Friday, September the 13th, 2013

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The Cardigan Book

The wool for this cardigan was spun by cretins among churns and hubbub at a revel in a barn. It has been described as a cardigan fetching and comely and Stalinist, though also, it is fair to admit, as unprepossessing. It may be pertinent that the person who considered it an unprepossessing cardigan is a wool-ignorant knave from a rival village. But it is a view, and ought therefore be registered, in the Cardigan Book.

The wax seal on the front of the Cardigan Book is stamped with an image of a sheep. It is more accurate to call it a wax blob, for it does not act as a seal. It is purely decorative, and was added to the cover by the village waxer to give the book, he said, an antique air. We have only been keeping the Cardigan Book for the past two weeks.

All villagers are required to inform the village cardiganist of the views expressed upon their cardigans, whether the views be those of their fellow-villagers or of strangers, such as the wool-ignorant knave from a rival village. It should be noted that his own village has no Cardigan Book to speak of.

Initially we kept the book in an anteroom of Fort Hoity, but we have since moved it to a locked chamber in the tower of Fort Toity. The door to the staircase of the tower is guarded by a pair of trained yet savage swans. Their honks when alarmed can be heard for miles, even in the rival village from whence the wool-ignorant knave came lumbering across the fields.

There were many sheep in the fields, so many sheep they cannot be counted. They are shorn now, and the cretins in the barn spin their fleeces into wool for the knitting of. There is hubbub in the barn, among the churns, for the revel goes on, it goes on and on and on, and will go on until all the revellers drop exhausted on the sawdust. Then, still, the cretins will spin. They will spin and spin until all the wool has been made into cardigans, and the views of each and all on each and every cardigan entered in the Cardigan Book.

Oh how hopeless is our village! We cannot see straight. We put on our blinkers and wait for the rain.