A Grumpy Old Man’s Tale 61 The Green Dragon in the Green Dragon

The way that subject material was regarded, managed and taught at the BEE, the Bearthwaite Educational Establishment, was regarded by most outside educators, those who were aware of it at any rate, to be unusual if not to say actually bizarre. Though the BEE’s way of doing things was vehemently criticised by many, whose only common ground was that they had little common ground, for dozens of different reasons, many others were open minded about it because there was no escaping the fact that the BEE’s examination results as published by the examination boards in externally marked [US graded] public examinations were truly exceptional. There were a few, a very few, schools with similar results, but they were all expensive fee paying establishments with small class sizes and exceedingly well brought up and coöperative pupils, whereas the BEE taught what ever pupils came their way in class sizes of what ever they had to deal with. If it were considered to be convenient to teach a class of over a hundred, admittedly such groupings of children were often team taught with any number of parents providing aid as classroom assistants, then that was what was done. Such classes were no more problematic to their staff than any other and the pupils enjoyed such simply because it was something different. However, despite Bearthwaite being open to other educators’ observations, Bearthwaite teachers maintained that was with a view to rolling out their methods to others, it was a complete mystery to virtually all observers how and why such methods worked so effectively.

The BEE’s approach to discipline was an even deeper mystery to outsiders, for poor behaviour was virtually unheard of in a BEE class. The ‘We just leave discipline to pissed off mums, other than that we just make it up as we go, because the kids know very well how they are supposed to behave,’ approach didn’t really seem to be a viable discipline model to outsiders, but it was all that there seemed to be. As far as any could tell there wasn’t even a set of acceptable behaviour protocols or guidelines or an effective chain of command either. Even Murray, the supposed headteacher, didn’t function like any headteacher any outsider had ever come across before. That on the rare occasions when a particular pupil, it had always been a recent arrival to the valley, had been disruptive beyond what was acceptable to his or her peers those peers had always made it crystal clear that if such behaviour didn’t cease immediately, because it was damaging the education of their classmates, retribution would follow, and it would hurt, was never mentioned to outsiders. Bearthwaite pupils maintained discipline codes that were far tougher than those pursued by adults in other schools, and though a ‘thorough arse kicking’ had rarely been required all were aware it was an option that would be used if required and there would be no possible appeal. In Bearthwaite every action had consequences and it was a simple choice all made as to whether those consequences would be good or bad.

The few observers to whom the BEE’s methods were not a mystery usually ended up moving to Bearthwaite if not teaching at the BEE within the year. What really perplexed observers and government analysts was the BEE’s vocational educational program which was without doubt the most successful in the nation. Furthermore, that the BEE achieved the same results with the street children that Bearthwaite had taken in, many of who had never attended school and had spent their entire lives in trouble with the authorities, as it did with its own children who’d never lived anywhere else was beyond belief. That the police and the army had evidence that those same children once taken in by Bearthwaite became model citizens and their reoffending rates were zero seemed equally beyond belief. That the army maintained unofficially that sight unseen they would accept any member of the Bearthwaite rangers into the TA secure in the knowledge they would be acquiring a positive asset at least the equivalent of their special forces troops and that they had already accepted several hundred such whose previous lives of constant offending had ended once they came within Bearthwaite’s orbit was widely whispered about if not entirely believed.

The explanation for the BEE’s success in all its endeavours was simple to those who considered what truly mattered to folk and enabled their society to function with the minimum of friction. The BEE was deeply embedded in its society, a society that looked after its members, all its members, and it operated on the same principles of mutual care and coöperation, which meant behaviour that hurt others was not tolerated for long. The ultimate sanction that Bearthwaite society could impose upon a transgressor was not the imposition of a physical beating or a financial fine but expulsion. However, the concept of total rejection by their society, shunning to the point of expulsion, because a transgressor didn’t live by the Bearthwaite codes of behaviour was far too complicated a concept for most outsiders to grasp, for rejection by your neighbours was a bottom up principle rather than say a punishment handed down by a magistrate which was a top down principle. Too, that it meant you had to help all your peers and neighbours when they needed that help regardless of whether you liked them or not because they would help you when you needed that help despite their dislike of you, was a concept far too difficult for most outsiders to grasp.

The BEE had four major faculties, none of which were in watertight boxes sealed off from the others. A simple example of that would be the biological disciplines. Botany and zoology, were overlapping disciples involving both STEM and agriculture, there were many others, for crop and animal culture could not be divorced from science if one wished an informative and usefully productive understanding to be achieved. Genetics was taught from two overlapping points of view. The first was a more theoretical approach whilst the second was the way all livestock was seen. The best were always retained to be bred from, whether one were talking of dairy cattle or ratting dogs. It was no secret though it wasn’t widely known that a couple of the local AI(1) staff were Bearthwaite folk and they were willing to collect and ensure the storage of semen from not just cattle but any animal that was considered to be of appropriate quality. As Tony Dearden had said of his lurchers, “You just never know when it will pay dividends in terms of raising quality running dogs.”

