Queen of the Cats 5. The Shopping

5. The Shopping

Nix mused that if there were no people remaining in the houses or stores, and goods had been left behind, it really couldn't be counted as theft anymore. After the seven years since Reverent Day, most people had gotten smart and gone into the country to hide, attempted to fortify and defend for a time, or just had the shit murdered out of them. The dead people had just gotten up and gone for a wander. There was likely no one left to claim these houses and goods, so Nix used small towns like big box stores. Attics and basements offered up a lot of useful stuff.

Working her way methodically through homes and businesses, Nix packed up trash bags of things that could be helpful and set them on the curb outside. Outside was not a fabulous place to hang out, but trash and trash bags were universally ignored in these places. Trash, debris, rusting metal and the staggering dead. Sometimes Nix would find a small group of people and those were the ones she wanted to avoid the most.

After she cleared each building, Nix left her trash bag outside and quickly moved to the next building. After shopping an entire town, she could come back that evening or even a week later and pick up the bags if things had started to feel 'funny' and she had bolted half way through her shopping.

The only items she would pack out immediately were medicines, medical supplies, aged high end liquors or well packaged plant seeds. Any thing else she could likely come back for.

When Nix shopped, it was with a very different posse of cats. Town team had all been owned cats and you could see it in their expensive breeding and perfect conformation. She took the ones who had lived in cities and suburbs and excelled at getting in and out of tight spaces, over fences, and avoiding humans who wished them harm. Nix seemed to be the only human left for whom cats were companions and not used as spit roasted meat or a dead man's juice box. It made a lot of sense for them all to stick together and work together.

The town team consisted of a Siamese named Theo who mostly rode on her shoulder and his low growl told Nix that something was approaching. Talulah was a calico convinced of her superiority, but also correct in that assumption, as her Hemmingway paws were basically hands and she could open doors and manipulate a shocking number of items in her murder mitts. London, the Lykoi served as distraction so others could hide, because the sight of a tiny werewolf stopped all humans in their tracks. His hair was perfect and he was very, very fast.

There was Zoe, a remarkably chill Abyssinian with glittering emerald eyes who always seemed to know when the group had taken a wrong turn and got them headed back the right way. Oberon was the building scout who oozed into the shadows with his jet black fur and verified that buildings were clear of the living and the dead. Pixie Bob had the heart of a lion but she was a naked Sphinx with no tail. Once Nix figured out how to adjust baby clothes for her, PB also helped with shopping by finding caches of baby food and nabbing cute baby outfits for herself. Last of the shopping brigade was the obsidian black Shadow who would take a high position and watch for anything amiss coming their way.

The town team was fierce, efficient and could run like hell. Each member, including Nix, could fold themselves away into tiny and improbable spaces until danger had passed. When clear, they would hear a single call from Shadow and follow the route out of town that he had chosen.

In this grouping, they would hop into the Prius that Nix had stolen. She managed this grand theft auto by shoving a mostly skeletonized corpse out the car door and pressing the start button on the steering column. She found the key fob in the pants pocket of Senior Bones and the first stop they made was to an auto parts store for seat covers and a great deal of air freshener. The Prius was quick, quiet and conservative with fuel, basically the perfect car for a post-apocalypse reconnoiter.

Nix would always hit the pharmacies first, then the liquor store. The drugs were helpful for herself and the cats and some of them made for good trade items. The liquor was medicinal applied to skin, consumed by oral route or traded for excellent trade items. High value items went straight into her pack as the cats scouted the town. Once done in the pharmacies, Nix would emerge to find out which feline was waiting for her to follow. They led her to cashes of food, hidden drugs of the legal and illegal sort, canned cat food, sometimes cat toys, blankets that did not contain dead people or would lead her to places where they had found items she would want.

Talking a moment to tell each one how good and smart they were, the felines would receive a quick touch and treat while Nix bagged the goods. Sometimes, they even led her to other cats. In those cases, Nix would let the town squad do the convincing while she kept working. Occasionally, they would find a cat that was deeply injured or sick, even dead bitten. In those cases, work stopped, the cat was collected and they hauled ass for home.

Out in the Med Shed, Nix had installed metal animal crates against a wall, so if she needed to put a feline on bed rest or limited mobility, she could. Over the last few years she kitted the space out as a vet office and read every book on cat veterinary medicine she could. Broken legs could be set and crushed legs could be removed. There we're not many procedures that Nix would not at least try if she was certain that it could be the only save for a tiny life.

The dead bitten were the worst. The wounds festered and the fever washed over them, they ached in every joint and cried in pain. Unlike the first time, Nix now had the knowledge and supplies to dim their pain, reduce their fevers and debride their wounds, but it was still awful.

It was a few years since Nix encountered her first dead bitten animals in the months after the compound collapsed and she found herself alone with all of the cats from the commune following her. She would find an animal bitten, and at first she would observe because she needed to know what would happen and how she would have to deal with these pitiful creatures. Once they died, would they also rise up again? The answer was no. Animals with shallow bites or scratches might live but those with deep wounds went painfully. Nix learned the most humane ways of ending their lives to speed them to the end of their pain.

Then it was Olwyn. A tiny grey puff of fur somehow got herself grabbed and bitten. She limped her way home and Nix sobbed to see her pain. She curled up under a chair and would not come out. The other cats spent the night watching over her in shifts and her tiny body heaved one last breath near dawn. Nix carried her to the hole in the yard behind the trailer they had taken over and gently covered her with soil. Neither the cats nor Nix did anything that day but nap in piles to comfort each other.

At dinner time, Nix put down the plates of turkey baby food and kibble mixed with rice and canned chicken and then mostly got out of the way, shoving the back door open a foot so the yard cats could come in for the night and have dinner. Sitting at the yellowed Formica table and reading a 5 year old newspaper, it took Nix a moment to notice the the cats were clearing a path and there was a lot of sniffing and confusion going on. When Nix looked among the cats, it took her a moment to find. Tiny, grey and dirt covered Olwyn was sitting by a plate and eating in her dainty way but with obvious hunger.

"Holy shit, holy shit" whispered Nix as she stood and slowly backed toward the living room, trying to figure out if she had just let a dead cat inside and how many others would be bitten before she could save them. Her arm was reaching for the baseball bat behind the door when Olwyn looked up at her.

Her eyes were clear and not the milky haze of the dead. Olwyn gazed up at Nix and made a pleased chirrup sound. With a happy raised tail, she took a straight line right to Nix and merrily weaved between her human's boots. She seemed a little more stiff than the other cats, but she still had a large wound and needed medical care. She was not dead. She was not risen dead. Olwyn was just alive again and really needed a bath.

