The Revels of Gog & Magog
Bleak midwinter lay over the whole of Albion, but in hut, cottages, and castles up and down the island kith and kin were gathered before blazing hearths, defying the snow and frost with food and cheer. And so it was in the towering cottage of the giants Gog & Magog. Without: the Yule-stones – gaily attired in hats and kilts – stood at the corners of the house; a four-pointed star hung on the door; lush pine trees thatched the roof; and the (newly rebuilt) chimney smoked merrily. Within: beeswax candles twinkled in the widows; holly and juniper bushes adored the tables, garlands of gleaming silver chains hung about the walls, boar-faced gargoyles winked and leered from the nooks and corners; four wicker cages, each home to four white rabbits, hung from the rafters; a cracked and yellowing “dragon” horn sat on the mantelpiece while below a blazing fire crackled and popped; and from the kitchen drifted the blissful aroma of the traditional Stolen Stew. Stretched out in his favorite chair, his slippered feet on the fender, a smoking goblet in his hands, Gog sighed happily. Beside him, his brother Magog was putting the finishing touches on the Master’s Log, a specially-chosen oak trunk with a face carved on both ends, each more hideous than the other.
“There,” said Magog. “Finished.”
Gog sat up and peered long at the frightful effigy. “Well done, brother! That is the ugliest ogre I’ve ever seen.”
Magog stood up and brushed the wood shavings from his breeches before careful placing the log next to the fireplace to await the appointed time. “Yes,” he said proudly. “I think he’ll burn quite merrily.” Still admiring his handiwork, he reached back for his own goblet. “That knot made an excellent wart and the larger nose . . . nose . . .” he turned to the end table suspiciously.
“What’s the matter?” asked Gog with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Where’s my beaker?”
“My scented sandals!” Gog said, fighting off a smile. “It must have been the Wicked Servant.”
“That villain!” exclaimed Magog with mock outrage as he began hunting high and low.
When Magog found his wayward cup (hidden inside a decorative cauldron) there was much teasing and laughter.
“A song,” cried Magog.
“No,” answered Gog. “A game first.”
“Crawes and Coneys?”
“I claim Crawes.”
So the green-and-white checkered board was produced and populated with black “crawes” and white “coneys” and the brothers took turns hunting and hiding their pieces across the board till a single “coney” slipped behind his pursuers and “down-the-hole”.
“I win!” Exclaim Magog.
“You slippery sneak-thief!” laughed Gog. “Very well, name your forfeit.”
“Firstly, refill our cups,” said Magog. “Then you must give us a toast.”
Gog made a shallow bow. “A simple penance,” he said and started for the kitchen.
“And a song!” Magog called after him.
With a lighthearted grumble, Gog returned with two goblets of hot, milky punch. Handing one to Magog, he positioned himself before the fire and paused a moment in thought. Then, touching his cup briefly to his forehead, he began: “On this first night of Middentide – the most ancient and beloved of all festivals –”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Magog, raising his own goblet to his brow.
Gog frowned after his scattered thoughts. “—let us, let us remember Bish and his divine wickedness. May he smile down from the moon and spill his blessings upon us.”
“Hooroo!” Magog stamped his feet.
“And so,” said Gog, warming to his subject, “by the First Stones and the Stolen Pot, let us empty our cups to kith and kin, be they ever so few and far!”
With a crash, the front door was thrown wide on a colossal figure framed by the driving snow. “Not so far, cousins,” it bellowed.
“Humbug!” cried the brothers in unisonous dismay.
Yes, it was Humbug the Horrid, with his blood-red hair and matted beard, his coal-black eyes and jagged teeth, his beast skins and boneyard trinkets, his bulging sack and knotty club.
“Well meet in winter,” shouted the newcomer.
“Fare you well in frost,” answered Gog dully.
“Be welcome to our hearth,” said Magog reflexively.
Humbug’s guffaws shook the rafters and rattled the plates as he ducked under the lintel. Woodenly, Gog and Magog went to meet their kin, trading troubled glances. Humbug lunged at Gog and rapped him on the head. “Ha! Cousin, you’re as hairless as toad! But you, meekling,” he cuffed Magog’s ear, “are still hairy as mule!”
“And you’re still a cur,” muttered Gog.
Humbug laughed away the insult and ran back into the night. But before Gog could slam shut the door or Magog flee into the kitchen, he was back with a cloaked figure in tow. “Meet wife,” he shouted, pulling away the bear-skin mantle to reveal a scowling giantess. She was a wiry creature whose brown stone-woven hair, umber eyes, and dark freckles gave her that certain muddied mien that giants find so alluring.
“S-salutations,” stammered Gog, his head radish-red. “I’m Gog the, the Mighty.”
“And I’m Magog, the brother.
“I am Ulwed the Scold.” Her dirty eyes roved across the cozy sitting room with undisguised contempt before settling on her in-laws and their gay apparel.
Humbug shook the snow from the roof as he slammed the door and bounded across the room. Grabbing Ulwed around the waist, he tossed her into chair. “Sit,” he threw himself into the other chair. “And you, Shorn-skull! Meekling, bring us food and drink! We must revel together!”
Gog perched on a stool in the inglenook while Magog slunk into the kitchen. Humbug glanced around him with an hungry smile. “Warm hut, cousin,” he said. “Warm and dry, think you not, wife?”
“It is a pretty,” she sneered. “A comfortable hovel for little men and their mewling broods.” She waved her broken nails at the ornaments and greenery hung with care about the room. “Why do you hoard this gaud?”
“Decoration?” ventured Gog. “For Middentide.”
Ulwed snorted. “This is how you honor Lord Bish?”
Lord? thought Gog. But his worring was interrupted by his brother’s return. Dismayed as he was by the sudden appearance of Humbug and his bewitching bride, Magog was ever the dutiful host wherefore he had rooted in the backs of closets and cupboards till he had found the drinking-skulls the brothers had inherited from their aunt Gobgwin. Now he presented the steaming trophies to the party.
“Aaa,” Humbug grinned back at his cup. “Blood?”
“What?” said Magog. “No, it’s caudle. Gog’s own recipe.”
“The secret is nutmeg,” said Gog proudly.
Cautiously, Humbug took a sip. “It’s not blood,” he said. “But it’s got spirit.”
“Quite a lot,” Gog admitted.
“Nutmeg?” Ulwed sampled her drink and wrinkled her smutty nose. “Milk?”
“Yes,” said Gog.
“Oxen?”
“Two cows actually,” said Magog. “Their names are –”
“Lord Bish did not drink cow’s milk.” She threw her drink into the fire. “This is Middentide, when we should honor our Father and eat and drink as he did. Humbug!”
“Yes, wife.”
“Open your sack and bring out the bladder within.”
As Humbug did as he was bade, Ulwed snatched the skulls from the startled giants and poured out the sweet, spicy beverage. Taking the leathery bag that Humbug produced, she filled the mugs with a lumpy grey liquid and thrust them back.
“Drink,” she commanded. “Drink to Lord Bish, to his strength and his guile!”
His eyes aflame, Humbug drank eagerly. Gog and Magog less so.
“Gaah!” chocked Magog.
Gog spit out his mouthful. “What is this?”
“Boar’s milk,” said Ulwed. “Curdled in blood.”
“Boar!”
Ulwed stood before the fire and sang out loudly: “From his master’s herd, the milk he stole! From his master’s fire the stewpot he stole!”
“What is she doing” whispered Magog.
“She’s singing Tale of Bish,” answered Humbug. “Wife is singer of tales.”
“Oh,” said Magog heading for the kitchen.
Humbug grabbed his by the ear. “Where are you going, Meekling?”
Magog yelped in pain.
“We always have the Stew with the Tale,” Gog explained.
“Sit,” growled Humbug. “Listen to wife, then get stew.”
So Magog sat on the floor, cradling his stinging ear, and, with his kinsfolk, listened to the ancient story of the ogre Wugtir who lived in the “cold dark before the World” with his faithless servant Bish. And though it was all there – the two-headed ogre, the stolen stewpot whence sprang all the animals and plants of the world, the four standing stones that became the first giants – still the brothers found the epic somehow less jolly than in years past. Perhaps it was the lack of the traditional stew. Maybe it was the way Humbug would prod them in the ribs or slap them on the back after every line. Or possibly it was the way Ulwed turned a tale of trickery, adventure, and creation into a saga of malice, blood, and slavery. Whatever the reason, when Ulwed ended her song and the brothers joined Humbug in stamping the ground in the traditional manner it was with a decided lack of holiday joy.