The first faculty was simply called the Faculty of STEM,(2) which as its name suggested managed all Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The faculty had two main co chairmen, Liam and Alf who both coöpted others into the chair as they considered advisable. Liam concentrated on the academic aspects of STEM whilst Alf concentrated on what all considered to be the equally important practical skills involved in STEM. At the BEE STEM involved lessons in chemistry, physics, general science, biology, zoology, botany, astronomy, meteorology, food science, workshop technology, fabrication, machining technology, general engineering, general mathematics, pure mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics as well as numerous other more specialist units. All the folk involved in the BEE truly believed that a clever person devoid of all practical skills was as dangerously ill equipped to face the adult world on behalf of Bearthwaite as a gifted crafts person devoid of knowledge and cognitive abilities. The faculty didn’t just manage all STEM activities that went on in the BEE it also managed the training and professional development of the huge number of trade and craft apprentices, and their masters and mistresses too, to be found involved in many activities that went on in the Bearthwaite valley and beyond. Any who manufactured items for beekeepers and farmers was nominally under the Faculty of STEM though they produced artefacts for those under the Faculty of Agriculture.

The second faculty was the Faculty of Agriculture, which was a short and simple name for a complex faculty that managed a wide range of disciplines. Agriculture that involved crop culture, livestock culture, dairying – involving both milk and soya products, and pasture management was a major component. So too were horticulture, arboriculture, pisciculture, apiculture, cuniculture, land management and improvement and surprisingly to most outsiders slaughter and butchery, and all food preservation and commercial cooking too which included zymurgy.(3) The food science taught by the Faculty of STEM was usually team taught with one of Bearthwaite’s commercial cooks many of who were farmers who had a café for visitors. Most surprising to outsiders was the faculty was responsible for all veterinary matters and Hamilton McDonald, the senior Bearthwaite vet, was one of a number of folk who chaired the faculty meetings according to who would be best given the agendum under consideration. Others were school teachers, farmers, specialists with particular expertise, and any one else they felt necessary to coöpt into the chair at the time. The Faculty of Agriculture was effectively in charge of all non industrial, non commercial and non residential land in the Bearthwaite valley and the land Beebell owned outside the valley too. Even the pecan nut trees that Clarence had asked the tree nursery folk to plant around the village green as a potential source of bar snacks came under its charge. As with the Faculty of STEM the faculty didn’t just manage all activities under its remit that went on in the school it also managed the training and professional development of the huge number of trade and craft apprentices, and their masters and mistresses too, to be found involved in the even more diverse activities that went on in the Bearthwaite valley and beyond.

The third faculty was perhaps the most understood by outsiders, at least it was initially. The Faculty of Humanities was again a short and simple name for a diverse and complex group of endeavours. Not surprisingly it had charge of history and geography, but even those two subjects were over simplifications for what they involved at the BEE. History involved all that any other child studying for GCSE(4) and A’ level(5) history would encounter. However, younger pupils learnt about Bearthwaite’s particular history, and with the advent of the availability of the newly discovered sǫgur(6) and the older residents’ saga saying both new and old sǫgur to them, often shepherds with their dogs in attendance, it was a fascinating subject for the pupils. All they had to do was sit and listen, and what child, or adult too if it came to it, didn’t like to be told a story and many were about Bearthwaite folk, their folk. The comics available in High Fell were irresistible to the younger children not least because they knew they were produced by children not much older than themselves. Geography for younger pupils included meteorology and astronomy which with practical lessons with Joel’s weather station on the village green and Harry’s telescope on the roof of the Bobbin Mill usually with Sydney Wheeler were not the usual lessons that children elsewhere experienced. Sydney was a lower school sciences and A’ level Biology teacher which of course overlapped with the Faculty of STEM which her husband Stirling, an electrical engineer, was a member of.

The Faculty of Humanities was also the umbrella that covered all languages starting with English. French and German were not at all unusual and stretching it a bit Russian too was not entirely unexpected. However, all were now taught dialectal Cumbrian and High Fell too, and enjoyed the Runic instruction which was so popular that an after school club had been formed that was so well attended it usually took place either in the dining hall or the gymnasium. Bearthwaite children had long been writing what were referred to as essays elsewhere but as creative writing by their teachers. They wrote their work in whatever languages they desired, but there was a well followed on line magazine inspired, managed and published by the children specifically for writings in dialect and High Fell. The weekly story readings, read by their authors from the stage in the BEE theatre, were always well attended. It was not at all unusual for children who had only just mastered the skills of reading and writing to present their short works, often with the moral support of a group of elder children but never an adult, for a mixed age range audience, and many such tales formed the basis of works that ended up illustrated in the locally produced comics. As a result of the fall out from the sǫgur, old Scandinavian languages and modern ones too were now taught, mostly for the children’s interest, but some learnt modern languages especially Icelandic with the intention of taking their GCSE qualification in the subject. A popular after school activity was learning to use IPA(7) which was introduced by the codes and puzzles society, a club founded to pass away time in the dreary winter months. Learning to read, write and pronounce the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet for some reason seemed to fascinate children of all ages, but especially those learning the runes and the Cyrillic alphabet. The faculty also managed social sciences, to wit sociology, psychology, economics, banking, accountancy, law, business studies and a few other bits and pieces too. Understanding the thinking of outsider folk who saw things via religion was incorporated as a distinct unit into social studies, and the subject jokingly referred to as Bearthwaiteacy was part of a course referred to on the timetable as local studies. Along with literacy, numeracy and EFL, English as a foreign language, it was mostly taught as a part time evening or Saturday afternoon class for newcomers especially those who were still in the process of learning English, becoming used to Bearthwaite or for whom literacy or numeracy were problematic yet desirable. Again there were multiple overlaps with other faculties. Again the chair of the faculty meetings was whoever was considered appropriate at the time, teachers, accountants, solicitors, and many others took their turn. Annalísa who was Icelandic, a solicitrix and deeply involved with the sǫgur was a frequent chairwoman in any of the three capacities.