That night Olwyn had her bath, her wound cleaned carefully, some antibiotics and was placed on the bed by Nix so she could keep a close eye on the tiny cat who curled into a neat circle and purred with joy.

Cats, when bitten, did not behave like any other animal and Nix wanted to know why.


6. Phoenix and Ed and Alice and Nocta

Queen of the Cats 4. Rebirth

4. Rebirth

After a long day of cutting up and planting potatoes gleaned from a field five miles away, Nix woke in one of her least favorite ways. Nocta, her ancient and unchallenged queen cat was sitting on Nix's chest and shrieking directly into her face. Once a beauty of ink black fur, soft as a night breeze and silent as death, Nocta was no longer so plush nor soft but she was still in charge and her stabby little paws could always find the softest parts of your anatomy to stand on.

"What? Shit! What the hell, Nocta!" Blearily, Nix sat up in bed looking for the crisis. There were no cats in her bed. Nocta continued to scream but ran for the stairs to the upper floor. Nix ran after her, nearly on all fours up the steep and treacherous staircase. There, in the center of where the best morning sunbeam would fall later in the day, Nix could make out a number of cats sitting or laying in a circle around something.

Flipping the switch, Nix turned on the single LED bulb and saw that Splat!, a massive calico with a disturbing and fanatical love of sharp cheddar cheese was in the center of the fray. Splat!'s markings looked funny until Nix realized that her belly had been colonized by a litter of newborn kittens rather than a new calico pattern. It had been a long time since new kittens had been born and had a chance to survive.

Nix's Murder House and Cattery was paying off. It was nearly two years after Nocta had woken her with another heart-stopping scream session and then led her to the strange house in the middle of the night. The very next day, Nix and her parade of cats had quit the Meth Shack and trekked here. No roads approached the house. There were no tire tracks, no disturbed portions of the forest floor that showed entry or egress. No one lived in it or had already looted the place. It was weird. It had walls and was defensible. It wouldn't burn. With minor changes, it would be just about the safest place they could hope for. They were home, or as close as they felt they could be.

As the human cat approached, the clowder made space for her near the main attraction. Kneeling down, Nix crooned to Splat! and then joined the pride in their sprawl on the floor. Splat!'s head was kissed many times and she was told what a good girl she was. After a few moments, she rolled further onto her back, placed her paws on Nix's slightly teary cheeks and kneaded her skin in the way of biscuit making cats of all time. Splat! purred with all the rumble one cat could manage and her impossibly small spotty and ginger babies ate, slept or were groomed by their new pride.

Soon the content purring spread throughout all the cats, and that is how everyone slept. A pile of happiness, purring with six tiny reminders of life at the center. Marmalade, the green-eyed massive ginger tom who was pretty obviously a very proud papa, remained awake or lightly dozing while sleepily grooming Splat! and still keeping out an eye for danger. Before Nix truly sacked out, she crept to the switch and turned out the light. She considered returning to the wide open luxury of her bed, but instead returned to her place on the floor and snuggled back in, quickly dropping off to sleep amid the purrs and paws.

No matter the beauty and joy of the night, the walls were patrolled, rodents were murdered and the property remained under the weather eye of grizzled toms and coal dark felines who were prepared to cause hell for the dead should the need arise.

5. The Shopping

Queen of the Cats 3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

Nix had taken over a number of houses, buildings, shelters, forts, towers, hotels, a tree house and even one ill-fated school bus in her years alone, but finding the stone blockhouse was a gift. It must have been a folly for the rich or a fortification for someone very paranoid indeed. In the end it had not done any good for its builder, but it had become home, base camp, cattery, and sanctuary for Nix and her felines.

The first floor was built smaller than the second, with just a single door in the front face and a pair of tiny windows. That was one more ground floor door than the cagey young woman found comforting. Using the same local river rock, flagstone and a few bags of concrete from a shed, she used her commune learned skills and bricked up the small door and windows, making the edifice appear seamless. She removed the wooden stairs to the second floor balcony that cantilevered out over the ground floor. Nix replaced the original entry methods with a rope ladder that was pulled up most of the time, a cat beam that would drop away under the weight of even a small person, and the manual dumbwaiter and cat platform that could only be operated from above.

That ground floor edifice was one of the more normal parts of the house and even after two years of residence, Nix and the cats still kept finding secret niches, doors, sliding panels and other weirdness. The second floor entry hall accessed from the balcony contained two great fireplaces and a number of richly appointed but somewhat moldy chairs. However, it contained no obvious doors that would access the rest of the house. It had taken Nix a full week to find the catch which released an inner wall of a fireplace, letting it swing back like a small door so that a tall person must stoop to pass. The catch was located inside the opposite fireplace for maximum inconvenience.

Some part of Nix always wondered if she was living in a Camp David for magicians or a serial killer murder house. Each time she opened a new room, she hoped for a hat and wand rather than a pile of human limbs. Luckily, she had found neither dead people nor magic tricks as the first would now try to eat her and the second would just distract her so she could be eaten.

Passing through the fireplace, most of the second floor seemed almost normal in that it contained the right kind of rooms for a house, but they seemed to have been randomly collected from time. The kitchen was all stainless and shining modern industrial. The pantries were stocked with shelf stable foods of all kinds, wrapped in multiple layers of plastic to keep them fresh and insect free.

The dining room contained a ridiculously long table with a hilarious compliment of chairs, surrounded by rich painted frescoes of hunting scenes and velvet curtains that puddled on the floor as if they hid enormous windows rather than yet more stone. This room was deeply appreciated by the household felines who could each choose their own chair or pile of velvet curtain for a good nap and leave open seats remaining. Nix amused herself by serving a Thanksgiving dinner for all home occupants at the table their first year in the house. The conversation was limited but it was a hilarious show to watch the cats sit on their chairs as esteemed guests and gnaw at their turkey bits from lovely china plates. It was entirely worth washing all of the dishes later.

If not for the multiple sets of identical furniture, the library seemed almost normal. Bookshelves with rolling ladders lined the walls and the room looked like it had been designed after a 20th century gentleman's club. Thankfully, there were no mounted heads and the books still remained dry.

At least the ground floor room lacked much in the way of surprises, being just a large open space with shelving around the walls and in some short rows. Canned goods, plastics bins of supplies, some guns, a lot of ammo, a room full of batteries that were charged by the solar panels on the roof, controls for the well, fuse box. Yes, this seemed perfectly on the level for the average paranoid schizophrenic or up and coming spree killer. Funny enough, their paranoia and planning had absolutely paid off, just not for them.

