitting inside a hollowed out dome of snow. And with the entire party of Vikings, newsmen, Ringo, Halfwise and himself crammed within it it was surprisingly warm and cosy. And in defiance of all sense and logic as Petty understood it, which was admittedly limited, they had even lit a small fire in the centre of the snow dome which somehow had not reduced their shelter to slush and water.

They ate a meal together consisting of naturally enough herring in some variety or other, and Petty washed it down with an extra buckie, though he was aware that his bowels were grumbling heavily and the second buckie was probably going to be something he would shortly regret. Also he was having trouble sitting comfortably on all his arse padding.

“We must start early tomorrow,” Ringo informed them, “at dawn.”

“How dae yi tell?” Petty put in crabbitly under his breath, Ringo ignored him and went on, “it will not be easy to find our prey at this time of year, it may take some time.”

“How dae we find an ice troll anyhoo?” Petty asked.

“There are signs to look for,” Ringo replied, “if you know what they are.”

“An' dae yi?”

Ringo bristled at this a bit, “I have walked these lands since before you were born to insult them,” he snapped, “but you must trust me, trolls are not to be taken lightly.”

“Fine, sae how big is wan o' these trolls?”

“Do you know why a mountain troll is so called?”

“Cause they live in mountains?” Petty hazarded.

Ringo grinned back at him, “No, because when they sleep, and they can do so for decades or even centuries, they are often mistaken for mountains. Do you know why hill trolls are so called?”

“Am' guessing its noo 'cause they like tae run up an' doon hills pickin' floors thun?”

“I think you are getting the picture.”

“So nae chance Ice Trolls ur oanly as big as an icicle then?”

Ringo laughed, “No. If we are lucky we will find one that is no more than forty foot or so.”

Petty frowned at this and did some speedy internal calculating, “Thut's, wan hundred an' fifty-twa an' a third bottles o' buckie tall!!!”

Halfwise stared at Petty, “Do you count everything in buckie's?”

“Aye, o' course a dae,” Petty said annoyed then turning back to Ringo asked, “how dae wi get a bollock aff a' that?”

“Carefully,” Ringo replied.

Petty felt his bowels loosen even more, especially given he was apparently expected to part a forty foot ice troll from its knackers in the morning. He was still worrying about this and his bowels when they set about trying to get comfortable enough to sleep.

“Hey kiddo,” whispered Halfwise in the dimness of the dying fire light, “how did you work out so quickly how many buckies tall a troll is?”

“Ach that wis easy, A came top o' ma class in buckimatics at school, it an crabbit wur oanly twa things as wis oany gud at, wis top in that tae,” Petty added proudly.

“I am not entirely taken by surprise at that kiddo.”

“Aye, a cum second in the annual maist crabbit contest.”

“Hold on, second? I thought you said you were top of your class?”

“A wis, a deliberately came second sae a cud be even mair crabbit at huvin been robbed o' first place, kicked up a richt stink aboot it tae, goat a special commendation fir original crabbit thinking.”

“But you are good at counting too?”

“Ach noo, rubbish, arithmetic, maths aw that nae gud at aw. Jist the buckiematics. Paw used tae sae tae us when he hud a few in him, 'Son, that'll stand yi in gud stead wan day,' and then he'd add, 'if yi ever learn tae stoap being a useless cunt like'.”

“So,” Halfwise mused, “if I asked you what 408 multiplied by 6 is...?”

Petty stared blankly at him.

“Ookay, how about you are hosting a massive party with 408 guests all in need of 6 buckies each, so how many buckies do you need?”

“2,448 bottles,” Petty replied promptly.

“How about if you have 112 bottles of buckie and 7 guests, how many do they get each?”

“16, these ur easy,” Petty nodded.

“All right then, if a building is three storeys tall and each storey is 24 feet heigh, how many buckies high is the total building?”

“14,047 bottles, and a 12^th aw a bottle as a shot,” Petty replied seemingly without thought.

“You're like a buckie idiot savant or something,” Halfwise remarked amazed.

“A whit?” Petty frowned suspecting he had just been insulted.

