Thursday, June 26, 2008

Witchcraft

Witchcraft.
Funny, I've only just remembered that I did my thesis at Art College on Witchcraft. Don't ask me why, just something that fascinated me at the time. Not by chance then, you might say, that I find myself living in one of the witchiest places in Europe.
Here are some witchy things to contemplate.
Fred.
This is Fred










Fred emerges at this time every year and frolicks with the fireflies, eats then too I imagine. How old is Fred would you say? Twelve years old possibly, maybe ten?
Forget it, you'll never get near it. He's 164.
None of our seven animals take any notice of him because of his invisibilty. this BTW is Lili's notion, i.e that he only makes himself visible to us as a kind of thank you for bringing him back to the World after he'd made that dreadful mistake (being in the wrong place at the wrong time... in the cattle stalle when they were laying the floor in 1850)
I'd written about this rospo miracle some years back but seeing him on our doorstep last night makes it worth a retell,
I was digging out some crumbling brick tiles from the floor of the old stalle
(now my studio). Dave was giving me a hand and there were two or three bricks which were in pieces but difficult to dislodge. We tried bashing and levering not to no avail, so we had to prise every broken bit out with a screwdriver. I'd taken out the whole of one brick and was removing the mortar beneath when I saw an eye open within the mortar dust; then a slight movement and then 'Yipes!' And we watched, mesmerised, as a toad pulled himself out of the debris, shook himself, gave us both a cursory glance, and wandered out of the door into the garden and into the 21st Century.
That's Fred.

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