Thuglyffe

THUGLYFFE - A Nordic Tale

1


A time comes in any rustic Fjordianlandian young woman-girl-teenager's life when her Father hits her across the head once too often with his fugelhorn and her Mother takes back her work pants. On this day - as is according to Old Fjordianlandian custom - a young woman-girl-teenager leaves her home in the hollow trunk of her family's Booboo Tree on Krapponzacarput Island, Fjordianlandia. So - scowling fiercely  - the young woman-girl-teenager Thuglyffe packed her kazoolies, baubles and hoary backenscratchners, and set out into the Sub-Arctic Winter - which the Fjordianlandans - even today - swear is their Summer.

"I will go to the Great Town and make for myself a dandy living drawing pictures of cool Urbanites on the pavements of Skattykatzenfjord, possibly in crayon or some such like material," said she. And hoisting her heavy hopenskotchen bag upon her elfin shoulders, the young woman-girl-teenager trudged off down the icy road, walking with such gait as to give the impression she had a plum up her porticus. Yes, she was young woman-girl-teenager as had a high filutin impression of herself.

(I shall henceforth describe Thuglyffe as, simply, a 'girl', fearing that would be best).

It was a long icy way to Krapponzacarput, the island's port town, and so she hitched a ride down in a Skoda driven by Eric Fortenbogger, a travelling fisk oil salesman.

"You are a fierce looking young woman-teenager," said Eric , lighting up an eelworm cigar as was a favorite Fjordian pastime in that past time. "Do you scare all the boys with that horrifically negative visage, or just some of them?"

"I thank you for the lift, you old Fjordian bandicoot, but please leave my interpersonal disabilties out of our conversations, unless you want me to start swearing at you in a most displeasing manner. And, anyway, some think me sassy not scowly."

"A sassy-lassie then," Eric smiled benignly, showing hs family connection with the Hebrideans just across the sea.

And Thuglyffe was quite pleased at that. "You are not so bad for an Old Man," said she, and she frowned quite winningly.

"I am but twenty seven years in the age area," Eric complained, but gently.

"Yes - that's right, Old Man. I picked your age within a centimetre. Now, watch the road please, as I do not wish to participate in a road collision, nor slide off into the snow and thus be bogged and delayed in my journey somewhat."

They drove for awhile in silence, the only noise being the scribblekratch of Eric's tyre-chains on the icy road.  

Suddenly, Thuglyffe said. "I am an honourable Krapponzacarputian and thus must give you in all honour something of pleasure in return for the free journeying of your vehicle. Here. It is a picture of a cat sniffing a bird, but abstractedly done in pens with nylon thread pasted to the parchment to striking effect. This item may bring you a great fortune in a future day."

Eric was most pleased, for the artistry of Thuglyffe was rather artful and any work of hers was likely to be worth much kaboolah in the future - most likely after she was long dead, which is usually the way.

At the evening of the day, Eric pulled into Port Kraponzacarput and Thuglyffe climbed out, scowling her thanks.

She saw that a ship was ready to steam-sail. It was a three master schooner with large phallic chimney-things. The Captain - Thuglyffe saw on a noticeboard on the pier - was none other than the dashingly handsome - somewhat elderly - Orwell MocOdo the Eleventh. The one who admired fine figured young men but not so much fine figured young ladies, finding them a little bumpy in certain of their parts, he thought to ill effect - 'girlie bumps are a poor design' he oft declared at Art Shows on the mainland; this, of course, being his artistic view only, as this is a Family Friendly Tale.

"Captain, oh Captain!" Thuglyffe called out to that foppish grandee on the poop. "My good Old Fart, I wish to come aboard, please."

"Have yo got enough koolallees, lass? Enough koollallees to pay the fare?"

"I have several etchings of young men snow baking on the banks of a frozen fjord, caringly articulated in bronze pigments and saffron oils."

"Ah! You sound like that young artiste, Thuglyffe, of whom all North Fjordianlandia - and  some parts of Western Fjordianlandia - speak so highly, especially in the Highlands. If you are as you say - and your famous scowl has long preceded you in tales both tall and short - by all means trudge aboard. And fear not. My womanizing reputation is but that, a horrid ruputation that sickens me."

"And what of your reputed artistic interest in young men, or young women who, according to their Cultish Feminism, dress somewhat like young men?" Her eyebrows became arches for some reason then.

