Beeches and Bluebells : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Beeches and Bluebells / Giles Watson's poetry and prose
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-継承 2.1 |
|---|---|
| 説明 | Badbury Clump, near Faringdon.HINGEFINKLE'S LOGBOOK (Ninth Instalment)Part Two: Journeys with Gladys SparkbrightThe Pitiful Plight of the Cockatrice“Quite frankly, King Math,” said Agrimony one day, after the Frog Crisis had been resolved, “I would be inclined to be a lot more civil with you, if only you would get rid of that moronic Fool of yours. Codpiece, schnodpiece! I swear that if I hear him advise you to have me decapitated one more time, you will be hard-pressed to prevent me from doing something dire!”Now it so happened that Codpiece himself had gone away on three days’ holiday, to visit his old great grandmother Wobblecorset. (Old Granny Wobblecorset was, as a matter of fact, the longest-living member of Codpiece’s family, which was not really such a feat, when you bear in mind that the rest of the clan had an average life-expectancy of twenty-five years. It was not that Old Granny Wobblecorset was wiser or more prudent than the others; it was just that the size of her bosom no longer permitted her access to the outside world. Old Grandad Longjohn had intended to widen the door-frame to their cottage in the village, but, alas, in his attempt to do so, he had chopped his head off with a hacksaw. He had reached the rollicking old age of thirty-one at the time, so you can well understand why no one was terribly sad, but it meant that Old Granny Wobblecorset was confined to the house. Her neighbours and her rapidly dwindling assortment of relations had to bring her food, which, of course, merely succeeded in exacerbating her problem. But the result of her long confinement in the home was, as you may well imagine, my dear little Alias, that she was deprived of the full range of opportunities for Doing Something Stupid, and therefore had survived long enough to become Codpiece’s great grandmother.) And since Codpiece was off doing the Family Errands, and was consequently not there to advise King Math, the old monarch was much more inclined to see reason than usual, so that he refrained from reproving Agrimony for so impertinent a remark. Instead, he contented himself with saying, “Really, Druid Agrimony? But we like Codpiece, and in any case, it is so dreadfully difficult to find a good Fool these days!”“Quite so,” replied Agrimony, “but as a matter of fact, there is a Fool of my acquaintance, by the name of Gallus Caput, who was, the last time I saw him, looking for a new master. Gallus is inclined to imbibe a little freely, I must admit, but whether drunk or sober, he is a veritable philosopher in comparison to Codpiece. You should subject him to a little interview, while Codpiece is still on his sabbatical.”Now it seems that, whatever perverse influence Codpiece might have exerted on King Math, it was considerably diminished when the Fool himself was absent. So King Math did, in fact, consent to consider a change in personnel, and enquired, in his round-about way, where this fellow Gallus Caput might be found.“In the Brat and Buzzard inn, in the village of Petribeddroch, to the north-east of the Rancid Swamp,” said Agrimony decisively. “As it so happens, Hingefinkle and Gladys have been planning a hare-brained mystery-tour in the lands beyond the Marches of the Elf-Lords, and are expecting to spend the night at Petribeddroch this very evening. Aren’t you Hingefinkle?”“Hum. Well, yes, I suppose so. It certainly lies on the appropriate route.”“Then we shall accompany you,” said the King, “and assess the virtues of this Gallus Caput. Never let it be said that we ignore the counsel of our advisors.”Agrimony rubbed his hands with suppressed glee. “In that case, I think I shall come too, but only as far as Petribeddroch. Gallus never fails to afford some amusement, and I have not witnessed a display of intelligent Foolery since the death of poor Coxcold.” And without further ado, he strode from the room and went outside to put Snowdrop in harness.*The road to Petribeddroch skirts the eastern side of the Rancid Swamp, and winds its way through the foothills of the mountains to the north, before descending to a plain beyond. It is not a particularly arduous journey, and we reached the outskirts of the village as the sun (which was in the thirtieth degree of Capricorn) lay partly obscured by clouds on the western horizon. It was a cold, slightly drizzly day, and the drizzle threatened to turn to sleet.“Hum,” I said, glancing doubtfully at the sky, “perhaps we ought to have waited for spring before going on our expedition, Gladys. It’s only just past four o’clock, and the sun is already setting.”