Some commonly used words are after the list of characters. Replace th on end of words with ness and t with d or ed and most of the rest are obvious if sounded out aloud. Some words with n or en on the end can be easily understood if the n is replaced by a d. Only difficult words and words that do not exist in English are now referred to specifically at the end of the chapter. Appendix 1 Folk words and language usage, Appendix 2 Castle places, food, animals, plants and minerals, Appendix 3 a lexicon of Folk and Appendix 4 an explanation of the Folk calendar, time, weights and measures. All follow the story chapters.
Year 619
The incursion was of three hundred and twenty two incomers and occurred on the twenty-third of Minyet, mid-spring, almost fifty one years after the previous one. It was dry, but the temperature was twenty-odd below freezing and there was a moderate breeze giving a considerable chill factor. It happened, as usual, before dawn, this time near Outgangside, and the incomers were discovered at first light just after six.
Deepcaltth(1) had already claimed twenty-seven before they were discovered and could be helped, eight of them children, the rest elderly. The twenty-seven bodies of those whom Castle had taken through no fault of their own were treated with respect and taken to an empty unheated store room. It was not possible to bury them with the ground frozen to deepth of a stride or more. The bodies would freeze and be safe till the weather had warmed sufficiently for the crust on the soil to be braeken and graves dug. The Folk only considered it proper to throw the bodies of criminals into the Arder estuary, and only ship crafters who died during a voyage were ever buried at sea. The bodies of ship crafters who were buried at sea were treated with great respect, but it was not considered proper for any else even should the weather be good enough for a ship to put to sea.
The eighty-three surviving children were taken to nearby houses to recover from the caltth before being taken to the Keep infirmary. The other incomers, including the pregnant and the elderly, were accommodated in the large workshops and warehouses of Outgangside. The women, children and elders of the Folk normally resident at Outgangside were escorted to the Keep in the early forenoon as a safety precaution, and over two thousand fully trained and armed guardians took their place. The men normally resident at Outgangside were issued weapons before they assisted in the securing of places like the White Swan, Gander’s still house and the nearby waggoners’ stables.
As the incomers regained consciousth from the caltth all except five separated into two distinct groups, those in the smaller group of forty-eight were characterised by darker skins, as were eighteen of the children, they were also difficult for the Folk to understand, despite the nominally common language. The larger group of one hundred and fifty-nine as well as sixty-five of the children were fairer with more olive skinned members, though there was considerable variation in their skin colour. Many of the men in the larger group wore scarf like headgear that covered their hair and many of the women were cowled to lesser or greater degree, some completely covered other than their eyes. The two groups did not mix despite their common city of origin and it was noticed there were subgroups within both that didn’t seem to like each other much. The remaining five adults were all very pale skinned and stayed together away from the members of both the other groups.
Willow, the Mistress at arms, now seventy-four and due to retire next Quarterday, held a meeting in the largest warehouse similar to the one she had watched Thomas hold half a century over. She was assisted by Æneascoffey, deputy Mistress at arms, who was soon to become Master at arms. A middle aged member of the smaller grouping immediately interrupted her and arrogantly telt her she was a social worker, and she would deal with the situation. She seemed to expect Willow would defer to her, let her take charge and follow her orders. Willow had no idea what she meant by a social worker, and she didn’t care. It was a puzzle to her what the woman thought she could do since she knew naught of Castle or the Folk and had no resources with which to do aught. That the woman expected to have all the resources of the Folk placed at her disposal never occurred to Willow. Willow had a whimsical sense of humour and just looked at the woman. The woman seemed to be expecting Willow to say something, but Willow just waited. Eventually Willow remarked, “I am waiting for you to deal with the situation.”
The woman demanded imperiously, “I need to know what we have available.”
Willow looked at her and in a spine chilling voice said, “I know what we have, and we does not include you. I have no idea what you have, but what ever you have is what you have to deal with the situation. I am the Mistress at arms, and I am certainly not giving any of my authority to any other than my deputy, and only Lady Heidi, Lord Rampion or the Council have the authority to give any of the Folk’s resources to any at all. However, I am still awaiting you to deal with the situation.”
The woman started to bluster, and was spaeking in unfinished sentences regards a lack of coöperation when Willow cut her off. “I have waitet long enough. It appears you have no ability to deal with the situation, and it is not for to us to coöperate with you, but the other way berount. So I suggest you accept the situation, and allow those with the knowledge and resources to deal with the situation to so do.”
The woman continued blustering and working herself up eventually screaming insults at Willow whilst the Folk watched impassively. Willow looked questioningly at Gage, the Master huntsman, who nodded to Gabriëlla, his deputy Master huntsman, who in turn instructed a squad to, “Remove her. If necessary kill her.” The woman put up a struggle and resisted being escorted away all the whiles screaming and shouting of racists and fascist bastards, which meant naught to the folkbirtht. After quarter of a minute one of the guardians kicked her legs out from under her and she was frogmarched(2) away still screaming and shouting of racists and fascist bastards. Gage, who had originated from the same city as the incomers, was, as a result of the woman’s abuse, starting to remember things he hadn’t thought of since his own incursion as a child of ten, and as a result of his thoughts he considered the incomers needed to be treated with a great deal of caution.
There was considerable unrest at the woman’s removal and the guardians, who as their training had instilled in them had already picked their targets, drawn their swords, nocked their arrows and elsewise unlimbered their weapons, engaged a baleful eye contact with whom they were going to kill if need be. Gage telt the incomers, “This is our home, we make the decisions here not you, if you don’t like that just say so and I shall have you taken outside into the cold, without the warm clothing or aught else we have providet and you can start making decisions by deciding for yourself what you are going to do regards the caltth to keep warm and quick.(3) Now I suggest, if you wish to stay warm and quick, you quieten and listen to the Mistress at arms who will tell you, not ask you, what is going to happen. Twenty-seven of you have already dien from the caltth and without our help the rest of you will follow them betimes. I know what I am spaeking of because I was in your position more than fifty years over when I came here as a boy…and I came from the same place you doet.”
When Willow addresst the incomers it was very different from Thomas’ meeting at the last incursion. In the larger group it was apparent many women were deferential to the point of terror towards the older men who were insisting on their right to be separate, to follow their own way of life, eschew the Folk’s culture and to deal with their own as they saw fit. That the Folk had removed all the children before dawn infuriated the men, and they insisted the children of their kind had to be returned. Willow telt them “Children are not property and since you have no way of ensuring the children will survive the caltth of the day never mind the night, even be they your own children, they would be taken into the wardship of the Folk, because I would have considered it proper to so do, and as the Mistress at arms it is my decision to make.”
An old man with a long, white beard and a completely covered head threatened Willow with violence from his people if she did not comply with their demands. Gage telt him, “If you threaten any of us again it will be the last thing you ever do, the guardians are all traint to act autonomously and to kill not constrain, so I suggest you are very careful as to how you phrase your requests.” The man continued with his threats, working himself up all the while, eventually changing language and waving his clenched fists at Willow. The Folk, not understanding a word, now watched impassively, but when he took his second step towards Willow, Forge, a quiet, calm and considered man, one of Gage’s trackers who had a high level of change, moved the six strides twixt he and the threatening old man almost faster than the eye could see to behind him and cut his throat from just below his right ear to just below his left, efficiently severing jugulars(4) and carotids(5) in one easy curving motion. The man now had a red beard, but he was silent. Forge threw the man away from himself avoiding any blood on his clothing, but he did wipe his sword clean on the man’s clothes.
Gage waited for the furore to die down and expressed gratitude to Forge for his prompt reaction in protecting Willow, before telling the incomers, “I warnt him regards threatening any, yet he doetn’t even do me the courtesy of believing me. I suggest you start to listen and take seriously what any of us tell you. If you don’t you are going to die, and none of us will be in the least bothert by the deadth of another witless member of the flaught,(6) or three hundred of them. It is of no import to us if you all die, for we have no use for the flaught. I am willing to kill all of you myself, as are all of my staff.” Since the incomers were outnumbered ten to one by heavily armed Folk, one of whom they had seen move with astonishing speed, and they had no doubt now Gage meant exactly what he had just said there was nothing they could do and they quietened quickly.
Willow resumed her spaech, but she had the distinct impression most of the male incomers weren’t even listening to her, though most of the women were paying careful attention. A black skinned, tall, heavily built man came in as Willow was finishing spaeking, he threw a man’s head onto the floor in front of the incomers and said, “I catcht him thiefing from an empty house, Gage, and he expectet me to ignore him because his skin was almost as dark as mine.” The guardian shrugged his shoulders in perplexity at that, and continued, “Then he attackt me with that.” The guardian contemptuously threw a knife with a blade barely a span [4 inches, 10cm] long on the ground to join its late owner’s head and maekt a conspicuous shew of scabbarding his sword, which was a stride [3 feet, 1m] long.
Since Willow had already cautioned the incomers regards the consequences of thieft Gage merely said, “Gratitude, Cleavers.” Willow concluded by explaining since both the killing they had seen and the one they had been maekt aware of were fully in accordance with the Way she would be ensuring both of the guardians involved were suitably rewarded for their prompt and proper service to the Folk. Most of the incomers remained with her rather than going to join the Folk when invited to, and it was decided to interview all the incomers. The incomers who had chosen to join the Folk were escorted to the Keep and their initial interviews conducted there.
Those who chose to remain were kept under guard and escorted individually to their initial interviews at Outgangside. They were all interviewed privately and it was explained in detail to each how none would be able to hurt them or control their lifes if they decided to become Folk. To do so was gainst the Way and any who attempted to do so would be expelled into the caltth to die. They were all telt variations of, “Those who will not live by our Way may not live with us and we will not help them.” Most of the women thus reassured expressed a wish to live according to the Way with the Folk, they were telt they were well come, and escorted to the Keep, where it was planned second interviews would take place nextday where further explanations of placements, both personal and craft, would be provided. Most of the initial interviews with the men from both groups were just a ceaseless set of demands accompanied by vitriolic abuse with a complete refusal to even listen to what the Folk were trying to tell them. In these cases the interviewers terminated the interview and had the guardians escort the intransigent incomer to a different warehouse.
When the as yet un-interviewed men of the larger group realised none was returning from their interviews, and in particular the women, they refused to allow the Folk to interview any more women. One of the men trying a different method to force the guardians into complying with their demands grabbed an incomer woman from the smaller group and with a knife to her throat threatened to kill her if their demands were not met. The crossbow quarrel, which removed his left ear immediately followed by his right ear leaving a half span hole through his skull, precipitated a brief and bloody skirmish, left six dead and eight dying male incomers along with thirty-odd with injuries of various levels of severity. One had pulled a hand gun from his pocket, but before he could use it Gage had taken it off him, along with most of his right arm. None of the women were hurt, and it cost the guardians naught. Gage instructed the guardians to escort all the remaining un-interviewed women to a different building, and Willow instructed they were to be interviewed next.
“Search them all to the skin,” Gage instructed, “and all the others in the other buildings, the women too. Tell them I sayt you shall kill any who offer resistance or who insist on any modesty at all.” The guardians searched all for weapons, and had to kill a further six men. The women on being telt to undress were clearly unhappy. One of the older women askt, “We understand the necessity, and we shall do as you say, but it is not in accord with our customs for a women to be even a little uncovered in front of any man other than her husband and it will be embarrassing to us.” She hastily added, “We shall learn the new customs, but it will take time. Could we undress in front of women guards only?”
Meggann a senior male guardian replied, “Your request is not unreasonable. It goes gainst the Way to deliberately embarrass any for no good reason. I shall bring enough women guardians to replace the men. Too, I shall have them bring suitable clothes for those of you to wear who are dresst in a fashion that will make you stand out from the Folk and doubtless subject you to unwillen attention. Most of the Folk will treat you tightly even dresst as you are, but a few will not.” He smiled at the women and added, “And there is no saying what children would say or do.”
One of the the women who was heavily cowled with just a slit in her headdress for her eyes said in a young sounding voice, “Our children are no different.” Most of the women with uncovered faces could be seen to be smiling. A point of similarity had been established, a small point, but it was a start.
Meggann continued, “Please do not interpret this as a desire on our part to humiliate you. I’m sure it will not be easy to change the way you dress so dramatically, but it is so you are not humiliatet and can become Folk more easily that I must insist you comply.”
All was done, and a number of the women were found to have very sharp knifes in their clothing with half span [two inch, 5cm] blades. The knifes were on a ring with a small but deep spoon also on the ring. After all clothing had been searched, the women were telt they could dress and asked of the knifes. An elderly woman explained, “It is a food preparation knife and a spice measure. All the women of my culture have them and they are precious to us because they are passed down from mother to daughter. Mine has been in my family for five generations. Many will have been in families for many more than that.”
There was a murmuring of agreement and a young woman who could not have been twenty pointed to hers and telt the guardians with great pride, “I am the tenth woman of my family to have prepared food with that knife and measure.” It was agreed that the women could retain their heirlooms as clearly none was a threat to any and the guardians telt them to collect them from the table.
Some of the women were clearly uneasy with their new clothes, but an ancient looking old crone cackled at the younger women, “It would seem there are no marriage arrangers here, and you have to admit you’ll find it easier to attract a husband dressed like that, even if you do feel naked.”
When the male guardians returned a number of the women who had been heavily cowled looked mortified and wouldn’t look any in the eyes. The woman who had remarked that their children were no different from Folk children noticed Meggann looking intently at her. “Please don’t look at me like that,” she requested. “I’m finding this very difficult.”
Meggann who had noted she was mayhap twenty and pretty asked, “Would it be different were we to have agreement?”
“What does that mean?”
“If we were marryt.”
“Of course. A man has a right to see all his wife has to offer.”
“I see, and I would like to see that. In accord with both our traditions of course. What is your name? And how old are you.”
The young woman understanding the implications of what he had said gratefully replied, “I’m Maleeha. It means beautiful and charming, and I’m sixteen. My father had arranged a marriage for me when I was fourteen, but to my shame the man’s family decided my dowry wasn’t large enough, even though I should have been his fourth wife, which is why I haven’t a husband. What is your name? And what of your other wives? Would they make my life difficult because I have nothing, no dowry I mean?”
“I am Meggann, and I have no other wifes. My first and only wife dien in an accident two years over. I have two daughters, Gilos is aegt six and Keelyfa is four. I readd in the records what a dowry is and it is an alien thing to us. I like your name for it is true. Do we have agreement, Maleeha?”
“What do we have to do to be married?”
“I have askt you, so all you have to do is agree and then we are agreäns. All I expect is that we come to have a care to each other, you care for our girls and with luck we have more family.”
“What will you punish me for? I’d like to know, so I do not anger you.”
Though not deeply versed in the records, Meggann had read enough concerning incursions over the centuries to be aware of what Maleeha was referring to. “I’m not saying you will never anger me, nor indeed that I shall never anger you, but I shall never hit you. That is not in accord with the Way, and I should consider that such behaviour would make less of a man of me.”
It was a very surprised Maleeha who said in a small voice, “My father was not a wealthy man, so I had never thought it possible that I should be a first wife, married to a man who would never chastise me, and to achieve that with no dowry is unheard of where I came from.”
“You’ve not agreen to marry me yet, Maleeha.”
“Oh yes. I agree, and I promise to try to learn your ways as quickly as I can, but I do wish those other men would stop looking at me.”
“Those men and the women too are looking at you because we are holding hands. A few of the men will be jealous I have acquiert such a pretty wife so quickly. In a minute or two they will probably congratulate us on our agreement, and it is normal here to wish a recent wife an early pregnancy, so don’t be surpriest. I know in some cultures on Earth it is normal for a wife to be the property of her husband and it is here too, but unlike in those cultures here a man is the property of his wife too.” Maleeha was stunned by that, and even more so when Meggan kissed her in public before saying, “I still have things to do, but I shall be back betimes. I’ll send a message to one of my sisters to assist you to settle in. If any ask or wish to discuss chambers tell them you have agreement with Meggann the guardian and have chambers at the huntsman’s place.”
