Early Morning in Fuggis Bog

‘Lucky little wotsit,’ murmured a hard labouring serf as he watched a small blue bird flit above his head in the pre dawn twilight. With its mouth crammed full, it was indeed the early bird that got the worm. Envious, the peasant’s stomach grumbled, reminding him that in his liege’s crazy rush to beat all the others, he had gone without any breakfast. Not that this fact would have bothered the armour plated pillock he served. Ahead of him, trudged his lord and master, only two hours into their journey and whinging already.

‘Suede boots!’ Prince Pravis muttered with dour bad grace as he sunk lower into the stinking bog, ‘what low bred varlet decided that suede thigh boots was de rigueur for handsome heroes on noble quests?’

His serf, dragging their unwilling and increasingly surly horses by the ends of the reins did not answer. Squarf was tough and muscular but vertically challenged. The fetid bog ooze had long since splurged over the top of his boots and he now trudged behind his master with his socks sodden with freezing squelching mire.

‘And why do wise crones always have to live in filthy bogs?’ continued Pravis, ‘what is wrong with a little bijou cottage in a neat flower strewn meadow? Preferably close to my castle.’

The Prince threw back his long mane of golden hair in a dramatic gesture of pique, startling a carrion crow which in turn spooked the horses. The animals spun around, pulling the reins from the serf’s hands. As Squarf fell face down into the bog, the animals laden with all their spare weapons and supplies galloped off, kicking up a flurry of stinking silt with more than a suggestion of equine smirks.

‘By Odin’s Armpit!’ cursed Pravis balefully glaring after the swiftly disappearing rumps of the horses, ‘if I thought I’d end up in this accursed mire, I would never have agreed to go on the Quest for the Chalice of Untold Delights.

‘Now the bugger tells me’, Squarf muttered under his breath. He would have spoken it out loud, risking a kicking from his master, but his mouth was still full of black, foul tasting ooze complete with twigs and wriggling bugs. He fished the debris out of his mouth and sorting out the insects, stuffed them in a pouch strung from his leather belt.
Well, he had to eat something that morning.

Within an hour of exhausting struggle through the mud and mire they came across a bizarre dwelling built on a small hillock of grass and trees that rose above the swamp.
With objects hanging from every branch of the tall Sniveling Willow that draped wistfully over her hovel, the wise woman’s home was at first glance everything Prince Pravis and his manservant Squarf had expected. Even the deafening sound of bleating goats and croaking toads triggered by their arrival was weird but a normal and expected weird.  This thought changed as they approached to within touching distance. Instead of the regulation shamanic objects; bones, rune stones, raven feathers, unidentified bits of animal, the crone had tied up a colander,  a fluffy toy duckling wearing wellingtons and a sailor’s hat , pictures cut out of cereal packets, three red plastic spoons. Higher up the branches she had displayed a hideous retro orange lampshade, fading once multi-coloured stripy socks, a cat basket and at least twenty banana skins ranging from fresh yellow to malodorous and rotting black.

‘We’ll be ok for bananas then.’ Quipped Squarf, still hungry from his meagre breakfast of bug sushi. 

From her medicinal herb garden, Morven watched the clumsy progress of two men approaching her hovel. She swore under her breath. Visitors! That was all she needed. Unseen by the newcomers, she ran into her back yard to get ready. A noble knight or a prince with his servant on a quest. Rats. Why did they always turn up when she planned a lazy day snuggling under the duvet with a good book? Sighing, she mussed up her tumbling auburn locks, stuck a few twigs and feathers in for good measure and grabbing handfuls of bog mud, rubbed it into her clothes and her face. Princes on quests had high expectations. She would not disappoint. She then ran back into her hovel using the back door, hitching up her long trailing gown, once a delightful shade of sea-green velvet trimmed with silver lace. It now looked like it had been dragged through a hedge and dunked in the bog. Which it had, once a week whether it needed it or not. Morven was nothing less then a true professional.

By the time the visitors reached the outer gate, she had perfected her fey, mysterious slow walk, her direct stare making full use of her beautiful dark green eyes. She was only twenty, a long way off full wise crone status. But travellers through the bog expected a wise woman, not a maiden. Well, tough, she was the nearest bog dwelling seer for forty miles, since Angharad the Extremely Knowledgeable Unless it was Questions about the Weather, retired to go to live with her sister Maud in Penge.