Top it off with a twelve foot high walled garden that contained a maze of sorts. The various endings of which brought you to the outbuildings. A grand old stone barn in which Nix took to raising rabbits, chickens, and two milk cows that had wandered onto the property one day. Finding the external door to the barn had been a special hell and in the end it had been Sampson who found it. At another end of the maze there was a shed full of tools, saws, crowbars and other dismemberment favorites. Nix just closed the door to that one and hoped to never open it again.

One long shed looked like you could perform sterile medical procedures, grow a lot of pot or cook up a great quantity of various high grade street drugs. In memory of her parents, Nix grew two pots of marijuana named Ed and Alice respectively, plus a fair number of potted catnip plants. She reserved the rest of that space for home surgeries she hoped to never perform.

Back inside, the block house third floor was just a collection of oddly themed bathrooms and bedrooms and the attic was an open space under the eaves, one of the few places with windows where you could see for a distance. In the two years since finding Nix's Murder House and Cattery, she made herself comfortable by pulling a few of the king sized beds into the largest bedroom. This almost always assured that she could sleep and wake up surrounded by cats, rather than beneath a pile of them. With few exceptions, the entire gang like to eat and sleep together as this had kept them alive through some crazy times.

As Nix slept each night, the older Toms would roam the house to make sure nothing was amiss inside. Out on the walls, there was always a black furred sentry or two that made sure the walking corpses kept on walking right by. Any that came too near were enticed to a merry chase after a nice, warm and juicy cat who always disappeared into the forest once the dead had been redirected.

Nix's Murder House and Cattery was good for the whole pride.


4. Rebirth

Queen of the Cats 2. Revenant Day

2. Revenant Day

Nix had been 14 when Revenant Day had occurred. It was the first day when the dead got back up from where they had been put down. Apparently, when they got back up, they also got very angry and none of them were vegetarians anymore.

Living on a rural "bullshit hippy compound" was probably why she was still alive. It certainly had kept her parents alive for years longer than they would have managed on their own.

Ed and Alice were sweet but mostly wanted to love the earth, grow marijuana, smoke marijuana and raise a daughter who would be kind and gentle like them. Instead they got a changeling girl child with a mouth like a sailor, an ever curious mind, and a certain way with cats. The commune barn cats were always leaving their kittens with Nix while they went to hunt or just lay uninterrupted in a sunbeam. Ed and Alice were just happy that Nix had one thing she could love and treat gently. They concentrated on that and growing their plants, even as the world flew apart in chaos.

Perched in one of the community rooms, a small crowd watched an ancient console television that showed what was happening in the cities, how the dead were multiplying, how they attacked and made more dead. Nix turned the situation over in her mind and headed to her attic room for a good think. Upon arriving, she found that a whole litter of kittens had been left in her bed. Nix always found that she thought better with a pile of kittens, especially the extra fluffy ones.

Phoenix (mythical bird, not city) Alexandria (for the Library) MaryJane (for the weed) Verity (for truth) Kobesky (because she was Polish AF) was a kid saddled with a lot of names, a lot of cats, and suddenly a lot more chores. Unlike the other kids, she took to the new work with a seriousness beyond her years before anyone on the commune had seen one of the dead. She found holes in the fence and mended them, located weak spots and flagged them for additional fence posts, and found places where the earth had sunken or washed out and listed them for adding fill dirt, concrete and rocks.

Seizing an over-sized map in the mess hall for her purposes, Nix used push pins to note all the cities where the dead had become a pandemic rather than a problem. At first it was the largest cities, then then slightly smaller cities and it just kept spreading.

Each morning, while thoughtfully chewing her toast, she would set new pins and use yarn to connect them. The thing she noticed were the interstates. The yarn bloomed out from city to city along major roads. No major roads came near their compound, but Nix decided it might be a good time to make sure that zero roads to the compound were visible to outsiders. Infected people could still drive cars. The dead seemed to follow roads as they shuffled about.

The news stopped suggesting that people should shelter in place or reporting where safe locations were. In truth, when too many people got together, one of them would hide their infection, not believing in their fate. About two weeks later, they would stand up as a corpse and start sharing their fate with all of the other people who were nice and safe in that location.

Nix asked her dad to gather up some of the older men from the commune and bring them to the mess hall with the map. Most adults would not listen to a teenager unless they had a trusted grown-up backing them and visual aids. Nix imagined if the world had not gone upside down, she might have had a future in marketing. She wedged the kitten in her hoodie pocket down a little deeper and massaged his face until he slept. A kitten climbing from her pocket would probably put a dent in her credibility.

Her dad had been Incredibly smart and mostly collected other men with families. Men who had something to love and something to lose because they would be far more likely to start immediate work and keep at it. Maybe Ed could have been some sort of community organizer if he didn't live in a nowhere compound and maybe smoked a little less dope.

As the men stood with crossed arms and looks of disinterest, Nix explained her map and her plan. One by one they started to listen. Their compound was not on any maps. Their "road" was one sign, 30 feet of concrete off of a state highway and then two ruts for miles. With a few days of work, some fill dirt, some dragged over fallen trees and the misdemeanor removal of a county road sign, they could be entirely forgotten. With the work of the whole community they could erase their road, make it impassible and add extra earthworks around the fenced commune. The group was already mostly off the grid. It was time to finish the job.

The adults set an immediate start date for the work and the next day "Bliss Drive" ceased to exist. Two days later, no one would ever have guessed a road had been there even if they had driven on it. They would think they had missed the turn somewhere else.

Nix started to teach all of the cats that their world now needed to end at the fence. It took a few years to get that across, but finally, she managed it. As she did her chores there was ever a tumble of kittens who pounced, wrestled, gnawed her shoelaces and ran after the teen as if she were their mother. The barn cats taught them to hunt, but Nix taught them how not to be hunted. Older cats helped to reinforce the lessons.

The commune was free of rodents, both inside buildings and out in the fields. Even in bullshit hippy land, the time of free rides was over.


3. Nix's Murder House and Cattery

Queen of the Cats 1. Nix

1.

When the brown and somewhat grizzled tabby cat dropped into a low crouch, so did the woman. From their vantage point, she could see two things: a pair of plump rabbits in a hollow down the embankment and the dead man limping his way down the remains of the asphalt road.

The shambling corpse was nothing near fresh, clothed only in the tatters of a pair of gore stained khaki pants. When she found the more recently-turned-nightmares, she could take them down, smoke the meat and use it to refresh traps for larger prey. She could also use it as bait for the dead in pit traps and on pike lines.

Neither she, nor the cats, would eat it. but this was not a world where you allowed waste. Not anymore.

She glanced at her companion, utterly still except for emerald eyes that watched both dinner and death in turn. Together they waited. Once the dead man was far enough down the road, she signaled to the cat. The silent and massive Maine Coon padded away, heading to circle around to the back side of the hollow. Once in place, she watched the plume of his tail stand upright, then drop. Sampson was ready to work.