“Nay, don’t be so nesh,” replied Gladys. “This sort o’ weather is raht invigoratin’. Just put on mah spare cardigan if yer cold.” She peered excitedly over the side of the cart, her hair flapping in the wind. “Ah’m raht glad ter be away. ‘T’owd village ‘as lost its charm fer me since t’goblins came. Eeee, by gum, it’s quiet ‘ere, though!”Petribeddroch lies on the edge of a little stream fed by the mountains. The rocks at the edge of the stream are covered with mosses and liverworts, and in spring there are great stands of reedmace and yellow irises in the slower-running pools. Now, some of the stones were covered with old snow, partly washed away by the rain, and the water bubbled icily by, reflecting the rippled images of leafless trees. Snowdrop snorted and brushed his nose through the dew-soaked ferns and bracken which overhung the narrow pathway, and as we drew around the end of an oxbow, the little village, with its swampy alder woodland behind it, loomed up in the dim light of the sunset. And Gladys was right, for apart from the sound of the stream, the silence was palpable and - so I began to think as we drew closer to the light grey stone of the Brat and Buzzard inn - not entirely natural.My first impression as we entered the main street and Snowdrop’s hooves clattered on the cobblestones, was that the villagers of Petribeddroch had commissioned a very talented sculptor to produce a series of likenesses of local characters for display in the gardens. I say a talented sculptor, for the statues were remarkably lifelike: in one garden a group of stone children were having a snowball-fight without snowballs, in another, an old granite woman was reaching up to fill a bird-feeder, and in still another, a man was shoveling something invisible from his garden path.“Eeeee, now that’s wot Ah call craftsmanship,” said Gladys appreciatively as we passed. “Now ain’t that a quaint idea, eh? Garden people! Who wouldder thought it?”“We do not remember such decorations being here the last time we came tax-collecting,” said King Math. “Evidently we failed to tax them heavily enough, if they are able to afford such luxuries.” He pulled a pencil from his pocket and made some calculations in a little book.Agrimony was silent, but his expression, which minutes before had been one of eager anticipation, had now darkened, and the more stone figures we passed, the deeper grew his frown. At last we came to the door of the Brat and Buzzard. Agrimony dismounted and began to knock, but the door swung open beneath his fist. I craned my neck over his shoulder; it was quite dark inside, and the blackness carried with it an unbearable silence. Agrimony returned to the cart, brought out a little lantern, and lit it. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all, Hingefinkle,” he muttered, and strode back through the door. We passed into the public bar, and the dim light from Agrimony’s lantern illuminated a barrel of beer, some rickety-looking stools, some half-empty beer-tankards, a dusty mandolin, and three platefuls of mouldy bread and cheese.“We had better investigate the yard at the back,” said Agrimony, stalking behind the bar and passing through the rear door. Dusky light illuminated a tangle of cobwebs as he passed through.“Well, well, this really is extravagance!” said King Math with annoyance. “When a landlord can afford to have a family portrait sculpted for display in his beer-garden, it is evident that he is either living beyond his means, or guilty of tax-evasion.” I noted with fascination that there were indeed two very impressive portraits of the landlord (adopting a rather commanding looking position, of which I was sure he must have been proud), and his wife (who was holding a stone distaff and looking faintly surprised).“Oh, shut up, Math,” snapped Agrimony. “Ignorant men only seem wise when they are silent.”“But we have seen the sculptures, and we are not impressed,” said Math, offended.“Sculptures, schmulptures!” hissed Agrimony. “Kindly examine those footprints, will you Hingefinkle?”I followed Agrimony’s index finger, and, sure enough, a curious set of tracks were still visible in the mud, slightly enlarged by the rain, but distinctive nonetheless. “Hum,” I said. “A Cockatrice! This is absolutely fascinating. The marks are unmistakable: the footprints of a large cockrel, with the indentation of a serpent’s tail between them.”“Well, of course it was a Cockatrice, Hingefinkle, you old codger! What do you take me for? That much was obvious as soon as we entered the village. My question is, where is Gallus Caput, since he is clearly not in the public house?”“P’raps ‘e ran away?” suggested Gladys helpfully.“Indeed,” said Agrimony. “That is what I should have done. And the Cockatrice would have followed him.”Now I should perhaps explain why it was that this little discourse had set my heart a-flutter with excitement. Cockatrices, my dear little Alias, are extremely rare. Most people are agreed that this is altogether a good thing, but for a researcher of my inclinations, it is frustrating in the extreme. For the genetic makeup of the Cockatrice is of very great significance indeed. Cockatrice eggs are invariably laid by cockrels; they are the result of the union between a cock and a bat (usually, in my experience, Daubenton’s Bat - an observation supported by the fact that Petribeddroch was on a watercourse). Cockrels are not, as a rule, very good at incubating eggs, and besides, a cockrel’s surprise at having laid an egg in the first place is usually enough to frighten him away for ever - so that Cockatrice eggs are invariably hatched by a serpent