Letter to avid student of the St. George legend

           from Sir Hewell Magwick, official historian.

               Dear Sharon,

                     How good of you to receive St. George so well.  Few are aware that      

              this most gallant knight's most celebrated exploit occurred by accident.        

                   I am referring to his victorious encounter with a dragon named

             Angelo.  Although he was victorious, St. George was never again

              his exuberant, devil-may-care, quick-to-combat, self.  The incident

             changed him completely.

                   One glorious spring afternoon, while wending his way along a lone-

             some forest path on Old Bravo and meditating pious thoughts as

             knights were wont to do in those days, St. George blundered directly

             into a dragon sleeping in a small clearing.  It was Angelo.

     The dragon awakened from pleasant dreams of barbecued chicken and veal cutlet parmigiana.  He was still drowsy and inclined to resent the intrusion.  In his mind's eye, our hero was translated into a selection of choice meatballs—canned, of course, as St. George was in full armor.

     Angelo reared about ten feet of neck into the air and hissed angrily.  St. George reacted instinctively.  He hurled his lance as if it were a spear.  It entered the soft, scale-less area where the throat forms a junction with the thorax, and penetrated deeply, for His Lordship was superbly endowed in the physical sense.

     Old Bravo, exercising greater discretion than his master, whirled and bolted in the opposite direction.  There was a tremendous crash from behind them as Angelo fell, mortally stricken, in a welter of broken trees and flattened underbrush.  Finally, St. George was able to reign up and persuade Old Bravo to return.

     Angelo had expired by now and His Lordship was busily engaged in extricating his lance when two knights on horseback entered the clearing from the opposite direction.

     He recognized them as fellow members of the Copper Toadstool, a gathering of fearless nobles, dedicated to the never-ending battle against evil and injustice, renowned for their good deeds as well as their pious demeanor.

     “Ah! Scratchly, Toadwren, good of you to drop by.  Do help me pull this bloody lance out like good chaps, will you?”

     Sir Scratchly gave our hero a contemptuous glance.  “You cad!  You're perfectly aware that dragons are on the endangered species list.”

     Sir Toadwren refused even to acknowledge George's presence.  They passed him by and disappeared into the forest again. 

               I, as his biographer, cannot permit his lesser feats to remain

            unheralded, for in the aggregation, they are an important information-

            source for students of heroic folklore.  George's encounter with the

            Great White Margatto Whale is as deserving of posterity as was

            that with the dragon.

Reminiscences of Ishmael the Accurst

     Positioning the blunderbuss against my shoulder, I sighted carefully at the open doorway.

     “Try not to hit the sill,” Charity cautioned me.  She and I have been married twenty-five years.  I promised to be very careful.  She applied a burning spill to the fuse.  It sputtered and a spark raced into the powder vent.  There was, almost simultaneously, an explosion and a cloud of black smoke.  Despite the precaution of bracing my wooden leg, I was almost knocked over onto my back.  These new-fangled weapons will never replace the good old-fashioned dirk and battle axe.

     An armored knight appeared in the doorway in time to catch the full force of the discharge.  “I say there,” he protested.

     Encumbered by his armor, he was at a disadvantage.  Finally, he just shook himself and a score of pellets cascaded onto the ground in a metallic symphony.  Doffing a five-gallon Stetson, he beat it against the door jamb to rid it of the remaining shot.

     The hat was cunningly wrought from sheet metal.  Its seams were riveted together and the crown was tastefully creased in the latest fashion of western knighthood.  He wore two swords in crossed belts.  The  swords were encased in abbreviated scabbards—for quick drawing, no doubt.

     Reaching into a wallet fastened to his belt, he produced a small embossed square which was presented to Charity with a bow.  “My card,” he announced, somewhat stiffly, I thought.

     Charity looked at it and gasped in dismay.  “Oh, Merciful  Savior!  It's His Lordship, Sir Salvador, St. George, Nemesis of all Evil, Champion of the Poor and Oppressed and Protector of the Faith.”

     We fell to our knees, beseeching his forgiveness and understanding, for he has a formidable reputation even in this remote region of his domain.

     “Forgive, forgive,” my wife implored.

     “Forgive us, your Lordship,” I added in supplication.  “I was but aiming at a monster.”

     “A monster, you say?”  His voice brightened.

     “Aye, Sire.  The Great White Margatto Whale has been besieging our poor home.”

     His Lordship carefully evaluated my declaration against his inexhaustible store of knowledge.  Finally he asked, “What is a Margatto whale?”  He indicated Charity and I should rise, with a motion of his armored hand.

     “I am Charity, wife of Ishmael the Accurst,” she said, curtsying. 