Remembering things had also to be right inside her hovel, Morven ran about spraying instant mysterious incense to cover up the fresh summer flowers she’d had to dump out of the window into the surrounding bog. Expectations again. Daisies and cornflowers weren’t mysterious. She threw the can behind a sofa and stood proudly, her head high as she went to greet her visitors. One was a regulation tall, handsome Prince, with a fine head of long golden hair. The other an equally regulation sidekick, a dumpy but burly peasant stinking of cabbages and stale vomit.  A routine visit.

Puzzled by the array of odd objects, the Prince and Squarf dodged their way around an eclectic collection of footstools in various stages of disrepair and decay that were arranged in clumps around the seer’s hovel. Pravis shoved the serf in front of him to make a grand announcement of his princely arrival. Before Squarf could open his mouth, a melodic voice called out from the murky shanty. ‘Welcome noble traveller, seeker of answers.’

‘She’s good,’ ventured Squarf... ‘She sensed our approach and knew why we are here.’

Pravis sighed, deeply unimpressed. ‘Who else would be up to their backsides in filth but a noble knight on a quest?’

‘Tourists?’ Squarf pondered aloud, ‘ramblers? Particularly ardent Jehovah’s Witnesses?’
He wanted to add ‘morons on quests’ but didn’t want to risk another kicking.

The young woman ushered them in with an enigmatic smile and bade them make themselves comfortable then pottered around gathering salves and potions, rune stones and crystals, ready to do her best as the on duty seer for the holiday weekend. Her gaze caught a nasty graze on the servant’s forehead. ‘I have just the thing for that.’ She murmured before disappearing behind a curtain to seek an ointment.

‘Corrrr…’ leered Squarf, ‘She’s a bit of all right. Very tasty.’

Pravis growled his disapproval at such base behaviour. Though indeed the weird wench was comely, more then that, a curvy figure, a gorgeous face with creamy pale skin and a merry smile. But he was royalty and could only date Princesses.

‘She’d scrub up well, that one,’ continued the serf ignoring his master’s displeasure. The Prince’s discomfort with Squarf’s leering was aggravated by his own imagination running riot, in his mind he could see the young woman emerging from a bath, her long titian locks all wet, draping around her shapely shoulders and down to a pair of ripe, pert……Damn it!  These witches could mind read! Or so he had been told. Pravis forced himself to concentrate on un-arousing thoughts, the hairy wart on his Aunt Prudence’s chin, the bollocky backside of an incontinent male pig, butterbeans. 

‘Forgive me, My Lady of the Swamp,’ Pravis bowed low, very low hoping to hide his swift rising interest in her, grateful when she turned her back to him to attend to Squarf’s wound. ‘But I could not help noticing the strange collection of objects you have around your home.’

Morven wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. ‘What strange objects...there is nothing out there but my totems to ward off evil and my toadstools.’ She concentrated hard, shrugged. ‘No, nothing much but the toadstools. I bought them from a wandering piddler.’

‘You mean peddler.’ corrected the Prince

‘I was right the first time.’ countered an affronted Morven, what did this prat know about the ways of the bog?

‘Saw you coming.’ sniggered Squarf ducking a swipe from the Prince’s chain metal gauntlet.                                         

‘Look, as you can see, I am a noble Prince and a mighty warrior, so I have to be chivalrous etc etc to ladies. But you don’t seem very wise to me.’

‘That’s why I call myself the Unwise Woman of Fuggis Mire. To avoid falling foul of the trades description act. And no one can sue me if I get it wrong. The ultimate get out clause.’

‘That seems very wise to me.’ smirked Squarf, enjoying his master’s confusion. It didn’t take much to confuse Pravis.

‘All this way, through a stinking bog, losing two horses! And you have no words of wisdom for me?’ The Prince’s chiselled face turned puce with the effort of remaining valiant. He wanted to swear, kick a few footstools. But that would have wrecked his hero cred. Big time.

Picking up her dignity along with the ends of her trailing dress, the Unwise Woman poured herself a stiff drink, what was it with these Knights Errant?  Quibble, quibble, quibble. ‘I am sworn to do no harm. And I never will. Nothing I recommend will hurt anyone seeking my aid.’

‘And nothing will work either!’ guffawed Squarf, forgetting he had dutifully applied one of her mango yoghourt, bluebottle and bourbon biscuit salves to his forehead.

‘At least tell me why you live in this dreadful place?’  Pravis demanded. He had to find one reason to justify his horrible, futile journey through the filthy mire.

Her eyes opened wide with surprise, ‘I have to,’ she replied, ‘this is where you quest seekers expect to find wise women and seers. I’d much rather live in a bijou cottage in a neat, flower strewn meadow.’

‘Near a castle?’

‘Yep, why not? You can get the best seats for the jousting tournaments and outlaw hangings.’