Tales From The Wayside

More than you probably needed to know about Notchborough, Connecticut

[toobwaysider]

G. WHILLIKERS' DEBUT

Since Timjimmy Auxberon initiated Seanchai Wednesdays as a theme night at The Wayside, that night of story-telling has proven to be very popular, sometimes even moreso than the Thursday Pub Quiz.  And when the scheduled teller of tales is Sarah Willagus Weeks, who uses "G. Whillikers" as her "minstrel" name, the tavern is assured to have a full house. Most surprising thing about that for Timjimmy is that on those nights, most of the customers will be the Notchfolk from Notchborough, Ct., rather than the (un)usual "Waysiders" who pass through the purple back door which is the portal connection to Notchboro and the Flatlands.

But to be fair to all, Sarah does announce before she's scheduled what her exact topic will be, since the Notchfolk are not interested in all of the stories she has on her particular realm of subject matter, only the ones which deal with their hometown's contributions to her theme....

Tombstones.

Sarah is a taphophile, the la-de-da way of saying she loves exploring cemeteries for the unique gravestones and cenotaphs to be found in those stone gardens.  Some might think that being a "tombstone tourist" would be unsettling, but Sarah finds it comforting to be surrounded by the peace to be found in a cemetery. [1]

Timjimmy's friend Callie Henstrom, the town librarian, had booked Sarah to be a guest speaker once at the McElligott Library.  After, Callie convinced her to audition for the Seanchai Wednesdays, especially since it was a paying gig.  As such, Sarah chose a particular topic which she never would have considered for the library, but for that pub which straddles the dimension veil between Earth and the Flatlands, between Notchborough and its severed sister city of Notchboro....

Well....  Let me just share how she concluded the story about the cenotaph which marks the final resting place of William Thruston, a "jake" in the Notchborough Fire Department back in the 1930s:

“Mr. Thruston specified in his will that as he was probably going to be the last William Thruston more than likely – he never married – then he wanted a huge ‘willie’ thrusting into the sky to acknowledge that Willy Thruston once walked the Earth.

"Of course, there were a few complaints, especially from the Decency League, no surprise. But on the whole, people still accept it, ninety years on....”

Timjimmy hired Sarah on the spot to be a regular seanchai. [2]

O'Bservation: 01] Timjimmy Auxberon doesn't have access to such a luxury.  Being a "namchipay," one who can see and speak to the Nearly Departed, he's constantly hounded by the "spooks" (as he calls them) whenever he visits the cemetery where family is interred.  At least, the ghosts who supposedly live in his co-op and who hang out at The Wayside know better than to pester him.

02] Granted, Timjimmy is an easy mark for that type of humor.  But Sarah probably had an "in" anyway - she and Timjimmy are both "Congregators," those most ardent fans of folksinger Billy Dan Whiskey and the band The Whiskaways.

[toobwaysider]

BUILDING BLOCKS

Now, I can't speak to the veracity of this account.  And you gotta remember that the heading for these chapters about the Toddler Godling is "The Legends of Astiph".  LEGENDS.  So, while many references found herein are for locations which most people would think were fictional - even by the authors who wrote about them! - it must be kept in mind that, like all the Artisans of the Universe to be found in the Auroreod, Astiph could manipulate memory on a global scale with his mind-swiping powers.

Bear that in mind as you (IF you!) continue reading....

TORMANCE

Thanks to world-wide precautions, Y2K was not as big a problem after the fact as it could have been.  The same could not be said over in the Flatlands.  It didn't involve computers; it was more of yet another deific attack by Astiph the Toddler Godling, the most powerful in that pantheon of semi-gods known as the Auroreod.  And it didn't even begin in the Flatlands, but rather on an odd planet known as Tormance orbiting the red giant, Arcturus.

Unlike the fates which befell Phaeton, the original fifth planet in our solar system, and Nibiru, the rogue planet which collided with it, Tormance was not destroyed by Astiph to use as construction material in his expansion of the Flatlands.  Instead, he "whisked away" choice landscapes to provide an alien beauty to previously established terrain.  Or in the case of Tuared, to become an entirely new country for the Tuaredi, those humans from an alternate Earth.  (Previously the Tuaredi's only contact with our Earth had been one Tuaredian's chance visitation to a Japanese airport in 1960.) 

Technically, Tormancians' first contact with Earth happened when an Earthling named Maskull wound up on Tormance after World War I.  Thanks to the mind-swiping manipulations by the Toddler Godling, those few humans on Earth who remember Maskull's account of his visit to Tormance believe it to be nothing more than a work of fiction.

It should be noted that Astiph did not collect any samples of the humanoids from Tormance.  Some folklorists and theologians believe that he didn't whisk them away because their appearance repulsed him.  As the Tormancians have extra limbs and eyes and organs like the breve, the poigns, and the magn, they ruined Astiph's vision of what the Flatlanders should look alike overall.  (Apparently, variations like wings [fairies], horns and hairy legs [the Satyrs], blue skin [the Terruhns], porcine snouts [the Aeaeans], and six-inch tails [all subspecies of Nemedians, like the Firbolgs, the Vittror, and Connecticut's Owannux] are still considered humanoid enough.  As for the Blemmyaes, who have no heads at all, but instead have their faces embedded in their chests, as well as the centaurs and the cynanthropes [the dog-headed people], it's believed that the Toddler Godling just wanted to collect them as cool "action figures.")

But one aspect of that new terrain stolen from Tormance which seems to have passed muster with Astiph is that anybody who stands on that land is able to see certain colors which do not register for human perception when not in contact with Tormancian soil.  These would be the primary colors of jale (described as "dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous") and ulfire ("wild and painful.")  The sky overhead in Tuared, which is comprised of Tormancian terrain, is considered to be colored dolm, supposedly a combination of ulfire and blue.  But to gaze upon that sky without being in contact with that ground, one supposedly can only see incessant gray skies.

I can't vouch for that; I'm not allowed to travel to the Flatlands at all, let alone Tuared; at least, not until the End.  Mine....

[toobwaysider]

BUILDING BLOCKS

As I said, I can't speak to the veracity of this account.  And you gotta remember that the heading for these chapters about the Toddler Godling is "The Legends of Astiph".  LEGENDS.  So, while many references found herein are for locations which most people would think were fictional - even by the authors who wrote about them! - it must be kept in mind that, like all the Artisans of the Universe to be found in the Auroreod, Astiph could manipulate memory on a global scale with his mind-swiping powers.

Bear that in mind as you (IF you!) continue reading....

TRUE BARSOOM

As for other terrain whisked away from our universe to Astiph's Flatlands dimension, at least one region may have come from a neighbor closer to home.  Beyond the Grand Speewah, that huge chunk of the whisked-away Outback Down Under taking up most of the Southerlands, lies Back O' Beyond.  Nobody lives in that desert of rusty dust, at least as far as established civilizations, or even just small nomadic communities go.  Back O' Beyond is believed to have been purloined from the surface of Mars, and to see pictures of its harsh landscape, it is conceivable that it once was part of the Red Planet.

But if so, that landmass could not have disappeared from Mars until after December 02, 1971.

That's when the Soviets' Mars 3 Lander touched down on the Martian surface.

