Someone planted the mulberry tree in the centre of the village a long time ago, the leaves give a pleasant shade in the summer and often, after a busy night, Henriette would sit beneath the tree to have some quiet time. This however is practically impossible during our visitor season so she decided to chat to one of them instead.
‘This village has been here for centuries’ Henriette started to explain ‘and it’s always been pretty calm around here, for some reason a lot of history has simply passed us by, nobody knows why.’
The tourist looked a bit doubtful ‘what about the wars and plagues and stuff?’ he asked.
‘We always knew about them but for the villagers it has always seemed like they were taking place in another world,’ replied Henriette. ‘each generation of villagers kept a diary of village life and passed on stories so we know really quite a lot about what happened here.’
Jay, who was wandering aimlessly around intervened ‘there was the time when some Witchfinders came here though.’
‘That’s right,’ replied Henriette ‘and it was then that something changed in the village, almost as if the village woke up and the villagers became more aware. We didn’t become more intelligent but it did seem as if people here developed much broader ways of thinking.’
Jay had nipped off to get a village diary, ‘here we are’ he said sitting down comfortably, ‘I’ll read a bit out and translate it for you as the language is a bit dated!’
‘Three riders approached followed by four men on foot. The riders wore black hats, capes and rode black horses, they each clutched a book. Their arrogance and pride were evident and they looked at us as though we were something they had found stuck to their boots. The one who was obviously their chief spoke.’
‘Who is your village leader?’ he asked with a voice so lofty that clouds passed underneath it.
‘We don’t have one,’ came the reply.
‘That is a sin against nature, you must have someone who can speak for you all and who can make sure that you don’t stray from the righteous path,’ shouted one of the other riders a bit steamed up.
‘We’ve got paths all over here but I’ve never heard of the Righteous one’ came a voice. ‘Where does it start from and by the way where can I get a hat like yours?’
‘We are going to search your village for Witches, do not conceal them, we have ways of flushing them out. ’ said their leader ignoring the interruption.
‘If you help us you will be blessed’ he added ‘it is your duty before God and you will be rewarded in the life to come. Hiding a Witch will lead you to hellfire and eternal punishment, you will be forever tortured and will rue the day you went against us. Witches sour milk, they cause your cattle to die and your crops to whither, they poison your wells and steal your children. They heal you which is against nature and they dance naked to worship the Devil. We are here to find them and save you from damnation. There will be trials and the Witches will be tested with pins and dunking and when we find them to by guilty, which we always do, they will be ….’
‘You picked the wrong day for all that,’ someone interrupted ‘it’s our village outing and we’re all off to the hill over there for a song and dance or three accompanied by some rather good elder flower wine. Maybe we’ll see you later? Or maybe not as our outings tend to go on for a few days. We would invite you but you don’t look like you’d enjoy a good knees up’
‘As soon as the words were out we all picked up our baskets and headed off for our favorite hill leaving the riders and their men looking angry and confused.’
Jay carried on reading from the diary.
‘What’s a witch?’ some of the younger villagers asked.
‘We’ve got no idea,’ came the reply ‘like bedbugs maybe? Or a type of rodent? People from another country. They seemed quite agitated about whatever it is that Witches are’
Jay was obviously getting a bit bored with his role as story teller and the tourist had wandered off so he shut the diary and turned to Henriette.
‘We know what people think Witches are’, he said ‘How is it the our ancestors didn’t when all that vicious stupidity was going on around them?’
‘I reckon that they did know,’ Henriette replied, ‘they just didn’t want to talk about it with the youngsters until they had more of a perspective on life and wouldn’t have nightmares. Whatever happened it certainly changed the village.’
‘Sorry for wandering off,’ the tourist was back, with one of our excellent locally produced ice-creams. ‘Carry on please, is your village Socialist?’
‘Does it look like a Socialist village?’ demanded Jay a bit cross.
‘I’ve got no idea what a Socialist village would look like’ replied the tourist with strawberry ice-cream running off his chin, ‘you seem to share everything amongst you.’
‘For a start Geoff never lends his underpants to anybody!’ came Jay’s terse and slightly bizarre reply.
‘Well he wouldn’t would he?’ replied Henriette ‘he knits them himself and it takes him ages. I wish he’d stop going swimming in them though, they hang down by his knees after. Not what you would call scenic.’
The tourist had been joined by others and they huddled around Henriette and Jay as if they were waiting for revelations or something like. H and J, feeling a pressure to perform and not wanting to, stood up abruptly and hurried off.
‘What was going on?’ asked one tourist of the original one.
‘I asked them if this was a Socialist village?’ T1 replied
‘Go on then, what did they say?’ asked T2
‘They chattered on about some geezer here who knits his own underwear but doesn’t share them,’ returned T1
‘Doesn’t sound very Socialist to me, I’d lend my pants to someone if needed.’ announced T2, revealing at the same time a great generosity and a lack of basic hygiene knowledge.