One of the men killed during the search had under his robes what many assumed to be a weapon of some sort. It was taken to Gage, who said, “That needs to be given to the machiners to examine. With any luck they’ll be able to produce some. It is an AK 47 Kalashnikov assault rifle and I’ll remove the ammunition before any is hurt. I’ve only ever seen a few when I was just a child before my incursion. I know nothing of them, but doubtless Dittander, Vetch and their crafters can discover exactly how it works. They need to be given the hand gun too. I’ve already taken the magazine out of that.”
There were no lightly wounded incomers due to the training laid down initially by Will decades before who had insisted, “If someone forces you to fight it is no part of your craft to make work for the healers. Kill him.” From the larger group, the coöperative newfolk were women with three elderly, confused men. It was noticeable no other men from that group joined the Folk and the five women who did not were elderly.
The men, still learning nothing from their experiences, despite the dead and dying, were outraged all of the women had gone, and they demanded the women and children were returned immediately and they also demanded help for the dying. They were telt by Gage, “The women are no more property than the children, and all who have not returnt have either chosen to become Folk and now live with us, or have been taken to another building. Why should we help those who chose to attack us? We prefer them dead. They are of your kind. You help them. I remind you you are in no position to demand aught, that you are quick not dead is due to an act of charity on our part which we can terminate at any time.” The men were yet again telt it was still an option for them to join the Folk, but they scornfully refused to even consider the idea.
Most of the men in the smaller group would not accept the concept they too had to live by the same rules everybody else did, the dead thief was one of this group. They didn’t seem to understand they would have to contribute. Most believed they ought to be chambered, fed and enabled to do what ever they wished in return for nothing, one said in mitigation of his point of view, “Da bitches, dey work, man!” From this group the coöperative were a few elderly men, most of the women and some younger males, the younger males were immature and very young, little more than boys. The social worker remained with the uncoöperative. At her interview she had been obnoxiously demanding, and her interviewers hadn’t bothered to listen to her diatribe.
Willow and Gage knew what they wished to do regards the intransigents, but felt their decisions should be approven by Wayland as neither wished to do aught not in accord with the Way. Wayland’s view was simple, “The Way tells us any who demonstrates a wish to live by the Way as a member of the Folk by doing so must be helpt as much as is possible. The Way also tells us those who transgress the Way or threaten the Folk are the concern of the Mistress at arms, and then the Master huntsman should she so decide. We have maekt it possible for all the incomers to state their desires privately, secure in the knowledge if they choose to join us their futures are safe and free from any retribution from other incomers. They have also been maekt aware of sufficient of our way of life to know how they can expect to live. They have now maekt their decisions, which for many of the intransigent seem to be baest on religious fanaticism or an unacceptable greed rather than reason. Now we and they have to live with the consequences of those decisions. When they are safely dead it will need to be written down in detail for those who may have to deal with similar incomers in the future.”
Those who chose to not join the Folk were considered by Gage and Willow, with Wayland’s agreement, to be too dangerously untrustworthy to warrant making any further attempt to persuade them to join the Folk and it was reluctantly decided to accede to their demands for self determination and to deal with them in a way similar to how, the archives informed them the Puritans had been dealt with centuries before. As Willow remarked to Gage, Gabriëlla, Heidi, Rampion, Prudence, Io and Æneascoffey at the meeting at half to five that eve, “They’re choosing deadth. I don’t like it, but I can accept it since, unlike the way the Puritansʼ incursion was dealt with, we have not allowt them to take the children to their deadths, and by interviewing them privately over half of them have willingly joint the Folk. However, I’m not allowing the rest to put any of the Folk, birtht or new, at risk. Now all we have to do is, as Wayland sayt, wait and write it all down for the records.”
Prudence daughter and heir of Lady Heidi, the highly intelligent wife of Rampion, Lord of Castle, was seen listening to the whispering of her usually silent wife, Io. Eventually Prudence asked, “Surely, Willow, the five elder women who have not joint us are no threat? Unlike the rest they seem aflait(7) and have not been unpleasant to us. There are many who would find a grandmother well come. Could we not try again with them?”
“We have already tryt twice, Prudence, but I am more than willing to try again. I am sure their problem is they are aflait of retribution from their menfolk if they join us, but we can’t compel them to join us. However, I’ll spaek with them myself. Wayland, would you be willing to assist?” The others nodded their approval at her request for Wayland’s help as he was a gifted behaviourist. Wayland agreed, and the women were yet again met with privately. This time, at Wayland’s suggestion, each meeting with a family desperate for a grandparent for their young children. Wayland spake with the families first explaining what he was attempting, how he was going to do it and what would be appropriate from them to assist. With a child on her knee, and being telt how desperately she was needed as a grandmother it proven to be impossible for any of the women to gainsay their interest. When it was explained as a member of a Folk family any move gainst her would be considered as a move gainst not only her entire family but the Folk too their fears had been put to rest sufficiently for three of them to join the family.
The other two women had still been reluctant to join the Folk till Wayland telt them no men of their group had joined the Folk and they would surely be dead from the caltth within three days at most, but he suspected most would die thisnight. He didn’t need to tell them if they didn’t accept this opportunity he thought they would be dead thisnight too, but seeing signs of yielding he did tell them any who survived would be killed by the Folk on sight. Both women had started crying and the women of the families who wished them comforted them and telt them all this flaitsome(8) spaech of deadth was flaughtth.(9) Of course they didn’t wish to die any more than their grandchildren wished them to. No more was said, and the women left with their new families.
The intransigents both men and women demanded to know what the Folk planned to do with them, taking pride in their intransigence, confident the Folk would have to back down if they held to it. They simply could not envisage the notion if they did not coöperate willingly the Folk wished them dead. When Gage telt them, “We have no intention of doing aught with you,” they thought they had won, not realising how ominous that statement was. They were not quite so certain they had won when Gage finished his remark, “You are free to leave when ever you will, the guardians will ensure you leave all our property behind as you go.”
The appropriate parts of the plans, which covered every conceivable set of circumstances connected with incursion, that had been started fifty years over by Will, Pilot and Yew and later developed by Gale, Gage and others were put into operation. All the inhabitants and resources of Outgangside, including all animals, possessions, furniture, furnishings, tools, fuel, and food, were removed under guard to the Keep, leaving just the shells of empty buildings. The few buildings where that was not possible like the White Swan and the still house were securely boarded up up in such a way that entry could only be forced with tools the incursionists would not have access to. After the last of the Folk entered the Keep, the moat bridge was withdrawn and the Keep gates shut, and the remainder of the incomers were left to do what they wished. Gage not only had the gas, electricity and water supplies cut off he had the fires doused. Many of the Folk, at first, thought he was being deliberately vindictive, which was not in accord with the Way. When he asked them if they were personally going to rebuild all the buildings the incomers razed to the ground in their despite, and Wayland and Prudence smiled in agreement, they conceded his point. By eight that eve the intransigents had been left to their fate. It was full dark and already ten below freezing.
\
Nextday, the group of five, Hermione, Silvia, Karl, Lionel and Stewart, who had all gladly joined the Folk immediately at their first opportunity, spake with the Master at arms staff as a group. The Master at arms staff had been surprised by their request to be interviewed together, but were willing to go along with it since it was obvious the five had spaken at longth and reached some kind of accommodation as to their future with each other. For three of them their stories had a lot in common, they had been hard working contributing members of their society which had taken Collective contributions(10) off them to the point where they could barely survive to keep those who would not work: those who thiefen what ever they could off them whilst they were working. All five had approven of Forge’s and Cleavers’ actions and the Folk’s reaction to them. All five were tired of having lived on the edge of threats and violence for too long, and the prospect of no longer having to was a good one.
Hermione, an attractive slender redhead, telt Gage, “You have no idea how glad I am to be here. I lived in a nightmare, on the edge of an area populated by over a hundred thousand scum like those who would not join you. They would not work and did nothing to help themselves. The only things they were any good at was stealing, drinking and breeding more of themselves, who like their parents had no brains, skills or abilities other than stealing, drinking and breeding. Their women started breeding like coneys as soon as they hit double figures in years of age, and they had one every year till nature put a stop to it. I have never married nor had any children. I should have loved to have had children, but I shouldn’t have been able to feed them. I was only just managing to feed myself and was dreading becoming older. The prospect of infirmity in old age was terrifying. I’m thirty-seven and I want children. I’d like to be married, but married or not I want children. I am good at sewing, knitting and crochet and would like to continue making clothes.” She was tearful with relief, and Silvia hugged her.
Silvia, who was a smiling, plump, forty-five year old with rich golden blonde hair, going ash gray in places, telt them, “I have been a widow for five years. My husband was a lot older than I, and both my children left home before he died. They didn’t go to his funeral and never got back in touch. Like Hermione, I was dreading becoming old. I had paid into the system all my life and the elderly people I knew were struggling to survive on their pensions. There was talk of further reductions in the pension, and as someone who had been in work there were no benefits available. I suspect for some starvation is going to become a reality. What ever my life holds here it has to be better than what I was facing. Like Hermione I repaired and made my own clothes, but I also grew a few vegetables and I should like to continue to do so. I don’t want to be on my own any more and children would be a gift.”
Lionel, who was a medium highth man of heavy build with dark hair and a small bald patch, said, “I never had any family and went straight out of foster care into the police force. I was a police officer for twenty-five years, I joined as a cadet when I was a naïve sixteen year old, and it was quite a while before I realised most of my colleagues were taking bribes and doing anything but upholding the law. The law was for sale to the highest bidder and they were just criminals, some of them serious criminals. I didn’t dare leave because, my naïveté long a thing of the past by then, I knew I should have been hunted down and killed. I had seen it happen to others, and in any case I should have had nothing to go to that would have fed me. I am very glad to be here. I’m not sure what I can do here, but I should find it rewarding to grow food. I should also like a family of some sort, any sort really.”
Karl was thirty-two and physically he was a ten year younger version of Lionel. “I never had a job, there were none to be had. I lived with my parents and three older siblings just outside a small town or perhaps a large village is a better description. My parents had a large house with a decent amount of land, it had been the local vicarage, where we grew all our own food and kept a small amount of livestock for our own use. We had never had anything stolen from us but the tales of theft some of our neighbours were relating were becoming more frequent. My sister, who was the eldest, had two children and then her husband was killed in a riot when he went to town on market day to sell some eggs. One of my brothers was about to be married, and they were going to live with us. I was interested in a local lass who had always smiled at me and things were progressing nicely, we had started walking out together. A few months ago my other brother and my sister had a huge row with Dad when he found them kissing. Mum told Dad if he forced them out she would go too, because at least it was keeping the family together. Roland moved into Sheila’s bed and Dad came round in the end because he didn’t have any choice. When I came here Sheila was pregnant and life had settled down, but the world around us was definitely deteriorating. I know a lot about growing food and raising animals and I should like to continue to do so. I want a wife and children.”
Stewart, who it emerged came from a much later when than the others, telt them, “I’m forty-two, and when I was a child I constantly heard people complaining about the loss of the communication and entertainment network, but I am sure it had stopped working before I was born. I have no recollection of seeing any one use it. By the time I was in my teens all rule of law had broken down and electricity and gas supplies were history. The water supply was erratic and what there was was from standpipes in the streets. The pollution levels in the air and rivers were going down because nobody was making anything any more, but the oceans and huge tracts of land were poisoned and none had any idea if rather than when they would recover. Virtually all wild animals larger than foxes had been extinct for lifetimes. There were bedtime stories grandparents used to tell their kids about a magic man who could appear and disappear called The Music Man who, hundreds of years before, slapped the authorities in the face and warned them of what was to come but nobody took any notice of him. We loved those stories, and as a child I should have given anything to have seen those big animals in the tales, but once I grew up I thought they were were just stories to help kids to sleep. Now, I’ve already seen some big animals here and I’ve been told there are many more even bigger that I haven’t, so maybe there was some truth in Granny’s stories.
“Those who lived in the cities and large conurbations were in serious trouble. Neighbourhood watch groups became vigilantes, most genuinely protected their area, but some were thinly disguised gangs of criminals who preyed on those they supposedly protected. Decent people were welcomed when they moved out into the rural areas and helped to grow and raise food and they did so by the hundreds of thousands. The roads were falling into a state of disrepair, but there was no longer any fuel for engine powered vehicles, and the horses could easily avoid the potholes. There was no government, central or local, that had any authority, and the benefits system had long since ground to a halt since no one had paid taxes for years. There was no money, it was worthless, just so much paper and bits of metal. Though I’d never seen any, gold was said to be still in use. I can’t remember any one ever using money. All trade in my memory was by barter.
“The largest single effect of this was the feijn,(11) which was what the scum and underclasses were referred to as, could only live by looting and stealing and it had become dangerous to move about any where near them unless armed and in considerable force. The feijn were not bright enough to realise they were living off a finite and very limited capital resource, and they had no concept of eating the most perishable foodstuffs first, and eventually the supplies of food in the cities started to run out. They’d destroyed far more than they’d eaten. They’d break into a warehouse full of food, spoil the contents of a whole case to pull a single item out, eat, smash the place and everything in it to pieces and then set it on fire. Many cities were smouldering for years. The few of them who had the ability to grow food, mostly old men with an allotment(12) plot, the others stole from and when the old men resisted they were killed. Since it never occurred to their killers to take over the plots and grow their own food, that particular finite resource soon shrank and disappeared. A feija(13) on his own was an idiot. Put two of them together and they became a mob, and what little intelligence they had then evaporated, and they became much worse than a fox in a hen house. If anything their women had become more feral than their men. Decent people who lived any where near cities or large towns were fighting every day to protect what little they grew and raised and the feijn killed millions of them, usually for crops that weren’t any where near ready for harvesting.
“It had got so bad that over twenty years ago fifty or so men with our families moved from the small town we lived in to take over an old and just about derelict fortified farm house complex one of us knew about in the hills a long way to the north of where we originated.”
“Where did you come from Stewart? And where did you go?” Silvia asked.
“I’d lived in Matlock Derbyshire all my life and we went to a place in north Cumbria not far from the border with Scotland. We knew we should be able to provide fuel, mostly wood, from the extensive nearby woodlands, but the feijn wouldn’t, using a saw or an axe was skilled work and as such beyond them on both counts, and most of them would tend to stay further south where the climate was warmer. We found an old man called Dennis living there on his own who said he was the owner and his life had become so bad since his wife had died three years before he had finally given up. He had fallen and broken his arm a few days before and was now looking forward to death. He was weak from cold and hunger and couldn’t do much because of his arm. He didn’t look like he would have lasted the week out. He said we could have the place with his blessing for a hot meal. Pete set his arm and splinted it with some thin wooden laths and old hay bale string. We fed him, and when he was warm and fed he explained all about the place to us, which he said was built around what he called a Pele Tower.(14)
“He was desperate we should stay, or if we didn’t for us to take him with us when we left, and was pathetically grateful when we told him we had been looking for his place with a view to settling there. His family had farmed there for generations, he’d been born there, and he was a mine of information and enabled us to make the whole place much more secure quickly and efficiently. His knowledge of the surrounding area was invaluable as we had inadequate supplies of clothing and bedding, and we’d only been able to take a minimum of tools with us, which had had to double as weapons, because some of the kids had to be carried. We’d originally chosen the place for ease of defence not comfort, but Dennis had a workshop that had just about everything we could ever need in it, including a lathe and a milling machine he’d converted to run off treadles. We repaired the roof on the house with materials on site with Dennis’ advice, bricked in the ground floor windows and all doors bar one, which we reinforced with steel plate on both sides, and we soon made it comfortable. At the same time we improved the fortifications and defences generally. Dennis said it was like it had been when he was a kid and he’d been a member of a large extended family that all lived and worked there.
