omething of an experiment this time out; something I wrote back in 2003. There's a few of these to come. Hope you enjoy. NB: The opening stanzas are commentary on the subject matter. They show up in Italics on LiveJournal, probably not on Facebook, same goes for the bold type of the Ogre's dialogue.

Liamund comes down into the village and finds all the men and women in a circle, weeping and wailing. Mothers are holding their children, and the men are asking the Smith what to do. Liamund steps up and asks what is wrong.

“It is the Ogre in the hills,” say the villagers. “He has three great heads and a club or iron, and he comes into the village at the dark of the moon, and gobbles a family up. We cannot run away because he has two wolves who prowl the village and chase us back home if ever we should try to escape.”

“An Ogre!” says Liamund. “Well, that is bad luck. But can’t you pay him off?” For Ogres are well known for their love of gold and silver.

“That is another reason why we weep,” they say. “For the Ogre came down last night when we were all in our beds. He stood in the middle of the village, and with his three mouths he roared aloud:

“Here me, for I am the Ogre! You villagers are tough and stringy and taste of fear! I would not eat you, but I am hungry, and have three mouths to feed. To stop me being so hungry, I ask you villagers to give me the fair maiden Lyss to be my wife, so she can cook my meals and I shall never need to eat you again. If you don’t, I’ll eat you all and use your bones to make a kennel for my wolves!”

“So now you see why we are wailing, for if we do not give Lyss to the Ogre, we are all doomed! But how can we give Lyss, who is young and fair and as kind as kind can be?”

And Liamund looks at the maiden Lyss, and she is indeed very beautiful, with her sun-blonde hair in plaits and her bright blue eyes red with crying, the tears running down her pale cheek. And he notes that she is tall for a girl, though shapely and perfect in every way.

“Here now!” says Liamund. “Stop that weeping and wailing, for I shall save you from the Ogre. I shall shave my beard, and behold! You will find me as fair of face as any maid. I shall put on a pretty dress, and thus disguised I will go to the Ogre in the hills, and slay him for his wicked deeds.”

Then the people of the village are overjoyed, and they cheer Liamund and sing his name. But the Smith and the Innkeeper and the Farmer, who are the richest and most important men in the village, shake their heads and scratch their chins. “And what will you ask for this?” they say to Liamund.

“Ah, I can see that you are a poor and afflicted village,” says charitable Liamund. “All I can ask is a quart of ale and a leg of lamb for my last meal, and maybe a kiss from the fair maiden on whose behalf I undertake this quest.”

And with shining eyes does Lyss bestow upon Liamund her favour, and with a song the villagers bring him his meat and mead, and Liamund feasts with them. But before he goes, he takes the pepper-pot from the table and hides it within his clothes. Then he shaves his beard and combs his hair and puts on a dress, and would you know it! He is as a fair maiden, and he sings in a high clear voice that makes them all wonder at the transformation.

Then Liamund goes up into the hills, and by the clumsy tracks and foul smell he finds the Ogre’s den. At the door, he finds the Ogre’s wolves, and they sit up on their haunches and growl, for they can smell Liamund and they knew that he is no maiden. But Liamund takes the pepper-pot from his sleeve and sprinkles it on the noses of the wolves, and they sneeze and howl and leap about, and finally raun far and away in search of a river.

Then the Ogre comes out of his cave. “What’s this noise?!” he roars. “I’m trying to sleep!” But then he sees Liamund there in his dress, and he thinks that it was the fair Lyss in truth, so struck is he with her beauty. And because even Ogres are polite to fair maidens, he raises the hats on each of his three ugly heads and makes a clumsy bow.

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he says. “I must mind my manners for my new wife.”

“Oh mighty Ogre,” says Liamund in his false voice, “they never told me that you were so big and strong, nor how handsome and like a gentleman at court to a lady.”

And the Ogre blushes on each of his six cheeks, and makes another bow at his cave. “If my sweet lady wife will come into her new home,” he says with a smile, for already he is much taken with his new bride.

So Liamund goes into the cave, and nearly faints from the smell, for the Ogre is dirty and has not washed up in weeks. But Liamund acts as though he has stepped into a palace. “Oh, how wonderful it is,” he says. “But you must be hungry. Shall I cook you a meal?”

“I would like that very much,” says the Ogre, “for it is five days since I ate your uncle the cobbler, and
he was a poor meal at that.”

And Liamund looks around, and in the Ogre’s cupboard he sees his dinner knife, as big as a sword like those used by the tall men of Callonia. But he knows that he cannot kill the Ogre unless he can cut off all three of its heads. So he comes up with a plan.

“Mighty Ogre,” he says. “When I was a little girl, I learned from the Farmer how to cook a tasty lamb stew. I could make this.”