“You know something kiddo?” Halfwise asked.

“Whit?”

“I think your old Paw may have been right. On both counts. Get some sleep kiddo, big day tomorrow.”

“Thunks, a wis trying noo tae think aboot it!”

Petty tried to fall asleep, but it was not just the prospect of a troll that was keeping him awake his bowels were giving him trouble too. An almost exclusive diet of porridge (laced with buckie) and buckie had given him a normally, well, fluid, bowel movement. But the recent substitution of porridge for an almost all fisk diet was causing unexpected goings on deep in his depths, articulated through a worrying series of gurgles, groans and ominous rumblings under his kilt as his internal organs, unused to variety of any sort found themselves at a loss as to what to do with all this fisk that kept turning up.

He also could not get comfortable, partly this was down to sleeping in snow, even though he had his kilt unwrapped and close about himself like a blanket, and partly because the layers of bandaging protecting his assaulted rear had become loose with walking through the snow and were bundled up in uncomfortable ways that seemed to prevent him, no matter how he squirmed, from getting settled. There always seemed to be a lump sticking into him no matter how he lay.

After what was probably twenty minutes of this restless squirming, during which the small fire burnt to embers darkening their icy chamber and the loud sounds of snores began to arise around him as everyone else managed to fall asleep -which was annoying- he decided he was gong to have to get up.

Eventually and prompted by more worrying rumbles in the interior he did get up and slithered out of the ice cave entrance and into the night.

The kaleidoscope that had been the sky had subdued in the intervening time and now the air was just a dull grey and all around heaps and domes of white snow bled off into a hazy grey distance, a thin mist was growing upwards from the ground, curling about his ankles and the loose hanging bandages which hung there.

Heaving his kilt into a more wearable position, looped over one shoulder in traditional fashion, he set off up the shallow slope of the hill, his guts were feeing very frisky as he went and he felt for the sake of the others he best perhaps put some distance between himself and their camp before offloading his problems.

He crested the top of the slope and made his way along a ridge looking for some rock or other to crouch behind but the top of the hillside was barren and white, though he thought not for long if he didn't find a suitable spot soon. It was just then he came upon the hole in the snow.

At first he thought that it was an ice hole before dismissing this as silly given he was on top of a hill and an ice hole was, on reflection he considered more likely to be on top of water not a hill. He peered into it and could see nothing but darkness. Still he thought, better than squatting behind a rock or digging his own hole with his bare hands in the freezing snow. Considering himself lucky he began unravelling his kilt.

Then he began the careful and laborious task of unwrapping the long looping strands of bandage, exposing his red, still tender and somewhat swollen rear to the crisp cold air. He heard the clink of the buckie bottles secreted about his kilt as he pulled it upwards and clear. Six left he considered, six buckies left to get him through this entire endeavour, and by the time he paid for this endeavour he'd be lucky to afford to replace them when they were gone. He had never been this close to buckie poverty before and the horror of it was so great he had to immediately open a bottle and guzzle at it for comfort as he squatted over the hole and murmured sadly as he drank, “six buckie bottles sewed intae ma kilt, six buckie bottles sewed intae ma kilt, an' if wan buckie bottle shud accidentally get spilt (doon ma throat), thur wull be oanly five buckie bottles sewed intae ma kilt'. He sucked on the bottle little a baby at the teet.

At the other end there was an eruption of bowels and flatulence.

Then the hillside trembled.


Halfwise awoke because lumps of snow were falling on his furry body, which was also his face. Also he could not help but notice that the ground was trembling and the snow walls around him crumbling, more worryingly so was the roof.

He scrambled up with a frantic pulling of levers and wires as Ringo cried, “Out, everyone out!”
There was a fight of clawing bodies as everyone tried to get out however they could and the Vikings swore at everything. Halfwise glanced to where Petty had been lying beside him and saw nothing, “What have you done kiddo?” he muttered grimly under his breath as he scrambled through a collapsing snow wall into the grey night air.

Things were not much better outside, the hillside was shaking, shedding off small avalanches of snow as it trembled.