“Eventually, as we knew would happen, the feijn found out about us and when the bastards came to steal the food we raised and grew, the children, old people and some of the women took their positions in the tower. The rest of us went to the fortifications we had built and improved, and the feijn found themselves in an open space with nowhere to hide being attacked by cross bow quarrels from all directions and unable to retreat. It was raining heavy rubble on their heads. Even small kids can throw half bricks and cobble stones downwards, and we must have had several tons of them up there for them to throw. After that they came regularly. None ever survived, but that didn’t stop them coming, so we just collected up the quarrels and took the half bricks and cobbles back up again, constantly adding to the collection, and prepared for the next time. We were prepared for a raid during the night, and it surprised us they never came after dark. The only explanation we could think of was they were afraid of the dark, but as their numbers increased with each attack to play safe we removed the ground floor door to the house, bricked in the doorway and enlarged a first floor window to make a doorway we accessed by a hinged staircase we pulled up at night. We used the original steel plated door up there.”
“What did you eat to start with. You wouldn’t have had enough food surely?” Karl asked.
“We had very little to start with, and Dennis didn’t have much either. We got good at scrounging from deserted shops, but that source dried up quickly. We planted food with what ever seeds we could find. Dennis and a couple others knew about wild food, most was as bitter as hell, but it was better than starving. We got better at catching coneys in snares and the odd sheep was a bonus, but we were always hungry.
“By this stage firearms were almost as much a thing of the past as electricity due to the lack of ammunition, and people like us made and used crossbows. We learnt a lot about reality from our women. Any one who threatens a woman’s kids when she has a crossbow in her hands has a life expectancy to be measured in seconds. Our fourth year there we’d had a bad harvest, we’d lost more stock than we’d bred and the coney hunting had been poor too. We were facing hunger, it wasn’t desperate, but it didn’t look like it would be too good by late winter and spring. We had just been raided and were considering a return raid for food when one of the women who was pregnant and had several kids said, ‘What for? They only raid us because they’ve got nothing to eat other than rats and a few coneys. They’ve eaten all the dogs and cats they could catch and have started on each other. There’s more meat than we can eat lying all around us. I’m damned if I’m risking making my kids orphans when there’s food for them to eat here.’ ”
“You’re joking aren’t, Stewart? You didn’t eat people surely?”
“Never been more serious, Hermione. Most of us weren’t happy about it. That is we weren’t till she’d butched(15) one, and we could smell the meat cooking. We all had more than enough to eat that night and never looked back. Starvation as a real threat had just disappeared. Funny thing was that Valerie who suggested it and butched the first feija was definitely a member of the upper classes. Feijn beef, feijf(16) we called it, it tasted good and was easier to crop than the stock we raised, it was certainly more plentiful and available all year. We had a plentiful supply of salt from an old road grit depot, must have been tens of thousands of tons of the stuff, you just dissolve it and let the bits settle and skim it before using the brine, and feijf made good ham which kept a long time too. The kids called it fam(17) from feijf ham, so we did too.”
The horrified looks on the others’ faces gradually faded as they reached understanding of the situation Stewart’s community faced, watch your children starve or eat folk who came to hurt or even kill those children to eat.
“The raiders were never more than an ill-discipled rabble, they were usually drunk, and whipped to a frenzy by some feija who liked to think he was their leader. Producing alcohol seemed to be the only technology they had retained. They always made so much noise we knew they were coming an hour in advance. By this time they had to attack via routes of our choosing due to our improvements to the fortifications, which included thickets of trees we’d planted to funnel them to where they were easy to pick off, and after one of us put a quarrel through the so called leader’s skull they’d just mill around screaming and shouting. I always aimed for the young tender ones first. Funny you know, you plant a few small trees, the black ones with the long thorns are especially good, sloes(18) Dennis called them, and in three years they are ten feet high, impenetrable and can’t be pulled up. They spread like hell putting up hundreds of new trees from their roots which beats the daylights out of building walls and piling up rubble. The feijn could have burnt their way in I suppose, but that would have required brains and a source of fire neither of which they ever seemed to have with them. Every now and again some of the raiders were wearing the uniform of the civil defence or police, but those organisations had long disappeared and they were just fools with guns, which they never had any ammunition for, but to play safe we killed the ones with guns first and they died and ate just like any other piece of feijf.”
“How long did that go on for, Stewart?” asked Lionel
“After six years or so we were being raided so often we’d looked for and joined with another three groups like ourselves. Our place was the easiest to defend so the others brought their stock and moved in with us. The extra people made life a lot better and safer for all of us, and after we extended and fortified the big barn as living quarters life was pretty comfortable. We had medics, and a lot of clever people, we even had teachers educating the kids, though we were giving them an education that would be of some use to them. We’d been looking for more of our kind with a view to moving again to an even more isolated and defensible place, where it would probably have been harder to raise stock and grow a crop, but we had reckoned if we had five thousand of us a big village or a small town would have been viable and safe. We wanted to find enough of us so we could raid the feijn, primarily for kids because every one we reared would be one more to fight for us rather than raiding us in years to come. We reckoned if they became like their parents we could always eat them. We were unaware then that the feijn were not going to be a problem to any one for much longer.
“How so?”
“Starvation, disease and fighting with each other, but like I said, Karl, we didn’t know that then. Our network of communications amongst different groups of survivors was becoming more extensive all the time and it wasn’t long before there were going on twenty thousand of us in contact. We started thinking in terms of taking over a decent sized town rather than a hill farm or a village, preferably an old one at some elevation we could fortify within a season, and again as far to the north of us as possible. A few of us knew about a pretty bleak place called Nentgill that was a thousand feet above sea level which though it had virtually no defences was very isolated and difficult to reach, but an elderly member of one of the groups had been a historian and she was an expert on old settlements in the border country, and she suggested we go to look at Caerwick first, which, though it was not much above sea level, she reckoned had had feasibly repairable town walls and an immediately defensible castle when she last saw it forty years before. She thought a population of twenty thousand could do any necessary repairs quickly, and still keep safe from the feijn.
“I always wanted to see Caerwick because it was supposedly where The Music Man of Granny’s stories had performed. Fifty or so of us went to look and we reckoned it could easily house fifty or sixty thousand within the walls under siege conditions if the besiegers were primitive idiots like the feijn. Granny’s stories were believable, the Castle and most of the walls were ancient but intact needing little repair, though there were sizeable missing stretches of the town wall, but everything else within the walls was of relatively recent construction. At a low elevation and near the west coast winters would be wet but mild and crops easy to grow nearby with little loss of stock. We planned how to take it over it for weeks and three thousand of us moved into the castle in early spring with the growing season and good weather in front of us. It was almost too easy, the castle was empty and the few feijn still living within the town walls attacked immediately and we wiped them out just as quickly, which fed us for a while. We had crossbows and they had knives, sticks and hedging tools. The first thing we did was replace the castle gates which had rotted, the massive metal work was fine and it didn’t take long to sort the wood work out. We used whole spruce logs a foot in diameter braced with the same across them all dogged together with steel reinforcing rods from concrete bent up at the ends and pointed on an anvil when hot. We planned on doing a proper job when the town walls were repaired. Then we started to rebuild the missing sections of the town wall whilst some went back and managed the movement of the rest of us, including kids, elderly and our stock, tools and stores, to our new home.
“By late summer twenty-five thousand of us had settled in with our stock and stores, and the town wall was completely repaired at thirty feet thick to a minimum height of eight feet on the outside all the way round and the missing bits were still going up. We’d gradually demolished all the buildings around the walls except those that forced raiders to approach as we wanted. We used the recoverable wood from the buildings to improve our living quarters and the rest to heat the bath houses and for the first time in a very long while we felt clean. We used the demolition rubble to rebuild the walls and to block approaches we wanted closed and as before we planted trees. Planting trees where we wanted them in the town could be difficult, but it was not impossible, if a gang of you take it in turn with a pick you can soon put a hole a foot deep in a tarmac road, shovel in some soil, plant a tree, water it in and it doesn’t take long for the roots to start breaking up what ever is there, even concrete. Even if that’s not possible you can build a crude container from demolition rubble to hold the soil and plant in that, the roots soon have a hold into what ever is underneath. Throwing a bit of rubble on the ground between the trees works too, it makes walking difficult, slows the wind just enough so it drops any dust it’s carrying and traps leaves. All of which soon builds into enough soil for self seeded trees to take in, and it doesn’t take long before you have an impenetrable bit of protective woodland and a nearby source of wood you can coppice for fuel.”
That would have taken years wouldn’t it?” Hermione asked.
“No. We were all amazed how fast nature can reclaim anything and everything. Within a year what we planted was useful and within three impenetrable to anything other than the most determined assault, which was beyond the feijn’s staying power. We planted all our apple and pear pips and cherry, plum, apricot and peach stones too and anything else that would be edible, brambles, raspberries, currants, hazel, walnut, chestnut, almond, wild fruit too, anything at all. Probably only a few grew but it was enough to make a difference, and it made the kids happy doing it. When we found big fruit trees we took cuttings, and we dug up small trees and soft fruit bushes to plant where they were more convenient. The kids had strawberry runners growing everywhere. The land around was good, and we were were growing and raising enough food to eat and preserving some against hard times. The river which flowed nearby was sparkling clear and a good source of fish, and someone who knew how to weave fish traps from willow taught the kids. Like I said we were giving them an education that was of some use to them. We’d never eaten as well.
“Groups of several hundred of us with outdoor skills and a few who’d managed herding dogs rounded up a lot of semi wild cattle and sheep from the hills at some distance from home. We needed the numbers in the early days to fight off any feijn we encountered. The livestock soon became re-domesticated after we’d fed them for a while. Large groups of us were also systematically foraging over an ever widening area collecting anything and everything we could from shops, warehouses and any where else we could find anything of use. We were particularly interested in finding seeds though we saved our own too. We had hundreds of expert gardeners many of who had saved their own seeds all their life. The feijn didn’t bother with tools unless they looked like a weapon, nor clothes other than what they could could take away by wearing them, so as well as the tools we found a lot of cloth, clothes and bedding. We looked for dried and preserved food, but there was never much, and what we did find we usually used immediately because even cans only last so long, and any way by that point we were producing adequate quantities of food and had more than a year’s supply in reserve. We took a lot of stuff we weren’t really bothered about so as to deny it to the feijn.
“We had fully repaired the city walls at over thirty feet high with a protected walkway all round the inside within two years, and we’d replaced the temporary woodwork on the castle gates with a proper joinery job using adze squared oak a foot thick, with a similar job on the city wall gates. We riveted the oak together with steel rivets the blacksmiths made from inch thick recycled reinforcing steel that we’d got out of concrete when we knocked stuff down. They reused the dogs that held the old gate together too. The feijn who lived in nearby areas still attempted to raid us from time to time. None ever got past the city wall, but they did manage to steal some of our livestock, so we were thinking of ways to eliminate them by the tens of thousands or more at a time if we could. Their water supplies were vulnerable and unlike them we weren’t stupid, a few dead feijn, in a reservoir or water tower soon does the trick.
“We were living much like I have been told the Folk live. Using a Folk expression, we were all precious, and we all looked after each other. Like the Folk, if people said they were wed then they were wed. Whom people slept with was nobody else’s business, and it was a cause for celebration when a woman announced she was pregnant. Women and their kids were our future, and any religious bastards who joined us and then told us we were evil, because of the way we lived, were told to shut the fuck up and either join us or fuck off back to wherever it was they had come from before we ate them. Usually they shut the fuck up pretty quickly and ate feijf just as readily as the rest of us. I suppose no matter what your views are, eating feijf has got to be better than being feijf. Like here, everyone had to do what they could, and we had no idle people amongst us, or at least if we had we weren’t aware of them because they did their share knowing what would happen to them if they didn’t.
“To start with at the farm, like all the other small groups, we had discussed all major decisions publicly, but at Caerwick with our much larger population that wasn’t feasible any more, so we elected a council. We also knew we should have to create a court of some sort. We did that by drawing lots to create a bench of twelve magistrates, each of who served for a year. Every month one retired and another was chosen by lot. No doubt there are better ways of doing it but we couldn’t think of one and it did work. Once it had been going a few months they knew what they were doing, and replacing one member a month meant the bench was never again lacking in experience. Talking of months, we were always losing track of time and most of us related things to the moon’s phases. After all, there it was easy to see most nights, and we all knew when it would be full because there were some things we needed the extra light for.
“Some people who arrived said they had abandoned the old calender one year when they realised nobody had a clue whereabouts in the year they were other than it was somewhere in late summer, possibly early autumn, and they’d only managed to work that out with the help of some of their women who said their periods were reasonably regular. Their solution was to use the moon’s months and invent another month name. After a bit of discussion they’d decided to keep the twelve month names we had and added an extra month called Christmas at the end. They decided the first of January would always be on the shortest day because that way they reckoned if they made a mistake somewhere in the year the new year would start afresh without carrying the mistake forward. All their months now had twenty-eight days except Christmas which had twenty nine and thirty every four years. It seemed like a good idea, so that was how Caerwick reckoned the year, and we drew two for the court that month so it had thirteen on the bench, one for each month.
“The court had little to do, and the ultimate sanction was expulsion which up to me arriving here had never happened, usually infringement of the few rules we had was punished by extra work, in the early days either helping to make cement or carrying demolition rubble for the wall builders, but later usually working in the canteen kitchens. There was no stigma attached to it, loads of us had done it, usually as a result of a jug too many, and many did it who didn’t have to, just for the crack.(19) I’d done two lots of it as a judgement and dozens for the crack. Once you’d done your judgement it was over and forgotten, though it was something to have a good laugh about in the evenings with a jug or two. We even had a singer song writer who immortalised some of us and our judgements in song.
“We’d managed to preserve what we wanted of our old culture and created a new one and we had a better education system for our kids than most of us ever went through. It had always worried us we should be forced down into barbarism, but the combination of those who knew how to teach, those who knew what had to be taught and our older people who had both the memories and the time to spend with the kids, and who made learning exciting, was just what was required to prevent the loss of our culture and the knowledge we all needed to survive. Dennis, who had owned the farm and was now training the managers of our farming activities, was amazing with the kids, girls as well as boys, they all called him Granddad Dee. He knew what would motivate them to learn. Everything he did or said was a lesson for them and they never forgot any of it. The kids were learning the practical things as well as the more academic stuff that gave them a sense of history and identity and more importantly a future. We had as near as damn it one hundred percent of our population literate, because as one of the boys told me ‘Granddad Dee says if you can’t write it down so someone can read it after you’re dead there’s no point in bothering to learn it.’
“We were more than holding our own. We were systematically slaughtering the feijn. We did it quite calculatedly, it was simply an us or them situation. Yes we ate them, but if we hadn’t we should have died early on and then we’d have had no need of a culture or an education system. We didn’t create the situation. We just made sure we could survive it. It wasn’t healthy leaving corpses lying about after a raid, and any way eating the bastards and feeding the offal and scraps to the cats, dogs and ferrets and ploughing the rest in as fertiliser was much less work than burying them.
