The Big Red Button

Dusty and the Gnome King

Part one: Dusty the the Gnome Milliner.

          It was simple: Dusty made hats for gnomes. It was a simple life but a hard one. It requires extreme precision so that the hat does not slip off or become too tight. It is very important also that the hats are not too tight as gnome heads are soft and are prone to circulation problems if scrunched into an ill fitting hat. Some of the side effect of a hat that is too tight is uncontrollable giggling, loss of balance, hat hair followed by death. Dusty saw correct hat making technique as his duty in life, and he was proud of his work. Dusty cared for the gnomes and in turn they helped him with chores. One day a knock came on his door.

          He opened the door to find a stately looking gnome in front of him. Jewel encrusted red velvet shoes and a flowing purple cape garbed his body. Dusty kneeled so that they were face to face.

          "Hello sir." Dusty said.
          "Sire." said the gnome.
          "Sorry, sorry. Hello sire. What can I do for you." Dusty said.

          "I require a hat" said the gnome.

          "You've come to the right place! I can make you any kind of hat you would like."
          "It is a hat for a very special occasion!"
          "I will do my best!"
          And so the Gnome King left Dusty with some more specific instructions and Dust got to work.
          "I will need to measure your head. I hope that is not a problem,"
          "Not at all," Said the Gnome King. And he removed his flowing purple cape with the grace befitting a King of the Gnomes, and hung it carefully on the cape stand. The Gnome King sat regally on a stool while Dusty bustled too and fro with his measuring tape, occasionally stopping to write something down or ask the King a question.

          "Sire, how long do you intend to wear this hat? Will you sleep with it on? How often do you eat mushrooms?" and other pertinent questions.

          After about three quarters of an hour of this Dusty had all that he needed and showed the King of the Gnomes out.

          "Good-bye Sire! Come back in seven days time and your hat will be ready!"

          The Gnome King took his leave, swishing his cape in proper regal pompery. The last Dusty saw of his Highness was the small head bobbing over the crest of a gentle slope. But Dusty would not be the last to see the Gnome King's shinny head, for beyond the hill, in the yellow meadow, the gnome milliner's son was sitting poised in the grass. Fredrick was his name and he was pretending to be a tiger. Earlier Fredrick had asked father what tiger's ate.

          "Well... they eat all kind of things, some of which you eat." His father said as he was brushing off hats.
          "Like millet?" Fredrick asked licking his lips.
          "No... they eat meat, like rabbits. They catch them and take them home for dinner."

          Now Fredrick was on the hunt, ready for the slightest disturbance in the serene glass. Then he heard a rustle, he muscles tensed and we he saw the small figure he leaped forth and pounced his prey. Pinned to the ground by his two small hands was the dazed, then indignant Gnome King.

          It is important to note that regardless of their size and their squishy vulnerable heads gnomes are very strong. Frederick and the gnome king stared at each other for the longest three seconds of Frederick's life. It was  then that the king let loose a cry and grabbed Frederick by the nostrils.
          "AUUGH" cried Frederick "Father the rabbit bit me!"
          Dusty was nowhere to be found.
          "Fool! I am no rabbit! I am king of the gnomes and you shall pay for your insolence!"
with a flourish of his cape he cast a spell over the boy that made him fall limp.
          "You shall come with me and learn proper respect...boy!" he said with a sour note. He then pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew one long shrill note.
          Six gnomes stepped from their hiding spots in the shadows.
          "Carry him." said the king
          The gnomes lifted him with ease and they set off galumphing down the trail with the boy in tow, dragged by his ankles behind them. As they dragged they sang this song:

"Ho ho ho

gnomes do go

drag-dragging the boy-o!

ha ha ha!

oh what fun!

bumping noggins over logs

dragging bones o'er rocks and stones!

and  ho ho ho

gnomes we go

drag-dragging the boy-o!

          The song went on and the gnomes added new verses as they thought of them. Frederick grew used to constant bumps and bruises as the gnomes skipped ever on but could hardly bear the incessant shrill singing; the high pitched voices drilling into his brain. At last they stopped and put him down. More importantly they stopped singing.


          "What should we do with him" asked one of the gnomes.
          "I think we should jump on him till he pops!"
          "I think we should slowly roast him over the fire!"
          "I think we should let the rabbits eat him alive!"
          "I think we should gouge out his eyes and rip out his guts; and make him eat them!"
          "I think--"
          "ENOUGH!" said the Gnome King. "He is MINE. And I shall do with him as I please!" he continued with a gruesome smile.

     
          All the gnomes fell silent at the sudden outburst of the king and hung their heads in shame. They should have known better; the king never shares.