The Ogre’s first head begins to drool, for it loves meat more than any other food. “Yes, that would be lovely,” it says.

“But when I was a little older, the Fishmonger’s wife taught me how to fry a fish and serve it with potatoes. I could make that.”

Now it is the Ogre’s second head that slobbers, for fish is its favourite food. “Yes, I would like that,” it says. “But I wanted meat,” says the first head, and they argue. And Liamund smiles, but he is not finished yet.

“And when I was seventeen, my older brother was married, and the Baker taught me how to bake a great cake with sugar and icing and essence of vanilla, as tall as a man and sweeter than summer’s fist kiss. I could make that.”

Now it was the turn of the Ogre’s third head to drool and salivate, for it has only one tooth, as it loves sweet cakes and pastries more than anything. “Yes I want that!” it yells but is shouted down by its brothers and all three fall to arguing. But Liamund is not finished yet.

“Well,” he says, “since you like all three of my meals, the only way I could ever chose is to give it to the handsomest.”

Now of course this set off a dreadful row, as each of the three heads claim to be better looking than both of the others. They bellow and roar and scream themselves hoarse, but the argument only grows hotter and no nearer to a conclusion.

“Meat!” bellows the first.

“Fish!” roars the second.

“Cake!” screams the third, over and over again until the cave echoes with their awful racket, and Liamund has to cover his ears with his hands.

Finally the first heat bites the nose of the second, and the second head-butts the third with bone-crunching force, and the third forms a pact with the Ogre’s left arm to throttle the neck of the first.

“Meat!” cries the first head, choking to death.

“Fish!” screeches the second, though it comes out strange because its nose is bitten off.

“Cake!” shrieks the third through a mouthful of broken teeth.

Soon the first head is dead and flops on the Ogre’s shoulders, blue and purple through lack of air, and the second head causes the Ogre’s right arm to beat in the skull of the third. So, bloodied and bruised, only the second head shouts at Liamund.

“Fish!” it says, but in a weak and battered voice.

But Liamund had seizes his chance, and while the Ogre is distracted, he springs upon his huge dining table next to the cupboard, and snatching up the Ogre’s own dinner knife cuts off the second head and sends it tumbling to the cavern floor. The Ogre topples slowly to the ground with an enormous crash, and Liamund leaps free, casting off his dress and hat. As the eyes of the Ogre’s second head see him from the floor where it had rolled, it begins to roar in fury at how it has been deceived.

“What a monstrous din,” says Liamund, and takes off one of the Ogre’s socks and stuffs it in its mouth with a sack over its head so that it will not bother anyone again. The he takes the gold and gems that the Ogre had stolen from the villagers and travellers passing through that land, and wraps them in the dress that he had worn.

Then he goes back down to the village, and they are all waiting in the square, afraid and unsettled, wondering what they should do if Liamund never comes back. When they see him, they are overjoyed, and put on a great feast for the whole village, and dance and sing into the middle of the night.

But the Smith and the Innkeeper and the Farmer shake their heads and scratch their chins, and in dour voices ask Liamund what he would take in payment for this mighty deed.

“I shall take naught,” says he, for the Plains of Nassan have too many Ogres and not enough happy villages.” But they sing his name and praise him and feed him with meat and fish and cakes and ale until he is full and red in the face. And the Smith and the Innkeeper and the Farmer are content, and make plans to make their village great once more.

But Liamund never says a word about the coins and jewels that he had taken from the Ogre’s cave, and he gives the dress in a bundle back to Lyss before he leaves the village. Later, in her home, she unfolds them all and finds his gift, and is smitten with love with Liamund who had saved her from the Ogre.

So Lyss creeps out of her house at the dead of night and meets Liamund at the edge of the village, and together they go away. And when the people of the village awake, they are sad, for their most beautiful maiden has gone. The only people that are happy are the Smith and the Innkeeper and the Farmer, for Lyss has left the gold and gems, needing them not when she was with Liamund.

The villagers search the hills all around, but all they find, hanging by a piece of string from a tree near the Ogre’s cave, is the pepper-pot, and never more will they see fair Lyss or Liamund the Trickster in all the days of their lives.

From “The Tales of Liamund the Trickster”, this copy from the Rosan Royal Library.

There was once a destructive duo, a powerful partnership, a titanic tag-team that went by the name of The Natural Disasters. Pictured above, or possibly below if you're reading this on Facebook and not my blog site, are those Leviathans, Earthquake and Typhoon - Former 1-Time Tag Team WWF Champions.
 

ome years ago, after watching the Director's Cut of 'The Wicker Man' (and not the accursed remake), I had one of the most vivid dreams I can recall. That I can still recall it attests to its potency.
 

 strange but true anecdote this time, though as ever, not entirely free from embellishment.