The fourth Faculty was the Faculty of Weal. Perhaps easiest of all to understand, the Faculty of Weal, which meant the Faculty of Well Being, included the doctors, nurses, midwives, chiropodists, dentists, opticians, dieticians, hearing technicians, pharmacists, psychologists, hair dressers, beauty therapists, full time and part time sports and games teachers which included all and any parents who assisted the sports staff in any way at all, and all those involved in supervising physical fitness classes many of whom were not teachers but certified physical fitness instructors. It also included all the staff who looked after babies and toddlers at the unit attached to the BEE and all who had a hand in looking after the elderly which to the surprise of outsiders included hundreds of teenagers. Nominally Dr Wing was the chairman, but many others took their turn as well. At the school there were numerous classes that came under the faculty’s ægis, but to the surprise of outsiders sex education was not one of them. There were no sex education classes at the BEE, for Bearthwaite folk considered that to be a parental responsibility, and Bearthwaite being a rural environment there was no shortage of practical examples of farm animal reproduction going on all around the children. For example, it was not at all uncommon for a four year old to shout excitedly to her friends to hurry and come to watch for Poppy and Toby were making puppies. There were units in the biology classes concerning puberty for both sexes and they were taught as biology to classes containing both sexes. Too, there were units in biology classes concerning pregnancy and naturally nursing. Such classes overlapped with the faculty of STEM and the Faculty of Agriculture who taught about pregnancy in farm and domestic animals and lactation in milch animals. The same classes were often taught by teachers who were in multiple faculties and often were team taught by teachers with different foci on the same subject matter.

Virtually all Bearthwaite children had part time jobs for which they were paid. Mostly that was illegal because UK law forbad children under the age of thirteen from working at all, and even if they were old enough they had to apply to the local authority for permission and a certificate and there were tight restrictions on where they may work, when they may work and what they may do, all of which were bitterly resented. Bearthwaite had been ignoring the regulations from the day the law was passed, and had evolved a rather sophisticated set of mechanisms to avoid being caught breaking them. Bearthwaite children wished to work, they were not exploited and all, especially the children, considered it to be part of their education and the process of growing up. Bearthwaite children and adults resented the way that officialdom with absolutely no understanding of nor interest in their way of life attempted to interfere with their lives, so since it was easy to ignore they did so. They operated on the principle that what officialdom didn’t know about wouldn’t upset them, so as had been done for generations they told the authorities nothing and went their own way.

A week after arriving at Bearthwaite, Zvi expressed amazement to Liam McKenzie, a technically retired but still active teacher of mathematics and a major personage in the unofficial group of persons who acted as the BEE board of governors, that the BEE had no focus on the GCSE border line of grades three and four especially in mathematics and English. Liam had told her, “We have no interest whatsoever in merely helping any child of ours to obtain worthless pieces of paper that only mean anything to the idiots who live outside our society and its values. Even someone with a GCSE grade five in mathematics, despite what the government and educationalists would have you believe is a good pass, is barely numerate. More or less the equivalent can be said of all other subjects. Our belief is that unless a child wants to chase that sort of abysmal mediocrity of performance, and none of our children do, for unlike outsider children they heed advice given by their elders, we should let them study something else where they can achieve at a level that they can have an absolute pride in, not a fatuous meaningless pride in some relative nonsense dreampt up by the system that is nothing more than a piece of paper without even enough substance to light a fire on its own.

“If that means they start a trade apprenticeship at the age of thirteen or fourteen so be it. We try to set all our children up to succeed at what they can and wish to do, not to become an unemployable also ran at something which they were doomed to be a failure at from day one. The curricula followed by all Bearthwaite children are very different from those followed by most children educated elsewhere, for to a degree all our children have a unique curriculum tailored to their own unique set of interests and abilities, and it would not be untrue to say that all Bearthwaite adults are prepared to assist in their educations in any way they are able. Every adult here is willing to mentor children doing what elsewhere is referred to as work experience. Most have already done so many times. During the Covid lockdown all our children continued with their educations. The secondary children were usually educated at Whiteport Academy in those days, but by using hundreds of our folk to teach their often highly specialised but tiny portions of the syllabi we managed to teach the children everything they needed to be taught here. It was the fact that amongst us we could teach all the syllabi in their entireties that caused the BEE to be envisaged and ultimately become a reality.