     Sir Salvador looked at me.  “And, you are Mr. Accurst?”

     I bowed deeply.  “If it pleases Your Lordship, call me Ishmael.”

     Charity accepted his battle mace, shield and hat.  She opened the closet door with the intention of hanging them within, and was almost engulfed by an avalanche of broom-heads.  “I must clean it out one of these days,” she apologized.

     I ushered His Lordship to our humble table and begged he be seated.  Then I proceeded to explain.

Reminiscences of St. George the Lion Hearted

     Count Bagtree warned me the natives of Screaming Hollow were “unique”, but this is ridiculous.  The man and woman confronting me were so thin as to verge on invisibility.  It was like conversing with two swamp reeds.  I doubted they could muster one hundred pounds between themselves.

     They appeared to me what a broom might look like if it were metamorphosized into a human being.  Their noses jutted outward from faces that were absolutely flat—like pegs in a cribbage board.  The noses were colored blue…some quaint religious custom whose significance escapes me, no doubt.

     The man's right leg terminated in a wooden peg.  “One hundred years ago,” he began, by way of a preamble, “on October third, All Fraud's Day to be precise, a dire curse was placed upon my great-great-grandfather, Ahab, and upon all those who would descend from his line.”

     “Who placed this curse upon your family?” I interrupted.  Cursing was expressly forbidden in my realms.

     “The Witch Gaggle of Aphid Junction, Sire.  Ahab had offended them in some way.  I'm not certain as to how but they certainly were sticky about it.  It may have been his habit to burn one of them at the stake occasionally.”

     “That wasn't it at all, Husband,” Charity contradicted him.  “He ate fish on Bad Friday…a very religious body of witches they were.”

     “The Witch Gaggle of Aphid Junction?”  I raised an eyebrow in disdain, a gesture that was largely wasted as I still wore my helmet.  “What form does this curse assume?”

     Ishmael pointed to his wooden leg.  “I and our male descendents are destined to lose a leg every four hours, to the Margatto Whale, Sire.”

     “Every THREE hours,” his wife corrected him.  “Ishmael has no sense of time, Your Lordship.  If you knew how hard-pressed we are to…”

     “Every THREE hours?” I repeated, somewhat befuddled.  The issue promised to be a little less than perfectly straightforward.

     “Aye, Sire, Charity is right…every three hours it is.  But only during the day.  Before bedtime, I hang two or three legs outside the door and now she leaves me unmolested at night.”

     “She?”

     “The Margatto Whale is a female, Sire.  T'was good thinking on the part of Grandfather Gideon.  The whale used to drag him out of bed…poor grandfather lost a tremendous amount of sleep.  He was rapidly becoming a nervous wreck before the idea occurred to him.”

     “Your grandfather was a remarkable man,” I said complimentarily.

     “Lost my last leg three hours ago,” Ishmael continued, “give or take a couple of minutes, that is.  The whales use the legs to line their nests.  The Great Margattos lay an egg every fifty years.”

     “One of them is besieging our home at this very moment, Your Lordship,” Charity informed me anxiously.  “We knew something was awry when Ezekiel the Prophet failed to come when we called him.”

     “Ezekiel the Prophet?”  These peasants are incapable of maintaining uncomplicated discourse.

     “Our watchdog, Sire,” Ishmael explained.

     I was relieved.  The discussion appeared to be based on a rational footing after all.  Raising my right arm I reminded them, “You need fear no evil, for I am with you,” and repeated my original question.  “What is a Margatto Whale?”

     On this subject Ishmael was well-versed, but his approach was oblique in the extreme.  “They are land whales, Sire, indigenous to the Screaming Hollow.  Margattos are to be found nowhere else in the entire world.”

     “I can well believe that.”

     “Many eons ago, Your Lordship, the oceans surged over where we now stand.  Chinese whales migrated here to spawn or whatever it is whales do.  Gradually the waters drained out through a hole in the hollow floor and many of them were trapped.  In time they adapted themselves to an amphibious existence and later to one wholly on land.”

     “Thank goodness they never learned to fly.”  I shuddered, thinking of the possible consequences.

     “Amen to that!” Ishmael seconded fervently.

     “You must slay it, Sir Salvador, and end the curse,” Charity implored me.

     I was in no hurry to slay anything.  My encounter with Scratchly and Toadwren had dampened my martial ardor considerably.  I knew they would return to the Copper Toadstool and report my transgression against dragons in great detail.  My fellow knights would nudge each other surreptitiously as I'd pass and comment, “There goes St. George.  Trigger happy, you know.”