“I told you we learnt a lot from our women, one of them at a strategy meeting insisted we kill the feijn women first because they were what limited their population. Most of us couldn’t see that, we thought it would be the men that did that, but she explained it this way, ‘If there’s a population of a hundred women and a hundred men and we kill ninety-nine men and one escapes us next year they can rear a hundred children, because the women will share the man who can certainly get two women a week pregnant. On the other hand if we kill ninety-nine women and one escapes us next year they can rear one child, and with just one woman and a hundred men the men will kill each other to possess the woman, we win all ways round.’ It made sense. It’s brutal, but that’s what we started to do, given multiple targets, if we could tell the difference, we took out the women first.
“By the time I left, I reckon my township alone had wiped out at least a quarter of a million feijn and there were none living within two days journey by horse. They no longer had their previous massive superiority of numbers, were now more frightened of us than we were of them and they were permanently hungry, which made them even more dangerous. I was told their life expectancy was down to under thirty. I have no idea how that was worked out or even if it were just nonsense but it seemed credible, or maybe we just wanted to believe it. Our population was increasing rapidly. Most girls were married at fifteen, boys a little older, and it wasn’t unusual for women to have four kids by the time they were twenty, and we had no problems making it all work.
“The messengers were telling us the populations of what had been major cities were now completely collapsing. Food supplies had run out, but most of the feijn weren’t dying from starvation, but from epidemic diseases which in some cases were wiping them out by the hundreds of thousands, probably due to failt sanitation, and no doubt the corpses, which were everywhere, were responsible for a great deal of the disease. None of the people I was in contact with had been into a city for years. Our best information came from remote observers with binoculars. One thing we did know for certain was the cities and larger towns were over run with rats. Some one said it was like the time of the Black Death. No longer able to raid us with safety the feijn splintered even further and started raiding each other to eat which assisted the decline of their populations.
“Originally there had been sizeable populations of ethnic minorities in various places, in some cities they comprised near enough the entire population. Most of us had no problems with them, if they had wanted to join us and live like us they would have been welcome, but a lot of them lived by codes that would have made them unwelcome to us, especially our women. The feijn had long hated them, ridiculously they blamed the ethnics for their own inadequacies and miserable lives, and early on had attacked them in force. I heard the minorities put up a good fight, but they were arrogant and weren’t ready for that level of mindless hatred. The feijn overwhelmed them by sheer force of numbers. The ethnics killed hundreds of thousands of feijn in their attempts to defend themselves, but there were millions of the feijn, and the ethnics were eventually wiped out. From our point of view that was all good news. Like you we preferred there was no alternative culture out there to become a threat to future generations.
“In the first two or three years at Caerwick half a dozen groups of several hundreds of starving minorities came seeking food and shelter. The guards at the city gates told them, ‘No religion. You may not practise religion, nor teach it to your children. If you break that rule we’ll take your children off you and kill you immediately. You have to dress and behave like us, you have to become one of us. If you don’t want to be one of us why did you come here? The moment any, you, your women, your children or your elderly eat a mouthful of our food, or are allowed in to the warm or are given anything including clothing that individual is ours and subject to our laws. We’ll feed your children, but you may not then leave with them for they are then ours. If you don’t like any of that that is your right, but you may not enter the city, and in any case you may not enter the city dressed as you are. You men must get rid of your turbans and robes and you may wear trousers or the kilts. You women have to get rid of your face coverings and the shrouding tents you are wearing. All must be instantly recognisable from a distance, so we can distinguish one of us from a potential enemy. Since you are at our gate all the adults will all be interviewed on their own, the children go with their mothers.’
“On seeing men about to object they were told, ‘You came to us. Now you are here on our land where we make the rules. If you resist we shall kill you. The women under our laws have the right to make their own minds up as to whether they choose to join us or no. They decide for themselves and their children under the age of fourteen. You men only decide for yourselves.’ The events became depressingly repetitious. We surrounded the groups with armed men, killed some as we disarmed them, all of the women, their kids and a few young men under twenty joined us under our conditions and all the men refused to join us. The refuseniks were around for a week or two but then hunger drove them off to seek food and we never saw them again. The women were all married and mostly pregnant within a year and their kids were just like any other kids.
“Our population was still growing and we were in contact with other similar groups in different parts of the country that were faring as well as we. We had over the years heard, from a few who sailed between us and the continent, the situation over the water was no different, and like with us the remaining feijn now were desperate. They were doomed, and their own stupidity was killing them. As the population of the feijn was decreasing ours was increasing, and they were only effectively in control of the disease raddled cities and large towns. People like us controlled more and more of the land that could produce food as time went on, and it was becoming easier for people to avoid the feijn. Some of the tales I heard from people who had spent months looking for us were amazing, skilled and intelligent people whom we welcomed with open arms, they came in ones, twos, dozens and even groups of a few hundred. I married three sisters who with their seven children were in a group of thirty-odd that had spent half a year looking for us, my brother was their husband too. Rosalie was pregnant with our first. I love and miss them, but I know Nicky will look after them, and our children too.”
Stewart paused and with moist eyes continued, “The tragedies we heard of families who had been looking for us and had died at the hands of the feijn, hardened us even more to their plight, if that were possible. They knew nothing, had no skills and couldn’t survive other than as parasites. The only ones still alive were parasitising each other, they were prepared to kill for a single broken shoe. What made us so inured to their fate was they were not only unwilling to change they were incapable of it. We had discussed whether we should accept any that came in desperation wanting to join us. There were mixed views about that, but the consensus was we should give them a trial to see if they could live like us, but it never happened. We came to the conclusion all capable of change had probably joined us early on, and the remainder were inimical to our survival and like any other obligate parasite that kills its host, their evolutionally days were numbered. We, like all other such townships, decided to help the last of them to die in every way we could, and believe me we were good at it. The down side was if we wanted to eat meat we had to raise it or hunt it. It no longer came looking for us, though feral cattle, sheep, pigs and wild deer populations were rising and coneys and hares had become commonplace.
“What puzzled us was the presence of bear, wolf and lynx. We initially thought there must be small populations in the Highlands somewhere and as their populations were growing they were spreading out, some coming south, but we later discovered they were widespread and didn’t seem to be coming south out of Scotland as we had originally presumed, for we heard of them being present in southern England and Wales too. Even Ireland and the Isle of Man had some. They were never any problem to us, for there was game enough by that time for them and us. It seemed unlikely anyone could import them, so the only thing we could think of was they were released from zoos by folk unwilling to allow them to starve, or they’d escaped from private estates.”
Stewart and his community were not aware there were many other species besides bear, wolf and lynx taken from many places and times by Extractor and her descendants to be placed in many parts of Earth to ensure a balanced food web. In particular the British Isles had needed large carnivores to control the impact of feral boar, coneys, deer and feral sheep on the environment, for by that time they were breeding unchecked with all their natural predators having been forced to extinction centuries ago. The last wolf in Britain was killed in the fourteenth century, the last lynx in the eighth and the last bear in the fifth. There were now hundreds of all of them all over the country. All Britain’s predators were taken from times when they were widespread and as a result of merely moving them forward in time to the areas they originated from there was no consequent genetic bottleneck. No human had seen either yet, but the wolverine, which had been extinct in Britain for six thousand years, and the British wild cat(20), which became extinct in the mid twenty-first century, were now there too. Too the populations of all other native mustelidae and raptors had been brought up to an appropriate level from the past. The ecological diversity of everywhere on the planet was now much greater than it had been for millennia.
“I arrived here not long after that, but I don’t doubt the feijn, bottled up in the cities with disease and no food, are very close to extinction, and for those like us who are prepared to live as a result of their own endeavours life is going to be much better very soon. I can’t see there being more than a handful of feijn left in two years. By then most of the rats will have either killed and eaten each other, been eaten by the predators, or died of starvation and been eaten by carrion eaters. The diseases will be a thing of the past and the sun and the rain will have cleant what little the rats and the flies will have left of the corpses. However, what remain of the feijn can have the cities. We don’t want them, but if they raid they’ll be hunted down and even the cities won’t be safe for them then. The considered opinion of our clever people was any feijn surviving in twenty, maybe thirty, certainly fifty years, and there wouldn’t be many, wouldn’t be feijn any more, they would be surviving as a result of their own endeavours like us, and we should then be thinking about coming to terms with them rather than creating a situation where we should have dangerously competent enemies nearby for all the foreseeable future.”
What was beyond the knowledge or understanding of the newfolk and folkbirtht alike was the Beings who were responsible for the incursions, considered when the Earth had cleansed itself of both human insanity and the poisons in the large water masses it would at some time in the future benefit from the reintroduction of some aquatic species, possibly even some humans, but they had decided to watch events unfold for some while longer. In order to help the process they rendered much that was toxic or dangerous, notably radioactive and polymeric materials, harmless. In the meanwhile human insanity was largely a thing of the past and the poisoned oceans and land were being cleansed by their reclamation by microscopic life; an ecological succession process had been initiated. It would take time, but eventually like all succession processes it would reach its various climaxes all suited to their environment and the beings would ensure all necessary species would be there to insure that.
“But none of that’s my problem any more. I’m here now, and I know I have to find a new life. For most of my life liquid fuel for vehicles had not been available, motorised transport and power tools are something I can only vaguely remember. Horses were our transport and we farmed with them. Many of the crafts practised on Castle were what we practised. I have no personal knowledge of most of them because I was a horseman and a linkman, that’s what we called a messenger who kept the various groups in touch with each other, and I should like to continue working with horses. I am good with a crossbow and hunting seems a good way to use my skills. As I said I’m forty-two and I was very happy being a family man and I believe the kind of marriage I had, which had become the norm for us, is reasonably common place here. I should like to live like that again because it was warm and satisfying to come home to a pile of kids and family who cared about me.
“It seems to me Castle is probably a little further forward in its development than Caerwick, but it is a way of life I am used to and at least there are no feijn here to be dealt with, though some of those ethnics don’t seem to be much different. We’d have dealt with them by eating them, but no doubt the cold will make it unnecessary. On the other hand at least the meat will keep. Either way, for what it’s worth, I shouldn’t even try persuading them to join you, they’re too dangerous. Either kill the bastards or make sure they die some other way.”
The Folk were horrified at Stewart’s tale, but even more so at what had driven him and his community to those longths, but they realised he was more Folk than the Folk in his thinking: a hard working family man committed to his community who wouldn’t hesitate to kill any who was a threat to decent folk. That Stewart’s views on the intransigents and how to deal with them paralleled those the senior Councillors had arrived at lastday, other than eating them of course, was regarded as confirmation they had come to the correct conclusion, distasteful as it was, which description under the circumstances was may hap an overly apposite word. What no one realised was just how close to termination most humans on Earth had been before they terminated themselfs.
That three of the five considered themselfs to have been rescued from a life that was almost not worth living had forged bonds mongst them and after hearing what Stewart had to say about where their future lives had been going the four were even more grateful to find themselves on Castle. The five had already explained to the Master at arms staff they had decided they would like to live together on a holding. Stewart spaeking to the other four, rather than the Folk, said, “I was thinking last night about the family I have left behind, and it occurred to me we five could form such a marriage. All I am suggesting for now is we agree to it in principle. We can agree the major things later and negotiate the rest as we proceed. Such a marriage provides all not only with bed partners, but much more security than can be found with only one spouse, particularly for any children involved. From my point of view it would provide me with two brothers as well as two wives.”
The idea couldn’t have been a complete surprise to any of the others because they were all nodding slightly as they were thinking about the matter. Silvia telt the three men with a seductive and happy smile, “It is not impossible I could have a child, and I should be thrilled if I did. I am more than willing to play my part with any of you. The world I lived in was not pleasant, and the future I had was worse. The prospects this marriage offers are not only of a better life but of a satisfying, fulfilling and exciting one.” She had maekt it clear from her words and the expression on her face she had put all her past social norms behind her and was willing to negotiate her future as it unfolded.
Lionel said, “I never had anything before in the way of family, so I have nothing to compare this with, but it seems as good as anything I have ever heard of and a lot better than most. I am very interested in having a caring family with two wives, and please don’t take offence Silvia, Hermione, but I find the idea of having two brothers equally rewarding.”
Karl shook him by the hand and said, “I understand, Lionel. Unlike you I had brothers and having brothers again will make me very happy.” He turned to the women and continued, “I am happy to agree with Stewart’s suggestions, and I suggest we discuss the matter in further detail later, but tonight.”
The three men had all smiled and Stewart had continued in response to Silvia, “That would make me very happy too, Silvia. I believe all three of us, would be happy to be a father.” Stewart looked around to see the other men nodding already. This is a new life, not as different perhaps for me as for the rest of you, but I do believe it can be a good life for all of us, and I know it’s true, as the Folk keep telling us, ‘Love will grow from adversity.’ But you have said nothing yet, Hermione.”
“It is like nothing I have ever heard of before. I don’t know why, but your suggestion was not entirely unexpected nor unwelcome to me, Stewart. Like Silvia, I want children, and am happy with the idea of three husbands and potential fathers. As you three are brothers in the same way I like the prospect of having Silvia as a sister, so yes, I agree.”
Stewart kissed Silvia and then Hermione and shook Lionel and Karl by the hand before continuing. “I do know the biggest problems that can befall a marriage like ours are jealousy and a reluctance to talk about irritations. I have been in this situation before, and I know if I have any problems with any of you I shall tell you before it threatens our marriage. I did with my brother Nicky. I can be an irritating man without meaning to be, probably because as a linkman I spent so much of my life on my own, and shall certainly not take it amiss when it is pointed out to me, and I shall promise I should try to change. I shan’t promise I shall succeed though. I can’t speak about jealousy as I have never suffered from it. My marriage was a good one. If it becomes frequent the three of us want to share a bed with a woman, and I am not assuming you women would automatically acquiesce, the solution is obvious: we find another wife. Breaking a marriage for such a reason is childish, and I shall not willingly hurt any children we may have by then by even contemplating such a thing. I might also suggest Hermione and Silvia may prefer to have another woman with us too, for many reasons.”
The two women looked at each other and nodded. Hermione said, “We think so. So it makes sense for us to be looking for someone from now. It would be nice if we could find someone with children. Also if there are any of the children who came here with us who would want us as parents I should like that.” All four of the others agreed with Hermione about another woman and children and Lionel offered her his hand which she held. She continued, “I have listened carefully to what we have been told, and I always approven of the concept of a multi-generation extended family. My mum died when I was twelve, and my dad when I was twenty. I should love to have parents and grandparents for my children. I think some of the older Asian women are going to find adjustment difficult but…” Hermione’s words trailed off as if she were not sure of what to say and how it would be received by the others.
Stewart smiled, and continued for her, “I don’t have a problem with an Asian grandmother for my children or indeed to call her Mum as long as she truly regards herself as that and is committed to the family in the same way the rest of us are. Is that what you were worried about saying, Hermione?” There was a pause and then Stewart added “However, I don’t want someone whose views are tainted by religious bullshit.” The others were clearly considering the matter, especially the issue concerning religion. It was equally clear the Folk present had no idea what they were spaeking of.
Lionel, Silvia and Karl eventually all smiled in agreement, but Hermione said, “Yes and No. I agree with what you said, Stewart, about sincerity and commitment in the matter, and about religious views too, but I had gone further. I am more than happy to have three husbands, and sharing them with Silvia and another woman or even more will be rewarding, but six of us would normally have twelve parents, so why not say six mums, or more? We are joining to create an extended family, so why not?” Again the others thought about it, and their thinking was along similar lines. This was a different world, life was different, so what odds did it make to have yet one more difference when nobody here cared about it one way or the other. One by one they all nodded in agreement and shrugged their shoulders at the same time.
Æneascoffey, who like the other Folk present had been listening intently to the five, asked, “What is the significance of an ayshen grandmother?”
Silvia replied, “It is a term that describes the members of the larger of the other two groups. It indicates where they originally came from, Asia. What Hermione was saying was we should be happy to have six older women as parents if they would be happy to have us and our children as their children and grandchildren.”