“Well,” said Gog, stamping his feet politely. “That was very . . .”
“Robust,” said Magog. “Particularly the bits about Wugtir: ‘blast and bellow did the hoary head, curse and cow did the horny head’. Very vivid. I hope I captured some of that with my Master’s Log,” he suggested shyly. “What do you think?”
Humbug snatched up the carved tree trunk. He flipped it one way and then the other, laughing and pulling faces at the grotesque effigies. “Ugly,” he sorted. “Hideous. Well done, Meekling! Did you use your brother as model?”
But Ulwed was not amused. “What is this?” she shouted.
“It’s, it’s the Master’s Log,” stammered Magog. “We burn it at midnight. It’s good luck if it lasts the whole four weeks.”
“You dare mock the Ogre?”
“It’s tradition,” pleaded Magog.
“It is blasphemy,” she spat. “Give it to me.”
“Yes, wife.” Humbug handed over the log.
Seizing the effigy, she marched to the door. Gog rose to stop her but was hurled back into his chair by Humbug. Magog could only watch aghast as Ulwed wrenched open the door, snapped his log in twain, and hurled the pieces into the stormy night. She screamed something to the storm before slamming shut the door and turning back to the stunned giants. Snow had frozen her hair and the wind had scoured her skin red and she seemed an ogress herself.
“It is Middentide,” she said. “When we pay homage to Bish, our Lord and Father, when we remember his wickedness in stealing the strew from his master, his cunning in escaping the Ogre, and his power in bringing the first giants to life. It is not,” she shouted, “a time for folly and merry-making! Are we not giants? Are we not savage and mighty and terrible? Carols and games and baubles are an affront to our Father.”
The three giants sat in three silences: Humbug gazed at his wife with hushed reverence, Gog lowered his eyes in mute shame, Magog gaped at the giantess in dumb distress.
When a summoned Humbug hurried to his wife’s side, Magog whispered to his brother. “Shall I fetch the stew?”
“No!” whispered Gog. “I’ll . . . I’ll fetch it.” He ran for the kitchen. “You set the table.”
Unsettled by his brother’s manner, Magog went to the cabinet and brought out the best dishes (for “habits are heavy and not easily cast aside” as the proverb says). When the table was set, the guests sat. Ulwed frowned at the periwinkle porcelain and crumpled a silver spoon with her dirty fist. Humbug watched her with adoration.
Wincing at the loss of a spoon, Magog nevertheless tried to play the hospitable host. “Tell me, cousin,” he said. “How did you meet your lovely wife?”
“He bested my father and brothers in bloody combat,” Ulwed answered. “And took me for his own.”
“I did,” gloated Humbug. “I smashed them like churches!”
“How, um, romantic,” said Magog. “I wonder what’s keeping Gog. Maybe I ought—”
“No need,” said Gog, emerging from the kitchen with a platter of what looked like several varieties of greyish stones and pile of fagots. “Eat,” he said with affected gruffness as he dropped the platter on the table.
“What is this?” said Magog in dismay.
“Cured boar,” Gog said, waving at the fagots. “Also cheese and hard tack,” here, however, he seemed unable to distinguish between the grey stones.
Humbug grunted his approval and Ulwed grabbed handfuls of the things. While the two loudly ate, Magog leant towards his brother and repeated his question.
“Provisions,” hissed Gog. “From our sea voyage.”
“But that was months ago!” whispered Magog. “Where’s your stew?”
“I threw it out.”
“You did what!” Magog struggled not to shout.
“I couldn’t serve it,” Gog moaned. “Not after what she said. Venison? Shallots? Oregano? She’d think it was blasphemy!”
“But it’s your finest dish,” said Magog. “I wait for it all the year!”
“Well, what of it?” said Gog crossly.
“First my Master’s Log,” muttered Magog. “Now your stew? It’s cruel hard.”
Humbug and Ulwed ate savagely, using neither dishes nor utensils yet managing to break them nevertheless. Gog did his best to join in the mayhem, even going so far as to upset the table’s centerpiece (a holly bush cunningly trimmed into a rabbit rampant). Magog sat at the far end of the table, miserably nibbling on a grey lump that may have been cheese or may have been hard tack.
After the meal was devoured and the table looked like a battlefield littered with shattered and mangled tableware, the giants filled their skull-mugs with soured boar’s milk and moved to the hearth. Humbug and Gog sat deep in their chairs while Magog hunched on his stool. Once again Ulwed the Scold stood before the fire. She extolled the fierce virtues of Lord Bish and reviled those same qualities in the ogre Wugtir, recited interminable sagas of terror and bloodshed, and led the giants in song. But there was no joy in this singing, for she would not tolerate the carols of Magog’s youth – “The Turnips’ Lament”, “Fe-fi-hi-ho!”, or even “Hark! The Stones” – but insisted on the chanting of ancient and gloomy dirges.
The Longest Night was never so long. When the clock struck three, Magog could endure no more. Struggling to his feet, he mumbled a string of apologizes and faint-hearted compliments of the season, and staggered to his bed.
He awoke to a cold and silent morning. He dressed with a growing dread and emerged from the bedroom to find his worst fears come to pass. It was all gone: the pots overflowing with holly and mistletoe, the gleaming garlands of silver, the piggy little gargoyles, the 16 white rabbits, even the dancing fire was reduced to orange dregs hiding in grey caves and black fissures. Instead the sitting room was a shambles – upturned furniture; stains upon the walls; snow blowing through the open door; and everywhere mud, muck, and rubbish. Of his brother or his houseguests, there was no sign. With a rattling sigh, Magog closed the door and began to stoked up the fire. When it was burning again, he set water to boil, donned his apron, and fetched mop and bucket.
He had just restored the room to a tidy, bright warmth when the front door burst open and three hoarfrosted giants crashed inside. “Blood and bile!” shouted Humbug, stamping his slushy boots. “It’s colder than troll’s arse!”
“It is nothing that Lord Bish has not endured,” said Ulwed, ignoring the hatstand and dropping her frozen mantle on the floor.
“Truly,” said Gog, beating an avalanche of snow off his own cloak.
Magog frowned at his besplattered floor. “Good morn,” he said dryly. “Where have you three been?”
“Raiding,” said Ulwed.
“Raiding who?”
“Meekling!” shouted Humbug, ignoring the question. “You’re awake, good! Fetch us food.”
Magog stared opened-mouthed at his cousin’s crooked grin and his wife’s icy scorn. He tried in vain to catch his brother’s eye. “Of course,” he sneered. “Perhaps you could help me, Gog?”
“Go on,” laughed Humbug, “Your head shines like ice. Go melt it in kitchen!”
Reluctantly, Gog followed his brother into the kitchen as Humbug dragged his wife to the fireside.
As soon as they were alone, Magog rounded on his brother. “What is happening?”
Gog shrugged. “It’s just a little snow. The floor will dry.”
“Bother the floor!” shouted Magog. “What happened to the decorations? The rabbits?” He followed Gog’s furtive glance to the oven. “You cooked the Middentide rabbits!”
“Peace brother,” said Gog. “They’re only rabbits. You like rabbit.”
“Not Middentide rabbits! They bring good luck, but not if you eat them!”
“Ulwed says—”
“Ulwed! She took down the decorations, didn’t she? By thunder,” swore Magog. “I’ll be glad to see the back of her and Humbug!”
Gog’s silence was poignant.
“Brother,” whispered Magog. “When are they leaving?”
“It’s Middentide,” said Gog. “And hospitality is a virtue. I couldn’t turn them away . . .”
“The whole Middentide? That’s four weeks,” moaned Magog.
Gog coughed. “I invited them to stay till the year turned.”
“Spring?” Magog collapsed into a chair. “Stones preserve us, how could you? He’s bad enough, but she’s—”
“Ulwed is a giantess!” shouted Gog. “And Humbug is a giant! Proud and savage creatures of fury and blood, that’s what giants are, not rabbit-loving cooks and gardeners!” He pulled a pan of charred rabbits from the oven and headed for the front room. “We’ve forgotten who are, brother.”