“Alf Winstanley is one of the most respected of Bearthwaite folk. He is a man whose contributions to his society are so great they can’t even be estimated never mind measured, yet he was a complete failure at school and has always said he felt sorry for the staff who had to try to teach him owt other than what he could do with his hands. In many ways he is a genius, but perhaps his greatest value to us all is that his very presence constantly reminds us that there is more than one way to learn and far more than one way to success. He is the one we talk to if we are looking for a path for a particular child who is not doing well with material presented in a way that suits other children. He has never failed to provide such children with futures that enable them to have enough self esteem to hold their heads up high as Bearthwaite folk, no matter how limited their cognitive skills. No matter what their abilities, we have retained a society that can find value in all our folk and all our folk are aware that they have value to the rest of us. Here in order to protect our way of life, a way of life that we value that has essentially disappeared elsewhere in Britain, we need hedgers, ditchers and drystun(8) wallers, we need lasses that can cook, knit and sew, but perhaps most of all we need folk that can become decent, loving, caring parents able to mind the children of their neighbours when necessary.”

It was only a few months later that Zvi truly understood what Liam had meant and she had to agree with him, for the truth in his words was there to be seen all around her every day. She had never come across such a happy collection of children before. She’d met bright girls with university futures in front of them who were happy and proud to have boyfriends who were well into their craft apprenticeships as building or engineering tradesmen, farmers, horticulturalists and workers at jobs that outsiders would disparagingly have referred to as general labouring. She’d come across seventeen year old Francesca who was in the first year of her A’ levels and worked part time for Vincent in the butcher’s shop. To her surprise Francesca, who wanted to study medicine with a view to becoming a surgeon and was more than clever enough, had been going out with Sinclair, since before she was ten. Sinclair was a general labourer who’d left school at thirteen to work for the Levens brothers, all four of them. He was proud that he was well thought of as an assistant to a bricklayer, a carpenter, a plumber and an electrician. He was happy at his work where he was well thought of and was well paid.

She’d heard an outsider say, ‘But for a girl like you, Francesca, you could find a really clever boy and go anywhere, Sinclair will only tie you down to Bearthwaite.’ Francesca’s reply had said it all. “I have no intention of ever living anywhere else because such places are full of folk like you who don’t understand what is real and what is fantasy. If Sinclair ties me to here that is a plus, not a minus, and besides I’d be very lucky indeed to find a lad out there as kind as Sinclair. One day I’ll bear his children and they too will be gey lucky to have as good a dad as I know he will be, and they will be growing up here.’ It was few days later that she’d been told that Whiteport Academy, where Bearthwaite’s secondary aged pupils [11-18] used to be educated still harboured grudges concerning their loss of income and the high achieving Bearthwaite pupils that had occurred when the BEE had been set up. The outsider she’d heard talking to Francesca had been a science teacher from Whiteport.

Too, there were clever boys equally proud to have girlfriends who were apprentice cooks, child minders, home helps for the elderly, dairy workers, goose girls, seamstresses and associated craftswomen. She knew that nineteen year old Emma had recently married twenty-seven year old Silas and both were delighted that she was three months pregnant. That he was a tough, hard faced, graduate engineer and she was a pretty, stereotypical blonde who was good with children, made jams and pickles for a living and struggled to read and write anything other than cookery receipts didn’t seem to matter to any, least of all the couple involved. Many of the less able girls and boys were doing crafts that no longer existed elsewhere, hill shepherds, drystone wallers, spinners, weavers, knitters, goose herds, home visitors and helpers and carers for the elderly and many other crafts too that Bearthwaite couldn’t find enough folk to do. It was a Damascene experience for her that led to a complete reëvaluation of exactly what it was that constituted learning and education. Sometime later the real reëvalation came when she started to question the purpose of learning and education and her superficial description of persons who were vital to the weal of their society as less able.

Too, Zvi was amazed that all lessons were available on video over the BEE intranet, so that children too ill to attend school could catch up their missed lessons as soon as they became well enough to do so. It was to be a while before she became aware that the videoed lessons were also available so that the children hidden from the authorities who’d found sanctuary at Bearthwaite could take part in lessons interactively without having to attend lessons when the lonning wasn’t flooded. That the Bearthwaite children who lived outside the valley routinely took part in lessons via Zoom when the lonning was flooded seemed miraculous to her. However, what seemed most amazing of all to her were the thousands of indoor and outdoor practical lessons in both academic subjects and vocational subjects that were available for all pupils to watch whether they took the subject formally or not. That huge numbers of children watched such from interest, often in groups larger than a formal school class, was she considered a condemnation of education outside the valley.