Un-shouldering her bow, she tugged an arrow from the quiver, nocked it, raised the bow and in a single act of breath and motion she inhaled while drawing the bow and exhaled while she let the arrow fly. There was no cry from the rabbit, it just tipped over. The second rabbit tried to race out of the hollow, using the worn path. It never saw death come as Sampson pounced, grabbed the rabbit by the throat and lowered himself atop the still struggling rabbit as the small life extinguished in silence.

In a few moments, the woman dressed in greens and browns met Sampson at the bottom of the hollow. He sat calmly beside the rabbits, ready to defend them if he must. "Good buddy", she whispered and slipped him a piece of dehydrated venison. As the cat chewed thoughtfully, he stood, walked a few feet away and sat again with his paw gently touching something before him.

In the leaf litter, he had found a nest of young rabbits. They were cowering and terrified, but their eyes were open and they were large enough to survive. "Welcome to the breeding population, fellas. You are going to the bunny barn".Gently, each of the five kits was placed in a cross-body basket lined with grass. The previous generation were stowed in a oilcloth bag to leave no blood trail behind.

With nearly silent movements, Nix checked the hollow for anything left behind, or edible plants, finally tucking some chanterelles into a pocket. Sampson finished his job of pawing up the earth where each rabbit fell and depositing odoriferous gifts of his own to cover the scent. With a nod to the cat, the pair quietly left the hollow and paused to make sure no new dead had wandered into the area.

A large, red cat with one eye and a permanent scar of a snarl dropped out of a tree ahead of them. Garibaldi reporting that the coast was clear and he was tired of sitting in a tree. He stretched dramatically, staring up at Nix and waiting for his payment. "Yeah buddy, you did good too." Nix stroked his rough coat and felt his deep bass purr for just a second.

The three trekked home with Sampson and Garibaldi alert for the awful dead and Nix obscuring their path and weaving plants and tree limbs to each other to keep away the awful living. Not being found by anyone was pretty integral to not being gnawed into oblivion by the dead, or much worse by the desperate cretins who had never found a place to settle down and try to make a living.

As they approached the abandoned, and likely once charming, chalet, hunting lodge or whatever the hell it had been, more cats popped up out of holes, rustled out from under leaves and dropped down from well hidden perches in the trees making a motley parade of color, pattern, size and fluff that was truly stunning to behold. Nix and her volunteer army all headed for the field stone building that Nix had carefully seeded with moss in the cracks. Later she had transplanted vines near the base. And nailed broken boards across windows. From the outside, the place looked a miserable heap of mold, damp and collapse.

Some thirtyish cats followed. Nix climbed her rope ladder and most of the cats walked the balance beam of the single 2x4 that leaned from the porch to ground for their easy access. On the balcony of the second floor Nix used a rope to pull up a platform upon which several cats were sitting. As they reached the balcony they stepped off the platform with stiffer limbs, limps and one with just three legs. Getting old sucked, but she wouldn't get rid of the creatures that had helped keep her alive, simply because they had aged.


2. Revenant Day

Second Impressions and the Death of Grudges

Reeeaaaaalllly tired pelicans land and find wine.

First introductions, especially in or around the SCA, sometimes fall a bit flat. At events there is a lot going on, many people are in a rush, and some people just want to get to the point of they day where they can chill with some friends, perhaps around a fire or whilst toasting with a tasty beverage. Being in a rush and part of our groups of friends can make it super daunting for someone to get a good first impression of you. New people are often suggested to steer clear of some group of people for some reason. Enmity can build for no reason that can ever be traced. Sometimes a person can feel they are doing the 'right' or 'noble' thing by taking a conversation they overheard back to someone being discussed. All of this can lead to crazy blow-ups and sometimes schisms in groups of friends that sever those friendships forever. Sometimes, this resulting hot mess is the first time you may have real contact with a person. That impression may stick around for a bit. That impression can even leave you angry for years.

I consider myself deeply lucky that some of those first impressions that I left on someone and someone left on me were able to be obliterated. But it takes rather a bit of work and a lot of adulting to pull it off.

Reset Point 

You have to be honest with yourself to find out if you are ready for that, but sometimes these things just drag on long past any reasonable period and everyone is just tired of the upset. You have to be willing to apologize, sincerely. You have to be willing to say "Yeah, I'm not even mad anymore." And you have to be entirely willing to put your hand out and say: "Hi, [person], I'm [name] and I'm happy to meet you." 

If both sides are not ready to meet in the middle, it does not work. Second impressions are a bit of a thought exercise in which both participants agree to wipe the slate, stop referring to ancient woes and punch the reset button.

I am happy to say I have cultivated some of my most incredible friendships this way, and I treasure them. I remember how hard, in each case, that we both had to work and the leap of faith we both had to take together to pull it off. Once you have newly met your new friend there are usually some tears and sniffles, but also an overwhelming sense of lightness as all the anger, rage, annoyance, other people's agendas just pour out of you. At that point, you should probably go find some ice cream together. You have done a good thing.

A Brief Caveat

If you seem to fail each time you suggest this sort of relationship re-start with people, if it happens over and over again- there is a single common denominator you should look to: yourself. If you approach each person demanding an apology, that's probably not going to go over well, unless you are willing to do some very serious and public apologizing yourself. If you are continuing the behavior that got you to the place you are at, then you aren't ready for a reset. If you come to the door with threats and accusations, no one is going to open that door and invite you into their house. That door is going to shut faster than it does for religious missionaries and door to door insurance salesmen. You are still free wheeling down your own road and have not yet found the bottom of the hill. Just remember to rear break, then front break when you do.

I Shall Not Yield

So, you have The Grudge that Will Not Die where one person becomes convinced that someone is constantly defaming them or speaking ill of them or trying to make their life harder in some way. Sometimes, but with remarkable rarity, this even may be true. The grudge holder may agree to some small changes in the root causes of the squabble in the name of putting the whole matter to rest. However, they become rather annoyed when that does not pay big dividends and entirely re-frame them in a new light.

By this point in the grudge, one party is usually just done and has wandered off to do something else while the other holds on to their ire and shouts it from the hilltops- but it leaves them a sad little king/queen of a sad little hill. Is that really the last stand you want to make. The hill you want to die on? If it is- fine, your choice. But, remember- your grudge-war playmates will only stick around for so long until they find other and more pleasing things to do.

After that, you and your grudge, when mentioned, may net an eye roll, an ugh and an epithet because you have reduced yourself to a two dimensional character defined only by your grudge. But, that's likely all you will get when anyone recalls you at all.

From The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

Mr. Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."

Roark: "But I don't think of you.”