Magog watched the door swing shut.
The following weeks – until now the most joyful of all the year– were the most miserable of Magog’s life. Not because Humbug tormented him nor because Ulwed harried him, but because Gog – his only brother, his sole confidant, his first and last ally -- deserted him. Swapping his festive finery for coarse skins and his walking stick for a murderous club, Gog ignored his brother’s pleas and went raiding with Humbug and Ulwed, chanting their gloomy dirges in praise of slaughter. Left alone, Magog spent the short days cleaning the ill-treated cottage and the long nights trying to sustain what little cheer he could by stoking high the fire and singing snatches of lonely carols.
It was the final week of Middentide – traditionally a time of high misrule and revelry – when his uncouth guests finally succeeded in provoking the savage within Magog. He had risen with the feeble winter sun and stole out of the cottage and down towards the shed. It was one of the few civilized pleasures left to him, the milking of his cows. It was delicate work, but he had become quite adept at it. He was swinging his bucket and whistling cheerfully when a distressed lowing rang through the frosty air. Magog bound across the snowy fields and around a leafless spinney and froze, aghast. Humbug was standing outside the shed, Damona clutched in his left fist, Boann dangling over his gaping maw, her blue eyes wide with terror.
Magog shook off his horror and ran screaming at Humbug. Before the brute could do more then grin oafishly, Magog had jammed the bucket over his head and snatched away the cows. Humbug deafened himself with his roaring and felled himself with his flailing. Enraged, Magog ripped up a tree and struck the bucket again and again until the bulge of Humbug’s nose was clearly visible through the metal. Finally, he dragged the groaning giant to the top of a nearby hill and sent him rolling down into a frozen river. Then, pausing only to scooped up his bewildered cows, Magog fled towards the forest.
Gog was roused from his drunken stupor by a distant and tinny howling. Rubbing his burning head, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled about the sitting room, upsetting the furniture and rummaging after his wits.
“The Ogre!” Cried Ulwed, waking from her torpor. “Wugtir is upon us!”
Hung-over and hysterical, it was some time before the giants concluded that they were not under attack. Cautiously they peered outside and only just recognized the rimy, block-headed bulk of Humbug blundering about the front garden.
“Husband!” shouted Ulwed. “What are you doing?”
Turning eagerly towards her scolding, Humbug lurched heavily into one of the massive Yule-stones and nearly knocked himself senseless. It was Gog who dragged him inside and dumped him into a chair before the hearth. While Gog tried to remove the deformed pail, Ulwed berated and interrogated her husband who defended himself in an incomprehensible muffle. Losing what little patience she had, heedless of Gog’s words and Humbug’s cries, Ulwed wrenched the bucket free.
“Yaarrr!” screamed Humbug as his nose bent upwards and his skin stuck to the frozen metal. “Hell’s fells, wife! You nigh took face off!”
“What care I for the face of quelling?” she snapped. “Who worsted Humbug the Horrid?”
“It was Meekling,” said Humbug, cradling his nose. “He ambushed me and shoved bucket on my head! Pushed me into river!”
“Pits and holes!” shouted Gog. “Why would Magog do such a thing? What were you doing to him?”
“Naught,” mumbled Humbug. “I was hungry and found fat cows in shed.”
Gog paled as he pictured the scene. “You ate Damona and Boann!”
* * *
Though a fierce snowstorm had arisen and erased all tracks, Ulwed and Humbug had been eager to find Magog and it had not been difficult to convince them to search for him in the forest. Gog, who had agreed to stay behind in case the fugitive returned, waited till the murderous couple were out of sight then had bounded away in the opposite direction.
He strode quickly across the frozen moor – following a line of stepping-knolls – and leapt down into the hidden dell. Here his pace slowed; he was certain of the way and he was certain his brother waited at the end of it, but he was far from certain what he was going to say to him. And so, ashamed, anxious, and a little annoyed, he followed the misty stream with a ponderous plod till he came to valley’s end and the mossy boulder whence the stream flowed. This was Hlut’s Tub, a hideaway the brothers had named after a favorite nursery rhyme, though they had not visited it for centuries. Gog had almost, but not quite, forgotten the place and if Gog had not, then it was plain as rain that neither had Magog.
With a trembling sigh, Gog took hold of the boulder and rolled it aside. He was not surprised to see Magog seated cross-legged beside the hot spring, nor at the cows nuzzled close, nor even at the ancient lanterns that giants had left behind, now burning brightly. What did surprise him was the festiveness of the cave: wreathes, garlands, and boughs covered every inch of the walls and ceiling; four tiny Yule-stone, dressed in pine kilts stood amid the greenery; the lanterns were balanced atop a crude Master’s Log; a trio of rabbits napped upon a raft bobbing on the spring; even Damona and Boann had holly sprigs on their horns and bells on their tails. But despite this festive frippery, Magog hunched over a black scowl, his jolly jester’s cap bent against the roof of the cave.
“You’ve found me at last,” Magog said miserably.
“At last? It’s only been a day and a half, you ass-eared fool,” said Gog. “You’ve only come 50 leagues!”
“Don’t be rude to me,” Magog grumbled. “You’re always rude to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Gog knelt down and crawled into the grotto. He edged his way to the side of the spring and, removing his boots, slid his dirty feet into the pool. “Hhhhhhh,” he sighed. “I’d forgotten how good this feels.” Then he frowned and turned to his brother. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “for all of it.”
“All of it?” said Magog, scratching Damona behind the horns and avoiding his brother’s gaze.
“I’m sorry for throwing out the stew and for cooking your rabbits. I’m sorry for ignoring you and letting Humbug bully you. I’m sorry for raiding and roaring and drinking like some muddy savage. But mostly I’m sorry for letting Ulwed despoil our Middentide.”
“Why did you do it, brother?” Magog slipped his own feet into the pool. “Was it fun?”
“The raiding wasn’t. It was miserable. We stomped for days across the countryside, drinking from freezing rivers and eating raw meat. We never even found anyone to bother. In the end, all we did was knock down an old barn, sing some vile songs, and harasses a flock of sheep.”
“Did you do it for Ulwed?” Magog kept his eyes downcast. “Because she is beautiful?”
“No!” Gog blushed. “Well, yes. But it wasn’t her beauty that bewitched me. It was her purity. She seemed so . . . giant-ish, like some goddess out of the old tales. She made me ashamed of our fine clothes and our front garden and our merrymaking.”
“Who’s to say we’re any less giant-ish than her,” Magog pouted, “just because we have table manners?”
“She’s a scold,” Gog answered. “She knows the old tales and the old ways.”
“Grandmarter was a scold,” said Magog. “And her tales weren’t full of blood and murder. Her tales were clever and jolly, like ‘Bish and the Rabbit Sisters’.”
“Ulwed says Bish killed the sisters for their treachery and wore their skins as a loincloth.”
Magog gagged. “That’s horrid!”
“But who’s right, Ulwed or Grandmater? Was Bish a wicked trickster or a murderous brute?”
The brothers fell silent, the only sound the looing of the cows and the burble of the spring.
“Maybe,” said Magog slowly, “it doesn’t matter who’s right.”
“What?”
Magog studied the pool as he spoke. “The Dark of the World was so long ago and the Moon is so far way, that maybe it doesn’t matter whether Bish is a hero or a monster or whether giants should be savages or, or gardeners. Maybe what matter is . . . who we want to be?”
Gog stared at his brother till Magog meet his gaze. “Awfully profound, dunderhead,” he said with a grin.
Magog kicked water at his brother. “Merry Middentide, Gog!”
“Merry Middentide, brother,” Gog returned the splash.
The brothers splashed and pushed each other; Magog produced a crock of mead from somewhere and soon the cave rang with laughter and the carols of their youth – jolly songs with bawdy verses and rousing refrains.
Magog reclined in the spring and took a long pull from the crock. “A fine Middentide, I call this,” he held out the jug to his brother, “Humbug and his shrew be bothered!”
“Oh, my scented sandal!” Gog bolted out of the water. “I forgot about Humbug!”
“What of him?”
“He’s hunting for you!”
“For putting a pail on his head?” Magog said incredulously.
“You also pushed him into a river.”