‘I’m not sure that Karl Marx would appreciate his stuff being reduced to lending undergarments, or not lending them as the case may be,’ chimed in T3
‘Does he live here around here?’ asked T1
Henriette and Jay, hoping that they wouldn’t be followed, had made their way to the Pub, they settled down comfortably only to find, inevitably, that the small crowd of tourists had indeed followed them and worse, had grown in number. The multiple T’s surrounded Henriette and Jay blocking all possible escape routes except the window behind Jay, which unfortunately had been painted shut. The two villagers seemed uncomfortable with the situation.
‘What do you all want?’ asked Jay, slightly more than heatedly.
‘Haven’t you got some photos to take or you could go for a swim,’ suggested Henriette.
‘I want to know why the visit from the Witchfinders brought about an awakening amongst the villagers?’ replied T1
‘Because while everyone was away singing and dancing they burnt the bloody village down’ replied Jay. ‘When, two days later, everyone got back the Witchfinders had gone and the village had been destroyed, nothing left of it except the well, thatch burns very quick.’
‘Nothing like having some strangers in daft hats burning your village down if you want people to start asking questions about stuff’ said Henriette ‘Up until then the village had grown in a sort of haphazard way as people moved in or villagers set up new homes. The villagers decided to rebuild the village but not any old how. They had some long discussions about how to go about doing it.
‘For example,’ in came Jay again ‘they reckoned that their old houses were damp and cold in the winter, too hot in the summer and were pretty dark and dingy inside. Some genius amongst them pointed out that she put a big jumper and a hat on to keep warm in the winter so maybe they could do the same for the houses? Realising that if, what they came to call the “house clothes”, were on the outside they’d get wet they decided to felt up some wool and use it inside.
‘Are you trying to tell us that your village invented house insulation in the 18th century?’ exclaimed T1 who seemed to have read a bit of history.
‘No, don’t be silly,’ replied Jay ‘it was in 1450.’
‘You’ve been insulating your houses since the 15th century! I don’t believe it!’ retorted T2
‘Well they didn’t call it insulation, they called it house clothing but yes, since the 15th century’ replied Henriette showing her usual calm.
‘They didn’t stop there’ continued Jay. ‘Someone pointed out that their fireplaces only really heated out the front you could sit in front and to the sides but not round the back. They decided to move the fireplaces away from the end walls and more towards the centre of the main room, they then decided to enclose them in a box. The first, what you would call wood burning stoves, weren’t too successful as they were made by the Cooper who as you know makes barrels. Wood isn’t the best material for building a stove so they switched to clay. There’s an original over there, it uses much less firewood than an open fire.’
Henriette took over ‘Once you start thinking like that everything starts to go quick. Someone else pointed out that during the summer people would sit in the shade where it’s cooler. So they did the same thing for the houses and planted fruit trees to shade them.’
‘15th century biomimicry!’ exclaimed T3, some people have to put a name to everything.
‘Whatever’ replied Jay ‘being on the coast we’ve always been sailors and sailors tend to get about and see stuff. One of them mentioned having visited Venice and that they made glass for windows which let light in, kept the weather out and cheered the place up. He explained that glass was made from sand and pointed out that the village had an extensive beach, it took a bit of time but eventually they cracked it and started producing glass for house windows. It brightened them up something lovely.’
‘I reckon that you’re pulling our collective legs’ complained another tourist.
‘I wouldn’t touch your collective legs’ retorted Henriette ‘if you continue making comments like that I’m going to lose my legendary calm.’
‘If you think all that’s unbelievable then this is going to knock your silly summer hats off’ said Jay a bit rudely.
Meanwhile word had got around and the Pub was now packed with T’s, the rest of us locals and already gone off to have a quiet drink elsewhere leaving Henriette and Jay held hostage by the crowd, something they didn’t appreciate and complained about later.
‘So what’s going to knock our frankly pretty fetching hats off then?’ asked T3
‘The copper’s brother used to go around collecting cow manure and night soil which he put into barrels and hauled out to the fields to fertilise them. This particular time however, after his collection, he bumped into a friend and they decided to head off for a bit and have some personal time together, love was in the air you might say. He was gone for 2 weeks and just before he got back his brother went to find out what had happened to his barrels. Yes it was night time and yes he had a flaming torch with him. He only lost half his hair and beard which was good but he was also thoroughly splattered with an interesting mixture which he didn’t appreciate at all and it was liked even less by the other members of his household. He had to sleep two nights in the stable which upset the horses.’
‘No, no, stop!’ cried T1 ‘you’re going to tell us that your village invented biogas in the 15th century aren’t you?’
‘Well somebody had to!’ laughed T3.
‘We’ve always been good at putting two and two together and then inventing stuff’ chipped in George who was running the bar ‘my great great aunt invented the catapult toilet, you sat on this deep spoon thing and when you had finished you pulled a lever and your business got flung out into the crop field saving time and trouble wheeling it there. It was fine at night when nobody was working the field. That said there were some complaints when we had our village parties, courting couples found the sudden and unexpected arrivals into their lovemaking less than romantic.’
The discussion could have gone on all night but just then the Pub AI called time.
‘We also invented beds’ said Jay ‘and I’m heading for mine.’
By the time the last ring of the bell sounded everyone had left, which is why the Pub is called the Bellender Arms.