Halfy scanned hurriedly around, counting bodies, the Vikings were there, confused, angry, weapons drawn in uncertainty and swearing at one another still, the two newsmen had gone immediately to their tethered pony and were frantically unpacking equipment and talking in excited tones about f-stops and palantir lengths, but of Petty Halfwise could see no sign.

Suddenly the air was filled with a deep and resonant roaring, a voice loud, deep and full of a sort of disbelieving rage. With no small amount of dread Halfwise turned upwards to the top of the hill where the small figure of Petty was waving and dancing franticly about, kilt and bandages flapping.

“Kiddo!” Halfwise cried, running towards the foot of the slope even as more snow cascaded down around him, “What the hell have you done?”

“A think,” Petty cried back down, bouncing around to keep his balance and cupping his hands around his mouth, “that A might huv shat in a trolls ear!”

Even as he said this the ground he was standing on began to rise up, he fell onto his face among sliding and slithering snow, which fell away to reveal coarse white fur beneath which Petty grasped onto as the troll began to slowly sit upwards, taking Petty upwards with it, his legs swinging below him, “Help ma boab!” he cried as the ground fell away from him and the troll, horrified by what it had found in its ear got to its feet roaring again in angry disbelief.

On he ground below Halfy stared in horror as the immense ice troll rose up, snow billowing off it in huge white clouds and showering around them in a mini-blizzard as they hurriedly backed away.

“Ice troll!” Ringo cried.

“We can fucking see that!” Norc replied, “and some fucking troll hunter you are, we were almost sleeping on top of the fucking thing.”

“Well I said I would hunt you down a troll , and there is a troll,” Ringo pointed out stubbornly, “and he's a whopper.”

“Hard to argue with that,” Halfy admitted staring upwards at the troll which was getting now to its feet with the small figure of Petty clinging to its chest and screaming in terror, “that is most certainly a troll, no denying it. Question is what do we do now?”

“Its too soon,” Ringo grumbled, “we are not ready, traps should have been laid, fire trenches dug, ice trolls hate fire. We should have kept it confined, then brought it down. But first we have to find a way to get your friend back, if that is possible.”

“I hope so,” Halfwise considered, “he is paying everyone's wages.”

Petty swung wildly nearly loosing his grip as the ice troll shook its head from side to side trying to dislodge what Petty had so rudely deposited in its ear. But gravity was well in command of its job and Petty's grip was loosening, even as he tried to re-grasp for a stronger hold the troll, pulling one large stubby finger out its ear and staring in horror at the contents it found on the end of it shook so hard in rage he plummeted downwards.

He scrambled desperately as he fell amidst the hair for a handhold but his hands slipped through it as he sped up and tumbled downward towards the trolls stomach. He realised, with dawning disgust and dread as he continued his plummet down the trolls body and over its thickly haired stomach, that one thing an ice troll did not bother with was clothing, of any sort. And he could see where he was heading.

“Troll knob!” he screamed in blind panic, “Troll Knob!” he repeatedly cried over and over in a sort of hypnotic scream as he did indeed plummet uncontrollably onto the appendage.

He landed like a someone might astride of a horse, if they landed on the horse from a great height that is and the horse was shaped like a huge pink sausage, wearing a purple helmet.

Petty groaned in agony, both at the landing and at the irony of it which was for once not lost on him, For a moment everything seemed to have frozen as bandages fluttered softly down around him, then he began to slide inexorably sideways.

The troll, having got a rough idea of what had befallen it in its sleep was now looking around for a likely perpetrator to blame and let know how unhappy it was with this state of affairs, when a troll couldn't take a simple decade long nap without some dirty bugger relieving themselves in your earhole. And had spotted the small band on the snow below of likely contenders.

It turned abruptly towards them, sending Halfwise and the news men scattering, one of them still peering through his palantir the entire time, the pony rearing and bolted further afield. Ringo dove for what could be salvage d of the supplies he had brought, desperately dragging what wood he had from his packs in the hopes of somehow lighting fire. Only the Vikings stood their ground before the troll under Captain Norc. But not for long as a hairy troll arm swept down and swept back up with a screaming Viking in its grip, “Fuck you in Odins bad eye troll!” the Viking cried hacking at its fingers with his sword to no avail.