“True,” Magog admitted with a grin.
“Ulwed says it amounted to a fi-fentar.”
Magog frowned. “A ‘kin . . . slaughter’, what’s that when it’s at home?”
“It’s an ancient custom,” said Gog, “and a rather obscure one, I must say.”
“I thought we were done bothering with Ulwed and her muddy customs.”
“We need to bother about this one,” snapped Gog. “It’s a fight to the death for the spoils of the loser. It’s how Humbug won Ulwed from her family. And now he means to murder you and take our cottage!”
“Stones preserve us!” Magog dropped the pot and scrabbled out of the pool. “What are we to do? Where is he?” He crawled about the cave like a trapped ferret. “We must hide!”
“Peace brother,” Gog threw Magog his dry clothes. “We are hidden. I sent Humbug and Ulwed deep into the Dim Forest. We’re safe here for now. We must think and not panic.”
Magog stopped his scrambling. “You’re right, Gog, we must think.” He pulled on his tunic and breeches and sat cross-legged to think. “If only I had another bucket,” he mumbled after a few minutes.
Gog snorted. “I don’t think that would work.”
“I bested him once,” said Magog in a hurt grumble.
Gog shook his head. “Humbug’s a brute. He’s hardly likely to be bested by a bucket again. We must outwit him.”
“That should not be too difficult,” said Magog. “But Ulwed is another matter, as clever as she is wicked and Humbug fawns at her every fancy.”
“True,” agreed Gog. “Ulwed is the key to Humbug.”
The brothers sat pondering and puzzling while the cows dozed and the spring bubbled, until an idea slowly dawned over Gog’s bald summit.
“Magog,” he said cautiously, for his idea was newborn and fragile. “Do we still have our pantomime costume?”
Magog frowned in thought. “I believe it’s in the cellar. In a trunk. But how is a pantomime elephant going to help?”
“If I brought you the costume, could you make some alterations?”
“I shall need my sewing kit.”
“Stay hidden.” Gog crawled to the cave’s mouth and rolled aside the boulder. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”
It was well passed nightfall when Gog returned, lumbered with bolts of blue and grey cloth. “Here,” he grunted, dropping the unwieldy costume before Magog. “Best be quick about it. I’ve arranged for Ulwed to be alone at the cottage tomorrow while Humbug goes hunting, but they’re getting tetchy. They’ll find this cave anon.”
Magog roused himself from sleep and listened to Gog’s plan with growing incredulity. “Very well,” he said when the stratagem had been made clear. “I shall do my best, but a fool’s folly, I call it.”
“Folly or not,” Gog snapped. “It’s our only plan, so start sewing.”
“All right, all right,” said Magog, shooing away Boann and spreading out the panto pachyderm on the cave floor. “Pass us those lamps, brother, and lend us a hand.”
The brothers worked throughout the night. By morning they had finished the transmogrification.
“Not my best work,” said Magog.
“Rubbish,” said Gog. Then to Magog’s mortified face, “No, not the costume! I meant your words! The costume’s magnificent, leastways, it’s magnificent enough for our purposes. Finely done, brother, finely done.”
Mollified, Magog began packing up the costume, explaining that, however magnificent it may be, the tailoring had been much too hasty to produced a garment capable of being worn any great distance.
* * *
Unseen, the brothers giant had stolen into the shed. Now, they stood in the dark, beating themselves against the cold and spying on their own distant cottage. Their wait was not long.
With a crash that made Magog flinch, the front door flew open and Humbug emerged. With a curse and a roar, he greeted the day, kissed his wife goodbye, and strode down the hill.
“Pits and holes,” hissed Magog. “He’s headed this way!”
“Peace, brother,” Gog whispered back. “He’s no reason to come to the barn.”
Unconvinced, Magog cast about the shed till he found an old pail and stood by the door brandishing it before him.
But Gog was correct: Humbug had no interest in the shed. He marched passed them without a glance, swinging his murderous club in time to an uncouth hunting song:
Fodder for the slaughter!
Fill for the kill!
Cattle for the battle!
A-raiding we shall go!
Village for the pillage!
More for the war!
Sheeping for the reaping!
A-raiding we shall go!
Gog wrinkled his nose is disgust. “’Sheeping’?”
“Is he gone?”
“He’s gone.” Gog gently pried the crushed bucket from Magog’s clenched fists. “Quickly now, into the costume and up to the cottage.”
Donning the costume was anything but quick, but after much struggle the brothers managed it.
“Doesn’t look awfully like an ogre,” said Gog, looking down at the bright blue costume.
“Considering it started out as a pantomime elephant,” said Magog, “I think it turned out rather well.”
“Isn’t it a bit . . . cheerful?”
“We can cover the polka dots with mud and snow and once we put on our face paint and a few of these rugs we’ll be a perfect bugbear.”
“I don’t recall Wugtir having 3 legs.”
“
That’s true,” admitted Magog. “But we wouldn’t be able to walk otherwise. Perhaps if we stood outside in a window?”
Gog smeared pitch over his bald pate and smooth chin before making himself a beard of a bale of hay and a wig of a thorn bush. “Do I look a fright?”
“A pair of muddy eyebrows,” said Magog, supplying the aforementioned, “and you make a perfect ogre.”
Magog tucked the tusks-cum-fangs under his lip and grimaced. “Howsh thish?”
“Ghastly,” said Gog.
“Raffer akwood for shpeaking.”
“That is why you are the roaring head and I am the gorging head.”
“I’m not shertain I can ashually roar,” Magog mumbled through clench teeth.”
“Well, do you best,” said Gog. “Perhaps you can growl. We’d best be going before Humbug returns.”
Magog nodded his snaggle-toothed head and the brothers hobbled out of the barn. Despite their awkward 3-legged gait, they reached the back garden with only minor mishaps. Outside the shuttered parlor window, they held their breath while Gog listened.
“She’s in,” Gog whispered. “And still ailing under last night’s mushroom tea.”
“Mushoomsh?”
Gog grinned. “I feed her enough lych bells to sicken a whale.”
“You wicked shing,” Magog said approvingly, if not clearly. “Now ish the moment.”
As they had rehearsed, Gog let out a blood-curdling roar before Magog wrenched open the shutters (wincing at the splintering wood).
“Wrongly done!” cried Gog while Magog pulled his ugliest face and brandished a tree in his one free arm.
Ulwed raised her green face from the brothers’ best tea-urn. Her bespittled mouth gaped and her bleary eyes goggled. “Who?” she finally managed.
“It is I,” bellowed Gog. “Wugtir!”
“The Ogre!” Ulwed hurled the tea-urn against the wall and scrambled under the table. “Stones preserve me!”
“Faithless daughter,” intoned Gog. “Look not to the Stones!”
“Aaarrrsh,” growled Magog around his fangs.
“How faithless?” cried the cowering giantess.
“Thou hast abused the hospitality of thy fellow giants and despoiled the Feast of Wugtir.”
“I have done nothing against the wisdom of Bish,” said the scold, rallying despite her fever and fear.
“Shalt thou –” Gog slapped a hand to his slipping beard. “Thou shult,” he muttered. While Magog beat himself on the chest and howled through clenched teeth as a diversion, Gog frantically tried to secure the straw. Giving in, he tore away his beard as if in a rage. “Gooo,” he roared. “Begone wretch or we shall eat you!” Magog waggled his fangs back and forth to emphasize the point and began lumbering through the window.
Sewn still to his brother, robbed of half his limbs, and hampered by the narrowness of the window, Magog tumbled to the floor with a rip of fabric, a clatter of tusks, and a yelp of pain. It was a most un-monstrous display but it had the desired effect nonetheless: seeing the Ogre coming for her, the befuddled Ulwed scrabbled from under the table and fled through the front door, not waiting to see the pantomime’s finale.
“Rrrraaagh,” wailed Magog feebly.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Gog, brushing brambles from his head. “She’s gone.”
“Oh,” said Magog, struggling to disentangling himself from the ruined costume. “Did it work?”
Gog gathered up the pantomime ogre. “She ran howling out the door,” he started around the house.
“Do you think they will return?”
Gog closed the front door behind him. “We shall have to wait and watch.”
* * *
They did. All day they waited and anxiously they watched but never again did the brothers see their cousin, Humbug the Horrid or his wife Ulwed the Scold.