It landed successfully, but it failed a mere 110 seconds later.  It is believed by the historians who research the Flatlands that it happened just as Astiph was whisking away that territory to become Back O' Beyond.  And that it was Teenage Astiph, still living outside the constraints of Time, who knew of the impending Mars 3 Lander's arrival and was lying in wait.  There is also conjecture that Teen Astiph not only brought the Prop-M rover back into working order, he granted it independent sentience.  And perhaps even immortality as well, for it has been spotted in surveillance of Back O' Beyond, still chugging along... and in the company of a wizened old crone.  Nobody seems to know who she is. 

The Rover has established its own identity.  It knows it is under surveillance and doesn't seem bothered by that.  In fact, on several occasions, it has used its ski treads to write its name out in the reddish soil - "PROPPIM."  It's an easy assumption that name was chosen because it was a PrOP-M rover. 

I'm told (Never mind by who!) that in the Monitaurs' headquarters, the old hag has been given the code name of "Baba Yaga".  No one in authority believes that she actually is that Russian witch, but imagine the excitement if it was discovered that she had a house which walked on chicken legs!  (As for me, being a televisiologist emeritus, I have my own name for her - "Dirty Sally".)

[toobwaysider]

GWAEDBUDR

Tucked away in a vale deep in the mountains of Henogledd, one of the three nations which are an integral part of The Empire [1], there is a secluded hamlet with a dark secret. Its official name is Tir Gwaedbudr, but is commonly referred to as Gwaedbudr. And its existence began as a dumping ground for the inbred members of the House of Truaxe.

Determined to maintain the image that the Royal Family was comprised of the idealized pinnacles of Humanity, there were monarchs who had those aberrations murdered soon after birth. Eventually word got out beyond the borders of The Empire, which caused an uproar among other nations in the Flatlands. [2]

It was a grotesquerie which could not stand. Although no one was brave enough to step forward to take the credit, the last Emperor who ordered the series of infanticides was killed in a bizarre and highly suspicious horse carriage "accident" in one of the remote mountain passes in Beornica. [3]

Within days, his entire retinue of courtiers and other officials who carried out his every whim also met with untimely fates.

That emperor had no issue and an heir was chosen from another branch of the Royal Lineage, one who was of considered judgment and sound reasoning. While his investiture as the new monarch heralded a period of calm between nations, there was still the matter of the inbred children due to so many royal families in other lands being closely related.

The government decreed that such royal children who were considered imperfect at birth would not be killed, but instead shunted off to a small village where a hospital was constructed with all the current advancement in the technology of the time to care for them. Its location was not revealed to the world, but legends did spring up about its existence. [4]

In the 1960s, it was finally revealed through investigations by the international branch of the Monitaurs (Pooticuck County's intelligence agency) that the hamlet is known as Gwaedbudr which translates to "Dirty Blood". [5] But even they declined to reveal its exact location; as long as its residents were leading productive lives there in their village, the Monitaurs saw no reason to meddle.

After generations removed from the influx of hereditary "pollution" from arranged marriages with relatives [6], there are no visible signs of physical abnormalities among the descendants of those original outcasts of infants. However, there is one trait which has never been eradicated, despite the influx of strong genetic variations among the Gwaedbudr families.

They have somehow lost the sense of hearing.

As such, the official language in Gwaedbudr is not Henogleddi - that places second in use - but a form of sign language which ironically was developed from the language of the country which banished their baby ancestors - that of Onwish, the mother tongue of Ὰnweald. Apparenty deafness has proven to be the one hereditary genetic trait too strong to be eliminated.

O'Bservations:

1] The three countries which are united into The Empire are Ὰnweald, Henogledd, and Beornica. It is believed that their territories and their peoples were of English, Welsh, and Scottish origins respectively.

2] It was easy enough to spark enmity against The Empire when a century couldn't pass without The Empire invading their neighbors in their desire to conquer the entire flat planet.

3] According to the official report, boulders in a landslide crushed the carriage which killed him instantly, but then sent the carriage tumbling over the edge into chasm below. What truly made it suspicious was that the horses were not attached to the carriage and so they were spared. (Considering the obsession with the superior breeds of their horses, even assassins would have done what they could to spare them.)

4] Many of the legends were horror stories on a par with those tales about the Melonheads here in Connecticut.

5] The translation of the full name of Tir Gwaedbludr is "The Land of Dirty Blood". The language of Henogledd is a slightly corrupted form of Cymraeg from Earth, from which Henogledd was whisked away, as was the case with all the terrain of the Flatlands.

6] In that mountainous region of Henogledd, in the dwindling, curled tail of the Dragonstane mountain range, there are many nearby villages which have replenished the gene pool of Gwaedblur over the last few centuries.

[toobwaysider]

YULIN

           Just as people are doing around the world at this time of year, the Notchfolk of Notchborough are getting ready for the holiday season, for which they have another name from Sgailick, their Notch-Chat – “Yulin”. It is of relatively recent coinage, probably around 1970 maybe, when folks began to take notice of an actor named Harris Yulin; I think maybe beginning with ‘Doc’, in which he played Wyatt Earp.            (There is a philologist at Notchborough’s upstart of a community college which calls itself a university – Sothern’s Quinnetukut University – who believes “Yulin” was the first time a name was chosen to replace a standard word from the English language which sounded almost exactly like the word being replaced. The traditionalists among the old-timers in Notchborough feel that it defeats the purpose of a secret language, but it has become a trend which quickly caught on.)            Yulin stands for exactly that – the Yuletide season, Yule, Yül….  And it is used liberally in connection with all things connected to the season – Yulin logs, Yulin carols, Yulin cards, the Yulin Cat, the Yulin Goat, the Yulin Opossum.            Just about everything associated with the Yuletide festivities in the vast world outside that village in northmost Connecticut is considered fair game for Yulin – the exchange of gifts (mostly attributed to Santa Claus); the trees invited into homes to be decorated; stockings hung (whether there’s a chimney or not); plus good food, good drink, and good company.

           What you won’t find in Notchborough during the season of Yulin are reference to the birth of Jesus. It’s not that they don’t believe in the Christ; many of them follow Christian teachings, and quite a few of them – mostly those descended from the Fògarraich who were Catholic – still consider themselves to be Catholic as well.            They just refuse to buy into a lot of rulings which had nothing to do with the original teachings of Jesus. Many of the tenets with which they have problems are recognized as public relation ploys (to put a modern spin on it) to make it easier to ensnare new followers from those “pagans” still clinging to the Old Ways. The way they see it, to achieve peace on Earth and good will towards Man, it’s best to cut out the middle man. (Especially since, back on those Scottish skerries, they were followers of the Old Ways as well, practitioners of their own low magicks.)            Take St. Brigid, for example. The congregation at St. Lidwina’s Church gave up venerating her long before the Catholic Church removed her from their universal calendar in 1969.  In fact, their ancestors never accepted her as a saint, even before they abandoned the Pentland Skerries to flee the Harriers. They saw her as just a trick by the Church to fool the followers of Breo-Saighit, goddess of the forge, into thinking the supposed saint was the same person.            While the Scottish firthfolk were in hiding at the Abbey of H’Braseel during the winter of 1634, the Irish clerics admitted as much to the one man whose word was unimpeachable as a source on the teachings of the Christ.             He may have been claiming to be the fictional picaro known as Lazarillo de Tormes, but those monks recognized him as a figure to be found in one of their own stained glass windows – Lazarus, the friend of Jesus Himself, who had been raised from the dead.