Petty who was now upside down hanging onto the trolls appendage mainly with the power of his thighs, kilt upside down around him and bandages hanging, saw the Viking sweep by him and staring as he was upwards had the perfect if undesirable view of the troll stuffing the screaming man into its mouth and biting him messily in half. Red things and red wet blubbery things cascaded down through the air and pattered wetly to the ground below in bright contrasting splotches with the snow. Petty's moods alternated in response between utter horror and disgust and outright fear and panic.

“In the name of the wee man!” Petty exclaimed feeling faint as below the Vikings scattered to rethink their strategy for one in which they didn't all get eaten.

Petty gulped, wished he could risk reaching for a buckie, then got hit on the back of the head by something large, heavy and swinging. He craned his head round and realised it was one of the trolls large round testicles, swinging behind him. The thought occurred to him that he might not get a better chance. Like all Scotshobbits Petty carried a dirk, a small concealed knife, it was often thought of in Highland dress sticking out the top of a sock, but that was where you put it to show you were being nice, somewhere out in the open where everyone could see it and not easy to reach after a few buckies and when tempers might flare suddenly, the rest of the time however it was more conveniently located under his armpit and within easy reach.

Tying not to think about what he was doing, or what the ramifications of what he was doing would be in just a few moments time, he drew out the dirk, and hanging upside down he reached out to grasp a hanging testicle and pluck it. But just then the troll lurched suddenly forward in pursuit of more Vikings, the effect of the jerking motion on Petty was to swing him uncontrollable back around the other side of the shaft trailing bandages and kilt, and one swift disorientating action later he was back atop and sitting astride again. He blinked in confusion then gravity got a hold of him was more and he began sliding slowly down the length of the shaft towards its bulbous purple ending crying, “Aw noo,noo, nooo!”

On the ground below Halfy and Ringo, who had taken refuge in shallow gull of snow were joined by Norc, who slid suddenly in beside them, “I've sent my men to try to distract it, we need a fucking plan, and really fucking quickly,” she said.

“We need to get behind it,” Ringo insisted, “that is its Achilles thumb.”

“Who the fuck is Achilles?” Norc put in sharply.

“Old fellow, “ Halfwise explained automatically unable to resist a chance to impart knowledge even in a crisis moment, “from Italiashire, really good at arm wrestling, unbeatable they said, only turns out he had a gammy thumb, press it and he lost every time.”

“So what? The trolls got a bad fucking thumb?”

“No,” Ringo said,” bad knees, well back of the knees, hit them their hard enough he'll come down like a felled tree. Its getting behind it is the trick. If we had fire we could easily distract it, but,” he held up the sodden logs he had retrieved, “its too wet, without oil to get it burning its hopeless.”

“So where the fuck does that leave us then?”

A shadow fell over them and with all three in unison turned their faces upwards to where a huge troll was looming over their hiding place and staring down at them with a look of a troll who had not yet forgotten what it had found in its ear, and from the end of its exposed privates hung a traumatised Petty.

“Didnae worry,” Petty cried hysterically down at them in a voice laden with terror from his unstable perch, “A've goat him by the bell-end!”

The troll bent forward, reaching out its huge clawed hands to scoop them up and that was when Petty finally fell, screaming and tumbling through the empty air trailing bandages behind him.

And it was the bandages which saved him, having been looped around the trolls dangling parts they had slid to the end, finally coming up abruptly and hard against the protruding trolls knob and held fast there, and Petty at the other end of them came to an abrupt temporary halt about ten foot from the ground and the bandages went taut, and very, very tight.

The troll let out a sound never heard from a troll before or since, it was a sort of very long, high pitched, “oooooooooarrrgggghhhhh!”

Petty jerked so suddenly to a halt it dislodged half of his remaining buckies from within his kilt, sending them tumbling away from him to the snow below, before he could even cry out in horror he was catapulted back upwards as if on a bungee crying, “Noooooo!” as he went.

