TheBanyanTree: Mad sheep 5: how the dragons became ravens

[Peter Macinnis]

Herein, there are references...

Vögel is a female raven who joined them after they robbed a fake Baron 
in the Tyrol, to get rare monovalent zinc.

Oh, and petrol is gasoline, in case you needed to be reminded.

The ravens, as all the characters know, were once dragons, but they are 
reticent about telling the tale.

********************
"It was a simple enough tale," Vögel said. "You won't get it out of the 
English ravens, though, because it was all their fault. The zing had 
gone out of their fire-breathing, ours as well, so we all started 
gulping petrol."

"And that changed you?"

"No, petrol had absolutely no effect on our metabolisms, except to make 
our scales even more colourful. That aside, the petrol did wonders for 
the flames. But during World War II, everybody started guarding their 
petrol supplies better, and that made them start using alcohol, but soon 
enough, that was being rationed and guarded. Then a ship, the S.S. 
Cabinet Minister, loaded with whisky went onto rocks in the Hebrides."

"Let me guess: dragons started looting it?"

"Yes, in the odd moments when the islanders weren't helping themselves, 
but there was whisky galore, while the fun lasted. The trouble was that 
radar had been invented by then, and as dragons, we showed up on radar, 
so Spitfires kept being sent up to chase us. In the end, a whole bunch 
of English dragons loaded up with whisky and headed for 1870s America, 
settling out in the Wild West. No planes, no radar, and plenty of rotgut 
in the saloons when the Minnie, as they called the good whisky, ran out. 
They settled in and even began to make friends. That was the problem."

"Indian trouble? Range wars?"

"No, the rotgut. Unlike good whisky, rotgut made their scales fluoresce, 
which was great. The problem was that rotgut also made them drunk and 
incapable, and a few of them got trampled in cattle stampedes. So they 
asked an old Wise Woman how long the war would go on, back in England. 
She was one of their friends, but she asked them to cross her palm with 
silver. It was in the Guild by-laws, she said. The problem is, they were 
drunk at the time, and one of them thought it would be funny to get 
another of their friends to help. He was known as the Lone Ranger."

Eric nodded. "And the Lone Ranger crossed her…"

"Yes, and then with her remaining good hand she made a savage gesture 
and cursed our whole dragon race to be black birds of ill omen. No more 
colours for us, we lost our interest in gold, no more teeth, no more 
flames, no being the largest land creatures on the planet."

"But wait a minute—you said the injury and the curse happened in the 
1870s. We’ve seen ravens at the Tower of London in the 1500s…"

"She could play tricks with time, so she made the whole thing 
retrospective. And the actual drunks were sent to the Tower of London, 
so she could keep an eye on them."

"How does she manage that?"

"Well, after she got her hand fixed, she returned to England, and 
settled on a bleak moor in the West country, but every so often, she 
flies to London, just to taunt the Tower ravens."

Priscilla nodded, slowly, as this sank in. "So if she could move in 
time, she could easily talk to a poet in 1840s America. I think I get 
it, but just tell me: what is the name of the moor where she lives?"

"As you seem to have guessed, it's called Nether Moor, just below 
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh."

"And every time somebody mentions that poem…"

"Yes, they are reminded, as you have divined, of the witch's curse."




-- 
Peter Macinnis, boutique word herder & science gossip,
stand-up chameleon and part-time lay-down misère:
http://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/