When fear and worry at last gave way to hunger and fatigue, the giants found themselves seated around the hearth slurping bowls of broth. From the barn came the contented lowing of cattle. Before them, the snapping fire danced around the hasty Master’s Log that Magog had carved during his exile at Hlut’s Tub.
“A curious log,” said Gog, examining the laughing effigy on one end of the log and the scowling visage on the other.
“Yes,” said Magog with a chuckle. “I call it the ‘Horrid Scold’.”
FIN.
**
Copyright 2018 Matthew A.J. Timmins
“There,” said Magog. “Finished.”
Gog sat up and peered long at the frightful effigy. “Well done, brother! That is the ugliest ogre I’ve ever seen.”
Magog stood up and brushed the wood shavings from his breeches before careful placing the log next to the fireplace to await the appointed time. “Yes,” he said proudly. “I think he’ll burn quite merrily.” Still admiring his handiwork, he reached back for his own goblet. “That knot made an excellent wart and the larger nose . . . nose . . .” he turned to the end table suspiciously.
“What’s the matter?” asked Gog with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Where’s my beaker?”
“My scented sandals!” Gog said, fighting off a smile. “It must have been the Wicked Servant.”
“That villain!” exclaimed Magog with mock outrage as he began hunting high and low.
When Magog found his wayward cup (hidden inside a decorative cauldron) there was much teasing and laughter.
“A song,” cried Magog.
“No,” answered Gog. “A game first.”
“Crawes and Coneys?”
“I claim Crawes.”
So the green-and-white checkered board was produced and populated with black “crawes” and white “coneys” and the brothers took turns hunting and hiding their pieces across the board till a single “coney” slipped behind his pursuers and “down-the-hole”.
“I win!” Exclaim Magog.
“You slippery sneak-thief!” laughed Gog. “Very well, name your forfeit.”
“Firstly, refill our cups,” said Magog. “Then you must give us a toast.”
Gog made a shallow bow. “A simple penance,” he said and started for the kitchen.
“And a song!” Magog called after him.
With a lighthearted grumble, Gog returned with two goblets of hot, milky punch. Handing one to Magog, he positioned himself before the fire and paused a moment in thought. Then, touching his cup briefly to his forehead, he began: “On this first night of Middentide – the most ancient and beloved of all festivals –”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Magog, raising his own goblet to his brow.
Gog frowned after his scattered thoughts. “—let us, let us remember Bish and his divine wickedness. May he smile down from the moon and spill his blessings upon us.”
“Hooroo!” Magog stamped his feet.
“And so,” said Gog, warming to his subject, “by the First Stones and the Stolen Pot, let us empty our cups to kith and kin, be they ever so few and far!”
With a crash, the front door was thrown wide on a colossal figure framed by the driving snow. “Not so far, cousins,” it bellowed.
“Humbug!” cried the brothers in unisonous dismay.
Yes, it was Humbug the Horrid, with his blood-red hair and matted beard, his coal-black eyes and jagged teeth, his beast skins and boneyard trinkets, his bulging sack and knotty club.
“Well meet in winter,” shouted the newcomer.
“Fare you well in frost,” answered Gog dully.
“Be welcome to our hearth,” said Magog reflexively.
Humbug’s guffaws shook the rafters and rattled the plates as he ducked under the lintel. Woodenly, Gog and Magog went to meet their kin, trading troubled glances. Humbug lunged at Gog and rapped him on the head. “Ha! Cousin, you’re as hairless as toad! But you, meekling,” he cuffed Magog’s ear, “are still hairy as mule!”
“And you’re still a cur,” muttered Gog.
Humbug laughed away the insult and ran back into the night. But before Gog could slam shut the door or Magog flee into the kitchen, he was back with a cloaked figure in tow. “Meet wife,” he shouted, pulling away the bear-skin mantle to reveal a scowling giantess. She was a wiry creature whose brown stone-woven hair, umber eyes, and dark freckles gave her that certain muddied mien that giants find so alluring.
“S-salutations,” stammered Gog, his head radish-red. “I’m Gog the, the Mighty.”
“And I’m Magog, the brother.
“I am Ulwed the Scold.” Her dirty eyes roved across the cozy sitting room with undisguised contempt before settling on her in-laws and their gay apparel.
Humbug shook the snow from the roof as he slammed the door and bounded across the room. Grabbing Ulwed around the waist, he tossed her into chair. “Sit,” he threw himself into the other chair. “And you, Shorn-skull! Meekling, bring us food and drink! We must revel together!”
Gog perched on a stool in the inglenook while Magog slunk into the kitchen. Humbug glanced around him with an hungry smile. “Warm hut, cousin,” he said. “Warm and dry, think you not, wife?”
“It is a pretty,” she sneered. “A comfortable hovel for little men and their mewling broods.” She waved her broken nails at the ornaments and greenery hung with care about the room. “Why do you hoard this gaud?”
“Decoration?” ventured Gog. “For Middentide.”
Ulwed snorted. “This is how you honor Lord Bish?”
Lord? thought Gog. But his worring was interrupted by his brother’s return. Dismayed as he was by the sudden appearance of Humbug and his bewitching bride, Magog was ever the dutiful host wherefore he had rooted in the backs of closets and cupboards till he had found the drinking-skulls the brothers had inherited from their aunt Gobgwin. Now he presented the steaming trophies to the party.
“Aaa,” Humbug grinned back at his cup. “Blood?”
“What?” said Magog. “No, it’s caudle. Gog’s own recipe.”
“The secret is nutmeg,” said Gog proudly.
Cautiously, Humbug took a sip. “It’s not blood,” he said. “But it’s got spirit.”
“Quite a lot,” Gog admitted.
“Nutmeg?” Ulwed sampled her drink and wrinkled her smutty nose. “Milk?”
“Yes,” said Gog.
“Oxen?”
“Two cows actually,” said Magog. “Their names are –”
“Lord Bish did not drink cow’s milk.” She threw her drink into the fire. “This is Middentide, when we should honor our Father and eat and drink as he did. Humbug!”
“Yes, wife.”
“Open your sack and bring out the bladder within.”
As Humbug did as he was bade, Ulwed snatched the skulls from the startled giants and poured out the sweet, spicy beverage. Taking the leathery bag that Humbug produced, she filled the mugs with a lumpy grey liquid and thrust them back.
“Drink,” she commanded. “Drink to Lord Bish, to his strength and his guile!”
His eyes aflame, Humbug drank eagerly. Gog and Magog less so.
“Gaah!” chocked Magog.
Gog spit out his mouthful. “What is this?”
“Boar’s milk,” said Ulwed. “Curdled in blood.”
“Boar!”
Ulwed stood before the fire and sang out loudly: “From his master’s herd, the milk he stole! From his master’s fire the stewpot he stole!”
“What is she doing” whispered Magog.
“She’s singing Tale of Bish,” answered Humbug. “Wife is singer of tales.”
“Oh,” said Magog heading for the kitchen.
Humbug grabbed his by the ear. “Where are you going, Meekling?”
Magog yelped in pain.
“We always have the Stew with the Tale,” Gog explained.
“Sit,” growled Humbug. “Listen to wife, then get stew.”
So Magog sat on the floor, cradling his stinging ear, and, with his kinsfolk, listened to the ancient story of the ogre Wugtir who lived in the “cold dark before the World” with his faithless servant Bish. And though it was all there – the two-headed ogre, the stolen stewpot whence sprang all the animals and plants of the world, the four standing stones that became the first giants – still the brothers found the epic somehow less jolly than in years past. Perhaps it was the lack of the traditional stew. Maybe it was the way Humbug would prod them in the ribs or slap them on the back after every line. Or possibly it was the way Ulwed turned a tale of trickery, adventure, and creation into a saga of malice, blood, and slavery. Whatever the reason, when Ulwed ended her song and the brothers joined Humbug in stamping the ground in the traditional manner it was with a decided lack of holiday joy.
“Well,” said Gog, stamping his feet politely. “That was very . . .”
“Robust,” said Magog. “Particularly the bits about Wugtir: ‘blast and bellow did the hoary head, curse and cow did the horny head’. Very vivid. I hope I captured some of that with my Master’s Log,” he suggested shyly. “What do you think?”