That there was a small cinema attached to the BEE she’d long known, but she’d always presumed it was for the shewing of entertainment movies. She’d been aware that it had been packed with little ones when Snow White had been shewing, and with older children when wildlife and exploration documentaries had been shewing. Family adventure movies like Indiana Jones were she’d been told of little interest to their youngsters, and most of them had lost interest in cartoons by the time they went to school, by which time they’d discovered much more interesting things to watch in their spare time. That the cinema was more usually used for videos shewing crafts men and women explaining aspects of their trade or teachers explaining aspects of their subject, especially mathematics teachers, had caused her considerable surprise. Even more surprising to her was that thousands of ordinary Bearthwaite folk had created videos of themselves explaining their craft. Tiffany who’d created a twelve minute video of herself salt fermenting fresh parsnips had telt her, “If you mek a video every now and again it meks you focus on exactly what you’re doing and why. I reckon that being able to explain it to others meks you better at your job. Too, the video is then there for the kids to look at and maybe yan or twa(9) will fancy tekin up the craft or helping out when we’re under a bit o’ pressure.”

The group of twelve adolescents attached to the rangers were watching the car park on Bearthwaite Lonning Ends from the well hidden bothy(10) that had been recently built in natural stone on the slope up from the valley to the Needles Fells to look like one of the hundreds of rocky outcrops. As usual they were taking it in turns to watch whilst the others did their homework, chatted, or played games, usually bridge or chess. It was rare that any vehicles pulled on to the car park at night and usually the ones that did were cars or small vans containing courting couples seeking privacy and intimacy, though the odd police vehicle arrived so the officers could have a drink from a thermos and eat a sandwich. Threlkeld sensed the large dark blue van was different and he told Blain to let Raven Collingwood, who was in charge of the rangers that evening, know that they almost certainly had a problem of some sort. Ten of the group focussed their binoculars on the van whilst the other two took still photographs and video of the van as it drove up to The Rise, presumably Svetlana said to see if the lonning was flooded. Blaine who was now in constant communication with Raven telt the others that a tanker truck with a water canon on the top was on it’s way to deal with the invaders and extra rangers were coming from outside the valley to deal with the van. He said there would be about two dozen folk, all armed with shotguns, coming from outside.

The van had returned from the Rise to park next to the main road on the car park at the Lonning Ends and four persons disembarked and began to don heavy looking rucksacks and finally to sling rifles over their shoulders. It had not been possible to discern whether they were male or female due to their special forces like clothing and equipment. When Blaine informed Raven about the rifles he heard him chuckle and say, “I can see them, but it won’t make any difference, Blaine. The water cannon will deal with them armed or not.” Not long after that the four individuals set off walking up the lonning, and the watchers heard an approaching vehicle in the distance on the main road to the north of them. Then the engine was turned off. Despite having a live video stream of the car park from the CCTV cameras, after ten minutes Raven asked Blain if the Lonning Ends were still empty of folk. Blain assured him they couldn’t see any one either on their CCTV screens or using their night vision binoculars, but suggested that there could still be some one in the back of the van. A few minutes later a group of maybe twenty folk dressed in nondescript military fatigues with camouflage paint on their faces trotted on to the car park. One snatched the rear doors of the van open whilst others pointed shotguns into it. However, the van was empty. Canisters of some sort were threwn into the engine compartment, the cab, the rear and under the van. The bonnet [US hood] of the engine compartment, the cab doors and the doors to the rear of the van were closed. In seconds foam began to spew out from under the van and from below the engine compartment. A few seconds later the windscreen of the cab was forced out from its seal to land undamaged on the ground. Then the pressure of the foam forced the rear doors open as the foam under the van lifted its wheels off the ground. After a minute or so more the foam stopped flowing but the van’s wheels stayed several inches off the ground.

The folk in fatigues had trotted away to the main road as soon as they had closed the van doors and headed off in a northerly direction presumably to return to whencesoever they had come. Not long afterwards an engine was heard to start and whatever vehicle it belonged to drove away to the north. Once it had faded to nothing, Threlkeld was chuckling as he explained, “That foam will have set solid by now and it sets gey hard gey fast. I saw Dr Wing use it instead of splints on Roscoe’s leg after he set it when Roscoe, one of the apprentice shepherds, brock it up on the tops. Using the foam meant we couldn’t cause him any pain when we stretchered him down off the fells to the surgery. They have something that can soften and dissolve it when it has to be removed, but for now that van is absolute toast. I wonder what is in store for those four folk.”

Svetlana laughed and replied, “Nowt pleasant. Granddad telt me that that watter in the tanker isn’t just watter. It stinks and it’s got something in it that meks it slimy and horrible and it irritates your skin like a really bad itching powder. You know how a curry or a chile is hot due to some chemical in chile peppers?” The others nodded. “Auntie Jane as does chemistry has made some stuff from much nastier plants than chiles. When it’s a hundred percent pure it’s billions of chile units(11) strong. There’s just enough of it in the watter to make life unpleasant without doing any damage if you get soaked by it.” Half an hour later four sobbing folk, and it was easy to discern that they were three men and a woman now, for they had stripped off their outer clothing and equipment and left it behind, returned at a run constantly scratching and rubbing their bodies. One of the men was holding some keys, the watchers presumed they were the van keys. When they reached the van and saw the foam they broke down and started towards the main road, but walking rather than running. The man with the keys had threwn them onto the ground beside the van. They seemed too involved with their own misery to talk to each other.