           And that alone made Lazarus an unimpeachable source – for this rogue brigand, who just rescued an entire clan of Scots when he should have been long since moldering in a grave some 1600 years earlier… many of the monks accepted his word on the subject. Despite what the established church had those monks believing, they nevertheless knew there were still a few holes in the established doctrine.            Lazarus claimed it took nothing away from his friend’s claim of divinity if He was prone to making mistakes. And Lazarus was the prime example of that – Jesus brought him back to the Land of the Living, but He apparently forgot to rewire his organic off-switch. And now he was stuck as an immortal.            The sanction against eating meat on a Friday? That was just to help out the fishmongers to get through some marketing downtimes.            And bringing it back around to Christmas vs. the Yuletide? Even after all those centuries, Lazarus remembered celebrating Jesus’ birthday usually in September, sometimes around the Festival of the Trumpets – but not always, since that never seemed to fall on the same date from year to year. But definitely it was in the late summer, early autumn. After all, the accepted story was that there were shepherds in the field, out watching their flock, which was not something they would be doing on a cold winter’s night.            But hey! If it meant one more way to persuade the pagans to abandon the observance of the Winter Solstice, who cared if it meant insulting the Son of God by ignoring His real birthday?            And so, at least in Notchborough, Connecticut, Christmas is observed in early September. And it’s strictly a religious ceremony, complete with the liturgical services (including midnight mass) at St. Lidwina’s and the relevant scripture readings. But all that fun stuff – rockin’ around the Christmas tree in a new old-fashioned way, etcetera etcetera etcetera…. That still happens as they celebrate their good old-fashioned New England Saturnalia.

           You may have noticed that earlier I said that trees were invited inside to be decorated for Yulin.  Conifers were not used for the tradition, cruelly butchered – chopped down and dragged inside to be accessorized as their corpses began the descent into decay.            No.  In Notchborough, the ambulatory birch trees, known as the Matooskeetop (Wampaug for “tree people”) who live in the “small” copse known as the White Woods, will grace different homes each year at Yulin where they allow themselves to be bedecked with baubles for the length of the season.  It is considered a great honor to host a Matooskeet during the season.  And they choose whose homes they will visit.  Wealth and power play no role in their choices.  It is as though they sense who would most benefit by their presence in their home. O’Bservation: I put the descriptive for copse into quotation marks because the White Woods only appear to be small in circumference.  It is bigger on the inside. Happy Yulin, one and all!

[toobwaysider]

A CHRISTMAS STORY

I'd like to tell you a Christmas story which happened here at Farrago House last Christmas Eve....

THE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

It was Christmas Eve and all day long my two cats and my brother’s dog were at odds with each other. It’s not that they usually get along, but at least they know to avoid each other… On most days.

But then, at the stroke of midnight, the fabled Christmas tradition occurred: the animals started talking!

And it should’ve been expected, but Ollie, my brother‘s dog, and my two cats, Gwenlin and Kithani, continued the argument which they had been having all day.

Ollie said, “Humans like us more. They even named a tooth after us! The canine. Naming such an important body part after us proves that they like us more.”

Gwenlin and Kithani looked at each other and then laughed at Ollie.

Said Kithani, “You really are not going to win this one, you know….”

[toobwaysider]

CEBERON

Because so much of what we consider mythology here on Earth actually took place – before that rogue Artisan of the Universe known as Astiph absconded with the characters, locations, and basic situations behind those tales, in order to populate his pocket dimension world of the Flatlands, leaving only half-remembered lore behind which is now considered to be fabrications – it is taught in the great institutes of learning in the Flatlands (Pooticuck University, the University of Winnemac, and Waurridge in Ὰnweald) as True History.

But even with general consensus that the standards of mythology are anchored in Reality, there are some legendary figures who still stir debate as to their existence.

One such (semi) god-like personage is Ceberon, the Great Wolf who figures heavily in the early history in the Flatlands. None are quite certain as to the origin of its myth; there are those nowadays who claim Astiph whisked Ceberon away from some other planet, or even from another dimension. This did not prevent the Albiyun Empire from adopting Ceberon as the symbol of their might in their Arthurian-styled hero cycle of Legend and Song. No one is certain as to how to pronounce the name of Ceberon. There are some who think it should be “Keberon” with a hard C. And that it maintained a pure wolf-like form. Still others among the Folklorists Guild claim it should be pronounced as “Seberon” with a soft “C” and that the primal figure assumed a more human appearance.

It’s a debate akin to the pronunciation of “Celtic”, depending on whether you’re a student of those people who spoke the many Celtic languages throughout Europe and Asia Minor… or if you’re just a fan of Beantown B-Ball.

Unlike here on Earth, the uses of the name as “Keberon” or “Seberon” do not automatically signify gender affirmation. In fact, current popular iterations of the mythology portray the character as being female, with the name pronounced as "Keberon". It is believed that this is trending due to an outside influence from Earth, mainly thanks to a couple who have created their own character, one who switches back-and-forth between humanoid and wolf forms….

You might think this to be so, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

PICTURED: 1] Artistic rendering of Keberon as a lupine/humanoid female. 2] The Shield of Ghelicaum, part of the Cathwyck Trove housed at the Ibbingham Museum in Leódgeard.

[toobwaysider]

WERE-DEER

08/21/2025 MY WORD OF THE DAY

PRICKET A male fallow deer in its second year, having straight, unbranched horns. ~ As there are "were-deer" (technical classification: Cervanthropes) in the Flatlands, I think this is an excellent word to use as a surname for those humanoids who can transform into deer.  But usually, they become a hybrid of the human and deer forms.

They are not limited to deer.  Some Cervanthropes can resemble moose, elk, caribou, ibex, eland....

It is believed that they are all emigres from another dimension in which all mammals have some kind of horns.  And that one of their ancestors, (perhaps several, considering how global the mythos became), had been the inspiration for the Horned God.

(Unofficially, a devotee of the writings of Lin Carter has nicknamed that purely theoretical dimension as "Khymirium".  But considering how the Council of Eleven and the Monitaur Agency are all such stuffed shirts, I wouldn't hold my breath on it being officially adopted.)

And while jackalopes do exist in the Flatlands, so far there are no reports of Jackalope Cervanthropes yet on that flat planet.

[toobwaysider]

NEB FOGEL

One of the strangest characters I’ve ever met in The Wayside – and remember, that’s a tavern where a meteor standing stone which was worked into the architecture is one of the co-owners; there’s a bartender who looks like a pig and another who resembles a West Highland terrier; the manager is a tree spirit; and the bouncer is a “pixiederm”, a fairy elephant.  Then there are the “Waysiders”, those who are regular patrons – like the retired demon of typographical errors and an Asgardian squirrel.  And of course, there’s the other co-owner of The Wayside, my friend Timjimmy Auxberon.  He can see and speak to ghosts, Canterville’s largest population demographic.

All worthy contenders for the title, but I still hold that the strangest character was just this guy, you know?  (You are missed, DNA.)  His name was Neb Fogel, or so he claimed when he was sober… which wasn’t a condition that lasted long once he was settled into a back table in the taproom.