Æneascoffey asked, “Would you like me to ask members of the office to make enquiries on your behalf concerning elders and children?”
All five nodded and Lionel said, “Yes please, we should like that.”
Æneascoffey had asked all five to return in two hours as it was considered they had a clan grouping on their records that would be happy to accept them, but they needed time to locate representatives of the clan and arrange a meeting. Two hours later, the five were introduced to an Afro-Caribbean woman, three Asian women and an Afro-Caribbean man who all looked very nervous. Icicle of the Master at arms office explained, “You askt for six mothers, but it beseemt Æneascoffey you would not be averse to more or fathers too if we could so negotiate for you. We explaint regards you and your desiert life to the twenty nine elder newfolk privately. It beseemt us only Amira, Geeta, Sita, Zola and Blake were belike to be happy with you, and to meet your requirements as holder clan members crafting at some whilth from the Keep. All have expresst a desire to be in an extendet family as grandparents, and I have suggestet we leave you for half an hour to see if you are happy with the prospect, to which the elders agreed. The holding representatives are here and awaiting the results of your meeting with the elders before they meet with you. Is that agreeable to you?”
The procedure was agreed to, and though it was very stiff and uncomfortable to start with.
Zola, a small, stick thin and nervous black woman in her mid-sixties, braekt the ice by saying in a strong accent which generations ago had been Jamaican, “I never married, nor had any children. They said you were going to have children, and I could be a grandma. All my life people stole what little I had including my happiness. I don’t want much, and I promise I won’t be any trouble.” She braekt down in tears, and the five other women joined her. Little was said, but much was conveyed in their hugs of mutual comfort and reassurance, and it seemed the women at least had accepted each other.
Blake was a tall black man of slight build with wiry gray hair, “My wife died twelve years ago and I was on my own, we hadn’t seen our children for many years. The only company I had after I retired was on my allotment where I grew a lot of things common in the West Indies which I traded for other foods. I’m seventy, and I’d worked all my life as a gardener for the coal board till I was sixty-five. I never approven of those who wouldn’t work, violent layabouts, thieves, dealers. Gangstas they called themselves, as though it were a badge of honour. Scum! That’s all they were. I never got any respect from them nor any off my own kind other than those my own age. I could tell a lot of those who haven’t joined the Folk are of that sort. The younger whites on the allotment called me Callaloo Blake. Callaloo(21) was a popular leaf vegetable I grew a lot of, and they treated me with respect. That’s probably why I spent all my time there. I don’t think it was because white youth was any different from black youth, I think it’s because people who grow things to eat have something decent about them. When I heard about you, I thought maybe I could carry on growing things, and I liked the idea of having a family, people aren’t meant to live alone with no one to care about.”
Karl smiled at Blake and after a quick look at Lionel and Stewart, both of who were smiling too, said, “Callaloo Blake! That’s a name I think I should really like to use, but I think we’d rather call you Dad.” The others nodded in agreement and indicated Karl continue.
Blake beamed a huge smile, and said, “I’d like that too, but Callaloo is a name I liked fine because it said something decent about me.”
Karl continued, “I’d like to talk to you about some of those things you grew, and if we could find some here that we could grow that would be interesting.”
Amira, Geeta and Sita had listened intently to what Zola and Blake said and even more so to the responses from the five who they had been led to believe wished them as mothers and grandmothers to their children. Their worlds had not worked like that and they didn’t really understand how Zola and Blake could be so comfortable with the situation after less than ten minutes, despite their instinctive comforting of Zola in her distress. Hermione explained her personal desires for a mum or mums and to adopt children. Silvia explained the five’s desire for another woman in their marriage who already had children. Stewart, who had some understanding of various Asian cultures, had explained to them it was their age that maekt them valuable to the five, rather than it making them a worthless burden which was how they were often regarded by their own cultures, all the women were crying again, but the beginnings of new relationships had been established.
Geeta explained tearfully, “I, like my husband was, am a not very devout Bengali Hindu. After my husband died two years ago when I was fifty-five my life became a living death. I was blamed for his death by his family. I could have understood it if he had died from a heart attack and they had said it was my cooking, but he died in a train crash. How could that have been my fault? After that I had to live with my eldest son. His wife was not kind to me and said I should have died with Jaswinder. I had to spend all my time looking after their children, cooking and cleaning, despised as an unpaid servant. I was not allowed to leave the house unless I was accompanied by my son’s wife and I had no money, they took all the jewellery Jaswinder gave me which he had said was to provide for me in my age if he were not there to look after me. I never saw any of my friends again, and like my family I wished I had died with Jaswinder too. I think they had plans to send me back to family in India where I am sure I should have been killed. I had been a good wife and mother, why should I not have been when both were something I loved being, but it didn’t seem to matter once I was on my own. What ever happens here has to be better than my life before. I love looking after children, and cooking, even cleaning too, but I should rather be dead than a reviled servant, less than a slave who at least has a resale value. Everyone who can should have to help in a family, but no one should be despised by the children they care for. I should be happy to join your family, but…” Geeta faded away before resuming, “I only know how to cook food from where my family originate, Bengal.”
Karl smiled and said, “I am sure you will be much appreciated. When I was younger I ate many different types of food from all over the world. I can’t say I remember which was which, but I never ate anything I didn’t like. I am sure with time you will find ingredients and spices that will enable you to enjoy cooking in your traditional style and I for one look forward to it.”
Geeta looked relieved and asked, “What do I call you?”
Stewart replied, “Our names or if you like Son or Daughter. The only thing that matters to us is your sincerity in the matter. We, especially Hermione, want parents and would like to call you Mum. We have been told if we are being formal Mother Geeta would be appropriate here. Unless of course you prefer something else?”
“No. Mum, and occasionally Mother Geeta would be comfortable.”
They all looked at the two elder women who had not yet said much and Sita, a black skinned, diminutive woman of four feet and two spans [4 feet 8 inches, 142cm] who still had the look of great beauty about her, spake in clipped and precise English, “I am fifty-nine and a Tamil from Sri Lanka. I was visiting relatives in England to avoid the fighting when I awoke here. There has been fighting back home on and off for over a hundred years that I know of, they say it’s about religion but it’s not. It’s about who has enough power to live like a rajah at the expense of the rest. My family are Christians and wealthy with a lot of connections with diplomacy, many living in world capitals, a lot of them in Switzerland. I married an Englishman who was nearly two feet taller than I. We met at university in England, and one summer when we were still students he decided to travel the world. I was going home that summer and invited him to visit us. Violence erupted and many were killed, my family all had diplomatic status of some kind and could leave. I hadn’t and couldn’t leave, so Christopher married me, and as the wife of an Englishman I was able to leave with him too. It had originally been planned as a marriage of convenience and I was a virgin.”
Sita smiled. “After that first night I was no longer a virgin and it was not a marriage of convenience any longer. We were happy for over thirty years and I was desolate when Christopher died from a ruptured aneurysm of the brain. I have been on my own for five years and though my children have been good to me they have lives of their own to live. After Christopher died I went back to Sri Lanka and when the violence started again went to stay with my eldest daughter in England. Then I awoke here. I like looking after children, but I am not sure what else I can do. Like Geeta I enjoy cooking, but I can cook many styles of food. Sri Lankan food can be very hot from hot spices, but I do enjoy both cooking and eating it. I have a heart condition known as angina, which means I can’t exert myself much for any length of time, and due to my size I have never been strong, but I should like to join you, and I am sincere in my wish to be a mother and grandmother again. The way you plan to live is how my ancestors lived and since I arrived here I have come to realise there were good reasons for it.”
Silvia said, “I don’t know if chiles grow here but I do remember eating Sri Lankan food years ago, only it was called Ceylonese then, even through Ceylon had been Sri Lanka for many years. I should love to taste that again, what I knew of it was hot but delicious. I remember the manager in the restaurante where we usually ate telling us if you could not taste all the ingredients through the heat it was a poor imitation of Ceylonese food. We should like you to join us, Mother Sita.” The others all nodded and with tears in her eyes Sita nodded too.
Amira was the last to spaek “My mum was a Pakistani from Peshawar and my dad an Afghan from Kabul with family in the tribal hill country. I was never told how they met or why they moved to live in England. I was born in England and was very happy as a child, I had an arranged marriage to Mohammad, an Afghan whose family were all from the hill country, he was born in England too, and my marriage was a good one. Mohammad was a good man who worked hard and treated me with dignity, and we soon came to love each other. He worked in a twenty-four hour petrol station which had a retail outlet and when the owner retired, with help from the bank, he bought it. I was happy to help him by working there during the day so he could attend to other things. It was pleasant, easy work which I could do even when I was pregnant, and it gave me the opportunity to meet and become friendly with many of our neighbours. I had three sons. Our boys all achieved highly at school, and Mohammad was pleased with their accomplishments and proud our imam spoke of them as decent boys. Our life was good, we were not wealthy, but we were a long way from being poor. We worked hard and felt we were justly rewarded. We had good relationships with all our neighbours, Christian, Muslim and others of many faiths who came from India, all of who became friends. I think it fair to say we were respected and had a reputation for being hard working and honest members of the community.
“Mohammad became a magistrate, and he was proud his name had been put forward by our Christian neighbours. Often we entertained our friends of what ever faith in our home and likewise were entertained by them. Our lives were shattered when our three sons, who were in their late teens, told us they were going to a training camp so as to be able to fight for Islam. They told us we shamed them by mixing with those of other faiths and their father’s support of a legal system not based on sharia was even worse and he was an unbeliever. Without us having any idea about it they had become radicalised and we were no longer able to reason with them. Islam is not about killing people, and we were embarrassed by them, as well as outraged. Mohammad threatened to inform the police about them if they left, and my eldest asked him if he really wanted to watch his wife being slaughtered. The boys left, but my husband couldn’t face life any more. He blamed himself because he thought the boys had been susceptible as a result of his tribal relatives. Without telling me he sold the business and put the proceeds into an account in my name.
“We never saw the boys again. We heard they had all been killed by a missile fired by something called a Reaper, a British drone aircraft, which, though ironic, I still consider appropriate. They went to war against the country that reared and educated them, and it killed them. Mohammad said bitterly it was only fair, and that the British government had the moral right to foreclose on their investment in our sons which they had defaulted on repaying by their refusal to be true British citizens. After the radicalisation and subsequent death of our sons Mohammad thought a lot about why young Muslim men and some women too had become so ripe for radicalisation. He held views which not many agreed with, but a number of our educated friends of all religions including our imam suspected were probably correct.
“Mohammad’s view was that the social changes that took place in the sixties in Britain led to a lowering of standards, easy divorces and the death of extended families and the rise of nuclear and then single parent families. The benefits culture eventually led to more single parent families than any other kind. People expected to be fed and housed for nothing in return, and there was also an expectation of success especially educational and financial. There was a progressive lowering of standards in schools but those standards were still not met. Children and the adults they became had achieved nothing and came to have no self esteem because they had no skills or knowledge, and to those whose family backgrounds ensured their children’s real achievements most were worthless and they all knew it. This general lowering of achievement and behaviour in schools started to infect third and subsequent generation Muslim children too. They were easy to persuade that to become a radical killer or a killer’s wife was an achievement which made them someone who counted. It was Muhammad’s belief that the Europeans should not ask why the Muslim youth was ripe for radicalisation, but why it was that the white youth was not. He also believed they should have been grateful that most of the inner city white youth hadn’t yet considered becoming Muslims or there would have been thousands of them not hundreds radicalised.
“Mohammad took his own life at the age of fifty-four. That was ten years ago when I was fifty-two. He had made sure I should never want for anything money could buy, but I should have given it all up to have had my husband and little boys back. I lived in a vacuum after that, I suppose I was just waiting till my time was over, there was no joy to be had any more and I didn’t even have any pleasure in cooking for just myself. If I can have a reason for living I shall enjoy living again. If I look after children here at least they won’t be brainwashed into insanity like my sons were. That they broke their father’s heart by telling him they would be prepared to watch their mother being slaughtered just to hurt him was inexcusable, and I have never been able to forgive them for that.” Amira had tears running down her cheeks, she was not sobbing, but it could be seen she was grievously distressed. She added, “There were a lot of men in the big building who were like my sons. You need to be very careful with them. You can’t reason with them, and they are very dangerous.”
The other women calmed her and Silvia said, “I think you need us as much as we need you, Mother Amira. I know we can’t replace your family but we can make you welcome in ours. You came to see if you could live with us. We hope you want to.” Amira nodded and wiped her tears to be hugged by the others.
Stewart, who thought the single description, Asian, was a gross over simplification for three so very different women also thought their diversity was fortunate. There would never be any possibility of an us and them, which would aid all to accept the others as family. They were widows whose lives had been shattered by the deaths of their husbands and Castle was giving them a way to build a new life which with a new family to be a part of they were happy to embrace. He was not sure if he would ever tell them of the ultimate fate of the ethnic minorities in Britain. He asked the elders if they would like to stay for the meeting with the Folk. Though they were surprised they had been asked all said yes, but they were reluctant to say much during the meeting.
Æneascoffey joined Icicle when the new family were introduced to the representatives from the newly formed holding, which due to its whilth from the Keep was a significant one in terms of its population, and it had over two hundred active adult members as well as their parents and children. The five, who had a wide range of skills and knowledge, were gladly accepted with their parents, and all were telt they were well come as clan members by the folk whose holding was two and a half tenner’s whilth south of the Keep by waggon. To the delight of the newfolk they were telt there were three women in the clan looking for agreement, one of who had five children and the others three, and though it was not possible to make promises on behalf of another in such a matter they could promise an agreement of six would be considered by the women as seriously as an agreement of two. “Being so far from the Keep means we live a little differently,” one of the women telt them. “I have four husbands and two wifes and our eight children all say they want another mum to make things better. I bethink me they mean more balanced, but who knows. We are seeking another wife too, it’s the main reason why we are at the Keep, though we should like a young woman with no children. May hap we shall find an incursionist seeking a family and a home.”
One of the other women said, “I am Ird and though I know little of it, for I am a farrier, it beseems me that you should have spaech with Iola’s staff in the kitchens regards spices for your mothers’ traditional cooking and Blake should visit the holders at Sunwarmth holding who grow plants from the Valley of Spouters. They harvest much for the Keep kitchens from the Valley too. It is a hot humid place that grows much that has never been findt elsewhere on Castle. It taekt long for some of the plants to be identifyt as edible, and may hap Blake could identify new edible plants. I suggest we aid you to make arrangements for this warm season for there is the possibility for much status to accrue to the family from this. Too, I know the family will be anticipating the new meals you can bring to our board.”
Stewart telt Æneascoffey what Blake and Amira had said concerning some of the other incursionists. Æneascoffey asked a few questions of both Blake and Amira and telt the group not to worry as they had more than enough guardians to keep the situation under control. He privately telt Stewart, who he knew was pragmatic in the extreme, most of the intransigents were probably already dead from the caltth and the rest soon would be. He explained what had happened and said, “When it is appropriate I suggest you tell the others as much as you feel they can manage. I have cautiont your clansfolk regards saying too much, especially to your mothers.”
Stewart nodded and said, “I understand and agree. I’ll tell Karl, Lionel, Silvia and Hermione, and Blake too. They’ll be glad to hear it. I’ll only tell our mums enough to reassure them of their safety and comfort. If they ask later I’ll explain more then.”