     I asked of Ishmael, “How did you lose that leg…your natural flesh and blood one, that is?”

     He appeared embarrassed.  His wife responded for him.  “Touchy subject, that.  He never had one, Sire.  My poor husband was born with a wooden leg.  The midwife had to remove ninety-seven splinters from his mother.”

     “Part of the curse,” he added, gloomily.  “Mother didn't care for it one bit.”

     An elderly crone suddenly appeared in the still-open doorway.  I recognized the traditional witch…all correctly gnarled, with the hooked nose and chin.  Anyone can recognize a traditional witch.  She was carrying an enormous bundle of newly-made straw brooms on her back.  The bundle was so large as to dwarf her.  She looked like an ant attempting a getaway with a stolen cotton ball.  “New brooms for old broom-heads and a few coins,” she quavered.  All traditional witches quaver.

     “Ah, it's Mother Corn,” Charity informed me.  “We buy all our brooms from her.  Thank goodness she's arrived.  We're down to our last half dozen legs.”  Turning to her, she said, “Hello, Dearie, I'll be with you in a moment.”

     Charity obtained a burlap sack from the witch and began to empty the closet of its broom-heads.  I watched as she stuffed enough of them into the sack to have lined the entire Screaming Hollow floor.  The bag neither strained nor bulged.

     “Do you really need so many brooms?” I finally asked.

     “We used the handles as leg replacements,” she told me.  “It's cheaper than a carpenter.  It's a dreadful expense that leg is becoming…a drain on the family resources.”  She ungraciously surrendered a few coins.  Mother Corn cackled her thanks and vanished into the sky.

     I arose from the table.  “Let us go to seek out the Great White Margatto Whale.”

     A muffled barking reminded me of their pet.  That would be Ezekiel the Prophet, no doubt.

Reminiscences of Charity, Lawfully Wedded

Wife of Ishmael the Accurst

     A screw-eye fastened to the molding of the doorway captured the attention of our eagle-eyed visitor.  “What is the purpose of this?” he asked.

     “We kept Ezekiel chained to it,” my husband replied.

     “Hm-m.  Very practical, I'm sure.”  Sir Salvador examined a length of chain attached to the screw-eye.  “Theoretically, Ezekiel should be on the other end of this.”

     Ishmael conceded it was quite possible.  St. George loosened the swords in their scabbards and directed us to follow him.  The chain was a very long one.  It disappeared from view around the corner of our humble house.  I watched my dear husband and our noble champion as they proceeded to trace the chain into heaven knows what dangers.  I remained about ten feet behind them, curiosity and trepidation striving for mastery within me.

     The Great White Margatto Whale looked like a partially-deflated cloud.  It was sound asleep.  The chain disappeared into the thin gash that was its mouth.  Ezekiel continued to protest from within.

     “How long is this chain?” St. George inquired.

     “Twenty feet, Sire,” my husband responded.

     “Hm-m!”  His Lordship stroked a metal chain with a metal finger.  I wondered how he shaved.  He computed the visible section of the chain against that inside the whale.  “About three more feet, I'd say.  That means Ezekiel is still inside the mouth.”

     “Quite so, My Lord,” Ishmael agreed.

     “Do you recall exactly how it was that Jonah's whale was persuaded to disburse Jonah?”

     Ishmael wasn't certain.  “Indigestion, perhaps?”

     “He was tickled!” I yelled at them.

     “Who? Jonah?”

     “Nay, Sire, the whale.”

     “Quite so.  Very intelligent woman, your wife.”

     Ishmael smiled his appreciation.  “I'm sure, your Lordship.”

     St. George squatted and reached under the creature's chin.  There was no reaction to the tickling.

     “I think they're satisfied that way only under their flippers, Sire.”

     “Capital idea, Ishmael, we'll try there.”

     The flipper was a large one.  “Quickly, now.”  His Lordship held it up while Ishmael scratched with a garden rake.

     “I think I'm allergic to whales,” Sir Salvador snuffled inside his helmet.

     Results were gratifying.  The Margatto whale awakened with a snort and Ezekiel was expelled like a fruit pit.  I caught him in my apron as he flew by.

     Ishmael leaned against the side of the house.  “Yes, Sire,” he sighed.  “Now we're done with her or she's done with us for another three hours.”  He rested his head between his hands and sobbed piteously.

     “There, there,” Sir Salvador said, patting him on the head consolingly.  “You'll soon have another leg.”

     His Lordship had forgotten to remove his metal gauntlets and poor Ishmael slumped to the ground unconscious.

Reminiscences of Mother Corn, Traditional Witch

     I had the feeling, deep within my ancient bones, that this was going to be a foul day.  A glance outside my window confirmed it was going to be a foul one indeed.