Importance or Power: the wide gulf between the two in the SCA

These are the things I find of Importance within our club:

• Fun: This is what a hobby is supposed to be
• Friendship: The moment that it all clicks into place and you realize that you have come home to a family who love you, no matter their relation via blood.
• Passion: falling in love with an art, fighting, service or some corner of the SCA or medieval period which you may not have even known existed before. Or meeting the medievalist of your dreams.
• Learning: keeping our medieval arts, martial arts, crafts, sciences alive through continual teaching and learning with information always moving forward.
• Respect: Meeting people of so many different background, abilities, real lives, knowledges, and learning how to work with them. When you give respect, you get respect.
• Service: If we're gonna have a game, someone needs to do some work. Pitch in when you can and be thankful for those who pitch in the rest of the time. Say thank you. Say it often, loudly and in public.
• Stewardship: Leaving the SCA better than you found it: event positions, offices, new ideas, regalia, recording our own history and training those who follow us in these positions.
• Medieval Ideals: Chivalry, Courtesy, Courage and more. This is what we are here for, right?

However, if we are very, very lucky- we find a nexus of a few of these Important factors (which are likely different in ranking for everyone) and that's when there is a true magic. We work, we serve, we enjoy, we laugh, we come together and we are all at our best.

Here is where I believe Power exists in the SCA:

• An electric socket
• Sketchy extension cords that probably violate a safety code or 5
• Gasoline generators (also sketchy)
• A breaker box (sometimes full of spiders)
• A knife switch beside the breaker box (quite satisfying to throw that switch)
• Powering that AC which makes us that sweet, sweet cold air
• Lights during night courts (heralding by torchlight truly sucks)
• Air mattress pumps
• Professional kitchens at campsites (triple double ovens- oh yeah)
• 10 Norse lads (and/or lasses as we are equal opportunity raiders) crewing a viking boat. Rowing is a lot of work and you have to have some tough arm and chest muscles to pull those oars and still move the next day.

I am, however, thankful for all of these as well. (Especially the AC and lights in the bathrooms at night).


If you believe there is actual Power to be had in the SCA- it's time to check yourself. If you attempt to use that imagined Power as a bludgeon, especially towards those of lower rank- it might be best to go find something else to do for a while.

The Year of Sweet Corn

Dedication: To Cordelia on the anniversary of her entry into this world. Thank you for being one of my dearest and most morbid friends. Because of you, I have kept writing, always hoping just one I would write any piece as good as your work. This one is just from the heart, well, my black heart. Birthdays are for personalized gothic horror, yes?

The Year of Sweet Corn


Once, there was a Seneca girl who was not much like the other girls on the reservation. She was not an Indian princess. Her tribe, like most, had no such thing and she learned as a child to roll her eyes at such tales. To most, she was not even of the tribe because her mother was a white woman whom her father adored and married.

The odd little girl learned her histories and loved to sit by her father,, an elder and listen to the language of their people pour from him like a waterfall on rough stone- jagged, powerful, and beautiful. He told stories of the tribe and in the low light of dusk, he made the tales come alive. His daughter's heart was so full on those nights were she could nearly touch their gods and goddesses, feel the sweep of twirling woven cloth as he spoke of ancient dancers. She could taste corn that had been blessed and blessed again, a sweetness like no other and she could hear a heartbeat rhythm that could have been her own and could have been the sky or the earth or the fire or all of those at once.

Although her parents loved her very much, she found that she did not easily fit into the shapes of life that most people occupied. Especially, she did not enjoy the molds into which little girls were supposed to jam themselves and emerge with long eyelashes and a coquettish grins. That, simply, was not her style. She found those girls false and empty headed. Yet, she tried and went to gatherings of 'kids'. Milling about the edges of the soda and chips, she would find the first moment when no one was watching her and she would slip away.

Instead, she would walk. She loved the night and dark things. She found beauty where others felt their hearts begin to beat faster. Where most people walked with extreme caution and the highest alert singing in their sinew, she ran heedless into the shadows and the shadows loved her for it. She could just sit in the forest and read, listen to music on her second hand disc-man or just listen to the trees and the wind and sometimes it was almost like she could hear it talk to her. She loved every piece of the land, exactly as it was.

Unfortunately, this is not a universally loved approach to life because those who cleave together against the dark abhor those who travel freely in that world. They become suspicious, then jealous, then angry and then they find a reason. It never needs to be much of a reason. Anything will do. A smirk. An eye roll. It does not matter.

On a half moon night, she walked home through the woods, having escaped another awful gossip fest. She decided to buy some time walking a rambling path home so she could plausibly tell her parents she had tried to spend some time with the other kids and that she was not completely miserable as she knew they would just feel bad.

As she was about to step into a patch of moonlight, she heard a twig break and some leaves crunch on the other side of the clearing. As she had learned, she went entirely still and her ink decorated Chuck Taylor sneaker settled back to the ground without making any sound. She silently cursed herself for wearing a black t-shirt with a massive white band logo on the front. Shit.

A clamor of girls from the party tumbled into the clearing, loudly and perhaps a little drunkenly, shushing each other.

"Shut up. I know she came this way. I SAW her!'
"Shhhhhhhhh"
"Bitch. I so want to kick..."
"Holy shit. She's right there"

Like a pack of wolves, the hair-sprayed and mascaraed platoon finally noticed her and all slowly turned to face her.

The lone girl with the goth t-shirt and the punk rock style set down her purse by a tree, hoping it would still be there when she was done getting her ass kicked. This wasn't the first time she found herself outnumbered or cornered, just the first time it had happened in her woods. Wondering how they had found her, she pulled her hair back and secured it with an elastic. Her hands fell to her sides as she took one last deep breath.

Stepping out of the trees, she moved into the moonlight and paused in the clearing. This was going to suck. A one to five tramp ratio was not good odds, even if they were a bit drunk. The girls began to move forward with their sharpening grins, but behind them, in the shadows, something else was moving.

The shapes were large, too large for people. In the fitful moonlight through the leaves, it looked for all the world as if boulders had stacked themselves into cairns and were shuffling forward. she was looking at walking legends: Stonecoats.

The girl began to open her mouth to tell the awful girls to run, because she realized that she was seeing a story come to life and was pretty sure about what would come next. A hand settled onto her shoulder. A massive hand of shifting pebbles, stones, and rocks of all sizes held together in some kind of beautiful and terrifying dance set with such care upon her shoulder. A bass rumble behind her said "No. You are to watch. You are to understand and remember."

The girl swallowed hard and then tried to be as still as possible, to be a threat to no one. Still, the wolfish girls snarled their curses and staggered closer, not noticing a creature like a mountain in front of them, not hearing the nearly silent mountains closing in behind them.