That eve seven children, five of Asian origins and two of Afro-Caribbean origins were introduced to the family. Zamira and Kalini were two nervous looking seven year old girls holding hands with Upma who had told them she was two and Eqbal who had told them he was three. Adil who said he was six stood on his own but looked like he would have liked to hold hands with one of the girls too. Four year old Raeni Rose and two year old Vinny seemed to be less nervous than the others. The children were all frightened by the loss of their parents, and their inexplicable move to a strange place, though the younger ones seemed to think it was only temporary. However, all were relieved to be told they had a home to go to. The three older ones recognised some of their new grandparents as persons who looked familiar which helped to smooth the process of their adoption. None of the children were in the least bit puzzled by having three dads, two mums and five grandparents. The younger ones just accepted what ever happened in their lifes as normal, as young children do. The older children had lived in societies where they had been taught to accept without question what ever adults telt them and the much more relaxed attitudes of the adults they now found themselves with seemed loving and caring and hence acceptable.
Fæalla had three children, nine year old Corncockle, Femday who was seven and Ilka who was six lunes old. Her man, Summit, had gone hunting a year since and did not return. She was a loving woman, and missed Summit desperately, but she knew her children needed a father. The incomers, who wished a wife and another mum for their children, she thought were an ideal solution to meet the needs of her children, keep faith with Summit and satisfy her needs. Three husbands, and more children when Ilka was weaned, satisfied her need to keep faith with Summit within her personal interpretation of the tenets of the Way. When she met Hermione, Silvia, Karl, Lionel and Stewart with their parents and children she had agreement within seconds and was happy it was so.
That years before, at their own insistence, the Puritans, who had professed to be Christians, had been left to their own devices and had dien, and most of the ones left to die this time professed to be Muslims and Rastafarians was ironic. The irony of the Folk, who were a successful fusion of African, European and Middle eastern bloodlines, having, in turn, turned their backs on all of their most significant antecedents could not be appreciated since the Folk no longer had any knowledge of their origins and early history. Messengers had been despatched on ships and along the trails uest by the waggoners with the news of the incursion and how it had developed with instructions to all to stay away from the area of the Keep for the rest of the lune. Large numbers of guardians had left for all the nearby holdings the incomers could possibly reach, some pitched tents and waited watching the trails that led from the Keep. From the Keep, a close watch was kept on the incomers at Outgangside, but none of them attempted to go any where and the temperature had dropped unusually quickly that first night. Most of the ninety-eight remaining intransigents, the term was now an official one, probably dien that night, overwhelmed by deepcaltth. Few signs of movement were seen the following day, and no signs of movement were seen after the second night had passed. Gage left it another night and on the fourth day after incursion he went with eight hundred guardians, to throw the bodies, many of which the scavengers had started to clean up, into the Arder. Gage no more than Gale or Will before him was prepared to order his squads to expend more than minimal effort on the disposal of what they all referred to as dogmeat. They had found none alive and after another three days passed, for the stench of decay to clear, the inhabitants of Outgangside returned to their homes.
Year 620
Gage retires and Gabriëlla becomes the Mistress huntsman.
Year 645
Gosellyn goes on to out live her grandmother Hazel, she dies aged one hundred and twelve, fully compos mentis, with all her faculties, in her sleep.
For the immediate future that is it. I only have outline notes on the Fell Year and The Explorer Class vessel tales and a few other bits and pieces concerning Castle. However I have a lot of non-Castle stuff in my ideas files that I shall work on first. To those who have read it all, thank you.
Regards,
Eolwaen
It is impossible to make direct comparisons of time between Earth and Castle via any one or group of characters since the characters’ timelines are anything but consistent as persons from various times on Earth become co-temporal with persons from other times on incursion. The Beings can take any one or thing from any where or when and likewise deposit them any where or when. A good example of this intractability is to consider Friðegyð and Mary Jacques de Saint-Georges d’Espéranche’s second wife. Friðegyð must have been born about 1050-1055, but Mary was from the harem of Saladin, (1137-1193) so was probably born round 1150. Both women were about 15 on arrival on Castle and neither would have been alive in 1308, nor could they ever have met back on Earth.
Too, if one considers the events in Ch 127 ‘The Music Man’, Stewart in Ch 129 came from a much later Earth time than the others, and he said The Music Man had performed hundreds of years before his time. I deliberately put no time references in the tale, but it is not unreasonable to use information concerning incursions elsewhere and to presume the bulk of the incursionists came from the half century before 619 Castle time i.e. 2500-2559 Earth time, though some like Amira seem to possibly come from the early twenty-first century. Her reference to the sixties is presumably the 1960s and the rest of her tale is certainly compatible with that. None of the other incursionists Stewart spoke to had heard of The Music Man, so it is not unreasonable to suppose he performed in Caerwick after or around 2600 which would place Stewart possibly at as late as 3000 Earth time.
However the timelines for Earth and Castle themselves have a simple relationship. One way to resolve issues of time is to consider an absolute Universal time which has its zero when the Void gave birth to spacetime. If one uses the duration of an Earth year for Universal time and then shifts the zero of that time in a relative sense to avoid having to use inconveniently large numbers to the time of the first incursion (from an Earth point of view) and measures all times relative to that then zero Universal time on Earth is the Earth year 1308.
I have written that the first incursionists moved backwards in time ‘at least 1500 years’, so let us take that to be 1512 Earth years, (an arbitrary but convenient choice that is consistent with the tale) which would mean that when they arrived on Castle it would no longer be the year 1308 back on Earth but the Earth year -204.
Given that at 568 Castle years after the Fell Year the Folk have been on Castle for 2200 Castle years (2700 Earth years since a Castle year is 1.2274 Earth years), that means 568 Castle time is -204 + 2700, i.e. 2496 Earth time, and the incursion of 619 Castle time occurred at 2559 Earth time.
I have not written in my notes how long elapsed between the first incursion and the Fell year, though it can be calculated from what I have written. 2200-568 = 1632, so the Folk had been on Castle since 1632 Castle years before the Fell year. That is 2003 Earth years so the Fell year occurred in year 1799 Earth time.
A time line of significant events is provided below. All years are calculated to the nearest integer.
Universal time..........Earth time.......Castle time
Earth years..............Earth years.....Castle years
..1251......................2559..................619................Incursion of 619
..1188......................2496..................568................Incursion of 568
....491......................1799......................0................Fell Year
........0......................1308.................-400................Earth year from which most 1st incursionists were taken
-1276...........................32...............-1440................2nd incursion relative to Fell year
-1512........................-204...............-1632...............1st incursion relative to Fell year
The relationship between Earth and Castle times is similar to that between temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celsius, in the sense that the zeros do not align and the size of the gradations are different.
Zero Celsius is 32 Fahrenheit and 1 degree Celsius is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.
To convert Celsius [C] to Fahrenheit [F] or the other way round,
C = (F – 32) ÷ 1.8
F = C × 1.8 + 32
Year zero on Castle was year 1799 on Earth and 1 Castle year is 1.2274 Earth years.
To convert Castle Years [C] to Earth years [E] or the other way round,
C = (E – 1799) ÷ 1.2274
E = C × 1.2274 + 1799
In my main document I intend to make additions and alterations to reflect the information I have provided above.
Index of significant characters so far listed by Chapter
1 Introduction
2 Jacques de Saint d’Espéranche
3 The Folk and the Keep
4 Hwijje, Travisher, Will
5 Yew, Allan, Rowan, Siskin, Will, Thomas, Merle, Molly, Aaron, Gareth, Oak, Abigail, Milligan, Basil, Vinnek, Iris, Margæt, Gilla, Alsike, Alfalfa, Gibb, Happith, Kroïn, Mako, Pilot, Briar, Gosellyn, Gren, Hazel
6 Chaunter, Waxwing, Flame, João, Clansaver, Irune, Ceël, Barroo, Campion, Limpet, Vlæna, Xera, Rook, Falcon, Cwm, Sanderling, Aldeia, Catarina, Coast, Elixabete
7 Mercedes, Spoonbill
8 Lyllabette, Yoomarrianna
9 Helen, Duncan, Gosellyn, Eudes, Abigail
10 George/Gage, Iris, Waverley, Belinda
11 Marc/Marcy, Pol
12 George/Gage, Marcy, Freddy/Bittern, Weyland, Iris, Bling
13 Thomas, Will, Mercedes, Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna
14 Kyle, Thomas, Will, Angélique
15 Mercedes, Morgelle, Gorse, Thrift, George/Gage, Chris, Iris, Thrift, Campion
16 Bling
17 Waverley, Mr. E
18 George/Gage, Larch, Mari, Ford, Gorse, Morgelle, Luke, Erin
19 Will, Pilot, Yew, Geoge/Gage, Mari, Ford, Gosellyn, Cwm, Cerise, Filbert, Gareth, Duncan, Helen, Thomas, Iris, Plume, Campion, Pim, Rook, Falcon, João, Hare
20 Yew, Rowan, Will, Thomas, Siskin, Weir, Grayling, Willow
21 Brook, Harrier, Cherry, Abby, Selena, Borage, Sætwæn, Fiona, Fergal
22 Yew, Thomas, Hazel, Rowan, Gosellyn, Siskin, Will, Lianna, Duncan
23 Tench, Knawel, Claire, Oliver, Loosestrife, Bramling, George, Lyre, Janice, Kæn, Joan, Eric
24 Luke, Sanderling, Ursula, Gervaise, Mike, Spruce, Moss
25 Janet, Vincent, Douglas, Alec, Alice
26 Pearl, Merlin, Willow, Ella, Suki, Tull, Irena
27 Gina, Hardy, Lilac, Jessica, Teal, Anna
28 Bryony, Judith, Bronwen, Farsight
29 Muriel, Raquel, Grace
30 Catherine, Crane, Snipe, Winifred, Dominique, Ferdinand
31 Alma, Allan, Morris, Miranda
32 Dabchick, Nigel
33 Raquel, Thistle, Agrimony, Benjamin, Ian, Phœbe
34 Eleanor, Woad, Catherine, Crane
35 Muriel, Hail, Joan, Breve, Eric, Nell, Mayblossom, Judith, Storm
36 Selena,Sætwæn, Borage, Grace, Gatekeeper, Raquel, Thistle
37 Siân, Mackerel, Winifred, Obsidian
38 Carla, Petrel, Alkanet, Ferdinand
39 Dominique, Oxlip, Alma, Allan, Tress, Bryony
40 Agrimony, Benjamin, Ian, Ella, Kestrel, Judith, Storm
41 Ella, Kestrel, Tress, Bryony, Tunn, Whin, Plane
42 Weights & Measures and Sunrise & Sunset Times included in Ch 41
43 Ella, Kestrel, Serenity, Smile, Gwendoline, Rook, Tress, Bryony, Tunn, Whin, Plane, Sapphire, Mere
44 Pearl, Merlin, Rainbow, Perch, Joan, Breve, truth, Rachael, Hedger, Ruby, Deepwater
45 Janet, Blackdyke, Janice, Kæn, Ursula, Oyster
46 Janet, Gina, Alastair, Joan, Breve, Truth, Bræth, Mayblossom, Judith, Storm
47 The Squad, Mercedes, Fen, Judith, Storm, Iola, Alwydd, Heidi, Rock, Stephanie, Matthew
48 Bronwen, Forest, Opal, Spice, Vincent, Kathleen, Niall, Bluebell, Sophie
49 Janice, Kæn, Ursula, Oyster, Imogen, Wryneck, Phœbe, Knapps
50 Erin, Nightjar, Eleanor, Woad
51 Gina, Jonas, Janet, Gerald, Patrick, Tansy, Craig, Barret, Ryan
52 Constance, Rye, Bling, Bullace, Berry, Jimmy, Leveret, Rory, Shelagh, Silas
53 Rachael, Hedger, Eve, Gilla, Mallard, Fiona, Fergal, Tinder, Nightingale, Fran, Dyker
54 Pamela, Mullein, Patricia, Chestnut, Lavinia, Ophæn, Catherine, Crane
55 Susan, Kingfisher, Janet, Gina, Jonas, Ruth, Kilroy, Judith, Storm, Iola, Alwydd, Heidi, Rock, Stephanie, Matthew