     Being a poor lonely widow witch, I never could afford a proper watch demon, so I threw one together out of wilted cabbage leaves and old carrots.  Naturally, I ate the good parts of the vegetables.  It's very hard for a poor old witch to make her way in this world.

     An armored knight and his horse were standing in the middle of my vegetable patch, one foot on the lettuce, the other on the tomatoes.  The horse had his hooves respectively on my beans, peas, squash and onions.  I'm glad he doesn't ride a centipede.

     He is feeding the remains of my poor wilted guardian demon to the horse.  I'd fling a bolt of lightning at him but his silver armor is a protection against any spells I might be able to conjure.

     Oh! Oh!  The family escutcheon emblazoned on his shield informs me this is none other than Sir Salvador St. George, do-gooder and buttinsky in general.  His coat-of-arms has been heralded far and wide by his public relations staff.  It features a muscular torso with eight arms radiating outward from it like spokes in a wheel.  The arms are supposed to symbolize cardinal virtues:  charity, loyalty, courage, strength, steadfastness, mercy, piety and purity.  I have to assume St. George does not consider wisdom a cardinal virtue as there is no head on the torso.  Hastily I threw open the door before he could smash it down with his metal gauntlets.  Doors are hard to come by for a poor widow witch like myself.

     “Welcome, Your Lordship,” I cried, groveling appropriately.

     “Mother Corn, I presume?”  He bowed appropriately. 

     “Yes, Sire.  That I am—a poor lonely widow…”

     “As you may be aware,” he said, cutting me off before I could hit my proper stride, “I am the champion of the afflicted.”  I waited silently.  “A dreadful curse has been visited upon two of my subjects.”

     I made bold to interrupt.  “If Your Lordship would deign to enter my miserable hovel and do me honor by sitting at my humble table…”  I bowed him inside.  I wonder if I can change him into a gingerbread man.  The spell is considered ineffective against those over twelve years of age, but Sir Salvador isn't considered overly bright.

     “You ARE familiar with the reasons a curse is visited upon a victim, are you not?”  It wasn't a question, not really.  He sat.

     “Yes, Sire.”  Hurriedly I poured him a goblet-full of my best crème de sulfure and set it before him.  “Revenge for a slight, real or imagined, to a supernatural being.”

     Blackwell Grant, my demon familiar in the form of a black cat, rose from the hearth to examine our visitor.  He purred loudly and began to run himself against Sir Salvador's shin armor.

     “Friendly little fellow, eh what?”  Sir Salvador picked Blackwell up and set him on his lap armor.  “Revenge is correct.”  He looked at me inscrutably.  I must examine his family tree to see if any of his ancestors came from China.

     “But, Your Lordship,” I protested.  “What do I, a poor helpless widow woman, have to do with these unfortunate people's mishap?  There are scores of witches in the Screaming Hollow.  Aphid Junction is teeming with them.” 

     He ignored me.  “A detailed and prolonged questioning has failed to elicit any reason, real or imaginary, for any supernatural creature to want to visit a curse upon my subjects or their ancestors.  There is a great deal of speculation and confusion but nothing of a definite nature.  My questioning went as far back as the fifth generation to Ahab the Wailer.  Revenge, as a motive, has been eliminated.”

     I pretended to misunderstand.  “Ahab the Whaler?  Of course.  He must have slaughtered scores of Margattos.”

     “Ahab the Wailer received his name because of his occupation.  He was the town crier.”

     I grasped at a very slender straw.  “Ahab the Wailer?  Why, of course.  I remember him now.  His news and views were frequently inaccurate and misleading.  Investors who depended on his stock market quotations were ruined.  All in all, he created a great deal of embarrassment for himself and others.  ‘Please, Lord,' he would pray, ‘Let me not place my foot in my mouth again.'

     “He was overheard by Blanche, one of the local witches who was well-disposed toward him.  Poor woman, she went to her hellish reward many years ago.  ‘Why is that, Dear Ahab?' she asked one day.

     “'Because it's too uncomfortable,' he replied.  As I stated, Blanche was well-disposed to him.  She thought of his enormous feet and concurred.  It must be very uncomfortable indeed.  Poor woman, she took everything quite literally.

     “Than night she cast a spell and when Ahab awakened next morning, his right leg had become a wooden peg.  Much more convenient for insertion into one's mouth, but a nuisance on muddy ground.  Ahab became a fervent advocate of paved sidewalks.”

     He ignored my beautiful digression.  “The factor of revenge having been eliminated,” he said (I might as well have saved my breath), “another motive was brought into focus.”