"It is but an interest,"Orwell quickly replied. "Avid and possessive though it may be. I assure you, even if you were to dress up as a fine young man, I would still not lay a hand upon you, just an admiring eye - or two."

Satisfied by his response, Thuglyffe scrabbled up the gangplank, and the First Mate of the ship, Petty Tooklemyer cast off.

Thuglyffe stood at the gunwale. She sighed. What new life lay before her? Had she made the right decision to leave her rustic island home with it's leopard seals, it's horny elk, and it's delicious snow-cakes which even now would be sizzling on splintenburners all over the island, it being croopzenbucking hour.  


to be continued...

woah. that was fast. 

she said

Fast is one of Ol' Anon's specialities, Norc. Just ask his lady friends.  

"She saw that a ship was ready to steam-sail. It was a thre master schooner with large phallic chimney-things. The Captain - Thuglyffe saw on a noticeboard on the pier - was none other than the dashingly handsome - somewhat elderly - Orwell MocOdo the Eleventh. The one who admired fine figured young men but not so much fine figured young ladies, finding them a little bumpy in certain of their parts, he thought, to ill effect - 'girlie bumps are a poor design' he oft declared at Art Shows on the mainland; this, of course, being his artistic view only, as this is a Family Friendly Tale."

Classic Odo humour I continue to be amazed by how fast your imagination works, and how fast you can produce fun stories, Orwell - I wish I could write like that

And how fast replies are made on this grand forum

Ol' Anon calls it his "Crap Theory". Just write whatever crap that comes to mind and hope for the best. The more you do it the easier it becomes (apparently).  Though sometimes you're fiercely editing stuff even as folk are already reading it.  

Ringdrotten wrote:And how fast replies are made on this grand forum

That should be Grand Forum -- though we mustn't be Narcissistic.  

Of course, of silly and woefully little respectable of me  

it's brilliant writing though

How can it not, considering who our heroine is? She's larger than life (apparently).  

2

To describe the voyage as 'splendid' would really not describe it at all, but that's how Thuglyffe thought of it in later years. When her Artistic Supporters asked her, "How can that voyage in your youth be described as splendid? Surely, you 'feel' it was splendid, but to describe it as splendid will surely lack all prospect of finding appropriate words of apt description?" Thuglyffe, of course, could never answer that question. But she is confident that one day words will be invented that will truly answer it. Which shows she is an optimist at heart.

Thuglyffe spent her 'splendid' voyage mostly drawing Orca whales, cloud masses, ice floes, Fjordian semen and Fjordian seamen. She is what might now be called a 'cutting edge' artist, and sometimes, she actually did cut the edges off her drawings. Some of these snippetty-bits (as she affectionately called them) she pasted onto other drawings. Indeed, one larger drawing took on a certain aspect of Tolkien artistry. It being a huge cut and pasted unfinished mosaic she called, "Leaf by Thuglyffe." Though it was all pure imagination and she only ever had three quarters (75%) of an idea of what it meant. The idea that she could only ever understand three quarters of it did niggle her at times, but that's Art for you. Oh yes. She only drew semen after it had frozen, as, oddly enough,  she had trouble capturing it's essential liveliness when it was still moving, which some of you - who don't truly understand Art - may find disquieting.

MInd, she did draw a few other things. One picture she drew was of a hoary gnarled old Tar leaning on the gunwale on the poop with his haggard sea bitten face staring lecherously into the South Wind. But - perhaps wisely - she didnt show it to Orwell McOdo, as it was not as complimentary a picture as you might think. She did, however, show him her other etchings. And there were several drawings of Petty Tooklemyer's fine hairy upper-legs as he swabbed the decks with a southerley up his kilt, which the Captain particularly liked, and had been commissioned by none other than the Captain himself. (The legend goes that one day Petty chanced upon those fine and delicate works affixed to Captain Orwell's cabin wall, and it gave that rather naive Scotshobbit a right shock).

One day - when her painting/drawing wrist was sore from drawing a picture of an albatross - Thuglyffe was resting in a deck chair. A cabin maid approached, by name Allygator.

"Miss, may I be having a moment of your time?" the latter asked timorously.

Thuglyffe opened a bleary eyed, but her scowl was mild. "Yes, what do you want, servile ship person-girl?"

"I know that you're busy sitting here doing nothing like most young people do nowadays," Allygator said politely. "But I was wondering. Would you mind if I go into your cabin and clean it, as the Captain fears you have not cleaned or tidied it for at least eight weeks, and he detects a foul smell coming from that location."

