A Hawker’s Christmas

Hamlet sees his father’s goat on the battlements of Elsinore.

Christmas fast approaches. The ground is frozen hard, half-moons of ice lie in hoof-marks in the lane and the hedges are stark with frost beneath a sky like aged cutlery. And here at Hawker’s Pot it is a tradition that on Christmas Eve we pull up our chairs to the fire and tell each other spine-chilling goat stories. How well I remember the tale Algernon told a few years back, a true story of a night spent bivouacked in a haunted wood. All night, at the edge of the flickering circle of firelight, the unearthly form of a goat stood between the trees. They found out next morning (from a passing stranger) that a farmer had hanged himself in that very wood and this was his goat that now had nowhere to go. Equally I remember the Reverend Hawker’s tale of the time he was benighted in the furthest reaches of his desolate parish, and accepted the invitation to spend the night in a poor labourer’s ruinous cottage. All night he was kept awake by the clanking of a chain beneath his window and the most baleful of moans. In the morning, the hale, red-cheeked inhabitants had laughed: “Oh, we didn’t tell you about the goat, did we?” And then there was the Christmas that we had the pleasure of the company of that expert in the supernatural, Geoffrey Carstairs, and he recounted a terrifying incident when he had awoken in the night and found a goat standing by his bedside. “I’ve no idea how it got in, but I shall never forget the expression on its face as it observed me with those evil rectangular eyes, and how it moved its jaw from side to side, as if thinking a thought too terrible for humanity, a thought as cold and deep and horrible as space! I lay there, rigid, unmoving, with ice in my veins. Finally it spoke ... it spoke its dread message that had brought it here ... ‘me-eh,’ it began, and, ‘me-eh,’ again. Urgent, insistent, loud, that voice rang out, but never could it get beyond this first awful syllable. Finally, it turned tail and cantered out. But I tell you, the greatest horror was reserved till last: for ... oh! ... fiend of fiends! ...at the end of its legs were ... goats’ hooves!”


But this year I have been deep in books and have found a story to make their blood run cold: a story by one of our greatest English writers, the tale of an innocent old man menaced horribly by goats in his own home. Yes, this year, I shall chill their spines by reading them Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and they shall hear of The Goat of Christmas Past, The Goat of Christmas Present and The Goat of Christmas Yet to Come. Brrr! Terrifying. If anyone thinks they can tell a more scare-inducing story this Christmas, I tell them they don’t stand a goat of a chance!

A Merry Christmas to ye all.

The Travels

All has been quiet of late in the halls of Hawker’s Pot. The clangour of pun-making has not rung out for many days. The reason for it is this: the Reverend Jones has returned from his travels and we at Hawker’s Pot have been busy in a back room, turning his memories into handy, pocket-sized books. Yea, Algernon has been cutting and folding, the Reverend Hawker has been stitching and gluing, while Henry the raven has hopped around the room with lengths of thread and elastic in his beak, emitting every now and then a sonorous cark!

Details: 80 countries, 72 pages, 104 sentences, 35 illustrations, (£12.50 inc p&p inside the UK)

Note handy elastic strap. Snappy.



A new kind of joke, I think.


Outside it is drear December, the cold rain always. In our little lighted backroom we might as well be the last people on earth, riding in the Ark on a muddy sea. If you’d like a copy of Travels, please contact us through our Profile and we will tell you where to send a cheque.

The Wisdom of Hawker's Pot #3

We are all made of stars, but some of us are looking in the gutter.

Crashaw's Diary (part vii)

Thursday 17th November

A Mr Hardacre visiting. Mr Hardacre is very taken with the latest scientific ideas of Darwin and Wallace, and expatiated on them to us over tea. However, as time went on we found it hard to shift him from his single subject. Whatever we talked about, were it cabbages, horses, even members of our congregation, he returned always to his burden that everything exists solely to breed copies of itself. Even the beautiful canna lily that Margaret brought in became a text for him, and he informed us that its sole purpose was to produce more lilies, and that this was how evolution moved on. “Oh, fie,” cried Mr Jenkins, “you would not leave a single thing in the world beautiful for its own sake!” I rather agreed with him.

After tea, I accompanied the Miss Milligans home. It was already twilight, the road was shadowy and the first stars were out. Suddenly we heard the clear call of an owl from a dark clump of trees across the road. “That owl,” I said, “has only one thing on its mind. It called simply to attract a mate.” “For shame, Mr Crashaw,” said the older Miss Milligan, “you have quite gone over to Mr Hardacre’s side.” However, I insisted: “That is the sole reason it called out. To wit, to woo.”