According to the legend handed down by the descendants of the Fògarraich, those Scottish refugees who settled in the future Connecticut Notch region on lands offered by the local Wampaug tribe, Neb Fogel was already living there in the now-missing hills of what is now Southwick, Massachusetts.  In fact, it’s claimed that Neb Fogel was there before the Wampaug migrated to the region.  He was there even before Hyoond, that meteor which is now part of The Wayside, crashed to Earth, serving as the beacon which led the Wampaug to that territory.  Neb Fogel supposedly was living in a small shack in the woods of Eukridge Knoll, which later became a haven for hermits and others who preferred to avoid the company of others more civilized, including the Wampaug.  And Neb Fogel was already there before all others.

Even the Wonnix, those extra-dimensional humanoids who were best remembered in Irish mythology as the Firbolgs of Ireland, support the claim that Neb Fogel was already living in the lands of the Quinnetukut before they even arrived, driven out of Inisfail by the Tuatha de Danann.  While they established the third of their underground realms in the region there in the future Notch (the other two were in the vicinity of Fairfield and of course, beneath Machimoodus, known today as the “land of bad noises” because of them), Neb Fogel was above them, minding his own in his simple shack.

Because he kept himself to himself, theories abound that the legends are glawackus scat.  If there was somebody living on Eukridge Knoll all that time, since before the arrival of the Wonnix to the Great Vanishment of 1678[1], then it was a series of men who each assumed the name of “Neb Fogel.”  Who could claim that they were lying?  “Neb Fogel” kept his distance from everybody and could go many decades without another person espying him.  Certainly nobody lived who could claim that they had seen him twice in a long stretch of time.

Along with all of the original terrain which once existed in the Connecticut Notch, Eukridge Knoll (as well as its inhabitants, those hermits who were dubbed “Eukers” by outsiders) was whisked away in the Great Vanishment.  It still exists, just within the boundary of the Riftwood, on the border with Fortenbury, the hard-luck center of Pooticuck County.  (Some might say that’s apt, but those who deal with the Eukers would disagree.)

If Neb Fogel still lives there on the knoll, none can say with some assurance where exactly his shack could be located.  Some say he is now a cosmic hobo in the Flatlands, still giving Eukridge Knoll as his permanent address when pressed on the matter if confronted in one of those other foreign countries on that flat planet.  And while he has never broken any laws (at least none which the authorities can confirm with any certainty), and never shown any inclination that he would do so, the Monitaur adepts who protect Pooticuck County are always on the alert for his presence in that country.  (It’s surprising they have never been able to find him there, considering that Pooticuck County is less than ⅓ the size of the state of Connecticut.)

And yet….  Somehow he manages to slip past the Monitaurs and find his way to the back door of The Wayside to enjoy a few brews among the more regular Waysiders.  Even knowing that over the last 70 years, Neb Fogel has only frequented The Wayside on the first Saturday of the month of May, sometimes on Beltane itself, somehow he evades their vigilance there in Notchboro.  The Monitaur agents on the other side of the dimensional barrier, in the thin place of Canterville, only keep an eye out for him should there be reports of him in the community at large.  (Not being magical adepts like their counterparts in Pooticuck County, the agents don’t bother going into The Wayside to confront him.  Like most of the Notchfolk in Canterville, they have little regard for the Magickers, despite living in a pocket dimension still tethered to Earth by the energies imbued in the Connecticut Notch border with Massachusetts.  Not that he has ever caused any trouble in there – apparently he’s only there to watch live broadcast from Earth of the Kentucky Derby.  But as the tavern is often frequented by powerful Magickers, the agents have maintained a more prudent policy of letting them deal with it.

I don’t always go to The Wayside on Saturdays, but okay, I often do.  The first Saturday of May is one that I never miss and the primary reason I have been going on those Saturdays is because the legendary Neb Fogel would be there to watch the Derby.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t join in the conviviality of the more “permanent” Waysiders, taking his seat in the shadows to the back, at the table which is kept vacant for him on that day only.

Last year he was seated at his usual table, and he was deep into his cups before the race began.  I sat as close as I dared (advised against it by Titivillus, that retired demon of typographical errors whom I mentioned earlier, and maybe I should have listened to him – if even a demon is wary of a situation….), and strained to hear what he mumbled.

He seemed preoccupied with a curious landmark to be found on Canterville’s village green. (As if any landmark on the green is not an object of curiosity, what with the statue of Orson Bean as his ‘Twilight Zone’ character, and the stone gazebo which may, or may not, have a body or two buried beneath it.)  Neb Fogel’s focus was on the classic “signpost up ahead”, perhaps in tandem with the statue, but with arrows pointing to various points of interest back on Earth.  One of them was in the direction of Wales, specifically to Cynefin, Wales, acknowledged as Canterville’s sister city, but one which the Notchfolk are advised to avoid.

“Cynefin…” he mumbled.  “I used to live up the road a fair pace from Cynefin.  Llyddwdd the place was.  All I wanted was the peace and quiet to work on a few experiments, that’s all.  But they treated me like I was some kind of a witch!”

Hoping that I might widen this opening for conversation further, I remarked, “’Neb Fogel’ doesn’t sound like a Welsh name….”

He derisively scoffed.  “Didn’t use my real name!”  With a shrug, he added, “I played around with it though.  Called myself ‘Nebogipfel’ and -#”

Saying that name aloud, perhaps the first time in centuries, brought him up short; might have even sobered him up somewhat.  Glaring at me, he pulled back the cuff of his jacket’s sleeve to reveal what looked to be a steampunk prop strapped to his wrist.  But this was no cosplay accessory.  With a few taps on the main band-plate, he suddenly vanished from sight.

As everyone else in The Wayside was fixated on the bar’s TV just as Mystik Dan crossed the finish line, nobody else noticed his disappearance.  And as I feared being chastised by Timjimmy, I chose not to say anything.  But I am sharing it now.

1] On February 13, 1678, under cover of a massive earthquake which rocked the Connecticut colonies, the original 2.5 square miles of the land mass were whisked away to the Flatlands, that flat planet which serves as a petulant toddler godling’s playset.  From that seed, the micro-nation of Pooticuck County was born.

[justgottafinishthischapter]

This came across my Facebook feed, felt I’d share it.

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APRIL 31st

“Thirty days has November, April, June, and September. All the rest have thirty-one, Except for February which has twenty-eight.”

It has already been documented about the disregard which the Notchfolk of Connecticut have for that artificial demarcation of Time known as Daylight Savings Time.  (They don’t O’Bserve it, remaining on Eastern Standard Time throughout the year.)

Back when Canterville was just the farmland region in the settlement known as Fort Kathlyn, there was a dark tragedy which occurred during the colony’s first year.  In the Wayside-Wampaug One Week War, the Chief of the Wampaug, Wooticut, was overcome with a madness which led him to murder the leader of those first settlers while he slept.  (The Wampaug called those Scottish refugees the “Owannux” – “Somebody from Somewhere Else.” That is a name which they had already bestowed on an earlier influx of refugees of a more supernatural origin – the Firbolgs out of Irish Legend.)