which, on the baby Cockatrice’s hatching-day, is normally also its first victim.For the Cockatrice leads a tragically lonely, unfortunate life. Traditionally-minded theorists like Agrimony are convinced that the Cockatrice is inherently evil, on account of the fact that it cannot look at human beings without turning them to stone. I incline rather to the hypothesis that this unhappy mutation is actually a source of the greatest grief to the poor Cockatrice, who merely wants to make friends and have his comb scratched. But the combination of cockrel’s head, snake’s tail and bat’s wings is so hideous that even the merest glimpse of a Cockatrice is enough to send the aesthetic sense into an immediate downward spiral, and with it go the emotions and the various humours of the body, until at last the creature’s intended playmate is irreversibly petrified, and the Cockatrice must needs go and find another friend. And one must give full marks to the Cockatrice for perseverance, for once he has taken it into his head that he must find a soul-mate, he cannot be turned away from his quest, but spends the hours between sundown and cock-crow in a frenzied search for just one human being who is immune to his dreadful, unwarranted and unjust curse.“Hum,” I said. “The poor fellow went this way.” I began to follow the tracks out of the garden, across a ploughed field, and towards the alder woodland, and soon I could make out the impressions of a pair of pointy-toed boots, as well.“Capital!” said Agrimony, running on ahead of me, while Gladys struggled over the furrows, and King Math looked disdainfully at the mud on his shoes. “Observe! The toe of the boot is now all that may be seen - a sure sign that the wearer was running.”“Hum,” I said, pleased that it was my turn to sound knowledgeable, “well of course he was running! What else do you expect, with a Cockatrice on his trail?”By now, it was almost dark, and as we entered the wood, I was grateful for Agrimony’s lantern. The ground was slushy; the alder roots submerged in the waterlogged soil, and the trail soon disappeared. Agrimony stooped, picked up a white feather, and cried, “This way, come on!” and bounded through the mud, splattering it over the hem of his cloak.At last, we came panting to a stop, with King Math standing at the edge of the woodland and calling after us in a forlorn monotone. Agrimony pointed to a fallen branch above his head, and there I perceived the poor Cockatrice, slumped with his membranous wings half-spread, his tail curling in the air and his beak in mid-crow. Agrimony tapped on the creature with his staff, and I realised with a pang of sorrow that the beast was made of solid stone. I turned to look at the petrified head, and even then, with the power of the creature’s gaze forever ended, I saw a visage so ugly that my heart was filled with compassion, and my limbs turned as cold and torpid as the Cockatrice himself.“Stop looking at it, Hingefinkle, you old coot,” snapped Agrimony, dragging me away by the arm, and then whirled about as Gladys gave an excited shout.“‘Ere! Now thar’s a fine looking fellow!” She pointed to a rather animated-looking statue of a fool, still with a tankard in one hand, wearing a splendid, bell-lined suit, the colours of the motley still showing in the stone. His other hand held a bauble, topped with a likeness of himself, which had also turned to stone, but, oddly enough, there was no coxcomb upon his head.“Fiddlesticks!” I cried, “We’re too late! This is Gallus Caput, I suppose?”“Indeed it is,” said Agrimony, pushing back his cowl and examining the terrified face through his monocle. “But at least we have the solution to the mystery.”“What mystery?” I asked, thinking that we had already solved it.“Why, the mystery of what turned the Cockatrice to stone, of course. Gallus was, as I told King Math, a proper Fool - a serious devotee of Mother Folly. I can deduce from what is absent that the Cockatrice met his end precisely at dawn.”I stared at the petrified Fool, and shrugged my shoulders. “Hum. I must confess, Agrimony, that I can make nothing of this conundrum.”“It is perfectly simple,” said Agrimony. “Gallus Caput, being a classical fool, wore a real Cock upon his head, not one of those newfangled coxcombs like Codpiece. Now, think, Hingefinkle, what is the one thing that will kill a Cockatrice?”“Eee, let me guess!” Gladys interrupted. “How abaht, t’sound of a cockrel crowing?”“Precisely,” said Agrimony, “and, once he had realised that his master was no longer responding to pecks on the ear, Gallus’s cockrel presumably flew away, in search of the nearest non-petrified farmyard.”*It did not seem to me an altogether promising start to our journey. By all accounts, Gallus had been rather an interesting character, and as for the poor Cockatrice - well, I need not tell you how disappointed I felt. Even Agrimony seemed to derive little satisfaction from having solved so strange a mystery, for, as he remarked, this meant that he would have to put up with Codpiece for goodness knows how long, without any hope of finding a suitable replacement. The next morning, after a fitful sleep on the dusty floor of the Bat and Buzzard, only Gladys was happy, for the sun had risen at exactly ten minutes to eight, which was when her astrolabe had said it would. And as she and I said goodbye to Agrimony and Math, who were already seated in the cart, I observed that even Math, who at least had the pleasure of Codpiece’s company to look forward to, was looking decidedly down-in-the-mouth.