Humbug snatched up the carved tree trunk. He flipped it one way and then the other, laughing and pulling faces at the grotesque effigies. “Ugly,” he sorted. “Hideous. Well done, Meekling! Did you use your brother as model?”
But Ulwed was not amused. “What is this?” she shouted.
“It’s, it’s the Master’s Log,” stammered Magog. “We burn it at midnight. It’s good luck if it lasts the whole four weeks.”
“You dare mock the Ogre?”
“It’s tradition,” pleaded Magog.
“It is blasphemy,” she spat. “Give it to me.”
“Yes, wife.” Humbug handed over the log.
Seizing the effigy, she marched to the door. Gog rose to stop her but was hurled back into his chair by Humbug. Magog could only watch aghast as Ulwed wrenched open the door, snapped his log in twain, and hurled the pieces into the stormy night. She screamed something to the storm before slamming shut the door and turning back to the stunned giants. Snow had frozen her hair and the wind had scoured her skin red and she seemed an ogress herself.
“It is Middentide,” she said. “When we pay homage to Bish, our Lord and Father, when we remember his wickedness in stealing the strew from his master, his cunning in escaping the Ogre, and his power in bringing the first giants to life. It is not,” she shouted, “a time for folly and merry-making! Are we not giants? Are we not savage and mighty and terrible? Carols and games and baubles are an affront to our Father.”
The three giants sat in three silences: Humbug gazed at his wife with hushed reverence, Gog lowered his eyes in mute shame, Magog gaped at the giantess in dumb distress.
When a summoned Humbug hurried to his wife’s side, Magog whispered to his brother. “Shall I fetch the stew?”
“No!” whispered Gog. “I’ll . . . I’ll fetch it.” He ran for the kitchen. “You set the table.”
Unsettled by his brother’s manner, Magog went to the cabinet and brought out the best dishes (for “habits are heavy and not easily cast aside” as the proverb says). When the table was set, the guests sat. Ulwed frowned at the periwinkle porcelain and crumpled a silver spoon with her dirty fist. Humbug watched her with adoration.
Wincing at the loss of a spoon, Magog nevertheless tried to play the hospitable host. “Tell me, cousin,” he said. “How did you meet your lovely wife?”
“He bested my father and brothers in bloody combat,” Ulwed answered. “And took me for his own.”
“I did,” gloated Humbug. “I smashed them like churches!”
“How, um, romantic,” said Magog. “I wonder what’s keeping Gog. Maybe I ought—”
“No need,” said Gog, emerging from the kitchen with a platter of what looked like several varieties of greyish stones and pile of fagots. “Eat,” he said with affected gruffness as he dropped the platter on the table.
“What is this?” said Magog in dismay.
“Cured boar,” Gog said, waving at the fagots. “Also cheese and hard tack,” here, however, he seemed unable to distinguish between the grey stones.
Humbug grunted his approval and Ulwed grabbed handfuls of the things. While the two loudly ate, Magog leant towards his brother and repeated his question.
“Provisions,” hissed Gog. “From our sea voyage.”
“But that was months ago!” whispered Magog. “Where’s your stew?”
“I threw it out.”
“You did what!” Magog struggled not to shout.
“I couldn’t serve it,” Gog moaned. “Not after what she said. Venison? Shallots? Oregano? She’d think it was blasphemy!”
“But it’s your finest dish,” said Magog. “I wait for it all the year!”
“Well, what of it?” said Gog crossly.
“First my Master’s Log,” muttered Magog. “Now your stew? It’s cruel hard.”
Humbug and Ulwed ate savagely, using neither dishes nor utensils yet managing to break them nevertheless. Gog did his best to join in the mayhem, even going so far as to upset the table’s centerpiece (a holly bush cunningly trimmed into a rabbit rampant). Magog sat at the far end of the table, miserably nibbling on a grey lump that may have been cheese or may have been hard tack.
After the meal was devoured and the table looked like a battlefield littered with shattered and mangled tableware, the giants filled their skull-mugs with soured boar’s milk and moved to the hearth. Humbug and Gog sat deep in their chairs while Magog hunched on his stool. Once again Ulwed the Scold stood before the fire. She extolled the fierce virtues of Lord Bish and reviled those same qualities in the ogre Wugtir, recited interminable sagas of terror and bloodshed, and led the giants in song. But there was no joy in this singing, for she would not tolerate the carols of Magog’s youth – “The Turnips’ Lament”, “Fe-fi-hi-ho!”, or even “Hark! The Stones” – but insisted on the chanting of ancient and gloomy dirges.
The Longest Night was never so long. When the clock struck three, Magog could endure no more. Struggling to his feet, he mumbled a string of apologizes and faint-hearted compliments of the season, and staggered to his bed.
He awoke to a cold and silent morning. He dressed with a growing dread and emerged from the bedroom to find his worst fears come to pass. It was all gone: the pots overflowing with holly and mistletoe, the gleaming garlands of silver, the piggy little gargoyles, the 16 white rabbits, even the dancing fire was reduced to orange dregs hiding in grey caves and black fissures. Instead the sitting room was a shambles – upturned furniture; stains upon the walls; snow blowing through the open door; and everywhere mud, muck, and rubbish. Of his brother or his houseguests, there was no sign. With a rattling sigh, Magog closed the door and began to stoked up the fire. When it was burning again, he set water to boil, donned his apron, and fetched mop and bucket.
He had just restored the room to a tidy, bright warmth when the front door burst open and three hoarfrosted giants crashed inside. “Blood and bile!” shouted Humbug, stamping his slushy boots. “It’s colder than troll’s arse!”
“It is nothing that Lord Bish has not endured,” said Ulwed, ignoring the hatstand and dropping her frozen mantle on the floor.
“Truly,” said Gog, beating an avalanche of snow off his own cloak.
Magog frowned at his besplattered floor. “Good morn,” he said dryly. “Where have you three been?”
“Raiding,” said Ulwed.
“Raiding who?”
“Meekling!” shouted Humbug, ignoring the question. “You’re awake, good! Fetch us food.”
Magog stared opened-mouthed at his cousin’s crooked grin and his wife’s icy scorn. He tried in vain to catch his brother’s eye. “Of course,” he sneered. “Perhaps you could help me, Gog?”
“Go on,” laughed Humbug, “Your head shines like ice. Go melt it in kitchen!”
Reluctantly, Gog followed his brother into the kitchen as Humbug dragged his wife to the fireside.
As soon as they were alone, Magog rounded on his brother. “What is happening?”
Gog shrugged. “It’s just a little snow. The floor will dry.”
“Bother the floor!” shouted Magog. “What happened to the decorations? The rabbits?” He followed Gog’s furtive glance to the oven. “You cooked the Middentide rabbits!”
“Peace brother,” said Gog. “They’re only rabbits. You like rabbit.”
“Not Middentide rabbits! They bring good luck, but not if you eat them!”
“Ulwed says—”
“Ulwed! She took down the decorations, didn’t she? By thunder,” swore Magog. “I’ll be glad to see the back of her and Humbug!”
Gog’s silence was poignant.
“Brother,” whispered Magog. “When are they leaving?”
“It’s Middentide,” said Gog. “And hospitality is a virtue. I couldn’t turn them away . . .”
“The whole Middentide? That’s four weeks,” moaned Magog.
Gog coughed. “I invited them to stay till the year turned.”
“Spring?” Magog collapsed into a chair. “Stones preserve us, how could you? He’s bad enough, but she’s—”
“Ulwed is a giantess!” shouted Gog. “And Humbug is a giant! Proud and savage creatures of fury and blood, that’s what giants are, not rabbit-loving cooks and gardeners!” He pulled a pan of charred rabbits from the oven and headed for the front room. “We’ve forgotten who are, brother.”
Magog watched the door swing shut.
The following weeks – until now the most joyful of all the year– were the most miserable of Magog’s life. Not because Humbug tormented him nor because Ulwed harried him, but because Gog – his only brother, his sole confidant, his first and last ally -- deserted him. Swapping his festive finery for coarse skins and his walking stick for a murderous club, Gog ignored his brother’s pleas and went raiding with Humbug and Ulwed, chanting their gloomy dirges in praise of slaughter. Left alone, Magog spent the short days cleaning the ill-treated cottage and the long nights trying to sustain what little cheer he could by stoking high the fire and singing snatches of lonely carols.
