Tale #145: The Ogre’s Boots

The Ogre’s Boots #1

A young man was walking along the road when he came across an ogre slumbering in the grass. “That ogre’s most likely up to no good,” said the lad, and so he crept up to the ogre, eased the sword from his belt, and stabbed him through the eye with such ferocity the blade came out of the back of the ogre’s skull and pinned his thrashing body to the ground.

When the ogre was finally dead, the young man prised open the ogre’s hand and removed the sack he was holding from his gargantuan grasp. Inside the sack were six children, which all ran off hither and thither through the grass and into the woods. None of them said a word to the young man who had rescued them.

Then out of the sack crawled a snake, and it looked at the lad and said, “Let me tell you a secret for saving my life. This ogre’s boots are magical, and they let you travel seven leagues in a single stride.” And with that the snake slithered off into the long grass and off towards the woods.

The young man prised the boots from the ogre’s feet and put them on his own, and they fit him perfectly, despite having previously fitted the ogre’s monstrous feet. Unfortunately, as the lad’s home was exactly six leagues away, his first step took him past his town, and no matter what he tried he could never get home again (the boots were unremovable).

The Ogre’s Boots #2

An ogre had been terrorising a town, and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it.

The youngest of seven sons sneaked off one night to the ogre’s castle. He climbed over the wall, sneaked under the bushes, slipped beneath the portcullis, crept silently along the corridors, and then squeezed through the keyhole on the ogre’s door and into its bedroom.

Instead of trying to kill the ogre as his dear dead brothers had, he decided rather to steal the the ogre’s boots. They were seven league boots, which meant that whoever wore them could traverse great distances in a single bound. He put them on, and ran as far away from the castle and the town as quickly as he could.

He lived on in happiness and splendour for many years. The town was destroyed by the ogre the very next day.

___________

Notes:

1. Written in September 2016
2. For the undex
3. If anyone remembers the undex

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE

THIS PAGE IS FORBIDDEN

PAGE IS FORBDIENNS

STHEHIS PAGE IS FORBIDNENBS

THIS PAGE IS BFORBIDDEN

THGIS PAGE IS GFORBEIND

THISY AI PAGE IS BFPR EGRID

PATHGEIR D THIS PAPEG IS BFORBIEND

THEIOS{A PAGE IS FORBIDEEN

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

christs

They were selling christs at the market. It was the season for it, of course. Fifty pence each or four for a pound. I said, “I’m not sure you should be selling discount christs, really,” and the man running the market stall said, ”What why not?” and I said, “It just seems a bit disrespectful really,” and he said, “So it’d be better if I ripped you off then would it?” and I shrugged my shoulders and said “I dunno,” but I still didn’t like it.

A woman came up and asked for a christ and the market man said, “Just the one love? It’s four for a pound,” but she said, “Nah just one I could never manage four I’d end up just throwing the others out for the birds,” and she handed him a 50p and he handed her a christ and she bit into the skull and I could see her shiver uncontrollably in delight as the hallowed brains burst out into her mouth. Then she pulled the arms and legs off and gave one each to her children, who all began to gnaw with a sullen determination at the foetal limbs.

She handed the torso back to the stall holder and said, “Can you wrap that up for me?” and he put the bloody lump of it down on some grease proof paper and wrapped it up neatly for her and said, “Saving it for someone special?” and she said, “The heart’s my favourite bit. I’m saving it for later,” and then she smiled and said, “For the when the kids have gone to bed,” and she winked at the christ seller and there was blood on her teeth and quite a bit on her chin and then she tucked the bloody package into her bag and went on her way, her children following behind like dogs, still chewing on their bones, trying desperately to extract some holy flavour from the seeping marrow and the gristly meat. I watched them disappear into the distance and thought of many things.

“Are you going to fucking buy any christs or what you fucking cunt?” the christ man said to me and I handed him a pound and took my discount christs without a word.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on December 10th, 2016

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

The Colour Of Light Towards The End Of The Day

Everyone liked the colour of the light at the end of the day. They agreed it was the best colour of light possible, better even than the corresponding light at the beginning of the day, which you would have thought would be exactly the same, but wasn’t somehow, they all agreed.

Maybe eyes work differently at different hours, someone said, and someone else said maybe brains do, and they all laughed, but then fell silent when they thought about it for a bit and realised it was probably true, and then someone said “Well, who can say”, which is what someone always said, at some point, whenever they were talking.

What we can say, if we can say anything, is that the colour of the light towards the end of the day is, for whatever unknown reason, better than the colour of light at the beginning of the day, and also that the colour of light at the end of the day in summer is better than the colour of light at the end of the day in winter, which might be to do with differences in the amount of moisture in the air at different times of year, or to do with the different length of time the sun is near the horizon, or the angle it approaches it at, or a million other reasons that are certainly quite plausible.

Or maybe eyes work differently in the cold. Or brains.

Who can say etc etc

What we can say, quite clearly, is that the colour of light at the end of the day in autumn is terrible because all the fields have been set on fire and our smoke-filled eyes don’t work at all and all we have are tears.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on July 20th, 2016

__________

Support An Accumulation Of Things

monks

The monks were sat in the monkery, each one settled comfortably upon their egg. It was almost hatching time and the monkery was filled with an air of tense excitement and the pungent stench of outright fear. This could be it, at any moment. This could be the end.

The end of the egg.

And the beginning of what came after.

But what came after none of the monks knew, for it was not in the teachings and it was not in the books and it wasn’t even in the stained glass windows that bathed them all in a pallid rainbow of dead light.

It was a mystery.

And monks hated mysteries.

“Same time next week, hey lads?” one of the monks shouted, but none of the others laughed. The chief monk would have issued a stern rebuke to the monk with his cane but it was too late for that because even the chief monk was perched on his egg and not even he dared move and so he sat there in silence with all the other monks rather than striding across the monkery’s floor and striking that impudent monk’s head down onto the cobbles with a single swish of his staff and then further striking the head and occasionally the cobbles in his pitiless fury as he really wanted to do and as the situation surely demanded.

The silence stretched out

and out

seeming to fill the great hatching hall with its immensity

or with its void

if a void could ever be said to fill anything

which it couldn’t

the monks knew

for that was in the teachings and in the books

but not in the stained glass windows

for how could you represent a void in the medium of painted glass

You couldn’t, that’s how

You couldn’t at all

Not without just painting it black

and negating the art itself

and the form

and the very meaning of the term itself.

The bell tolled. The monks all craned their heads in unison towards the clocktower, and then turned them back again. Stared straight ahead. Stared into nothing and at no-one. Beneath them sat the eggs. Beneath them sat an unknown world.

The monks waited. Shivered. Waited, waited.

The eggs stirred. Pulsed. Began to hatch.

The monks, having waited so long, discovered they had no time to understand what was happening. And then it was too late and there was nothing left for them to do and nothing left for them to be and the new monks feasted on their bodies from below and slivered into their forebears habits and donned their cowls and made their way, bloodied and beautiful, into the chancel, where they would be granted their absolution and with it eggs of their own.

__________

Notes:

1. Written on July 26th, 2016

__________