Threlkeld asked, “Did your granddad say how long that lasts for, Love?”

Svetlana smiled and replied, “Aye, weeks, maybe months if you don’t get medical attention which essentially blocks the nerves so you feel numb. The only thing that does away with the effect is time, lots and lots of time. That stuff is so dangerous it can cripple or even kill you if you get just touched by a drop of a strong enough solution. The rangers just want to stop folk coming back for a second attempt, so the stuff in the water tanker is diluted to almost nowt, but the plants will soon be growing all over the routes idiots would have to use to get to the village without using the lonning. There’re going to be lessons about them at school soon to all classes, so we’ll know what they look like and where to avoid, but some of the medical researchers are working on an antidote and reckon they’ll have it in three to six months. I’ve finished my homework, so I’ll mek some tea and butter some toasted crumpets. Any one for a game of chess when I’ve made the tea?”

The fifty by five foot dragon painting in the taproom of the Green Dragon was to be mounted properly as soon as the extension to the rear of the building had been completed. Despite his desire to get on with the job, Alf had insisted that they waited for Daphne to be present when the discussions took place concerning it’s exact placement. Alf had volunteered to extend the plywood sheeting of Daphne’s ‘canvas’ to both sides of the room such that the painting would be ninety-four feet long, the full length of the new taproom. All were glad he had insisted they wait for Daphne because it had been decided upon her advice to place the original fifty foot section of it well to the left of the centre of the taproom. “If you do that, Alf, I’ll repaint the head to look back into the room from off the front wall and repaint the right hand side with the rear legs moved backwards and instead of the tail curling back on itself to fit it in I’ll repaint it much longer going backwards around the room on to the rear wall coming downwards to about head height. Could you wire up a tiny LED light into the midst of the flames coming out of it’s mouth? Don’t worry about the wire. If you run it backwards over the painting and then through a hole in the plywood I’ll just paint it in, so it’ll never be seen. If that’s doable I’ll paint the flames using special paint, so that the light will make the flames look real.”

After the Levens brothers’ builders had completed their work enlarging the taproom the space was handed over to Peregrine Forster to do the teak bar extension and the fine woodwork including making a number of bar stools along with the extra chairs and tables required whilst they completed the rest of their work on the extension of the inn. Peregrine or Perry as she was more usually known was the only person that Alf was prepared to trust with the massive teak slab that she had gone out to the far east with her family to source, along with the rest of a forty foot shipping container full of teak and other tropical hardwoods. Perry did, as Alf knew she would, a superb job of the bar extension, the extra wainscotting and all the other architectural woodwork in the tap room. After that she left to continue with the required furniture in her workshop leaving Alf to over see the finishing of the woodwork leaving the taproom redolent of beeswax, resin, turpentine and various spirituous solvents. Alf and Daphne had then done all that the pair of them had said they would do and had overseen all else that was to be done for them before Daphne could finally start on transforming the taproom into an exotic place of wonder.

Daphne had then taken the taproom over for the best part of a fortnight as she’d painted the taproom to create the extra tableaux that would ultimately augment the initial work that had been the fifty by five foot heavy gauge plywood painting of a green dragon. For the previous month she’d been filling her sketch pads with dozens of scenes, rearranging them and discarding some as her ideas finally began to coalesce into some kind or overall project. In the first week of painting she prepared her ‘canvas’ and repainted the necessary parts of the dragon into its new enlarged form. The Saturday evening in the midst of her work the Grumpy Old Men met in the dining room though naturally most had been for a quick look in the taproom. There wasn’t much new to be seen for first Daphne had blended in the entire ceiling, initially as sky with clouds but subsequently to be overpainted where necessary. By then the dragon had been more or less finished in it’s new form, but she hadn’t really started on much else, though there was water to be seen on the taproom front and rear walls and some mountain peaks appearing through clouds onto the ceiling. The dragon’s tail now reached halfway across the taproom rear wall, and likewise the dragon’s head was no longer on the ply, for its now extended neck put the head four feet around the room corner onto the taproom front wall. The most astonishing change was the dragon’s left wing now reached far onto the ceiling.

Executed partially in low relief the dragon’s head was now facing to its left into the centre of the taproom. It looked spectacular with the flickering flames of its breath appearing to be directed into the centre of the taproom too. The heavily armoured brow ridges that protected the luminescent, yellow green eyes that carried a hint of red in their depths were four inches [50mm] proud of the piece whereas the eyes themselves were only two inches proud yet wherever in the taproom one viewed the creature from it seemed to gaze at one with an almost childlike curiosity. Various parts of the dragon’s body ranged from a creamy white on its belly edged with yellows gradually darkening into a brown so dark as to be almost black at its wing tips and the last few feet of its tail. The extreme tips of its forked tail were unrelieved black. Despite that, the overwhelming impression was of a green dragon for the bulk of its body, its legs, neck, head, tail and the bulk of its wings were all of various shades of green. Light greens, yellowy greens, browny greens, dark greens, greens dappled with black and even hints of red, but when all was said and done the dragon in the taproom of the Green Dragon Inn at Bearthwaite was a green dragon.