The rock giants stepped up, one behind each girl. The Stonecoats of myth and legend casually thumped each girl on the head and caught their bodies as they fell. She felt the weight of the rock giant lift from her shoulder as he rumbled "Get your things and come with us." She did as she was told. Very, very precisely. She searched her brain for anything her father had told her about these beings, but decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

It seemed like they had walked a long way, but that was probably just what happened when you walked with a group of living (wait, were they living?) myths. They came out of the forest and into cleared farm land. In the distance, lights of homes could be seen here and there and the girl realized that she knew right where she was- less than a mile from her own home and in one of the largest corn fields on the reservation.

The spring and summer had been terrible for crops- too much sun and no rain and then too much rain and no sun to be had. The corn was stunted, the ears small and everything seemed to be wilted. As the Stonecoats and their prizes approached, a woman emerged from the corn. Her skin was pale, her hair paler still, and her teeth were brilliant white and straight like perfect white corn. Her dress was the green of stalks and husks and as she moved she sounded like the sigh of the wind through the cornfield. With a gesture, she pointed the Stonecoats to rows of the field where they dropped their female burdens.

The goddess of the corn sang quietly, plaiting her corn silk hair into small, neat braids and cutting one off for each girl that lay by the field. She tied their hands together with the silken braids and then made a small cut in the neck of each girl. As the corn goddess finished, a rock giant gently collected each girl by her feet and trundled away down the long rows of corn, the girls and their trails of blood glinting in the moonlit furrow behind them.

The giants were gone. The dying girls were gone. The half Seneca girl stood beside the field with Onatah, the corn goddess, and could not find a single word to say. The rustling gowned goddess noted the girl's discomfort and turned toward her, slicing one last braid from her hair and tucking it into the pair of slightly unsteady human hands. Leaning down, the cornsilk goddess kissed the forehead of the girl and whispered "You are more Seneca than all of them together and are always safe here. Take this braid to your father. Tell him the Corn Maidens have been chosen and sacrificed. It will be a sweet corn year."

With no further words, the pale goddess turned and melted away into the field and the Seneca girl ran for home. When she arrived she attempted to compose herself, but her father saw the look on her face as she tried to creep by to her bedroom. "Child, what is it?" he asked with a gentle voice. Still trembling, the Seneca girl held out the gleaming cornsilk braid to her father. He plucked it from her hand with a smile. "A sweet corn year, I see. Wonderful! Go to bed dear. We'll talk... eventually." Smiling, he walked off toward his library, muttering something in Seneca, as he navigated through some piles of books and stepped over a napping cat.

The Seneca girl went to bed and yes, the corn was especially sweet that year. The fat cobs were swathed in gowns of pale and soft green leaves, flowing long corn-silk tops and when shucked, the corn was white as pearls, straight as arrows, perfect like baby teeth.

It was a memorable harvest.

South. East. South.

It was never a case of the mountain not being there anymore, but rather that the mountain was still a little bit there and you just needed to know how to look for it.

In memory it remained indomitable and black, only ever glimpsed with the right kind of eyes. Small eyes that saw in pixels. Unrefined animal eyes that saw in only shades of grey and motion. It was especially revealed in strange edges of visions when an eye did not look directly at the mountain, but to the side of it. In the periphery, sharp planes and time-worn but geometric shapes played in the margins between vista and simple brain.

The Monarch butterflies remembered the mountain, mostly because it was hard to forget something you could still see. In the foreign light of their insect eyes, the mountain still stood. Indomitable, and a bit blurred about the edges as if swathed in a mist. However, the sun shown upon its frozen, jagged planes and lines, and it sometimes winked a knowing brilliant gleam from an inky black and glinting jet facet.

It was not a kind place, nor had it ever been such. The butterflies that stopped there to rest were sometimes just gone the next morning. The massive clumps that hung in trees like overburdened grape vines depleted in numbers overnight. There was no sign of fallen butterflies upon the ground. They were simply vanished. The remainder of the flight would then take off as a rather truncated flock, no longer a glorious spectacle in a cloud of color with the gentle susurration of millions of wings. Instead, the sound was that of a rustle of some dozen satin ball gowns as small orange clouds curled away like smoke into the mists.

Once those survivors were gone, no eyes were left to notice the butterflies remaining behind the wine-dark glass, each flying frantically in an attempt to reach the sunlight and their fellows. Following the instinct to fly, they battered their own wings and wore down their stored nutrients. They slowed and then stopped like a child's toy as the battery runs low. Nothing outside the glass was left to witness the battered insects give in to the cold inside the mountain. Each by each, they tipped over and fell dead. The mountain fed and was sated.

With enough years and generations, the island had culled out the butterflies that would rest upon that mountain. Over the ages, the tiny minds of butterflies became hard wired against stopping on the island overnight. Their minuscule memories or, perhaps seeing the mountain in the far distance somehow dissuaded them, so they flew on. The Monarchs changed their route of travel and did not stop. The lighter than paper insects began taking their pass over the lake as one long flight. It was grueling but that was somehow better. The new route created some loss, but ameliorated the yearly decimation of their species.

The stream of southward flying amber and black wings would suddenly turn at 90 degrees east and fly for about five miles. After that, their course with abruptly correct to south and the creatures that hardly possessed a brain and had never flown this migration path somehow knew precisely where to go and where to avoid.



Between the coming of people and the departing of the butterflies, other species, mostly small mammals, birds and fish would try to make a go at a colony on this island seemingly without predators.With smaller populations, the mountain needed to wait for there to be enough living creatures, breeding creatures and extra creatures that some could just become lost as they slunk, or crawled, or fluttered, or hopped, or swam around their home island of black glass and basalt. The diet of the mountain dwindled and year by year it became a bit harder to see. Misty, sliding further into the periphery of the eye and also curling in upon itself in some atrophy of starvation.

Humans have always had a difficult time arguing with any disparity between eye and mind. The changed course of millions of butterflies was quite noticeable, but it took humans rather a long time to notice since the navigation of the Monarchs took place far out in a deep lake. Humans had few vantage points from which one might glimpse this spectacle and most of those were boats.

And thus, via boats, early people came to this strange island. The first people were of the oldest tribes who searched for good hunting, fishing or resources. None of those were found save shards of black glass that could be chipped and flaked into wickedly keen edged weapons. Unlike with the small animals, the tribal people noticed when fewer people returned and boarded their boats at the end of the day than had disembarked in the morning.

They searched until the sun was setting, the light burning gold over the black planes and angles of the rock, blinding the searchers. When no trace of the missing was found, they retired to their boats and moved further out into the water. Lashing their crafts together for the night, they passed a solemn and near silent night on the water. In the morning, they searched again and saw only strange reflections of their own faces, reflected back with rippled details that sometimes did not look like their own visage, but rather that of the missing.