“Hum,” I could not help enquiring, “What on earth is depressing you, King Math?”“We are not in good spirits,” he said glumly. “A whole village turned to stone! Think of the revenues we have lost!”And at that moment, it seemed to me that perhaps it was a good time to go away on an expedition, after all.Editor’s note: It can be confirmed beyond doubt that Alias the Bard treasured Hingefinkle’s Logbook for many years, and read it carefully, for his annotations may be read on the margins of almost every page. The following song, complete with a musical score signed by one “Meg Madrigal”, is written in pale blue ink on the back of the final two pages of Hingefinkle’s chapter on “The Taxonomy of Cockatrices”. Despite the fact that the song refers to events which occurred before Alias’s birth, the irreverent style suggests a somewhat later date of composition than others describing the exploits of Hingefinkle and his acquaintances, such as “Old Hingefinkle”, “Basilisk Bewildered” and “Codpiece and the King”. Nevertheless, there are marked correspondences between this song (entitled “The Canny Cockrel”) and Hingefinkle’s earlier narrative.‘Twas in the witching hour before the sunlight fills the skiesWhen cocks bid their masters all to wake and to arise,A bat flew, leathern wingéd, through the henhouse door,Grappled with the cockrel and shagged him on the floor.“Alack!” cried the cockrel, “Oh! I am seduced!What kind of offspring will we have produced?”The cock went cackling away through the sleepy town,Singing, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”The cockrel laid a leathern egg, wrinkled and grey;There he sat until a serpent frightened him away.Broody sat the serpent, fattened up with mice,And, horror of horrors, she hatched a Cockatrice!The Cockatrice cried, “Mother!”, laughing her to scorn,“Turn to stone to atone that I was ever born!”A serpent made of granite was all they ever found,So sing, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”Gallus Caput, drunken fool, fond of wine and beer,Bore a cock upon his head, his faithful Chanticleer.He boozed in the public house, with his loud coxcomb;Gallus guzzled ale and the cockrel pecked the foam,When in burst the landlord, loudly he did moan,“Woe is me! A Cockatrice has turned my wife to stone!”“Now you must keep your beak shut,” said Gallus with a frown,But the cock cried, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”They bustled into the yard, the moon shone pale and wan,A fetid stench filled the air where Cockatrice had gone.The Cockatrice hides in the byre, slyly he gloats;When they see the landlord’s wife, gall rises in their throats:Her distaff poised in her hand, stony strands of thread -Gallus cries with anguish, filled with mortal dread.The Cockatrice, he chuckles, “I’ll turn ‘em all to stone!”Clucking, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”The Cockatrice leapt from the byre, eyes afire with rage.Brazen then the landlord the monster did engage:“Your giblets will I gralloch!” defiantly he cried -The words barely left his lips, for he was petrified.With wails of perturbation, craven Gallus fled,Taking refuge in a wood (he left the town for dead).When all were turned to coldest stone, the monster sought the clown,Crying, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”The monster tracked him through the wood until the witching hour -It turned each tow’ring tree to rock, it trampled ev’ry flower -Gallus, panic stricken, Chanticleer implores:“Keep your silence, cockrel!” This, Chanticleer ignores.He squawks, “My noble master is not afraid of you!Come over here and he will turn you into chicken stew!”At last the cringing Gallus the Cockatrice has found,Cackling, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”Gallus Caput is kaput, a monolith he stands,A phallic granite bauble held between his hands,Chanticleer flies from his head, wond’ring what’s amiss;Little knows the Cockatrice this is his nemesis:For Cockatrices all must die when the cockrel crows -He screeches then as through the trees the waxing sunrise glows.Chanticleer’s voice echoes through the woods all round;He chortles, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!”The Cockatrice he blenches, his sanguine comb goes pale,His stricken cry now echoes over field and dale.His bloodshot eyes bulge in his skull, he teeters and he falls,And proudly strutting Chanticleer fills woodland with his calls.The dimwit cock crows on and on for all that he is worth:And so it seems that bats and cocks shall inherit the earth!Yet still the cock addresses bat with imbecilic frown,Crying, “Cock-a-doodle, cock a-doodle, tie your willy down!” |
| 撮影日 | 2009-05-02 12:32:23 |
| 撮影者 | Giles Watson's poetry and prose , Oxfordshire, England |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| カメラ | E8700 , NIKON |
| 露出 | 0.011 sec (1/95) |
| 開放F値 | f/5.6 |