Halfwise plucked at some wires and reached out a hand and picked up a bottle of buckie, he tossed it to Ringo, “Buckie!” he cried, “nothing more flammable!”

Norc, immediately catching his meaning grinned and scrambled in the snow for the other two bottles as Petty, falling back again on his second trip downwards saw what they were doing “Ya thieving bastards!” he cried, jerked once more to a halt dislodging to his horror his remaining three bottles, “Didane yi touch thum! Dinae yi bloody dareeeeee!” He cried and again was whisked away upwards bouncing on the end of the tether, “A'll kill yi allllll!!!” he screamed manically as he went, all thought of the troll forgotten about.
But the troll had not forgotten about him now it had been alerted to the sudden pain in its nether regions. A hairy hand swatted at Petty as he swung between its legs, by sheer chance he swung out of its way but not on the backhand. That caught him full on and sent him flying on then end of his tether and swing over and around and round his point of anchorage screaming wildly as he went and ending up smacking with a grunt back firmly into the trolls collection of soft and dangling bits.

Below him Norc used the buckie to quickly set a flame to some brands, and Norc made of with one to join her fellow Vikings whilst Ringo and Halfwise drove at the troll and Ringo laid a semicircular path of buckie in the snow, pouring out one bottle after the other to distant cries of horror and fury and threats of painful deaths from Petty stranded above.

Suddenly Ringo set the snow ablaze and a huge arc of flame went up orange and bright in the semi-darkness and the troll recoiled and turned from it, “Now!” Ringo shouted and Norc and her men sprang forward.
The back of the trolls knees were to high to reach by swords but Norc had improvised and a hail of flaming arrows went up to strike the troll in its Achilles knees.

The troll roared and stumbled and Petty was swung furiously as the troll fell forwards, buckling at the knees,then Petty was slammed back again into the trolls testicles as the ground rushed up towards them. Seeing his chance and deprecate in fear Petty drew his dirk, grabbed a handful of the closest bollock to him and began to cut. The troll howled as the back of its knees burned and the fur stank and Petty hacked like a lunatic as the troll tried to crawl forward and away from the flames, slowly trying to rise back to its feet. Petty saw the ground leaving him gave one last desperate hack felt the the testicle come away in his hands and then as the ground began to move away with some rapidity he slashed wildly at the bandages holding him and fell clutching his prize to the snow below.

With cries of pained outrage the troll strode away in hurried loping strides clutching its privates and disappeared into the grey distance and misty haze. Halfwise, Norc and Ringo rushed up to Petty, the newsmen moved in for a close up.

“Kiddo!” Halfy cried, “you did it!”

Petty spotted Ringo among them, “Hey yi!” he cried, “that wis mair thun wan hundred an' fifty-twa an' a third bottles o' buckie high!!”

Norc burst out laughing.

“Whit yi laughing at?”

“That's the wrong fucking one,” she said grinning at them and pointing at the troll bollock..

“Whit?” Petty said sharply.

“What?” Halfy echoed.

“That's a right troll bollock,” Norc said, “you wanted the left, one is sweet one is sour, that's the sweet one, you need the sour. I thought every fucker knew that,” she grinned some more,”you'll have to go back after the big fucker and get the other fucking one off it.”

Petty's face went stiff and grey like a mask, “nawwwww,” he said slowly,”naw way!”

Halfwise's mouth fell open revealing a surprisingly neat and white row of teeth, “You have to be kidding us? Please say you are kidding us?”

Norc stared at them and then burst out laughing, “Your fucking faces,” her fellow Vikings roared with laughter alongside her, “oh your faces! Sweet and fucking sour balls, you foreigners will believe anything.”

Petty stared at her, still clutching his prize in a sort of terror grip, “Ah'm going tae kill her. Viking or noo, A'm goannie try!” he said and struggled to get up as Norc continued laughing and he passed out with the effort.



It was two days later in the cold and icy village of Veldig Kald Landsby. Petty had taken some time to recover from his ordeal, though he was prone still to wake up in a cold sweat at night screaming “Troll knob!” and no amount of alcoholic fisk drinks could compensate his sorrow at his loss of the last of his buckie, or his inability to replace it.

