Tuesday, February the 8th, 2005

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Norwegian Wool

Remember MacTavish, the village wrestler whose ugly death was described in the second of those Tales Of The Uncanny? If you don't remember, go down to Friday 4th February and read it. Notice how it begins “They called him MacTavish”. They did indeed call him MacTavish, but MacTavish was not his name. His name was Chris De Burhg (sic) and as well as being the village wrestler he was the village knitsman.

The village had had a knitsman ever since the invention of true knitting, which is to say around 1100 AD, if we accept that the first historical example of knitting as we know it today, as opposed to other kinds of textile work, is a pair of patterned cotton socks found in Egypt. This is not the place to investigate how the craft travelled from the Nile delta, via the English clergyman William Lee's knitting machine of 1589, to the godforsaken rustic silage depot where Chris De Burhg lived all those centuries later.

There was a village knitswoman too, but by a curious tradition it was forbidden for the two ever to meet. Because it was a very small village, extraordinary precautions were taken, involving fences, barricades, false walls, lanes blocked by herds of restless barnyard animals, clocks wound misleadingly, undelivered telegrams, pits dug and camouflaged, and in extremis eldritch tampering with the continuum. By that I mean of course the space-time continuum, but I was trying to save my words as carefully as Chris De Burhg saved his wool.

The village knitsman always used Norwegian wool, although the village was not a Norwegian one. Happy as I would be to report that it was in Finland, near the Karelian holiday resort of Bomba, I have to admit that it was not even in Scandinavia. Be that as it may.

Chris De Burhg was careful with his wool. He was also careful with his food, for poisoning was rife in this village. There had been many problems with ergot before the war, and afterwards, and there were many sociopaths at large. Fortunately, they were easily identified because by decree they were all made to wear chaps, spats, and boxy jackets, and to live in a purple tent near a clump of gasworks. Careful with wool, and careful with food, Chris De Burhg, or MacTavish as they called him, was nevertheless a sitting duck when attacked by a ghoul with a funnel.