     I waited expectantly.  “What is that, Sire?  I am a poor humble widow…”

     “That of pecuniary gain.”

     “Do you mean money, Your Lordship?”

     “I mean money.  This curse began to manifest itself one hundred years ago.  By coincidence, shortly after you established residence here.”

     “How could I possibly profit by this unfortunate circumstance, Sire?  I am all alone against the world.  Buffeted by every wind of ill-fortune, humble and in need, see?  Surely you don't suspect me?”

     He did.  “Who is to gain?”  The question was rhetoric of the purest sort.  He answered it himself.  Leveling an armored finger at me, he said, shaking it accusingly, “You, you foul witch.  You've sold brooms to Ahab and his descendents for a full century…to the present day.  You've caused all this misfortune and heartbreak for the sake of a few paltry pennies.”

     It was purposeless to inform him these few coppers were all that stood between me and starvation.  You have to buy seeds to plant vegetables.  Continuing the pretense of innocence, I said, “Your Lordship, I am a poor helpless traditional witch.  I…”

     He was perusing a booklet.  “A traditional witch, you say?”  A finger ran up and down the columns in its pages.  “Ah!  Here we are…traditional witches…not on the endangered species list…scheduled for a thinning out…about one hundred would do nicely to begin with.  Tell me, do you prefer burning or hanging?”  The booklet went back into his wallet.

     “Burning, if it please Your Lordship…a family tradition and…”

     “Normally, I am shockingly lax concerning enforcement of these administrative details.  I would probably forget in a few days if the Margatto Whale were to cease visiting Ishmael and Charity.  However, if it doesn't…”  It was unnecessary for him to finish.

     Sir Salvador stood.  He pried open Blackwell Grant's mouth and poured the contents of the goblet down his throat.  Then he turned and clanked out of my cottage.

     Poor Blackwell screamed and stood on his hind legs.  For a moment he was revealed as he actually was, a two-footed creature whose entire body was covered with razor-sharp spines.  Each spine was hollow and equipped with venom.  Malevolent orange eyes glazed in agony.  Then every spine fell off.

     Blackwell stood on the tabletop in the middle of a circle of black pins.  He reminded me of a pine tree that had suddenly shed all its needles.  I wrapped him up in a towel.  Poor devil.

Recollections of someone whose name is invisible.

A neighbor, no doubt.

     Of course we were all delighted.  The curse had been lifted.  The Margatto Whale would never again visit Ishmael.  A jolly group sat around the table and celebrated.  Platters of roasted tumbling hens and candied crumb cannies circulated freely.  We washed down sherry ramblers and cheese jablets with goblets of fine kine wine.

     Ishmael raised his goblet in a toast.  “To His Lordship, Salvador St. George…may he reign a thousand years.”  His eyes glowed with excitement and gratitude.  “Hear! Hear!”  we seconded enthusiastically.

     St. George managed to stand and bow.  He looked at the hourglass.  “The curse is definitely lifted.  The Margatto Whale should have appeared ten minutes ago.”

     The window imploded in a shower of broken glass and wood.  Charity screamed.  Ishmael threw himself onto the floor.  A large object that looked vaguely like a flying carpet flapped overhead and embedded its beak in the opposite wall.

     The thing uttered curses while striving to free itself by bracing its spindly legs against the wall.  Loose, it whirled and faced Ishmael.  Whiskers descended from under its beak almost to its knees.  Emitting an inhuman cry, the thing hurled itself upon our host.

     Seizing Ishmael by the hair, it pulled him up and then knocked him to the floor again.  They engaged in a furious struggle.  In a trice the unfortunate fellow was completely enveloped in the voluminous wings.  Ishmael struck out with his head and tried to bite.

     “Help! Help!” he cried.

     Encumbered by his armor and fine kine wine, His Lordship was unable to respond quickly.

     “Kill it!  Kill it, Your Lordship,” Ishmael begged.

     It was wrenching furiously at his wooden leg with long skinny claws.

     “It's a bearded horse turkey from the Haggly Pens!” someone shouted.  “They use wooden legs to line their nests!”

     “A bearded horse turkey, you say?”  St. George was perusing the environmental list.

     “Slay it!” Ishmael cried.  He was now completely helpless.  His leg came off with an audible “Pop!”  The horse turkey launched itself out the window and vanished from sight with a triumphant chortle.

     “Ah! Here it is!”  His Lordship's finger stopped.

     “Follow it.  Destroy it,” Ishmael sobbed.   Charity was bending over him administering a cooling washcloth.

     “Impossible!”  His Lordship refused politely but firmly.  “Horse turkeys are on the endangered species list.”