"Oh that will be the kipper I couldn't eat last Friday," Thuglyffe said. "I was keeping it for a proposed painting, tentatively titled, "Smelly Kipper: A Rotting Death." I just haven't worked out how to fix it to the parchment securely, and fear it will lose it's naso-artistic effect in time anyway, no matter what I do. You can clean it up if you like." And Thuglyffe yawned the delicate and theatrical yawn of the truly creative bored artist type person who temporarily questions why she should be bothered with using her great imaginative talent and why not become a drug addict instead.

"Oh I would love to have half your talent," Allygator cooed.

Thuglyffe cast a suspicious eye on her. "Well, you can't have any of it. It's all mine and I'm not giving a quarter of it away, let alone half."

Allygator was quite upset about this and she ran off to write a poem about  a sadly lolling whale stranded on a pebbly Whelsh beach - which is what she often did when she was melancholy.

"Ock tha noo," cried Petty the First Mate who was passing by just then in his rather fetching kilt and saw what had transpired. "Tha were noo need to speach such harshly to the wee bairn, even if she bee gunerally annoyin'. The poor lass hus a heart, ye noo."

"Well, she was begging for half my talent. What was I to say to her?"

"Noo, lassie. She were joost articulatin her feelins of reespect for your talent. She's a sensitive sool, she be. She weren't askin to take somethin for nothin in return."

"She's Whelsh, you know."

"Ock! You may bee right!"

"While you're here," Thuglyffe frowned sweetly. "Would you mind sitting for a portrait. I find you a most interesting physical subject."

Petty proudly stood tall to his full four foot two height. "I'd be quite hoppy too, lassie."

"You must do it naked - and in my cabin. That's where my paints are - and it'll be out of the wind."

"Ock!"

"And I want you to lie upon my bed, with your arms and legs akimbo."

"Ock!"

"And I must get the light right so I can catch your every wart and abrasion and bruise and suspicious lump and leprous - seeming - skin."

"Ock!"

"I plan to call it: 'Horrible Beast-hobbit on a Cabin Bed.' It'll be in reds and black and puce."

"I dinae think I like the soond of it."

"Nor do I. But I've been offered a fine commission to do it."

"Uh coomission? But by who, lassie? What freakish individual should as want to view sooch a hideous thing as ye describe - and which strikes noo memory in my mind, for am I noot a fine strappin Scotshobbit full blooded and handsome in my oown fashion?"

"Yes - I'm sure you are. But I can't say who commissioned it."

"I shall nae do it."

"Not even for a barrel of buckie?" Thuglyffe scowled knowingly.

"Ock the noo!" Petty sighed, as if collapsing in on himself. "I'll doo it. So loong as me Muther never finds oot!"


to be continued....



 







"

omg. this. is. brilliant. almost .. it almost should be a radio-play

  Agent Thuglife and her Amazing Naughty Finger of Destiny

I was going to say this was kind of strange, but then I remembered your other stories, Anon! I'm glad to have you back btw

I guess I should've begun to expect the "Ock tha noo,"'s by now, but they always take me by surprise, and I always laugh out loud

i have no idea what that means or how it is pronounced..

As usual this hugely offensive puerile drivel from the depths of the Archet Bugle bin where Old Anon lives!   {{{{{And how dare it be so bloody funny too  }}}}

Norc wrote:i have no idea what that means or how it is pronounced..

It is Scottshobbit-English-dialectical, Norc (the 'dialectical' thrown in to make me sound Inellectual/Academic  ), and it is usually an expressive outburst of surprise, shock, anger or whatever spontaneous reaction or response a Scotshobbit (of the Westernmost Hebrides) has at any given moment. It means whatever it means at the time and in the context of the given situation of the time. I say this as an outsider of course who does not comprehend the Scotshobbit psychology in the least. No one does, not even them (apparently). Here to help!  

oki, thanx  all much clearer now.

3

A work that takes several weeks, and by a budding great artist, should be both wonderful and shocking, and, indeed, that's what 'Horrible Beast-hobbit on a Cabin Bed' was.

Now it may come to the knowing of the reader's understanding that an Old lecherous haggard jowly faced Ozhobbit Lord of the Ancient Bloodthirsty raping McOdo Clan and a young scowling harpy who was pretty when she wasn't scowling and was all the worse made by that scowling in contradiction of her natural prettiness (she being an Artiste) - should ever become fast friends - but Orwell and Thuglyffe had done so, for strange things happen at sea.