There is something that reads as deeply wrong to the human mind when you look into a reflecting surface and note that your reflection does not precisely mirror the actions of your own body. The head in the mirror turns slower, the smile lasts too long, the expression in the face is not your own or someone is standing behind you but that image exists only in the faces of the obsidian and there is no one behind you when you turn to check.

Thus, the first peoples left and told stories of terrible loss and a mountain of death to any who would journey to this black island of nothing but sharp edges, pain and loss. The mountain sat for many ages and again became hungry again. From Black Island, one might notice the occasional rumble like thunder from far beneath the mountain. The very earth there growled, considering releasing a bit of magma from the center volcano but usually only managed a few wispy belches of smoke. From time to time, a group of brave men in small boats would come and try to prove themselves against the island. They were not victorious in anything but feeding a nameless monster that contentedly returned to slumber when the few surviving voyagers ran screaming toward their boats in hasty departure.

Many years passed and the mountain noticed boats. Large boats. Large boats that must hold many people. As the mountain was invisible to most eyes, the larger ships just did not come its way. Somewhere in the black heart of a black volcano, amid the chorus of weeping voices in many languages, an idea emerged. The mountain consolidated to one last tall peak. Pulling back the energy of the many lives that bound the island together, the outlying volcanoes, the young ridges of obsidian began to crack and with just a single year of ice and heat, they crumbled into the water forming an inconspicuous shoal in an otherwise very deep channel of the giant lake.

The last volcano slipped almost entirely behind a veil of mist and shadow and light and illusion and discomfort to any eye that might land upon it. Black Island, above and below the water line, waited and it was quite ready. Those ships did come. Oh, yes. Full of people and treasures, they ran at speed through the deep channel night and day. Most were lucky. Others were not.

With a keel torn asunder, rudders detached and holes sliced through the hull by sharp volcanic glass, there was very little time for the people on board to make decisions. Some ships began their sinking right there where the damage occurred. Sometimes survivors of these accidents would see the Black Island and swim furiously for its shores. Washing up on the sharp, black shore, they called themselves lucky for a little while. Soon, concerned with the lack of fresh water, game, vegetation or cover they grew anxious about how they might survive until rescue. They needn't have worried. Soon they were just reflections in the midnight glass.

Others went down with their ships and were probably the lucky ones, unless that ship sank at the roots of the black shoal. In that case, they just became rippling faces in the midnight glass facets that were underwater.

Wrecks small and large would be shifted away to deeper places in the lake. The shoal would sometimes rearrange itself to be much lower like a channel but in an entirely new spot. The peaks of the shoal would then be found closer to the formerly safe passages, sometimes just 20 feet beneath the waterline. The perfect depth for snagging a moderately drafting boat that had considered itself safe to run at speed. Oh, how the wood would cracks and shatters, and upon hearing those sounds, the hungry black glass would let itself be glimpsed by the ship wrecked humans.

The island did not know how much or what it had eaten. It was just a monster of rock and intent. A darkling maw waiting for the next bit of prey to arrive. The prey always came. It still does sometimes. The mountain remains hidden and sated. The ships remain sunken and full of fish and death. The black windows of obsidian below and above the water line can still be viewed with so many pairs of eyes of so many species trying to look out.

But, the butterflies can see the mountain. They have not forgotten to cross the immense lake and make no stops. They fly south, then east, then south again and are precise in their directions.



Copy write 2019, Kristen Gilpin
All Rights Reserved



Sources and Inspiration:

NOTE: The pop articles state something very different than the scientific articles. Lincoln Brower does not ever suggest a giant mountain, rather how flyways develop around obstacles. But a mountain that could 'go away' with little trace. to me, means volcano. Sure enough, Lake Superior's Superior Shoal is a massive conglomeration of basaltic lava flows which are mostly well below the center of the lake- except that pesky part that is only 6 meters below the surface of the lake near a busy shipping channel. So here we have butterflies, a missing mountain, 20 square miles of underwater shoal and debris, a area previously volcanic active and a rift which can sweep away rather a lot of rocky mess. To me, this equals a story

1. Gizmodo Article (2013)

2. MONARCH BUTTERFLY ORIENTATION: MISSING PIECES OF A MAGNIFICENT PUZZLELINCOLN P. BROWERDepartment of Zoology, University of Florida,Gainesville, FL 32611, USAThe Journal of Experimental Biology 199, 93–103 (1996) 93Printed in Great Britain © The Company of Biologists Limited 1996JEB0122

3. Lincoln Brower (1931-2018) Memorial

4. From Wikipedia: The Superior Shoal  is a geologic shoal of approximately 20 square miles (52 km2) located 50 miles (80 km) north of Copper Harbor, Michigan in the middle of Lake Superior, the highest point of which lies only 21 feet (6.4 m) below the lake's surface.[1] The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey.[2]:193 It has been theorized that the World War I French minesweepers Inkerman and Cerisoles, which disappeared during their maiden voyage on Lake Superior in mid-November 1918, may have run aground on this shoal[2]:192 and some have theorized that it may have been to blame for both the disappearance of the "Flying Dutchman of the Great Lakes" on November 21, 1902 and the sinking of the "Titanic of the Great Lakes" on November 10, 1975 (the SS Bannockburn and SS Edmund Fitzgerald, respectively).[3][4] It is one of the known off-shore spawning and foraging habitats for the juvenile lean lake trout.

5. Monarch Butterfly Migration: A Mystery Of The Natural World - HD Documentary

This Olde (Cat)House current cast and alumni

I cannot save them all, but I have helped to save these:

1. SubZero: Angel
2. Annabel Lee: Jennifer F.
   
3. Montressor: Kelli S.
4. Edgar Allan: Kelli S.
5. Lenore: Jennifer F.
6. Catherine Earnshaw: Lisa S
7. Linton: Lisa S
8. Heathcliff: Leigh H.
9. Dorian Grey: Angela W.
10. Mina Harker: Angela W.
11. Mycroft Holmes: Christopher C
12. Sherlock Holmes: Christopher C
13. Irene Addler: Christopher H
14. Josiana: Leanna M
15. Quincey Morris: Arlene L
16. Jonah Hex: Arlene L
17. Isolde: Cathy T.
18. Dana Scully: Kristen G.
    