I swung my stick in the gloom and felt the day had turned out rather well, after all. Without another word, the Miss Milligans trudged on through the twilight.

The Wisdom of Hawker's Pot #2

The Police Force are sometimes accused of over-reacting, but never the Fire Brigade.

Crashaw's Diary (part vi)

Tuesday, 1st November
On my way to C--- today I glanced in at the graveyard, and who should I see but Frank, apparently unconscious on a seat. All around him were hung the vivid hues of autumn, and the graveyard presented a most affecting scene, with the fallen leaves piled up thickly against the mouldering gravestones of the many generations who had found their final rest. The sun was bright and the air like glass, and as I approached Frank I was struck by how pale he looked. Hearing me draw near, he opened his eyes. “Three nights!” he exclaimed. “For three nights I have not slept. And all that time the final line eluded me.” I must have looked puzzled (indeed I was) for he continued: “The Sonnet from the Portuguese. Don’t you remember? You said I should write a new ending to it! And now I have it!” If I was impressed by his commitment to the ardours of his craft, then I was all the more impressed when he stood up and declaimed:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints -- and after my last breath
If God choose, shall love thee more in Heaven.
How many ways? I make that about seven.

I told Frank it certainly was an improvement.

As we were leaving I was reminded what an unaccountable fellow Frank is. He stopped for a moment and swished his cane dismissively as he cast his eye over the scene in the graveyard, the graves under a thick carpet of autumn leaves. “That lot,” he said, “they’re never going to achieve much, are they?”

The Wisdom of Hawker's Pot #1

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, so do be careful.

Crashaw's Diary (part v)

The story so far: Philip Crashaw is the Curate to the Rev. Arthur Jenkins in a Country Parish in Dorset. The year is 1870.

Saturday, 29th October
A great expedition to view the prospect from B--- Knoll, in the company of Mrs Jenkins, Frank, and the Misses Milligan. On the way back we passed the vicarage at S----, with its elm-shaded garden and ancient yew hedges. Our day of walking had relaxed our spirits somewhat and I said to Miss Milligan that I hoped that one day I would live in a vicarage just such as that. There is something about Miss Milligan’s brown eyes and her direct open manner that encourages one to share one’s thoughts. It must have seemed like presumption on my part, however, because she gave me a meaning look and replied, quite shortly, “Yes, no doubt it is a favourite reverie of yours.”

But – oh Lord! – how foolish I am! It is only now, in writing it down that I realise she was making a joke. How dull I must have appeared! The rest of the journey passed in silence, while Miss Milligan darted occasional reproving glances at me.

Researchers at the School of Botanical Theology have proved that the serpent knew exactly what he was doing when he persuaded Eve to taste the apple, that he explicitly intended to bring death into the world (to Eve and all her descendants), and that it was a clear case of malus aforethought.*
______________
*Malus domestica: apple
Malus malus: bad apple
Malleus Maleficarum: Vatican guide to apple-bobbing

L’Esprit d’Escalier

Upstairs

Downstairs

Stairtrek: The Older Generation

These are the voyages of the Stairship Enterprise: Its five year mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before, one step at a time.

Captain’s log, Stairdate 4523.3. The crew continue to complain about how many stairs there are on this ship. “None of us are getting any younger”, they say. “And it’s hell on the hips and knees”. In the afternoon we received a Mayday call from Mr Scott and Mr Spock. They were stuck on the seventh staircase, intermediate flight, fifteenth step, to Poop Hatch Deck 9, deferred. “For heaven’s sake,” said Mr Scott, when they were brought in, “it’s the 23rd century. You’d have thought they’d have come up with something better than stairs by now!” “It is my belief,” interjected Mr Spock, “that some of these staircases lead nowhere at all. Who designed this spaceship anyway? ...

CUT TO:

Doris Day in a Piranesi prison. She does not care that she must spend her days among wretches dressed in rags, among awful engines, dreadful abutments, pulleys, beams, levers, chains – and oh! those endless staircases. No, with her unwearying fatalism, she climbs those never-ending stairs, and as she trudges she sings: Carceri, -ceri.

(Excuse my flights of fancy.)

The Human Condition

From starry-eyed youth to stary-eyed madman, 'tis but a short distance.

Going out or staying in? he wondered.
The shimmering carpet of stars vs. the stair carpet,
The mysterious starlight vs. the stairlight.

Lastly:

The Stannah Starlift

The moon landing.