While that chapter of their local history is still remembered by the people of Canterville, even after their memories of the eventual fates of the Wampaug and the Wayside location had been erased for the rest of the world, it remains a story in which can be found the reasoning behind another distortion of Time by Canterville, which sets them apart from the rest of Connecticut and of course, from the world….

The date of Wooticut’s murder of Lemuel Ackerbie was April 24, Year of the Lord 1635.

A week passed with those  Fògarraich (Scottish for “refugees”) on edge within the stockade walls of Fort Kathlyn, expecting a full assault by the natives whom they thought had been their friends and benefactors.  After all, the Wampaug had granted the settlers that territory in which to settle (and which would one day become embroiled in the dispute over the “Connecticut Notch”.)

Meanwhile, the Wampaug were horrified by what Wooticut had done as well; they all had regarded Lemuel Ackerbie to be “Sȏkumitop” – the leader of the Owannux – but also a friend.  And as it was with Clan Craiffineach, they were also fearful of an attack by the Scots in retaliation.  His own people shunned Wooticut; his two wives, Aqeetisek and Mushopqaskot, refused him access to their lodging, never mind to their furs.

The madness eventually passed from Wooticut’s brain by week’s end.  Seeing how he had disrupted the dynamic between the Wampaug and the “Owannux” of Fort Kathlyn, he knew only he could make it right.

In the early morning hours of May 1, 1635, Wooticut stepped out of the woodland and into the field before the stockade walls of Fort Kathlyn.  The early guard at the top of the walls raised the alarum, bringing the menfolk to rush out in their bedclothes and with their muskets, powder, and shot, to join them.  Meanwhile, the women cowered in the gathering hall with Aba Jarlath to comfort them.

In his halting command of the English tongue, Wooticut called out for them to make right what he had done wrong; he wanted them to send him to join once-friend Lemuel in the Great Beyond.

None of the settlers on the wall could fathom his foreign way of thinking.  And their new leader, Lemuel’s own son Nathaniel Ackerbie, was unsure what to do.  However, ‘Thaniel was leaning towards the counsel of Valentijn Hooklein; the former Dutch sailor urged forgiveness so that they could use this opportunity to forge a stronger relationship with the Wampaug.

Unnoticed by his mother, Lemuel Ackerbie’s grandson Chrisdain slipped out to join his father ‘Thaniel on the parapets.  The boy was armed with his own musket.

Espying the top of the boy’s head, barely visible between two of the sharpened logs making up the fort’s wall, Wooticut called out to Chrisdain, addressing the boy by name. The Sȏkum reminded Chrisdain what he had stolen from the lad.

Without hesitation, Chrisdain Ackerbie lifted his musket and fired unerringly.  He struck Wooticut full in the chest and the Chief was dead before he hit the ground.

Two of the tribe’s braves stepped out of the woods and approached the body of Wooticut.  It was as though they had been there from the beginning of the confrontation.  Hooklein would later suggest that they had come with the Chief to serve as the equivalent to being his seconds.

One of the braves, Wooticut’s brother, Kikatohkawasoah, looked up to those on the stockade walls and shouted, “Let this be the end of it! No more will be said of this sadness.”

(O'Bservation - “Kikatohkawasoah” translates from Wampaug Mohegan to “Talking Bear”.  I have nothing else to back this up, but it could be that at least Wooticut’s brother was one of the Wasoosin, one of two species of were-bear connected to Canterville.)

The Wampaug made good on their pledge to forget that it had ever happened.  From that year onward, however they marked time in their culture previously, that day was as good as erased from the timeline.  And to avoid thinking about what happened that day, the entire day was eliminated from acknowledgement.  When they finally adopted the Gregorian calendar, they made their own adjustments: April ended with April 31st while May began with May 2nd.

On the other hand, the Notchfolk chose not to follow suit in the non-observance.  That is, not until 1954.

That year, Canterville’s village council – the true governing power of the “Gravel City” with the Mayor just a figurehead – had all been staunch Republican hard-line conservatives[1], all of them ardent fans of Senator “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy back on Earth.  And it galled them to think that the upcoming International Workers’ Day, May 1st, had strong connotations with the Communists.  As far as they were concerned, the damning proof was that the word “International” was right there in its name.

(O’Bservation - It’s not surprising that those numbskulls back then never realized that Canterville couldn’t even qualify to be considered as being “national.”  If anything, the village would be classified as “other-dimensional.")

They had seen that earlier attempts to deflect the power of the association by giving the day other names, like Loyalty Day or Law Day, proved unsuccessful in dampening that specter of the Communist threat.

It was the most hard-hearted of the council members of that time, Twyler Smails, who got so exasperated with their deliberations, with May Day coming up so quickly, that he exclaimed, “Why don’t we just do like the Wampaug did?  Let’s just wipe May Day off the calendar and be done with it!”

Several of his fellow council members laughed at the idea at first, but then realized Smails was serious.  Not wishing to make an enemy of the most powerful member of the council, those other aldermen amended their attitudes and fully supported the idea.

Since 1954 then, Canterville has been aligned with those few Wampaug people still in the village in accepting that April has 31 days while May has 30, even if their reasons were different.

Luckily the Notchfolk are trapped in their own dimension, because it’s a tradition which would have driven their immediate neighbors in Connecticut crazy.

O'Bservation: Such artificial demarcations of Time have no effect on the Supernatural. The region continues to be a most powerful "thin space" which is strongest at Beltane, unmindful of the calendar date.

1] I realize this may only be my opinion, but after decades in which the political winds had shifted in the other direction, most of the Notchfolk are sadly once again extreme conservatives.  And even though there is no connection to the culture and politics of the surrounding United States in the world outside their pocket dimension, it’s not unusual to see knuckle-dragging Notchfolk proudly wearing those red MAGA caps.

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RÜQSÂK

While the Notchfolk of Canterville can easily access the Interwebz back on Earth, they prefer to use the much safer system developed in the Flatlands, a sophisticated deluge of technobabble which needs only one simple reason to be preferable - it is unassailable by wyverns, the Flatlandish equivalent to computer viruses.

This is thanks to Rüqsâk, the file storage system which is a fortress unvanquishable protecting all of your stored information… information… information. Rising to the challenge, the most notorious hacker in all the Flatlands, Bridalthor, who is safely ensconced in the Albiyun Empire from retribution, created the most powerful wyvern yet and named it Saqnoth. Yet even Saqnoth failed to penetrate Rüqsâk.

There are few outside of that pocket dimension of Canterville who are familiar with the legend of the Mad Memer, let alone believe in him, but the Notchfolk know he is real, the very definition of the ghost in the machine. The Mad Memer can easily access the social platform of iKarass and leave memes which can drive scrollers insane and many times forcing them to act out the bidding of those memes.

And yet, even the Mad Memer cannot infiltrate Rüqsâk.

Kristov Kinderschmertz is the creator of Rüqsâk, and it has made the inventor a fortune several times over.  This is fortunate for Kinderschmertz because he has lost several of those fortunes over the last four decades.

He could be living like a king in some small principality on the other side of the dimensional veil in the Flatlands.  (And rumor has it that he does own one small nation in the Southerlands outright.)  But Kinderschmertz continues to live in Canterville, in a simple apartment in the warehouse he reconverted from one of the old mills in the Millville section of town.  In fact, he owns all of those mills along the north-flowing Wiyontuc River.