***

Midnight Rambles with the letters S, F, and Various Little Words

The perspective was off, the walls slanting outwards and the ceiling sloping downwards, to the back of the strange room, the ominous music permeated the air, humidity on a hot summer evening. We wished we could leave and go anywhere but here, stuck stolidly to the solid sliding floor, fixated, fascinated, salivating monstrously. The storm stopped, and the tension broke, and all the laughter came bubbling up, sour and foul, rotted with mold of kindness. Stratified, stupefied, we stood there staring, staring, at the starry starry sky behind our whetted eyes, as bulging tears laboured down down down to quaver on the tip of our silky chin. Lights, the light, frolicking flicking fraying to the ends of the salubrious space, fawning on the fickle gaze of our smooth smiling eyes. Salaciously our sound soared around the confines of feasible ability. Our faces slack with furious fallacies tumbling downward into the featureless night. Fazed and frightened we slowly stalked the sallow rows of fallow fate, finding only silent salutes. Many fox-eyed foreigners sighed silent as we passed, facing only the enviable emptiness. We found ourselves sitting finessed by slight variations in the vaporous beyond, watching the vacuous mass wither and slip slightly against the voluminous glittering glass slag that sat perpendicular to the feeble slab, fishing in the darkness for a single strand of hope finding little motes of flowing feelings, greed, lust, joy, finding scintillating stores of faith in a fading light. Lower and lower to a dim vestige of damp, cold and wet, dripping for the sake of dripping, grim and drawn, sliding to rest and the very bottom of our soul.

The Legends of King Arthur Debunked

Well I've been reading a lot of Tolkien lately and he's said one of the reasons he wrote Lord of the Rings was because England didn't have a mythology, and he wanted to create one for the land he loved. That is one of the reasons I'm writing today. The other is that I woke up with this random idea in my head and needed to tell someone about it.

England did have King Arthur. But King Arthur is not a myth. Not to say it's real, it's just a folk story that's not a myth. Besides it mostly came from the French and doesn't count as a real mythology anyway.

First of all, well maybe not first but I'm starting with it anyways, the sword in the stone. Now if I was a powerful wizard and happened to need a way to find the king and happened to have the kings sword I wouldn't just stick it in a stone and go: there that's done, whomsoever can remove this sword will be king! No no no, far too simplistic. Needs some more imagination. I would stab the sword into a dragons back and put it to sleep with my magic awesomeness in a deep dark cave until someone removed the sword. Then the dragon would wake and the King, or supposed king, would have to kill the dragon to escape the cave. That would be one way to do it.

Secondly, Sir Kay. If I were King Arthur and I grew up with this bastard of a step brother I certainly would not just let him join my round table; hell, especially after he tried to claim the kingship for himself. As soon as I became king I would have him beheaded for being a little bitch.

Thirdly, knights of the round table?!? That is an absolutely ridiculous name for the society of elite knights who defend the kingdom. Why are they called this? Because they meet at a round table. Preposterous. I would give them a name worthy of their stature. Something like, Knights of Supreme Awesomeness, or Knights of the round table: Destroyers of All who Oppose Us, Holy Armored Taskforce, Elite Knights of The King. Also it just opens them up for mockery and ridicule, hence the Monty Python song.

Fourthly, excaliber. A magic sword. Hidden in a Lake. It had to be magic otherwise it would rust. How did the lady of the lake get it? Who knows. Is it the same  as the sword in the stone? Again who knows. More importantly who has it now? A sword that makes it's owner undefeatable would be pretty handy. Again, I have to say, Who knows? This whole magic sword thing is pretty vague to say the least.

Fifthly, the holy grail. The holy grail, a special cup touched by Jesus, or some other religious malarkey. The grail the grail we must have the grail. And they go on a massive quest or something. Not really sure what it has to do with King Arthur but it was in the monty python film so it must be true. Magical and Sacred objects certainly have their place in mythology. A magic sword is fine, it's sharp and pointy, you can poke people with it. But a cup? Really? What does it do? Oh Jesus touched it. Maybe. It doesn't even endlessly fill itself with you're favorite liquid. If I had a magical cup in some mythology it would be like one of the goblets in the Norse tradition, that would always be full of mead or some other such strong alcohol, that would be pretty useful.

Lastly, well not lastly but the last thing I'm going to cover (in addition to the end note) is Merlin. Merlin the mighty wizard, who leads Arthur to Excalibur, said to be a shape shifter, able to prophesize great events. And yet he gets trapped in a tree. While I'll give points for creativity on behalf of Nimue, this doesn't paint Merlin in a very positive light, this powerful wizard getting trapped in a tree? His PR team must have had a heyday. Really Merlin, trapped in a tree, you couldn't get out, a likely excuse.

All in all the legends of King Arthur does make for a romping good tale, epic quests, brave knights etc, but it hardly qualifies as mythology. In the end I would have to agree with Tolkien and label it an extensive fable, not a mythology.

As and end note let me point out that most mythologies I know of involve Gods and Goddesses of some kind e.g. Greek mythology with Zeus Hera Aphrodite, Hades Poseidon etc. Norse mythology with Odin, Thor, Freya, Baldor, etc. Egyptian mythology with Ra, Horus, Osiris, Isis, Anubis, etc.  The Legends of King Arthur have no gods, or goddesses. The closest they come is a wizard, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake, both of whom are not deities. While brave and powerful knights are certainly great beings they are human, not gods, not even half-gods, or demigods.

In my last post I created a to do list on a monday with nothing to do. This is video footage proof that I completed my to do list.