To the surprise of all those who went for a look whilst drinking in the dining room the space between the two narrow windows in the gable end which was about half a metre [20 inches] wide was painted jet black in the centre paling slightly to dark gray towards the edges of the windows. The lower edges of the two separate one hundred millimetre [4 inches] thick slate sills of the windows were set into the top of the wainscotting rail by three millimetres [⅛ inch] which elsewhere stood at a hundred and twenty centimetres [4 feet] above the floor. The bottom of the window lintels, which were in fact a single lintel made from a huge slab of one hundred and fifty millimetre [6 inches] thick slate was three feet [90cm] above the top of the sills leaving a hundred and twenty-five centimetres [50 inches] of wall remaining before reaching the ceiling. The lintel was painted the same unrelieved black as the centre of the space below it as were the sills. The wall above the lintels was painted dark gray possibly reaching to sixty centimetres [2 feet] each side of the sixty centimetres [2 feet] wide windows, possibly three metres [10 feet] in all of dark gray. The dark gray paled slightly as it reached for the ceiling where it became almost maroon and cloud like. It was a puzzle to most what was going on but Alf had warned them that it would not be wise to question Daphne when she was creating. Alf didn’t like disturbance when he was working so all decided it would be best to leave well alone.

During her second week Daphne extended the painting using the walls around the entire room all the way down to the handrail that topped the wainscotting that at forty-eight inches from the floor was six inches higher than the top of the bar. She didn’t paint in any systematic manner that would have made sense to any other than another artist, for she would paint a bit of a scene and then flit to somewhere else to work. Sometimes she would spend a few hours on something sometimes a few minutes, mostly it was somewhere in between. Alf understood, for it was often the way he worked on a major project. He’d do what he could that was easy to pin down which more often than not made it clearer what he had to do next to make further progress. It was a process of elimination of options, for Daphne it was literally one of painting herself into a corner with the way out becoming clearer as she progressed. Stephen was surprised that Daphne wasn’t bothered by Alf’s presence for usually she would only allow himself to watch her working, others distracted her.

As he listened to the conversations going on between Daphne and Alf as they discussed the work, the lighting, the scenes themselves and dozens of other aspects of what he knew would become a masterpiece, he gradually understood. Alf wasn’t merely an observer, he was involved in the creative process and Daphne valued his suggestions and even his criticisms, for they were never offered without a viable alternative which the pair of them often argued about for a while but eventually a solution would emerge that was acceptable to both of them. On the Wednesday of that week Daphne and Alf were having what appeared to Stephen to be a rather odd conversation, for mostly they were saying things like ‘How about – Nah that’s a rubbish idea.’ It went on for over an hour. Stephen left them to ask Veronica in the kitchens for a tea tray and something for them to eat because they’d been too involved to stop for lunch. Jane, Brigitte’s older friend was in the kitchens and she’d said she’d organise something and bring it to them. Stephen didn’t notice Veronica’s lifted eyebrows at Jane’s offer. When the tray arrived Stephen interrupted the pair and said, “You haven’t had lunch. At least stop for a cup of tea and a scone. What’s the problem, Love, Alf?”

“We’re trying to think of a biggish scene or maybe two lesser ones to bring us around the corner onto the rear wall. Something to transition from the parched African tropics to the temperate climate rural scene behind you. But it has to make sense. Alf thinks all his ideas are no good, and mine definitely are no better.”

Jane somewhat hesitantly asked, “Does it have to be a scene from Earth, or could it be from somewhere else, Daphne?”

“What are you thinking of, Lass?” Alf asked.

“Well, the African scene is really dry, but instead of trying to come back to the farm scene in one move with something with an in between climate why not go way dryer with a scene from the science fiction books of Dune. The most impressive thing about Dune is the great sandworms. Paint a huge one head on coming out of the upper corner. Up on to the ceiling, down to the wainscotting. That would be sixteen foot top to bottom so it would have to be the same across, eight feet on each wall. Dragons have always been referred to as worms in older literature, so there is a connection and both are mythical creatures. Then maybe an Egyptian or other Middle Eastern oasis scene. That would have sand like Dune and water like the farm.

“I like it. I read Dune years ago, but I’ll read it again tonight. Thank you very much, Jane. Okay, Alf, back to the ravine. It’s the only totally Bearthwaite scene, so I want some more drama in it. I want it to much more impressive. It’s history surely has something that would provide what I’m after. You got any ideas? How about we ask Tommy?” Stephen realising that as far as Daphne and Alf were concerned he and Jane no longer existed suggested they left. None was exactly sure just how many hours a day the pair spent on the taproom, but it was all finished in time for the Grumpy Old Men to meet in the taproom the following Saturday where most were, in the vernacular, completely gobsmacked by their surroundings. Daphne had tapped into a local sense of identity with her depiction of the pack pony men, for despite them being in the main outsiders from way to the south in Lancashire and even Cheshire, though some had married local women and settled in the valley, their activities had for a long time been part of Bearthwaite’s history.