While not a complete recluse, Kinderschmertz tends to his hobbies nowadays.  One of those hobbies is his collection of odd vehicles, many of which are the artistry of Keaton Bexwicker.  Those vehicles are the reason he now owns all those old mills; he had them reconverted to be garages and/or museums for his cars.

His other hobby involves expanding his wardrobe with the most outrageous outfits from the au courant fashion scene.  On occasion, he would wear his weird wardrobe while parading about downtown Wayside and through the town common (as pictured here.) He also has no qualms about using his wealth in destroying the lives of those who mock him by calling him "Doogie."

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Sometimes when I worry that I'm getting too weird with my fauxlore ideas for Canterville, "Connecticut" and the other-dimensional Flatlands, I remind myself that the mascot for UC Santa Cruz is the Banana Slug....

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STONE GAZEBO

Martin Gannir, son of former Canterville police chief Herloff Gannir, served as the groundskeeper for both Thistle Hill Cemetery and for the town common. Despite the cemetery being the oldest in town, there weren’t that many people interested in learning the history behind those “Notchfolk” who were interred there, some dating back to the 1600s. About the only person who inquired about “residents” of Thistle Hill was Dale Quinnebaughm Jr, the publisher of the Odd Sheets newspaper, and a distant cousin of Martin’s.

When it came to the town common, however, Gannir was always peppered with questions by visitors to the park. They all wanted to know the same thing….

“Who is buried under the stone gazebo?”

Canterville legend had long established that it was Goodwife Calumny Troon who was buried under there. She had been hanged for a witch back in the mid-1600s, a decade before half of the Fort Kathlyn settlement was transplanted to its own dimension.   There it became three communities – Notchboro, Wampaug, and Hobbimock, the foundations for Pooticuck County, based on the Wampaug word “Putaqiahki” meaning “Hidden Land”.

But a lot of names have been bandied about as possible contenders for that grave unmarked, save for the stone gazebo above it.

There was never any conclusive proof that anybody was buried there, but that didn’t deter the additions to the list of possibilities. An exodus happened in the mid-1800s, when the lure of the Western frontier and the prospect of gold inflamed many a Notchfolk heart to return to Earth.

Back in the 1970s, even Jimmy Hoffa was rumored to be under the stone gazebo…. And that was despite the fact that the gazebo had been there since 1903 and access through the dimensional “Caul” was heavily monitored.

Nobody was so keen to discover the Truth that they would attempt to dig a tunnel under the gazebo, however. Although it was never spoken aloud, they considered the possibility that something not quite human was buried under there. There were whispers that the stone gazebo was protecting the Notchfolk, keeping whatever was below from rising to the surface.

My collaborator on this project, Timjimmy Auxberon, who owns The Wayside, surely must know.  After all, because of the triple whammy of his birth – born during the witching hour on a Friday, still wrapped in his caul, and with heterochromiac eyes (one crystal blue, the other resembling a yellow cat’s eye) – he has been blessed/cursed with the ability to see and converse with ghosts.

Usually, he’s quite free about his conversations with the spooks (as he calls them), but for whatever reason, he will not reveal if anybody is buried under the stone gazebo, let alone who it might be.

Martin Gannir died unexpectedly a few years after work began on this field guide.  He was found on the floor of the gazebo. That location sadly led to even more rumors about who – or what – is buried under the gazebo….

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THE POOTICUCK ATLAS PART IX

For one last time, we’re focusing on Pooticuck County, Canterville’s main ally in the Flatlands, as well as all the towns and villages which make up that micro-nation.  But this time we’re exploring several of the major geographical features.

This will be the ninth – and last! – entry.  (Unless Astiph decides to steal more terrain to be stitched into the landscape.)

I hope you’ve enjoyed them….

THE RIFTWOOD – When the Scottish refugees were first welcomed by the Wampaug to their lands in the north of what would become Quinnetukut, the region was a near-impenetrable realm of birch trees (believed to this day to be the most intelligent species in Canterville.)   Over the last four centuries, it has dwindled down to the White Woods, the copse still bordering the Connecticut Notch.  It has been a source of wonderment because rogue wormholes occasionally open up and who knows what might pop out from some other time, perhaps from some other world.  (Permanent proof of its power can be found lying at your feet in there – the ancient road through the woods is believed to have been built by Rome’s 9th, the “Lost” Legion.)

But within that white-barked woodland lies access to the Riftwood, which is the dark mirror to the White Woods. It was a dank and foreboding forest exuding the weight of great age in its atmosphere, perceptible even to those who stood outside its borders (which is how most people prefer to interact with the Riftwood.) The reputation of this copse of woods existed since the first days of the Wampaugs’ own arrival in Quinnetukut. And its terrors were probably well-established long before the Indians arrived.

When the northern half of the Fort Kathlyn settlement, along with the neighboring tribe of the Wampaug and the underground realm of the Wonnix, were whisked away to the Flatlands, they found they were thrust up against the Riftwood.

The Riftwood is comprised of White Cedar, which is native to Connecticut and considered imperiled elsewhere in the state.  Within the Riftwood, however, it stands impervious to whatever blight is set upon it.  There are no birches within the Riftwood, no other trees save for one lone white oak at the very heart of the forest.  According Wampaug lore, the greatest of medicine men, with the odd name of Swyn Gwydion, stepped out of that White Oak and declared himself to be the new shaman for the Wampaug.  (The Wampaug accepted him, but they called him Wise Goose instead.) Thereafter, Wise Goose also bore the titles of Woppismoyik (the White Wizard), and Pahkummus (White Oak).

It is said that the Cedars of the Riftwood surround a glade which serves as the locus for a permanent portal to the Cedars of Lebanon, cited in legends as the home for the gods of Mesopotamia.  It’s said that if a walking cedar tree is seen in the glade, that would be Humbaba, the bouncer for those gods.  (The locals know him as Bob Humm.)

At any moment, another vortex might materialize and anything might appear.  I have heard tales about the flights of Pegazeus, the winged unicorn, and the midnight strolls by Togwinnog, a lonely giant who was rescued from slavery in the Albiyun Empire.  And at Midsummer, the winged Moksiweeg, whom the kids today call “The Twee” arrive in the Riftwood from all along the timeline to engage in their courtship rituals.

Once the Monitaurs were established as guardian adepts securing the borders of the Riftwood, it’s estimated that many lives have been saved, mostly of those who might have tried to enter the forest on a dare, or while extremely drunk, or once… out of desperation to escape local law enforcement.

But as the threat of Y2k loomed, seven people eluded the border sentinels and got inside.  (As Melissa Steadman would say, “Seven… it would be a mythic number.”)  And as expected by the locals, none of them ever came back out.

Surprisingly, their disappearance went generally unnoticed.  Maybe it was because of the focus on world-changing events back on Earth that year –  along with the threat of Y2K, the botched presidential election, the raid for Elian Gonzalez, the Subway Series, and the conjunction of the Sun, the Moon, and all the planets from Mercury to Saturn. (That proved to a seismic event for the Canterville Wiccans, who normally don’t need to get naked under the stars.)

But Professor Emeritus Stuart Ennix is spending his retirement scouring the world’s historical records for any mention of those time-tossed seven.