Stranger still, when one considers that Orwell enjoyed (mostly) the company of beautiful young men with rather smooth rippling bodies and well shaped, slightly empty heads, and Thuglyffe liked thoughtful young men, who shone with an inner beauty for all their pimples, though wearing tight and swelling tank tops and tight jeans, for you see, she was still part animal for all her airs and graces and atistic dishonesty.

It was the making of the painting that grew them together over the time of it's making, for Orwell often came to her cabin - when Petty Tooklemyer was off scrubbing the bilges, or pinorkling the masts etecetera - to study it's progress. The end product held a horribly hideous descriptive beauty - or perhaps a beautiful descriptive hideous horribleness; and they discussed it endlessly. That is the strength of great art.

"Just now in this particular moment," Orwell said one time. "It is like Petty is the landmass of Scotshobbitland. A rough and rugged and sharply defined wilderness of stumpy undrgrowth, razor sharp grasses, and two mishapen haggises, quite shrivelled but from which grows a veritable Tree of Life thrusting boldly at the painter."

"It was very disquieting at the time," Thuglyffe said with a pink cheeked scowl. "But it was such an elemental 'happening' - if I may refer it as that - that I just had to capture it in hot red. But look at the gristles that line the meat. They throb with vitality, don't you think?"  

"Aye! Powerful meat it is. Shocking meat. I should feel terribly discomforted and yet I feel surreptiously pleasured by that meat, as it seems to thrust deep into my very soul, possibly from behind me, catching me by surprise... though strange to say that of a Scotshobbit tree that should be wood not flesh."

"That's only if you see that fierce thrusting protuberance as a tree and not as some other thing - possibly of animal kind."

"Then it might be seen as Totemïc,"Orwell gasped in pleasured revelation (artistic). "Then it may be seen as an ancient Scotshobbit eel perhaps?" Orwell fell into a brief and silent musenment, not seeming to be able to take his eyes off that part of the picture.  

"If it must be seen that way," Thuglyffe frowned thoughtfully. "Then all that heather spreading across the plain up to those low hills with nipple-ish cairns on them, may be seen instead as sea grass and those smooth swelling rises are coral-mounts with nipple-ish perriwinkles on them."

Orwell laughed. "They - if we speak proportionally - would be giant perriwinkles."

"And why not?" Thuglyffe scowled in sudden good humoured delight. "For are not Scotshobbits forever bragging about their huge perriwinkles?"

"That would be their wives great perriwinkles, dear," Orwell laughed too. "But of their massive eels, pray tell? They seem to think they hang down below the kilt line."

Petty Tooklemyer happened to be passing Thuglyffe's cabin just then with a bucket and mop and he wondered anew why such giggling came so often from Thuglyffe's cabin at diverse times of the day.

"Ock tha noo. I do be hopin the Cappin and that girlie are not sailin the briney seas!" But he kept out of it. "It noot bein the bizness of soochawon as me to stick me nooze inta tha digoostin bizness of hoary old cumberbunds und scowlin sweet minxes."

Back in the cabin, the conversation moved on. "I don't see his knees as knees as such, and I still can't seem to escape the idea of Petty representing the Scotshobbitland landscape itself," Thuglyffe was saying wistfully. "Just now I'm seeing his knobbly knees as the Sun and the Moon fallen to earth and lying atop two skinny sticks covered in heather."

"It's hard to know them as sun and moon," Orwell pondered aloud. "For aren't they totally covered with heather, like the rest of his vibrant hairy body? So how would you know what they are?"

"Do you think I should paint over those knee-ish astral expressions of life and death? I mean, I left the Tree of Life bare - but I only mean, if we are still thinking of that giant protuberance as the Tree of Life still? And I guess those haggises of which we spoke earlier might represent the Sun and Moon beneath the Tree, only set higher in the sky. But I take your point. It's only if we still think of them as haggises, of course."

"Perhaps Petty's knees could be the Sun and Moon set low in the sky, and his withered haggises as, symbolically, their eventime manifestation."

"Oh Orwell," Thuglyffe giggled, hardly frowning at all, though her eyes, as usual, were crossed, as was her wont when her brain was working. "You always seem to use the  word 'manifestation.' It's like it's your catch word when you can't think of anything else funny to say."