56 Gina, Jonas, Patricia, Chestnut, The Squad, Hazel, Janet, Blackdyke, Swift, Clover, Vetch, Mangel, Clary, Brendan
57 Erin, Nightjar, Xera, Josephine, Wels, Michelle, Musk, Swansdown, Tenor
58 Timothy, Axel, Nectar, Waverley,Yvette, Whitebear, Firefly, Farsight, Janet, Blackdyke, Swift, Clover, Vetch
59 Lilac, Firefly, Farsight, Lucinda, Gimlet, Leech, Janet, Blackdyke
60 Douglas, Lunelight, Yvette, Whitebear, Thrift, Haw, Harebell, Goosander, Judith, Storm, Iola, Alwydd, Heidi, Rock, Stephanie, Matthew, Matilda, Evan, Heron
61 Brendan, Clary, Chloë, Apricot, Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna, Otis, Harry, Gimlet, Leech, Jodie
62 Gimlet, Leech, Lark, Seth, Charles, Bruana, Noah, Kirsty, Shirley, Mint, Kevin, Faith, Oak, Lilly, Jason, Gem, Ellen
63 Honesty, Peter, Bella, Abel, Kell, Deal, Siobhan, Scout, Jodie
64 Heather, Jon, Anise, Holly, Gift, Dirk, Lilac, Jasmine, Ash, Beech, Ivy, David
65 Sérent, Dace, Opal, Spice, Vincent, Clarissa, Gorse, Eagle, Frond, Diana, Gander, Gyre, Tania, Alice, Alec
66 Suki, Tull, Buzzard, Mint, Kevin, Harmony, Fran, Dyker, Joining the Clans, Pamela, Mullein, Mist, Francis, Kristiana, Cliff, Patricia, Chestnut, Timothy, Axel, Nectar, Waverly, Tarragon, Edrydd, Louise, Turnstone, Jane, Mase, Cynthia, Merle, Warbler, Spearmint, Stonecrop
67 Warbler, Jed, Fiona, Fergal, Marcy, Wayland, Otday, Xoë, Luval, Spearmint, Stonecrop, Merle, Cynthia, Eorl, Betony, Smile
68 Pansy, Pim,Phlox, Stuart, Marilyn, Goth, Lunelight, Douglas, Crystal, Godwit, Estelle, Slimlyspoon, Lyre, George, Damson, Lilac
69 Honesty, Peter, Abel, Bella, Judith, storm, Matilda, Evean, Iola, Heron, Mint, Kevin, Lilac, Happith, Gloria, Peregrine
70 Lillian, Tussock, Modesty, Thyme, Vivienne, Minyet, Ivy, David, Jasmine, Lilac, Ash, Beech
71 Quartet & Rebecca, Gimlet & Leech, The Squad, Lyre & George, Deadth, Gift
72 Gareth, Willow, Ivy, David, Kæna,Chive, Hyssop, Birch, Lucinda, Camomile, Meredith, Cormorant, Whisker, Florence, Murre, Iola, Milligan, Yarrow, Flagstaff, Swansdown, Tenor, Morgan, Yinjærik, Silvia, Harmaish, Billie, Jo, Stacey, Juniper
73 The Growers, The Reluctants, Miriam, Roger, Lauren, Dermot, Lindsay, Scott, Will, Chris, Plume, Stacey, Juniper
74 Warbler, Jed, Veronica, Campion, Mast, Lucinda, Cormorant, Camomile, Yellowstone
75 Katheen, Raymnd, Niall, Bluebell, Sophie, Hazel, Ivy, Shadow, Allison, Amber, Judith, Storm Alwydd, Matthew, Beatrix, Jackdaw, The Squad, Elders, Jennet, Bronze, Maeve, Wain, Monique, Piddock, Melissa, Roebuck, Aaron, Carley Jade, Zoë, Vikki, Bekka, Mint, Torrent
76 Gimlet, Leech, Gwendoline, Georgina, Quail. Birchbark, Hemlock, Peter, Honesty, Bella, Hannah, Aaron, Torrent, Zoë, Bekka, Vikki, Jade, Carley, Chough, Anvil, Clematis, Stonechat, Peace, Xanders, Gosellyn, Yew, Thomas, Campion, Will, Iris, Gareth
77 Zoë, Torrent, Chough, Stonechat, Veronica, Mast, Sledge, Cloudberry, Aconite, Cygnet, Smokt
78 Jed, Warbler, Luval, Glaze, Seriousth, Blackdyke, Happith, Camilla
79 Torrent, Zoë, Stonechat, Clematis, Aaron, Maeve, Gina, Bracken, Gosellyn, Paene, Veronica, Mast, Fracha, Squid, Silverherb
80 George/Gage, Niall, Alwydd, Marcy/Beth, Freddy/Bittern, Wayland, Chris, Manic/Glen, Guy, Liam, Jed, Fergal, Sharky
81 The Squad, Manic/Glen, Jackdaw, Beatrix, Freddy/Bittern, Fiona, Fergal, Wayland, Jade, Stonechat, Beauty, Mast, Veronica, Raven, Tyelt, Fid
82 Gimlet, Leech, Scentleaf, Ramsom, Grouse, Aspen, Stonechat, Bekka, Carley, Vikki, Morgelle, Bistort, Fritillary, Jed, Warbler, Spearmint, Alwydd, Billie, Diver, Seal, Whitethorn
83 Alastair, Carrom, Céline, Quickthorn, Coral, Morgelle, Fritillary, Bistort, Walnut, Tarragon, Edrydd, Octopus, Sweetbean, Shrike, Zoë, Torrent, Aaron, Vinnek, Zephyr, Eleanor, Woad, George/Gage, The Squad, Ingot, Yellowstone, Phthalen, Will
84 Morgelle, Bistort, Fritillary, Alsike, Campion, Siskin, Gosellyn, Yew, Rowan, Thomas, Will, Aaron, Dabchick, Nigel, Tuyere
85 Jo, Knott, Sallow, Margæt, Irena, Tabby, Jade, Phthalen, Yumalle, Stonechat, Spearmint, Alwydd, Seriousth, Warbler, Jed, Brett, Russel, Barleycorn, Crossbill, Lizo, Hendrix, Monkshood, Eyrie, Whelk, Gove, Gilla, Faarl, Eyebright, Alma, Axx, Allan, daisy, Suki, Tull
86 Cherville, Nightshade, Rowan, Milligan, Wayland, Beth, Liam, Chris, Gage
87 Reedmace, Ganger, Jodie, Blade, Frœp, Mica, Eddique, Njacek, Whiteout, Sandpiper, Serin, Cherville, Nightshade, peregrine, Eleanor, Woad, Buzzard, Silas, Oak, Wolf, Kathleen, Reef, Raymond, Sophie, Niall, Bluebell
88 Cloud, Sven, Claudia, Stoat, Thomas, Aaron, Nigel, Yew, Milligan, Gareth, Campion, Will, Basil, Gosellyn, Vinnek, Plume
89 Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna, Silverherb, Cloudberry, Smokt, Skylark, Beatrix, Beth, Amethyst, Mint, Wayland, Bittern, Fiona, Fergal, Joan, Bræth, Nell, Milligan, Iola, Ashdell, Alice, Molly, Rill, Briar
90 Morgelle, Tuyere, Bistort, Beth, Beatrix, Sanderling, Falcon, Gosellyn, Gage, Will, Fiona, Jackdaw, Wayland, Merle, Cynthia, Jed, Warbler
91 Morgelle, Tuyere, Fritillary, Bistort, Jed, Otday, The Squad, Turner, Gudrun, Ptarmigan, Swegn, Campion, Otis, Asphodel, Jana, Treen, Xeffer, Stonechat, Bekka, Vikki, Carley, Beatrix, Jackdaw
92 Turner, Otday, Mackerel, Eorl, Betony, The Council, Will, Yew, Basil, Gerald, Oier, Patrick, Happith, Angélique, Kroïn, Mako
93 Beth, Greensward, Beatrix, Odo, Morgelle, Tuyere, Bistort, Otday, Turner, Gace, Rachael, Groundsel, Irena, Warbler, Jed, Mayblossom, Mazun, Will, The Squad
94 Bistort, Honey, Morgelle, Basil, Willow, Happith, Mako, Kroïn, Diana, Coaltit, Gær, Lavinia, Joseph (son), Ruby, Deepwater, Gudrun, Vinnek, Tuyere, Otday, Turner
95 Turner, Otday, Waverly, Jed, Tarse, Zoë, Zephyr, Agrimony, Torrent, Columbine, Stonechat, Bekka, Vikki, Carley, The Council, Gage, Lilly
96 Faith, Oak, Lilly, Fran, Suki, Dyker, Verbena, Jenny, Bronze, Quietth, Alwydd, Evan, Gage, Will, Woad, Bluebell, Niall, Sophie, Wayland, Kathleen, Raymond, Bling, Bittern
97 Jade, Phthalen, Yumalle, Margæt, Tabby, Larov, Morgelle, Tuyere, Bistort, Fritillary, Brmling, Tench, Knawel, Loosestrife, Agrimony, Jana, Will, Gale, Linden, Thomas, Guelder, Jodie, Peach, Peregrine, Reedmace, Ganger, The Council, Faith, Oak, Lilly, Ellen, Gem, Beth, Geän
98 Turner, Otday, Anbar, Bernice, Silverherb, Havern, Annalen
99 Kæna, Chive, Ivy, David, Birch, Suki, Hyssop, Whitebeam, Jodie, Ganger, Reedmace, Whiteout, Sandpiper, Catherine, Braid, Maidenhair, Snowberry, Snipe, Lærie, Morgelle, Tuyere, Bistort, Fritillary, Ælfgyfu, Jennet, Cattail, Guy, Vikki, Buckwheat, Eddique, Annabelle, Fenda, Wheatear, Bram, Coolmint, Carley, Dunlin
100 Burdock, Bekka, Bram, Wheatear, Cranberry, Edrian, Gareth, George, Georgina, Quail, Birchbark, Hemlock, Bramling, Tench, Knawel, Turner, Otday, Ruby, Deepwater, Barleycorn, Russel, Gareth, Plantain, Gibb, Lizo, Thomas, Mere, Marten, Hendrix, Cuckoo, Campion, Gage, Lilly, Faith
101 Theresa, Therese, Zylanna, Zylenna, Cwm, Ivy, David, Greenshank, Buzzard, Zeeëend, Zrina, Zlovan, Torrent, Alastair, Céline, Meld, Frogbit, Midnight, Wildcat, Posy, Coral, Dandelion, Thomas, Lizo, Council
102 Beth, Beatrix, Falcon, Gosellyn, Neil, Maple, Mouse, Ember, Goose, Blackcap, Suede, Gareth, Robert, Madder, Eider, Campion, Crossbill, Barleycorn, George, Céline, Midnight, Alastair, Pamela, Mullein, Swager, Margæt, Sturgeon, Elliot, Jake, Paris, Rosebay, Sheridan, Gælle, Maybells, Emmer, Beauty, Patricia, Chestnut, Irena, Moor
103 Steve, Limpet, Vlæna, Qorice, Crossbow, Dayflower, Flagon, Gareth, Næna, Stargazer, Willow, Box, Jude, Nathan, Ryland, Eller, Wæn, Stert, Truedawn, Martin, Campion, Raspberry
104 Coolmint, Valerian, Vikki, Hawfinch, Corncrake, Speedwell, Cobb, Bill, Gary, Chalk, Norman, Hoopoe, Firkin, Gareth, Plover, Willow, Dewberry, Terry, Squill, Campion, Tracker, Oak, Vinnek,
105 Council, Thomas, Pilot, Vinnek, Dale, Luca, Almond, Macus, Skua, Cranesbill, Willow, Campion, Georgina, Osprey, Peter, Hotsprings, Fyre, Jimbo, Saxifrage, Toby, Bruana, Shirley, Kirsty, Noah, Frost, Gareth, Turner, Otday, Eorl, Axle, Ester, Spile, David, Betony
106 Jodie, Sunshine, Ganger, Peach, Spikenard, Scallop, Hobby, Pennyroyal, Smile, Otday, Turner, Janet, Astrid, Thistle, Shelagh, Silas, Basalt, Suki, Robert, Madder, Steve, Bekka, Cowslip, Swansdown, Susan, Aqualegia, Kingfisher, Carley, Syke, Margæt, Garnet, Catkin, Caltforce, Council, Thomas, Briar, Yew, Sagon, Joseph, Gareth, Gosellyn, Campion, Will, Qvuine, Aaron, Siskin, Jasmine, Tusk, Lilac, Ash, Beech, Rebecca, Fescue
107 Helen, Duncan, Irena, Scent, Silk, Loosestrife, Tench, Knawel, Bramling, Grebe, Madder, Robert, Otter, Luval, Honey, Beth, Beatrix, Falcon, Amethyst, Janet, Lilac, Jasmine, Ash, Beech, Fiona, Blackdyke, Bittern, George, Axel, Oak, Terry, Wolf, Vinnek, Dittander, Squill, Harmony, Jason, Lyre, Iola, Heron, Yew, Milligan, Alice, Crook, Eudes, Abigail, Gibb, Melanie, Storm, Annabelle, Eddique, Fenda, Lars, Reedmace, Jodie, Aaron, Nigel, Thomas Will
108 Aldeia, Coast, Chris, Wayland, Liam, Gage, Fiona, Fergal, Beth, Greensward, Jackdaw, Warbler, Jed, Guy, Bittern, Spearmint, Alwydd, Storm, Judith, Heidi, Iola, Heron, Beatrix, Harle, Parsley, Fledgeling, Letta, Cockle, Puffin, Adela, Gibb, Coaltit, Dabchick, Morris, Lucimer, Sharky, Rampion, Siskin, Weir, Alsike, Milligan, Gosellyn, Wolf, Campion, Gareth, Aaron, Nigel, Geoffrey, Will, Roebuck, Yew
109 George, Lyre, Iola, Milligan, Gibb, Adela, Wels, Francis, Weir, Cliff, Siward, Glæt, Judith, Madder, Briar, Axel, Molly, Coaltit, Dabchick, Bluesher, Qvuine, Spoonbill, Ashridge, Morris
110 Nectar, Cattail, Molly, Floatleaf, Timothy, Guy, Judith, Briar, Axel, Storm, Beatrix, Iola, Coaltit, Siward, Cockle, Gibb, Lune, Manchette, Gellica, Dabchick, Morris, Sycamore, Eudes, Fulbert, Abigail, Milligan, Ashridge
111 Iola, Turner, Otday, Alwydd, Will, Dabchick, Sgœnne, Coriander, Saught, Ingot, Molly, Vivienne, Michelle, Nancy, Fledgeling, Letta, Milligan, Spoonbill, Knawel, Beaver, Cnut, Godwin, Ilsa, Holdfast, Jeanne, Tara, Lanfranc, Furrier, Joseph, Crag, Adela, Jason, Judith, Gem, Wolf, Storm, Terry, Axel, George, Oak, Coaltit, Posy, Gage, Bluesher, Nigel, Heron, Aaron, Orchid, Morris, Russell, Thomas, Eudes, Ashridge, Polecat, Redstart, Herleva, Fletcher, Jasmine, Ash, Beech, Lilac, Elaine, Kaya, Fulbert, Buzzard, Raymond, Firefly, Roebuck, Francis, Cliff, Odo, Alice, Grangon
112 Council, Bruana, Iola, Kirsty, Glen, Shirley, Wormwood, Noah, Aaron, Dabchick, Nigel, Judith, Milligan, Campion, Gibb, Morris, Polecat, Ilsa, Glæt, Braun, Turbot, Voë, Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna, Sledge, Cloudberry, Smockt, Burgloss, Hubert, Skylark, Srossa, Cygnet, Uri, Cnara, Sexday, Luuk, Slew, Quinnea, Roach, Vosgælle, Siward, Adela, Bluesher, Olga, Amæ, Helen, Odo, Wels, Camomile, Fulbert, Ashridge, Swaille, Gren, Spoonbill, Alwydd, Puffin, Chub, Gage, Ivy, Sippet, Orcharder, Knapps, Eudes, Fledgeling, Cnut, Letta, Nightjar, Greensward, Saught, Carver, Wlnoth, Flagstaff, Coaltit, Thresher, Parsley, Harle, Coriander
113 Aaron, Glæt, Braum, Sandpiper, Ellflower, Abigail, Nigel, Morris, Iola, Ivana, Zena, Trefoil, Comfrey, Scorp, Milligan, Ashridge, Polecat, Gibb, Basil, Knapps, Sagon, Pleasance, Posy, Woad, Will, Gage, Strath, Eric, Ophæn, Coriander, Vivienne, Michelle, Camilla, Odo, Siward, Swaille, Fulbert, Adela, Coaltit, Dabchick, Eudes, Harle, Matthew, Grangon, Hayrake, David, Gellica, Biteweed, Heron, Qvuine, Hjötron, Fledgeling, Parsley, Spoonbill, Greensward, Bluesher, Beatrix, Roebuck, Sagon, Letta, Carver, Wlnoth, Beaver, Saught, Swegn
114 Iola, Dabchick, Gage, Fulbert, Eudes, Coaltit, Burnet, Adela, Sippet, Milligan, Spoonbill, Coriander, Fennel, Knapps, Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna, Smockt, Wheatear, Cloudberry, Sanderling, Scree, Eve, Sledge, Hubert,Irena, Suki, Burgloss, Harle, Polecat, Gibb, Gordon, Douglas, Lunelight,Lovage, Francis, Pleasance, Siward, Grangon, Qvuine, Ashridge, Abigail, Alice, Emma, Embrace, Basil, Aaron, Nigel, Hville, Heron, Bluesher, Musk, Michelle, Joseph, Ivy, Bruana, Noah, Ianto
115 Council, Basil, Iola, Ilsa, Crag, Sgœnne, Waternut, Joseph, Ivy, Dabchick, Milligan, Roebuck, Polecat, George, Yew, Will, Gage, Raspberry, Lisette, Bruana, Ianto, Noah, Evan, Yanto, Jocelyn, Lætitia, Faith, Kæn, Janice, Oak, Lilly, Jason, Wolf, Irena, Mica, Quartz, Peregrine, Ellen, Ousel, Abel, Honesty, Rose, Suki, Veronica, Chris, Mast, Vinnek, Alan, Jane, Beatrix, Jackdaw, Nancy, Douglas, Euan, Coriander, Yæna, Gosellyn, Peter, Bella, Anne, Joa, Joanna, Harrion, Beth, Otter, Luval, Bittern, Wayland, Tansy, Craig, Jonathan, Rhame, Moil, Blush, Alfalfa, Puffin, Briar, Bay, Storm, Hobby, Gibb, Judith, Bjarni, Mhairi, Kbion, Nigel, Bluesher, Spoonbill, Grangon, Kell, Deal, Wryneck, Weir, Musk, Joseph, Knapps, Deepwater, Gordon, Ashridge, Yanwaite, bluebean, Alice, Alfgar, Matthew, Heidi, Rampion, Heron, Siskin