AMPHISBAIN RIVER [LAKE ANGIOTH RYSERRIG LAKE]

"The amphisbaena has a twin head.  That is, one at the tail end as well, as though it were not enough for poison to be poured out of one mouth." — Pliny the Elder, "Naturalis Historia"

"The Amphisbaena however is a snake with two heads, one at the top and one in the direction of the tail. When it advances, as need for a forward movement impels it, it leaves one end behind to serve as tail, while the other it uses as a head. Then again if it wants to move backwards, it uses the two heads in exactly the opposite manner from what it did before." — Claudius Aelianus, "Characteristics of Animals"

"The amphisbaena grows twin heads, one in the proper place, and the other where the tail should be. For this reason the snake glides in a circular shape, as the heads, contrary to what is right, strain from both ends." — Solinus, "Polyhistor"

There is a river on the Western edge of Pooticuck County which separates three of the stolen Ohio Firelands from the rest of that micro-nation.  At either end is a large lake with an island in each – Two-Mouse Island, which originally was part of the Thimble Islands chain in Long Island Sound, was relocated into Rysserig Lake in the Northwest off the shoreline of Banaug.  (On the map, which was created by Donovan Ackerbie, a cartographer for the Monitaurs when he was ten years old, is larger than it should be.  Donovan changed it so that it would be visible.  Plus, he was ten years old.)

At the other end of Amphisbain River is Lake Angioth, with the fabled island nation of Blefuscu off the coast of the Prescott Estates.  (At least Blefuscu is correctly proportioned, quite a large island which is necessary for a nation heavily populated… with six-inch tall people.)

From an overhead perspective, the river and two lakes fit the description of an amphisbane, with the lakes being the head at either end of the river’s “snake body”.  How the earliest settlers knew that when it wasn’t visible from the ground?  I’m thinking magic….

The names for Lake Angioth and Rysserig Lake are in tribute to the memory of two firedrakes from the frozen North beyond the Dragonstane.  Angioth and Rysserig came to the aid of the early Whiskaways in Pooticuck.  Once word spread among the other nations of the Flatlands that the former Notchfolk from the Fort Kathlyn settlement had stable portals which could lead back to Earth, several of the more militaristic of nations – specifically the Albiyun Empire and the Reptoid regime of Nisssiru – attempted to conquer those first three settlements of Notchboro, Wampaug, and Hobbimock.

There are some contrarian historians who contend that had the Reptoids not become involved, Angioth and Rysserig might never have come to Pooticuck’s aid.  Like most dragons, they really hated reptilian humanoids.  They give the lizard folk a bad reputation.

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THE POOTICUCK ATLAS PART VIII

More verbiage from Canterville, but this time, we’re focusing on Pooticuck County, Canterville’s main ally in the Flatlands, as well as all the towns and villages which make up that micro-nation.

Hoo boy! These are getting lengthy!  But I've never organized my thoughts on these before.  

This will be the eighth entry….

BLEFUSCO – I imagine most people who think of an island of tiny people in “Gulliver’s Travels” – if they even know the story in the first place (I don’t have much faith in the education of the masses) – they probably think of Lilliput.  Those people might be surprised that there was another such island, whose people were the sworn enemies of the Lilliputians – Blefuscu.

At some time after “Gulliver’s Travels” was published, Astiph whisked away the island of Blefuscu to the Flatlands.  It had been his custom to add new islands to the archipelago in the Sundering Sea, but he must have foreseen that Blefusco would never survive among those other far larger islands.  And so he stitched Lilliput’s former rival into Lake Angioth in the Southwest of Pooticuck County.

TWO MOUSE ISLAND - The Thimble Islands are an archipelago of just over 365 islands in Long Island Sound, off the coast of Branford, Connecticut.  For many of those land masses, the classification of “island” is being generous; some are only rocky outcroppings upon which a biped couldn’t even stand, be it human, Firbolg, or those blue-tinted aliens who called themselves “Terruhns”.

There are colorful names for many of those islands – Pot Island, Hen Island, Potato Island, Ghost Island, Mother-In-Law Island (which sounds spookier than Ghost Island), East Stooping Bush Island, and Cut In Two Island (East and West)….

But the island of interest for Pooticuck County, even though that micro-nation is in a different dimension from Earth, would be Two Mouse Island.  It once could be found at the outermost strand of the Thimble Islands archipelago, as far as possible from Branford.  And the reason why it has a connection to Pooticuck County is because it can now be found in Pooticuck County, the micro-nation in the Flatlands which controls the vortices connecting that pocket dimension to the Connecticut Notch.  The island sits in the middle of Ryserrig Lake, which borders Longriver Township, Hobbimock, and the Riftwood.

“Two Mouse Island” loses something in translation from the original Narragansett.  (It might even have been misinterpreted from the Narragansett for “Two Squirrel Island”.)  Basically, it was to give the impression that the island was so small that two mice could not live side by side on it. But it proved to be enough room for a selkie named Marghael to live there with her two lovers – Adaidh mac Gilliebeadh, a member of the original Scottish Fògarraich (refugees) who settled in the Connecticut Notch region, and Zeger (last name unknown), one of the Dutch sailors who brought those refugees to their new home in northmost Connecticut.  They even raised a family on the island, with children sired by both men.  (But I can find no information that any of their descendants were selkies like Marghael.

In September of 1938, a great hurricane slammed the coastline of Connecticut, wreaking havoc for hours until it reached Canada.  About six hundred people throughout New England were killed, which included Loren Spencer Simcooth.  (Simcooth had cheated the descendants of Marghael and her “husbands” out of that property and had been living on Two Mouse Island at the time.  So, as far as most of the Notchfolk back in Canterville were concerned, there was no significant loss of life.)  The cottage was completely destroyed in the first storm surge and the island was lost forever beneath the surface of Long Island Sound.

At least that’s what the rest of the world believed.  No one today remembers Two Mouse Island; in fact, records of its existence are no longer on file.  Most of those back in Connecticut who would have been in charge of such archives have no clue what you’re talking about if you ask about Two Mouse Island.  Nevertheless, it experienced vanishment during that hurricane and can now be found in Ryserrig Lake in Northwest Pooticuck County.

BARROW – Barrow is the third location in Pooticuck County to begin with “BAR” which is also bordering the massive cattle ranch, serving as the inspiration for its name of “Three-Bar Ranch.”

Even for those who are Stay-at-Homes, everyone in that Connecticut-inspired micro-nation eventually arrives in Barrow.  It is the great cemetery which serves all of Pooticuck County.  Because the Flatlands is indeed that – flat – no one is quite sure of the depth to the strata upon which the whole of the Flatlands society rests.  So at least as far as Pooticuck County is concerned, it is a requirement which has become a traditional ritual that everyone who is interred in Barrow is cremated.  It can be quite the ceremony, even for the lowliest citizen, as in that micro-nation, Death makes everyone equal.

DARBICAIN ISLAND – Despite the power of names, Integrity Darbicain never lived up to the potential of his given name.  Growing up as a wharf rat in Leódgeard, Ὰnweald’s capital city of Leódgeard in the Albiyun Empire, “Tig” Darbicain stowed away as a child on a ship rumored to be a freebooter.  He gained favor quickly with the captain and rose through the ranks easily as he grew older.  And when at last he seized command of the vessel by plunging a knife into his mentor’s back, the captain congratulated him, for it was exactly what he would have done.