    
19. Cheeto: Mira and Zayn
20. Dorito: Mira and Zayn
21. Caramel: Sue B
22. Sable: Sue B
23. Cordelia Naismith: Ashley A
24. Lily Durona: Ashley A
25. Rowan Durona: Jayne G
26. Elli Quinn: Susan G
27. Miles Vorkosigan: Rick F
28. Ivan Vorpatril: Rick F
29. Lucy Pevensie: Lisa D
30. Edmund Pevensie: Lisa D
31. Peter Pevensie: Jamaal T.
32. Susan Pevensie; Kristen G
33. Gypsy: Dawn H
34. Silva: Dawn H
35. Auggie Pullman: Kimberly
36. Charles Bingley: Joyce B
37. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Joyce B
38. Allan Quartermain: Daryl and Lisa P
39. Atticus Finch: Angel and Denise M
40. Scout Finch: Angel and Denise M
41. Emily Cratchit: TNVR
42. Armand de Romanus: Working
43. Augustin de Lioncourt: Working
44. Lestat de Lioncourt: Patricia M
45. Deirdre Mayfaire: Working
46. Mona Mayfaire
47. Merrick Mayfaire
48. Emily Bronte: Working
49. Charlotte Bronte: Working
50. Nymphadora Tonks: Kerry G
51. Luna Lovegood: Working
52. Sirius Black: Bethany C.
53. Albus Dumbledore: Ulthar
54. Andromeda Black: Lisa B
55. Bellatrix Lestrange: Lisa B
56. Cuthbert Binns: Crystal G
57. Filius Flitwick: Crystal G
58. Helena Ravenclaw: Annarely M.
59. Poppy Pomfrey: Nate L
60. Minerva McGonagall: Talina D
61. Sybill Trelawney: Victoria
62. Wilhelmina Plank: Victoria
63. Percy Weasley: Ulthar
64. Fleur Delacour: Kerry G.
65. Ginny Weasley: Ulthar
66. Charlie: Beth C
67. Mr. T: Ulthar
68. Maria: Earl and Janet S
69. Hawthorne: Bethany B
70. Rayne: Hexy
71. Lala: Rachel B
72. Nigel: Susan G
73. Salem: Laura S
74. Lavender: Susan H
75. Magic Mike: Shayna R
76. Thunder: Maya H 
77. Lightning: Maya H
78. Idgie Threadgoode: Amanda V
79. Ruth Jamison: Amanda V 
80. Merry: Working 
81. Giles Corey: Working
82. Livvy: Working
83. Providence: Libby and Steve
84. J Alfred Prufrock: Kristen G, Whitney
85. Flapjack: Melissa M
86. Waffle: Karen O
87. Maple: AJ L
88. Elizabeth "Beth" March: Daryl and Lisa P.

Available for Adoption!

1. Bright: Bright white young gentleman with tabby grey patch eyebrows. Loves head scritchings like no other.
2. Jolly Mostly grey tabby with white feet and belly and a few random white spots on his coat. He loves to run and play.
3. Frolic: Interesting grey tabby with cool markings on face. Also fast and likes to play. Right now, little buddy has a cold and is being treated. Poor guy.
4. Blithe: White with harlequin grey tabby patches. He's soft like a stuffed animal.
5. Josephine Jo March: stunning color patched tabby in grey and ginger girl with a white belly
6. Amy Curtis March (Available): beautiful brown marbled tabby girl
7. Margaret Meg March (Available): beautiful brown marbled tabby girl
8. John Brooke (Available): handsome brown tiger tabby lad

On Lemons

On Lemons

At the recent Trimaris Royal University, I presented a class entitled "On Lemons: Origins, hybridization, species, uses, records and dispersion throughout the ancient world."

The entire presentation can be accessed the title above or the image in this post.

This is the first in the series of medieval horticulture "whole history" presentations where I plan to present not just a fruit, plant, herb, etc- but how it was used and effected the ancient world.

Some plants, cultivated and wild, played large parts in mythology, literature, cuisine, trade and art with a wide area of influence, while others were geographically limited in scope or were only utilized for a brief period of time. It's kind of a weird niche, but it's a topic that has long fascinated me. So, I'll be down a rabbit hole of fruits, vegetables, flowers and how they changed in use and flavor and how they changed the places and people where they were introduced.

This appeals to my storyteller approach of history and science and art and culture and belief and cuisine and how those elements were interwoven and tethered to one another as time unfurled. I've always preferred this method of research and teaching, and it seems that I finally have some time for it. teaching, and it seems that I finally have some time for it.

Next on deck will be the apple.

My loves converge: Pangur Bán. Cat, poetry, history and medieval scribal arts

Many know that I study the medieval period, especially the art form known as illumination. This art was used to decorate the books of the middle ages and comes in all sorts of forms from glorious to silly, breathtaking to irreverent.

I also foster cats and kittens and work with a non-profit in Tampa, FL named St Francis Society. This group has been doing great work helping the cats of the Tampa metro area have better lives.

I also have an appreciation for poetry both modern and medieval.

If you combine all of these things that I love into one place, you get Pangur Bán.

The poem Pangur Bán comes to us from the 9th century and was written by an Irish monk in a book known as the Reichenau Primer. The Primer itself is a collection of hymns and grammatical texts that was likely pen practice for a scribe. Preserved in the book is also the poem in which the author compares his work of study to the work of his cat hunting mice.

The cat's name in the poem is Pangur Bán, which is not so much a name as it is a description of the cat. In Irish, the word Bán means fair or white. Pangur, however is not an Irish word. The Welsh word pannwr means fuller, which was a job in the middle ages. A fuller used a combination of washes, scouring and felting to remove oils, dirt and impurities from wool cloth. At the end of the process, the wool would be a bright clean white, as well as soft and strong. In short, Pangur Bán was likely an all white, stunning cat. Today, we'd probably say the cat was dazzling white or sparkling white in color. He also seemed to be especially good at mouse murder, enough that he inspired a monk at study to write a poem about the similarities of their dedication to their respective work.

So, here is the poem, translated from the Irish by Robin Flower.

Pangur Bán

Cat and mouse, Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, 

Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, f° 165r (detail)

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

Created by @LauraEAydelotte with images of materials from Ms. Codex 724 

at the Kislak Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Should you wish to make a donation to St Francis Society Animal Rescue, you can donate at our website. We are a 100% volunteer organization and every dollar raised goes back into food, litter, medicine, medical expenses. All of our adoptable felines can be found showcased on the website as well. If you donate, let them know that Pangur Ban sent you.

My Facebook page hosts a lot of cat videos, memes and pictures. If that's your gig, you are welcome to follow me there as cat posts are all public. Some people like to send cat items directly to my house as I don't usually take from the St. Francis food pantry, leaving it for others who need more help to afford supporting our cats, but it does get expensive and the boxes for the cats are always appreciated. You can find my Amazon wish list here and those boxes are often opened during live unboxing videos where the cats come and go during the live shot. It can get pretty funny.