Orwell winced. But then a broad smile broke out, like a hideous cavern, on his face. His jowls wobbled, and Thuglyffe knew he was about to laugh, and he did. Oh how well Thuglyffe knew him by now - how well!

Just then, Petty Tooklemyer was walking back past the cabin with a full and sloshing toilet pan. "Ock tha noo!" he exclaimed. "Wootever are they two dooin in thar?"

If only he knew, my friends, if only.


to be continued...

 

4

Orwell had become quite fond of Thuglyffe, even if, generally, he still continued to find her general demeanour nauseous. She seemed wonderfully imbued with vacuity and artististry, which combination he found platonically attractive. And even though she dressed like a lithe and supple boy, he never thought of her sexually. Nor her him, because she found him repulsuive in almost all ways, but not in his evil sense of humour which she shared; though not the esoteric aspect of his humour. Which reminds me, Allygator, had by then made it a (semi-platonic) threesome, and no one knows how that arose.

Anyway, when Captain Orwell McOdo's ship berthed in Skattykatzenfjord Harbour, in a crazy middle-aged moment of gay stupidity, he sold his three master to Ringo Herring the Thirteenth, who was a strapping good looking lad smelling of lavender oil who had lots of money to buy ships with.

Thuglyffe, Orwell and Allygator presently set out to find new artistic adventures. Well, Thuglyffe did. Orwell went because he hoped to see Thuglyffe paint some more fine artworks of naked men, and Allygator was invited along because  she was strong enough to carry their baggage and equipment.      

They trudged up Hoppincroppin Way and soon passed the Last Lonely House. Before long they had reached the top of Crevice Pass. Orwell stopped to look down over Skattykatzenfjord Harbour. He sighed. It was good to be back in this part of the world. He immediately thought of Ringo Herring's thighs. The fine young man had worn hotpants at the time of the shipping transaction in the town and they had shown his thighs off to most pleasing effect. Orwell sighed again.

"What are you thinking about?" Allygator asked, as she was much enamoured of the Captain and saw his wistful expression.

And the Captain told her of his artistic thoughts about the beauty of Ringo's thighs. She said: "There would be some who think you a decrepid old poof who gives many folk in Forumshire - if not all - the heebie jeebies."

"The word is 'homosexual'," Orwell proclaimed - possibly pompously - "and I deny every word of it. I have never loved a man... well... emotionally.... it's all physical with me.. though I still deny it..."

Allygator said hopefully. "Could it be true - if only latently - that you don't really like young men, but young women instead, perhaps dressed like me in a fetching skirt and summery blouse?"

"The truth is I do like handsome young men, but only artistically."

"But you miss the thrust of my question, Captain. What of young attractive women, like me, for instance?"

"Oh they're all right, I guess, if you like that kind of thing."

Something in the look both Thuglyffe and Allygator gave him just then seemed to give the old lecher (artisically speaking) pause. "Never fear. I'm as heterosexual as they come," he burst out, and nodded furiously in affirmation.

Thuglyffe wa not convinced and she turned to Allygator and said, "I really don't know what you see in the crusty old turd. I like him because his ugly face and ugly mind contrast wonderfully with my sense of beauty and perfection. I'm such the artist and am prepared to martyr myself by being seen in the dirty poof's company. But you? I think you've got the hottentots for him. Weird! But then again - you are weird. Which is your best attribute, now as I think on it. But Orwell? Urrk! Hey! I wonder suddenly... When you write paens to your poor beached whales, possibly already decomposing, are you thinking of Orwell?"

Allygator blushed but said nothing.

"Let's not continue in this frivolous conversation," Orwell proclaimed, feeling imperilled by Allygator's blush, an not wishing to pursue the current line of conversation. "Where to now, Thuglyffe, you slobbering Tasmania Devil (artistically speaking)?"

"I am off to Tuscany, " Thuglyffe said, her usually scowling face now distorted into an expression that may have been great artistic intensity, or schizophrenia, or both. "I hear there is a woman there of great fire and passion and reddness of hair in more places than one."

"I think I might know her," Orwell said nervously.

"She is a famed Artwork Restorer," Thuglyffe said and gave Orwell a critical glance. "And, who knows, she may be able to remove that mysterious white substance you spilled on my 'Horrible Beast-hobbit on a Cabin Bed.'"

"Just so," Orwell said uneasily and quickly dropped the subject.


to be continued...    

That would be their wives great perriwinkles, dear," Orwell laughed too. "But of their massive eels, pray tell? They seem to think they hang down below the kilt line."