When his life of piracy became more than Flatlandish Society could tolerate, Captain Darbicain faked his drowning and made his way inland to Pooticuck County in the Northwest.  Backed by a couple of skoogs, he took control of an “island” (now no more than a sandbar) on the Amphisbane River which had a warren of caves on the riverbank to serve as refuge.  Those river pirates would waylay barges from the wolfhaven of Banaug and brazenly kill their crews for the cargo on the far bank which was the sparsely populated farmland of Barnstable.  The lucky dead were set adrift down the river; others were dragged back to the caves to be stock in the soup.

The people of Pooticuck County had enough and they called upon their protector at that time, the white wizard known as Wiyoticuck, moyikao of the Wampaug, to rid them of Tig Darbicain.  Wiyoticuck called upon dark spirits using Gnarzh-speak and Darbicain’s whole enterprise, including his skoogs, vanished from the Flatlands.  Legends claim that they suddenly appeared on the summit of Mt. Everest where they promptly fell to their deaths.  As this happened back in the 1700s, it’s likely they are the oldest corpses up there, buried beneath many layers of snow and ice.

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THE POOTICUCK ATLAS PART VII

More verbiage from Canterville, but this time, we’re focusing on Pooticuck County, Canterville’s main ally in the Flatlands, as well as all the towns and villages which make up that micro-nation.

Hoo boy! These are getting lengthy! But I've never organized my thoughts on these before.  In fact, this edition contains only two entries but they belong together.

This will be the seventh entry….

LONGRIVER TOWNSHIP (aka THE OTHER CANTERVILLE) – The last of the four Ohio Firelands from the Connecticut Western Reserve to experience vanishment and get stitched into the Flatlands was Canterville.  And no… not the one which was already trapped in its own pocket dimension; that’s back in Connecticut… or near enough.  Haven’t you been paying attention?

Back in May of 1980, Timjimmy Auxberon and two of his friends were in that Canterville of Ohio, (not to be confused with Centerville, Ohio) when the vanishment took place, lured there by a ruse.  (To this day, Timjimmy has yet to discover who was the culprit.)

But while they were still on Earth, the similarity to Timjimmy’s hometown went beyond the town’s name.  It may have been why it was a primary target to become Whiskaways.  The trio arrived to find that Canterville, like many towns in the Connecticut Western Reserve (such as Norwalk, Hartland, and Lyme) had adopted a name to reflect their Connecticut heritage.  But Timjimmy found it unnerving that somehow this Other Canterville had keyed into the secret world of his hometown, the town trapped in a pocket dimension on the Connecticut Notch.  Some of the buildings were exact replicas of the more distinctive edifices in the original Canterville, but from before the 1900s dawned.  It was stranger still that the names of all the streets were the same as to be found in Canterville maps.  And when it came to maps, even the shape of the town resembled a compact outline of the Nutmeg State, including its own notch and “handle”.

However, it was the people of Canterville whom Timjimmy found most unsettling – all of them had the names of the people he knew back in the original Canterville… including his own family.

That’s where those imposters made a major slip-up; the Auxberon family, complete with their own Timothy James, was still using the original surname of D’Auxberaughm which had not been in use since Walter Auxberon legally changed it when Timjimmy was seven.

Too late, they discovered that the citizens of that Other Canterville were actually fetches, those supernatural beings who resemble the people whom they encounter.  The fetch would then demonstrate the manner of that person’s death before disappearing.  (In most legends, the person only sees the replicant, not the details of their doom; they would usually die soon afterwards.  This was probably a story-telling device to keep the tale concise.)

Timjimmy’s friends saw their doppelganger fetches die and each manner of death came true for them years later.  The Timjimmy Fetch was about to do the same when he clobbered it with a shovel.  So he never did find out how he is meant to die.

Before the throng of other Fetches could overpower them like zombies, Astiph caused Other Canterville’s vanishment, using the eruption of Mount St. Helens as the distraction.  (Because of that Ohio town’s unhealthy O’Bsession with the Canterville hidden away “at” the Connecticut Notch, it has since been theorized that the Toddler Godling mistakenly believed that this was the other half of the Scottish settlement he stole back in 1678, but which had broken off as he fled with his prize.  Astiph supposedly has been hunting for it ever since.)

Astiph must have realized the mistaken identity of that faux Canterville, however.  He stitched it into the landscape beyond Sarumville, that wretched hive of scum and Simcooths.  But luckily, that Artisan of the Universe added a “Dead Man’s Land” to serve as a buffer to keep even those wretches from seeing their own fetches.  (It is believed that the buffer zone was nicked from the World War one wastelands of France.)  The government of Pooticuck County also altered the new arrival, stripping it of the name Canterville and rebranding it as Long River Township.

LITTLE SKEGNESS – In September 1752, Great Britain changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.  This caused eleven days being eliminated, with September 2nd followed immediately by September 14th.  Many people were confused and even upset by the change, with some claiming that they had been cheated out of their wages.  There were others who panicked, thinking the loss of those eleven days meant that their own lives would be that much shorter.  There are even accounts, probably apocryphal, that riots broke out over the loss.

All of that were trifles in comparison to the fate of Little Skegness, a village right on the border of the Connecticut and Rhode Island colonies, claimed equally by the town of Killingly and the village of Chepachet, respectively.  Its Indian name had been Taupkimock, which was somewhat of a corruption for “Dark Swamp”; but due to the manipulations by those Simcooths still on Earth, the residents reluctantly took the anglicized name of Little Skegness.

When the edict for the calendar change was implemented, all contact with Little Skegness was lost.  Unfortunately none of the neighboring villages seemed to notice.  (Keeping themselves to themselves was elevated to an art in the Northeast Tri-corner.)

But after several months, a young man returned home after two years away, serving as an apprentice to an East Hartford clockmaker.  Having moved up to the level of journeyman with the quality of clocks he made entirely of wood, he took time away to return home and give his family the news.

But when he approached the village’s borders, he discovered their fate.

The townsfolk going about their daily business, but they took no notice of him as he shouted, not even his own mother and his Beloved.  The young clockmaker raised the alarum, both in Killingly and Chepachet’s town of Glocester, but no one had any knowledge of what had happened.  Learned men from Yale and Harvard, as well as medical doctors, astronomers, ministers, and officers of the Law were consulted, but none could provide answers.

They studied the daily lives of those townsfolk, making detailed notes about the phenomenon, and it soon became apparent that at a specific point in the villagers’ daily routines, there was one slight shift in their view into Little Skegness.  People were suddenly rearranged; the natural lighting of the day was brightened; and those with good memories realized they had seen this exact same scene play out before.  The observers kept track for another three cycles as to how many days passed, and when the exact same temporal reset occurred, they finally pieced together the answer….

The people of Little Skegness were reliving the same eleven days over and over again.  From there, one of the Observers, a mysterious Welshman made the connection – Little Skegness was trapped in a temporal loop sparked by the Royal adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

That young clockmaker, distraught by that revelation, found a way to enter the village and was incorporated into that continuous cycle to be with his loved ones.  Upon his entry, the entire village vanished, subjected its own vanishment and it wound up stitched deep into the Riftwood where it is safe from those trying to invade their time-locked world.