It was the final week of Middentide – traditionally a time of high misrule and revelry – when his uncouth guests finally succeeded in provoking the savage within Magog. He had risen with the feeble winter sun and stole out of the cottage and down towards the shed. It was one of the few civilized pleasures left to him, the milking of his cows. It was delicate work, but he had become quite adept at it. He was swinging his bucket and whistling cheerfully when a distressed lowing rang through the frosty air. Magog bound across the snowy fields and around a leafless spinney and froze, aghast. Humbug was standing outside the shed, Damona clutched in his left fist, Boann dangling over his gaping maw, her blue eyes wide with terror.
Magog shook off his horror and ran screaming at Humbug. Before the brute could do more then grin oafishly, Magog had jammed the bucket over his head and snatched away the cows. Humbug deafened himself with his roaring and felled himself with his flailing. Enraged, Magog ripped up a tree and struck the bucket again and again until the bulge of Humbug’s nose was clearly visible through the metal. Finally, he dragged the groaning giant to the top of a nearby hill and sent him rolling down into a frozen river. Then, pausing only to scooped up his bewildered cows, Magog fled towards the forest.
Gog was roused from his drunken stupor by a distant and tinny howling. Rubbing his burning head, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled about the sitting room, upsetting the furniture and rummaging after his wits.
“The Ogre!” Cried Ulwed, waking from her torpor. “Wugtir is upon us!”
Hung-over and hysterical, it was some time before the giants concluded that they were not under attack. Cautiously they peered outside and only just recognized the rimy, block-headed bulk of Humbug blundering about the front garden.
“Husband!” shouted Ulwed. “What are you doing?”
Turning eagerly towards her scolding, Humbug lurched heavily into one of the massive Yule-stones and nearly knocked himself senseless. It was Gog who dragged him inside and dumped him into a chair before the hearth. While Gog tried to remove the deformed pail, Ulwed berated and interrogated her husband who defended himself in an incomprehensible muffle. Losing what little patience she had, heedless of Gog’s words and Humbug’s cries, Ulwed wrenched the bucket free.
“Yaarrr!” screamed Humbug as his nose bent upwards and his skin stuck to the frozen metal. “Hell’s fells, wife! You nigh took face off!”
“What care I for the face of quelling?” she snapped. “Who worsted Humbug the Horrid?”
“It was Meekling,” said Humbug, cradling his nose. “He ambushed me and shoved bucket on my head! Pushed me into river!”
“Pits and holes!” shouted Gog. “Why would Magog do such a thing? What were you doing to him?”
“Naught,” mumbled Humbug. “I was hungry and found fat cows in shed.”
Gog paled as he pictured the scene. “You ate Damona and Boann!”
* * *
Though a fierce snowstorm had arisen and erased all tracks, Ulwed and Humbug had been eager to find Magog and it had not been difficult to convince them to search for him in the forest. Gog, who had agreed to stay behind in case the fugitive returned, waited till the murderous couple were out of sight then had bounded away in the opposite direction.
He strode quickly across the frozen moor – following a line of stepping-knolls – and leapt down into the hidden dell. Here his pace slowed; he was certain of the way and he was certain his brother waited at the end of it, but he was far from certain what he was going to say to him. And so, ashamed, anxious, and a little annoyed, he followed the misty stream with a ponderous plod till he came to valley’s end and the mossy boulder whence the stream flowed. This was Hlut’s Tub, a hideaway the brothers had named after a favorite nursery rhyme, though they had not visited it for centuries. Gog had almost, but not quite, forgotten the place and if Gog had not, then it was plain as rain that neither had Magog.
With a trembling sigh, Gog took hold of the boulder and rolled it aside. He was not surprised to see Magog seated cross-legged beside the hot spring, nor at the cows nuzzled close, nor even at the ancient lanterns that giants had left behind, now burning brightly. What did surprise him was the festiveness of the cave: wreathes, garlands, and boughs covered every inch of the walls and ceiling; four tiny Yule-stone, dressed in pine kilts stood amid the greenery; the lanterns were balanced atop a crude Master’s Log; a trio of rabbits napped upon a raft bobbing on the spring; even Damona and Boann had holly sprigs on their horns and bells on their tails. But despite this festive frippery, Magog hunched over a black scowl, his jolly jester’s cap bent against the roof of the cave.
“You’ve found me at last,” Magog said miserably.
“At last? It’s only been a day and a half, you ass-eared fool,” said Gog. “You’ve only come 50 leagues!”
“Don’t be rude to me,” Magog grumbled. “You’re always rude to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Gog knelt down and crawled into the grotto. He edged his way to the side of the spring and, removing his boots, slid his dirty feet into the pool. “Hhhhhhh,” he sighed. “I’d forgotten how good this feels.” Then he frowned and turned to his brother. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “for all of it.”
“All of it?” said Magog, scratching Damona behind the horns and avoiding his brother’s gaze.
“I’m sorry for throwing out the stew and for cooking your rabbits. I’m sorry for ignoring you and letting Humbug bully you. I’m sorry for raiding and roaring and drinking like some muddy savage. But mostly I’m sorry for letting Ulwed despoil our Middentide.”
“Why did you do it, brother?” Magog slipped his own feet into the pool. “Was it fun?”
“The raiding wasn’t. It was miserable. We stomped for days across the countryside, drinking from freezing rivers and eating raw meat. We never even found anyone to bother. In the end, all we did was knock down an old barn, sing some vile songs, and harasses a flock of sheep.”
“Did you do it for Ulwed?” Magog kept his eyes downcast. “Because she is beautiful?”
“No!” Gog blushed. “Well, yes. But it wasn’t her beauty that bewitched me. It was her purity. She seemed so . . . giant-ish, like some goddess out of the old tales. She made me ashamed of our fine clothes and our front garden and our merrymaking.”
“Who’s to say we’re any less giant-ish than her,” Magog pouted, “just because we have table manners?”
“She’s a scold,” Gog answered. “She knows the old tales and the old ways.”
“Grandmarter was a scold,” said Magog. “And her tales weren’t full of blood and murder. Her tales were clever and jolly, like ‘Bish and the Rabbit Sisters’.”
“Ulwed says Bish killed the sisters for their treachery and wore their skins as a loincloth.”
Magog gagged. “That’s horrid!”
“But who’s right, Ulwed or Grandmater? Was Bish a wicked trickster or a murderous brute?”
The brothers fell silent, the only sound the looing of the cows and the burble of the spring.
“Maybe,” said Magog slowly, “it doesn’t matter who’s right.”
“What?”
Magog studied the pool as he spoke. “The Dark of the World was so long ago and the Moon is so far way, that maybe it doesn’t matter whether Bish is a hero or a monster or whether giants should be savages or, or gardeners. Maybe what matter is . . . who we want to be?”
Gog stared at his brother till Magog meet his gaze. “Awfully profound, dunderhead,” he said with a grin.
Magog kicked water at his brother. “Merry Middentide, Gog!”
“Merry Middentide, brother,” Gog returned the splash.
The brothers splashed and pushed each other; Magog produced a crock of mead from somewhere and soon the cave rang with laughter and the carols of their youth – jolly songs with bawdy verses and rousing refrains.
Magog reclined in the spring and took a long pull from the crock. “A fine Middentide, I call this,” he held out the jug to his brother, “Humbug and his shrew be bothered!”
“Oh, my scented sandal!” Gog bolted out of the water. “I forgot about Humbug!”
“What of him?”
“He’s hunting for you!”
“For putting a pail on his head?” Magog said incredulously.
“You also pushed him into a river.”
“True,” Magog admitted with a grin.
“Ulwed says it amounted to a fi-fentar.”
Magog frowned. “A ‘kin . . . slaughter’, what’s that when it’s at home?”
“It’s an ancient custom,” said Gog, “and a rather obscure one, I must say.”
“I thought we were done bothering with Ulwed and her muddy customs.”
“We need to bother about this one,” snapped Gog. “It’s a fight to the death for the spoils of the loser. It’s how Humbug won Ulwed from her family. And now he means to murder you and take our cottage!”