The newsmen he learned had left almost immediately on the first ship out of the village, and Petty still had no idea why they were here in the first place, not he thought that it probably mattered much there were a lot of things he did not know. Just about everything in fact. The Vikings were still there, Norc was their lift back home, and besides she was still waiting to be paid and there was nothing kept a Viking around like the promise of getting paid, or the promise of slitting your throat and taking their pay.

But it was not just for Petty's recovery that they remained two days in the village. It was so the local chef could prepare the delicacy, the rare and wondrous meal that required among its hard to find ingredients a troll testicle, the dish that would somehow, in ways as still incomprehensible to Petty, help him get control of the buckie factory, the meal par excellence to wow the palette of Amarie, Admin of all Forumshire.

And now it was ready and a small sample of it sat before Petty on a plate bubbling gently whilst around hovered the chef who had prepared it, Halfwise who was curious but cautious and happy to let Petty try this one first, and the Vikings who liked a good laugh at someone else's expense.

“Well go on kiddo, give it a try. That's one of the rarest dishes in all of Forumshire.”

“Ah'm noo surprised, who'd want it?” Petty grumbled wrinkling his nose at the blubbery sweating pile on the plate.

“Go on, try some, once in a life time chance.”

“Aye. Last in a lifetime chance tae,” Petty pointed out, teasing a small portion of it onto a spoon. He braced himself and shoved the contents of the spoon into his mouth, withdrew the spoon and chewed slowly.

His face reddened, tears formed at the corners of his puffy eyes, he chewed some more, and then with exaggerated effort swallowed. He stared.

“Well?” Halfy pressed, “what does it taste like?”

Petty considered this a moment then slowly replied, “Like a sea lion jist took a shite in ma mooth,” he nodded in self satisfaction at this apt description.

“Ah, I see.“

“And thun,” Petty went on in further studied consideration, “its used ma tongue tae wipe its arse wi.”

“Ah”

The chef beamed and patted Petty on the back, “It's perfect then!” he declared happily.

Must be a day for it. What with Petty & his "ball bag Supreme". My son & I walked passed a higher end Jewellers & in the window were a selection of Rolex watches. "Go in & ask for a Rollocks" my witty son said

Fingers crossed that Admin Amarië has a taste for the, ah, exotic.

NB Since people seem to have enjoyed what Azriel referred to as my "Stephen Fry moments" earlier in this thread, I thought I would note that this story is now, by my unofficial estimate, at ~31,700 words long. That puts it comfortably into novella territory and also makes it the fourth-longest Forumshire fanfic in our history, behind (in descending order) Gingerlocks and the Three McTyrants, Haddon Hall, and The Darkest Day. The most recent installment was the longest so far, at just shy of 5600 words. Another two installments of the same length would put this story into roughly a tie for third place on the all-time list as well as taking it over the word count threshold for a novel according to the criteria used by the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

  I glanced at the length of this a week a go and put it on the to-do list, which like all such lists I promptly forgot about.  Glad Eldy brought it back to notice.

{{Yeah it should probably have been in two chapters this one, but I was struggling for a natural break point in the narrative- I was going to leave it on a cliffhanger when Petty take his dump (its classy stuff this you know! ) but the troll encounter and aftermath wasn't enough in itself to be a chapter so I kept the two together.
Probably not a great idea as I realise it is rather off-putting (especially if your trying to read on a phone or small screen where it probably looks endless!).


Eldo- there is an end in mind I promise! I have no idea how long it will take to reach, as Tolkien was fond of saying these things grow in the telling, but if I was to look at it as a sort of 3-act structure (its not quite because its episodic but close) then part 1 was the set up and as far as the end of Figgs shoppe bit, the middle was up the end of this chapter, and the last act is where we are now- so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Honest!(oh an d ps, I consider myself exceptionally lucky and honoured to have you as my annotator-  I can think of none better

But just to say once more thank you all, and how grateful I am to anyone who takes the time in their busy lives to read my ramblings- hopefully they give some happiness back for the effort and raise a smile or two along the way- cheers }}