116 Fiona, Fergal, Nightingale, Margæt, Milligan, Polecat, Tinder, Beatrix, Whitethorn, Irena, Lilly, Isabel, Beth, Warbler, Gage, Cicely, Will, Bruana, Coaltit, Gibb, Ianto, Noah, Iola, Morris, Joseph, Dabchick, Kirsty, Shirley, Ivana, Judith, Posy, Wolf, Oak, Jason, George, Gem, Firefox, Mangel, Mace, Millet, Faith, Yew, Hazel, Rowan, Siskin, Basil, Hobby, Thomas, Nightlights, Alkanet, Ferdinand, Eudes, Fulbert, Ashridge, Abigail, Briar, Almond, Crake, Storm, Barret, Alec, Harris, Brock, Bruin, Graill, Joanna, Alice, Alfgar, Fiddil, Orcharder, Melanie, Adela, Spoonbill, Betony, Michelle, Ellen, Jocelyn, Lætitia, Abel, Mari, Ford, Peter, Honesty, Bella, Yæna, Harmony, Dittander, Molly
117 Lyre, George, Irena, Lilly, Goshawk, Peregrine, Graill, Judith, Oak, Dabchick, Iola, Coaltit, Fulbert, Spoonbill, Parsley, Knapps, Gage, Ashridge, Eudes, Oullin, Bruana, Diana, Hville, Adela, Ingot, Herron, Rosebay, Gwyneth, Sheridan, Sturgeon, Jake, Maybells, Council, Yew, Will, Thomas, Rowan, Qvuine, Milligan, Joseph, Bluesher, Greensward, Morris, Grangon, Ryan, Hobby, Phœbe, Harris, Alec, Fiddil, Orcharder, Briar, Sagon, Storm, Durance, Charlotte
118 Iola, Adela, Knapps, Dabchick, Bruana, Beatrix, Bwlch, Burnet, Winefruit, Twailles, Saught, Spoonbill, Coaltit, Fulbert, Eudes, Coriander, Milligan, Hobby, Morgelle, Caoilté, Fritillary, Tuyere, Ælfgivu, Morwen, Bistort, Furnace, Turner, Froe, Otday, Otter, Luval, Molly, Ivy, Eorl, Geoffrey, Betony, Gosellyn, Smile, Phœbe, Cwm, Angharad, Vervain, Irena, Lilly, Falcon, Judith, Storm, Iola, Alwydd, Charlotte, Heron, Heidi, Rampion, Yew, Rowan, Spearmint, Veronica, Mast, Flint, Peregrine, Loosestrife, Bramling, Tench, Knawel, Oliver, Claire, Gdana, Grebe, Ironwood Agrimony, Joseph, Gordon, Diana, Gander, Gibb, Lunelight, Pleasance, Bay, George, Jason, Briar, Barnet, Oak, Acorn, Knott, Ingot, Gage, Beth, Jed, Guy, Qvuine, Swegn, Mortice, Mike, Spruce, Linden, Will, Gale, Morris, Rock, Revæl, Rampion, Matilda, Silverherb, Wheatear, Brock, Bruin, Estelle, Slimlyspoon, Edwin, Aspen, Musk, Joseph, Cynthia, Sannie, Lobelia, Merle, Laura, Warbler, Mint, Allia, Kevin, Laiqqa, Davvi, Madder, Robert, Crossbill, Barleycorn, Compass, Sextant, Sólarsteinn, Fulke, Bryony, Cobalt, Tress, Livette, Whin, Plane, Tunn, Lavender, Balsam, Jade, Phthalen, Tallia, Yumalle, Larov
119 Joseph, Briar, Sago, Swegn, Tress, Bryony, Gordon, Livette, Whin, Plane, Tunn, Lavender, Balsam, Cobalt, Sppleblossom, Lotus, Veronica, Mast, Flint, Peregrine, Bloom, Weälth, Coppicer, Lacy, Silverbean, Marjoram, Scorza, Gooseberry, Cove, Gowwan, Hugh, Earnest, Campion, Aaron, Skale, Xera, Horehound, Joaquim, Lorna, Leofric, Sabrina, Shag, Vinnek, Ruby
120 Warbler, Jed, Thrift, Firefox, Beth, Greensward, Will, Leech, Livette, Gloria, Peregr Janet, Ninija, Fiona, Isabel, Lilac,Ash, Beech, Jasmine, Rebecca, Francis, Yellowstone, Buttercup, Gage, Opal, Mist, Odo, Milligan, Thomas, Will, Gareth, Yew, Rowan, Basil, Hobby, Sagon, Campion, Joseph, Iola, Alwydd, Spearmint, Heron, Heidi, Rampion, Bowman, Gibb, Coaltit, Gordon, Douglas, Dabchick, Pleasance, Fergal, Åse, Leveret, Durance, Wayland, Laura, Stonecrop, Aaron, Nigel
121 Warbler, Jed, Thrift, Firefox, Iris, Otday, Gooseander, Harebell, Haw, Molly, Campion, Qvuine, Axel, Milligan, Veronica, Mast, Shag, Flint, Scoter, Sabrina, Marjoram, Peregrine, Clarice, Lingon, Cove, Gooseberry, Boarherb, Lorna, Horehound, George, Gowwan, Bloom, Leofric, Silverbean, Scorza, Flittermouse, Bryn, Hugh
122 Will, Gage, Mari, Ford, Milligan, Basil, Gudrun, Fergal, Rowan, Iola, Llyllabette, Yoomarrianna, Sledge, Hubert, Svetlana, Stanislav, Kathleen, Reef, Desmond, Raymond, Nigel Dabchick, Gabriëlla, Campion, Qvuine, Swegn, Nuulla, Gareth, Juniper, Leech, Thomas, Pilot, Yew, Janice, Ashlar, Slate, Whitethorn, Marble, Kæn, Berg, Linden, Lorna, Horehound, Banana, Veronica, Mast, Joaquim, Sabrina, Shag, Bloom, Cove, Hugh, Dlupé, Seela, Bullnut, Rutlan, Coppicer, Peregrine, Gowwan, Torrent, Irena, Chiffchaff, Lilly, Gosellyn, Cwm, Pim, Agrimony, Margæt, Otter, Suki, Whitethorn, Falcon, Mink, Ousel, Lyre, Dudaim, Yew, Sagon, Rowan, Jed, Turner, Otday, Hazel, Flint, Geoffrey, Eorl, Kæna, David, Harle, Clarity, Joseph, Milligan, Gibb, Gooseberry, Spoonbill, Ashdell, Bruana, Grangon, Pleasance, Heron, Basil, Alsike, Wolf, Zoë, Torrent, Columbine, Madder, Robert, Compass, Sólarsteinn, Sextant, Fulke, George, Peregrine, Molly, Falcon, Briar, Spoonbill, Dabchick, Honey, Bruana, Eudes, Fulbert, Grangon, Milligan, Gibb, Ingot, Sagon, Paul, Bulrush, Brightth, Happith, Douglas, Aaron, Nigel, Euan, Musk, Plume, Hobby, Courage, Truedawn, Nathan, Wolf, Geoffrey, Gosellyn, Steve, Axel, Yew, Zoë, Flint, Zephyr, Fletcher, Orkæke, Lunelight, Damson, Agrimony, Æneascoffey, Siskin, Brock, Bruin, Vinnek, Turner, Otday, Havern
123 Veronica, Mast, Zoë, Torrent, Columbine, Zrine, Zeeëend, Zlovan, Zylanna, Zylenna, Eolwaena, Tualla, Quoylay, Isdeän, Qheræce, Molleande, Sayley, Sennen, Waggon, Ivy, Vivienne, Nicola, Minyet, Morris, Dabchick, Iola, Geoffrey, Godfrey, Roebuck, Letta, Redstart, Russell, Iffan, Ælle, Fulcrum, Constant, Catfish, Lingwood, Fyrday, Vvavva, George, Lyre, Sagon, Graill, Joanna, Fiddil, Orcharder, Brock, Bruin, Judith, Storm, Caldera, Beth, Falcon, Warbler, Fiona, Isabel, Greensward, Jed, Fergal
124 Eleanor, Fuchsia, Woad, Bruana, Iola, Fulbert, Dabchick, Coaltit, Spoonbill, Ashridge, Noah, Bittersweet, Veronica, Mast, Coriander, Oak, Jason, George, Shag, Sabrina, Wolf, Joseph, Howell, Gervaise, Lilac, Rebecca, Jasmine, Fescue, Joella, Ash, Beech, Cattail, Guy, Molly, Beatrix, Cwm, Aida, Sharky, Lucimer, Wayland, Beth, Gage, Irena, Lilly, Eliza, Council, Gareth, Thomas, Yew, Bullnut, Flittermouse, Joaquim, Scorza, Aaron, Weälth, Silverbean, Hotroot, Shoveler, Gooseberry, Leofric, Bryn, Prawn, Gail, Dlupé, Rutlan, Flint,, Gorse, Cove, Weir, Milligan, Ruby, Janet, Alison, Olga, Miels, Ysteil, Horehound, Gowwan
125 Iola, Gage, Milligan,George, Oak, Axel, Josephine, Terry, Vinnek, Dittander, Squill,Jason, Silverbean, Mystery, Veronica, Geoffrey, Euan, Laslette, Douglas, Annella, Rampion, Mist, Lunelight, Damson, Æneascoffey, Jimmy, Berry, Aaron, Yew, Joseph, Joan, Bjarni, Polecat, Hamish, Gordon, Ross, Alastair, Céline, Midnight, Morag, Morgelle, Lillian, Tussock, Basil, Hobby, Suki, Irena, Nigel, Wayland, Siskin, Judith, Sagon, Janet, Ninija, Shader, Ivy, Beth, Mallard, Wryneck, Echo, Amber, Rowan, Weir, Will, Gale, Thomas, Gareth, Lilly, Gage, Jessica, Mike, Spruce, Harmony, Gevlik, Storm, Heron, Jamesstorm, Modesty, Solace, Timothy, Langstroth, Dadant, Io, Gdana, Liam, Gibb, Abigail, Ashridge, Morris, Dabchick, Ivana, Bruana, Miranda, Spokeshave, Manley, Field, Rose, Bling, Bling, Bittern, Madder, Robert, Heidi, Rampion, Wayland, Vlæna, Sooz, Alfalfa, Prudence, Spelt, Treen, Gramot, Greensward, Saithe, Falcon, Ripple, Sdorn, Zandra, Tenon, Hale, Beatrix, Vervain, Cwm, Amethyst, Mint, Blackdyke, Leech, Gwendoline, Pol, Bekka, Marcy, Drive, Brock, Bruin, Gervaise, Zoë, Tansy, Craig, Rock, Revæl, Sharky, Lucimer, Fiona, Warbler, Granite, Gosellyn, Eyebright, Julia
126 Dittander, Vetch, Axel, Squill, Bwlch, Beth, Granite, Falcon, Julia, Heron, Iola, Revæl, Rock, Judith, Storm, Pepperspice, Godfrey, Gibb, Gareth, Willow, Tansy, Craig, Gosellyn, Lilly, Irena, Blackdyke, Janet, Gale, Gage, Will, Mari, Ford, Weir, Siskin, Rampion, Heidi, Aaron, Nigel, Wayland, Prudence, Vervain, Io, Heron, George, Lyre, Peregrine, Larch, Dabchick, Gabriëlla, Scarff, Oddi, Myles, Ursula
127 The Father of Beings, Analyser, Comparator, Concatenator, Differentiator, Extractor, Integrator, First Thinker, Eldest, The Void, Entropy, The Music Man, Stewart, Jacques, Mariam, Saijät, Alan Holborne, John Smith, Romulus, Remus, The Tooth Færie, Father Christmas, Robin Hood, The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Lewis Carroll
128 Jacques de Saint-Georges d’Espéranche, Saijät, Ambrosia, Master mazun John, King Edward I, Christ, Muhammad, Edwina, Allan, Mary, Mariam, Helen, Fulk, Aswad, Friðegyð, William I, Saladin
129 Willow, Æneascoffey, Heidi, Rampion, Gage, Gabriëlla, Thomas, Forge, Cleavers, Dittander, Vetch, Will, Wayland, Prudence, Io, Pilot, Yew, Gale, Hermione, Silvia, Karl, Lionel, Stewart, Roland, Sheila, The Music Man, Dennis, Pete, Valerie, Rosalie, Nicky, Extractor, Amira, Geeta, Sita, Zola, Blake, Callaloo, Jaswinder, Christopher, Muhammad, Icicle, Zamira, Kalini, Upma, Eqbal, Adil, Raeni Rose, Vinny, Fæalla, Corncockle, Femday, Ilka, Summit, Gosellyn, Hazel
Word Usage Key
Some commonly used words are below. Replace th on end of words with ness and t with d or ed and most of the rest are obvious if sounded out aloud. Some words with n or en on the end can be easily understood if the n is replaced by a d. Only difficult words and words that do not exist in English are now referred to specifically.
Agreän(s), those person(s) one has marital agreement with, spouse(s).
Bethinkt, thought.
Braekt, broke.
Cousine, female cousin.
Doet, did. Pronounced dote.
Doetn’t, didn’t. Pronounced dough + ent.
Findt, found,
Goen, gone
Goent, went.
Grandparents. In Folk like in many Earth languages there are words for either grandmother and grandfather like granddad, gran, granny. There are also words that are specific to maternal and paternal grandparents. Those are as follows. Maternal grand mother – granddam. Paternal grandmother – grandma. Maternal grandfather – grandfa. Paternal grandfather – grandda.
Heartfriend, a relationship of much more significance than being a girl- or boy-friend is on Earth. Oft such relationships are formed from as young as four and they are taken seriously by both children and adults. A child’s heartfriend is automatically one of their heartfriend’s parents’ children too, and a sibling to their heartfriend’s siblings. Such relationships rarely fail and are seen as precursors to becoming intendet and having agreement.
Intendet, fiancée or fiancé.
Knoewn, knew.
Lastdaysince, the day before yesterday.
Loes, lost.
Maekt, made.
Nextdaynigh, the day after tomorrow.
Sayt, said.
Seeën, saw.
Taekt, took.
Telt, told.
Uest, used.
1 Deepcaltth, hypothermia.
2 Frogmarched, a method of carrying a resisting person in which each limb is held by one person and the subject is carried horizontally and face downwards.
3 Quick, alive in this context.
4 Jugulars, a set of four veins in the neck. There are an interior and an exterior jugular vein on each side.
5 Carotids, a set of four arteries in the neck, There are an interior and an exterior carotid artery on each side.
6 The flaught, the foolish, the stupid.
7 Aflait, frightened.
8 Flaitsome, frightening.
9 Flaughtth, foolishness.
10 Collective contributions, the Folk understanding of taxation.
11 Feijn, (originated in the phrase ‘the feral brain dead’) a pejorative term for the underclass who had not worked for generations and who lived off the black economy and the taxes of those who worked, pronounced fay+n, (fein). The spelling is Dutch, it is not known how this came about.
12 Allotment, community gardens.
13 Feija, singular of feijn, pronounced fay+a, ( feia).
14 Peel towers (also spelt Pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing with defence being a prime consideration of their design with “confirmation of status and prestige” also playing a role. Their walls were typically three to ten feet thick and were built by wealthy, rather than noble, personages of consequence.
15 Butched, north English version of butchered.
16 Feijf, human meat, pronounced fay+f, (feif).
17 Fam, term coined from feijf ham. Salt cured human meat maekt much like bacon or ham.
18 Sloes, blackthorn, Prunus spinosa. Strictly the sloes are the fruits.
19 Crack, also craic, the chat, the gossip, the fun of it, the camaraderie.
20 Wild cat, was recently referred to as the Scottish wild cat for they had only been present in Scotland probably since the early nineteenth century, is a European wild cat, Felis silvestris silvestris. Also known as Felis silvestris grampia.
21 Callaloo, a dish based on callaloo, a leafy vegetable, often amaranth, though many other plant species are uest and also go by the name callaloo in various parts of the Caribbean. It originated in West Africa.