“Stones preserve us!” Magog dropped the pot and scrabbled out of the pool. “What are we to do? Where is he?” He crawled about the cave like a trapped ferret. “We must hide!”
“Peace brother,” Gog threw Magog his dry clothes. “We are hidden. I sent Humbug and Ulwed deep into the Dim Forest. We’re safe here for now. We must think and not panic.”
Magog stopped his scrambling. “You’re right, Gog, we must think.” He pulled on his tunic and breeches and sat cross-legged to think. “If only I had another bucket,” he mumbled after a few minutes.
Gog snorted. “I don’t think that would work.”
“I bested him once,” said Magog in a hurt grumble.
Gog shook his head. “Humbug’s a brute. He’s hardly likely to be bested by a bucket again. We must outwit him.”
“That should not be too difficult,” said Magog. “But Ulwed is another matter, as clever as she is wicked and Humbug fawns at her every fancy.”
“True,” agreed Gog. “Ulwed is the key to Humbug.”
The brothers sat pondering and puzzling while the cows dozed and the spring bubbled, until an idea slowly dawned over Gog’s bald summit.
“Magog,” he said cautiously, for his idea was newborn and fragile. “Do we still have our pantomime costume?”
Magog frowned in thought. “I believe it’s in the cellar. In a trunk. But how is a pantomime elephant going to help?”
“If I brought you the costume, could you make some alterations?”
“I shall need my sewing kit.”
“Stay hidden.” Gog crawled to the cave’s mouth and rolled aside the boulder. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”
It was well passed nightfall when Gog returned, lumbered with bolts of blue and grey cloth. “Here,” he grunted, dropping the unwieldy costume before Magog. “Best be quick about it. I’ve arranged for Ulwed to be alone at the cottage tomorrow while Humbug goes hunting, but they’re getting tetchy. They’ll find this cave anon.”
Magog roused himself from sleep and listened to Gog’s plan with growing incredulity. “Very well,” he said when the stratagem had been made clear. “I shall do my best, but a fool’s folly, I call it.”
“Folly or not,” Gog snapped. “It’s our only plan, so start sewing.”
“All right, all right,” said Magog, shooing away Boann and spreading out the panto pachyderm on the cave floor. “Pass us those lamps, brother, and lend us a hand.”
The brothers worked throughout the night. By morning they had finished the transmogrification.
“Not my best work,” said Magog.
“Rubbish,” said Gog. Then to Magog’s mortified face, “No, not the costume! I meant your words! The costume’s magnificent, leastways, it’s magnificent enough for our purposes. Finely done, brother, finely done.”
Mollified, Magog began packing up the costume, explaining that, however magnificent it may be, the tailoring had been much too hasty to produced a garment capable of being worn any great distance.
* * *
Unseen, the brothers giant had stolen into the shed. Now, they stood in the dark, beating themselves against the cold and spying on their own distant cottage. Their wait was not long.
With a crash that made Magog flinch, the front door flew open and Humbug emerged. With a curse and a roar, he greeted the day, kissed his wife goodbye, and strode down the hill.
“Pits and holes,” hissed Magog. “He’s headed this way!”
“Peace, brother,” Gog whispered back. “He’s no reason to come to the barn.”
Unconvinced, Magog cast about the shed till he found an old pail and stood by the door brandishing it before him.
But Gog was correct: Humbug had no interest in the shed. He marched passed them without a glance, swinging his murderous club in time to an uncouth hunting song:
Fodder for the slaughter!
Fill for the kill!
Cattle for the battle!
A-raiding we shall go!
Village for the pillage!
More for the war!
Sheeping for the reaping!
A-raiding we shall go!
Gog wrinkled his nose is disgust. “’Sheeping’?”
“Is he gone?”
“He’s gone.” Gog gently pried the crushed bucket from Magog’s clenched fists. “Quickly now, into the costume and up to the cottage.”
Donning the costume was anything but quick, but after much struggle the brothers managed it.
“Doesn’t look awfully like an ogre,” said Gog, looking down at the bright blue costume.
“Considering it started out as a pantomime elephant,” said Magog, “I think it turned out rather well.”
“Isn’t it a bit . . . cheerful?”
“We can cover the polka dots with mud and snow and once we put on our face paint and a few of these rugs we’ll be a perfect bugbear.”
“I don’t recall Wugtir having 3 legs.”
“
That’s true,” admitted Magog. “But we wouldn’t be able to walk otherwise. Perhaps if we stood outside in a window?”
Gog smeared pitch over his bald pate and smooth chin before making himself a beard of a bale of hay and a wig of a thorn bush. “Do I look a fright?”
“A pair of muddy eyebrows,” said Magog, supplying the aforementioned, “and you make a perfect ogre.”
Magog tucked the tusks-cum-fangs under his lip and grimaced. “Howsh thish?”
“Ghastly,” said Gog.
“Raffer akwood for shpeaking.”
“That is why you are the roaring head and I am the gorging head.”
“I’m not shertain I can ashually roar,” Magog mumbled through clench teeth.”
“Well, do you best,” said Gog. “Perhaps you can growl. We’d best be going before Humbug returns.”
Magog nodded his snaggle-toothed head and the brothers hobbled out of the barn. Despite their awkward 3-legged gait, they reached the back garden with only minor mishaps. Outside the shuttered parlor window, they held their breath while Gog listened.
“She’s in,” Gog whispered. “And still ailing under last night’s mushroom tea.”
“Mushoomsh?”
Gog grinned. “I feed her enough lych bells to sicken a whale.”
“You wicked shing,” Magog said approvingly, if not clearly. “Now ish the moment.”
As they had rehearsed, Gog let out a blood-curdling roar before Magog wrenched open the shutters (wincing at the splintering wood).
“Wrongly done!” cried Gog while Magog pulled his ugliest face and brandished a tree in his one free arm.
Ulwed raised her green face from the brothers’ best tea-urn. Her bespittled mouth gaped and her bleary eyes goggled. “Who?” she finally managed.
“It is I,” bellowed Gog. “Wugtir!”
“The Ogre!” Ulwed hurled the tea-urn against the wall and scrambled under the table. “Stones preserve me!”
“Faithless daughter,” intoned Gog. “Look not to the Stones!”
“Aaarrrsh,” growled Magog around his fangs.
“How faithless?” cried the cowering giantess.
“Thou hast abused the hospitality of thy fellow giants and despoiled the Feast of Wugtir.”
“I have done nothing against the wisdom of Bish,” said the scold, rallying despite her fever and fear.
“Shalt thou –” Gog slapped a hand to his slipping beard. “Thou shult,” he muttered. While Magog beat himself on the chest and howled through clenched teeth as a diversion, Gog frantically tried to secure the straw. Giving in, he tore away his beard as if in a rage. “Gooo,” he roared. “Begone wretch or we shall eat you!” Magog waggled his fangs back and forth to emphasize the point and began lumbering through the window.
Sewn still to his brother, robbed of half his limbs, and hampered by the narrowness of the window, Magog tumbled to the floor with a rip of fabric, a clatter of tusks, and a yelp of pain. It was a most un-monstrous display but it had the desired effect nonetheless: seeing the Ogre coming for her, the befuddled Ulwed scrabbled from under the table and fled through the front door, not waiting to see the pantomime’s finale.
“Rrrraaagh,” wailed Magog feebly.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Gog, brushing brambles from his head. “She’s gone.”
“Oh,” said Magog, struggling to disentangling himself from the ruined costume. “Did it work?”
Gog gathered up the pantomime ogre. “She ran howling out the door,” he started around the house.
“Do you think they will return?”
Gog closed the front door behind him. “We shall have to wait and watch.”
* * *
They did. All day they waited and anxiously they watched but never again did the brothers see their cousin, Humbug the Horrid or his wife Ulwed the Scold.
When fear and worry at last gave way to hunger and fatigue, the giants found themselves seated around the hearth slurping bowls of broth. From the barn came the contented lowing of cattle. Before them, the snapping fire danced around the hasty Master’s Log that Magog had carved during his exile at Hlut’s Tub.
“A curious log,” said Gog, examining the laughing effigy on one end of the log and the scowling visage on the other.
“Yes,” said Magog with a chuckle. “I call it the ‘Horrid Scold’.”
FIN.
**
Copyright 2018 Matthew A.J. Timmins