Below the length of the massive dragon’s body and wings, and just above the centre of the bar space, was a foreshortened view of round faced, jet black haired, cheerful, almost oriental looking folk dressed in furs and brightly coloured clothes sitting and standing in front of skin tents and beside the fires of their encampment over some of which were hanging metal kettles. A middle aged woman using both hands was dipping what appeared to be metal mugs from a tray into one of the kettles and passing the filled ones to other folk who were waiting with smiles on the faces. Over other fires large portions of meat were being spit roasted on primitive but functional contrivances fashioned from thin tree branches. Though mid summer in the land of the midnight sun, their breath was visible in the cold as they were drinking, eating, chatting and laughing in the frigid, thin, midday sunshine of the sere, arctic tundra that reached to the mountains that lay so far behind the dragon that despite their obvious height their peaks barely reached on to the ceiling through the dark ominous looking clouds that promised a heavy fall of snow in the next few hours. The limp carcass of a large deer with an impressive rack of antlers could be seen hanging loosely from the steely looking talons of the beast’s left front claw which presumably it had taken from the vast herd of reindeer it was overflying.

The left wing of the colossal beast that was to the right hand side of the image as one faced the bar reached far up on to the ceiling. Even though it was sweeping down and back towards its tremendous body to power the beast forward and keep it aloft still it reached three quarters of the way across the taproom ceiling whilst the wing on the beast’s other side was mostly obscured by its body with just a small part of its almost black trailing edge to be seen below its almost white belly. To the left of the encampment the brightly coloured hats of a few dozen of the cheerful round faced folk could be seen amongst the herd of thousands, probably tens of thousands, of reindeer. A herd possessed of a veritable sea of antlers that extended back into the image as far as the eye could make out where they seemed to merge into the foothills behind them. As one approached the front wall of the taproom the herd thinned out eventually becoming just a few widely separated younger males. The animals nearer to the encampment seemed to be domesticated, for some were being milked and others groomed for their rather short looking hair. Immediately to the right of the encampment a number of men were butching a half dozen of the reindeer which were in various stages of dismemberment, some of the haunches had already been impaled onto the sticks ready for cooking over the fires. As one looked farther to the right the butchers became obscured by the dragon’s wing.

For many decades an antique, glass ale yard(12) had hung over the bar suspended by brass chains and fastenings. Some said it had been there for a score and a half or more decades(13) for there were ancient records, folk tales, and sǫgur too, of the pack pony men, who had used the valley and the dangerous route up the ravine at its head as a shortcut on their way home in the dryer weather towards the end of summer, challenging each other and others too to drinking contests using it. Daphne had thought it should remain in its long accepted home hanging over the bar and that brass was the appropriate material to support and display the ancient ceremonial drinking vessel. She’d carved a plaster of Paris claw of the right size to suit the dragon’s right hind leg that could be affixed to the lower portion of the plywood panel to hang vertically down clearing the dark red, tropical hardwood framing that leant backwards due to the orientation of the plywood which was fastened such that it leant out forwards into the room at its upper edge.

Daniel the Bearthwaite foundry man had said the claw would be extremely difficult to cast using the plaster of Paris pattern unless it were to be modified beyond viability, for it would be totally impossible to extricate the existing pattern from the moulding sand without damaging the mould beyond usability. Daphne had asked him if fine grained expanded polystyrene could be used to create a lost pattern.(14) Daniel had said that would be an ideal material to use and in this particular case it would be a better option than a wax pattern. He used the polystyrene claw as a pattern to cast the claw in bronze. Alf had drilled four holes in the rear of the bronze casting and tapped threads in them for four twelve millimetre studs which passed through holes in the heavy grade plywood of the painting so that washers and nuts could be used to affix the massive seeming bronze claw solidly into place. Parts of the claw were several inches below the lower edge of the painting frame work enabling it to support the yard freely over the bar.

The lethal looking, long, centre talon of the claw reached out horizontally high above the beer pumps past the trumpet like flared neck of the yard with its razor sharp, retractile nail curved back to fit inside and support the yard’s neck whilst the spherical bulb on the other end of the yard nestled safely secured cradled in the centre of the claw with its outer talons ensuring it couldn’t move other than by deliberate intent. The glass yard could only be taken out of the claw by lifting the bulb vertically out of the claw and then sliding its neck off the curved nail. It no longer had need of support by brass chains or anything else. Daphne had modelled and repainted the dragon’s left rear leg in low relief to seamlessly join the cast claw and repainted what could be seen of the dragon’s other three claws in bronze to match. That the entire illusion all appeared so real was a masterpiece of manipulated perspectives. “That claw gives you a real sense of just how big the bugger is don’t it, Vincent?”

“That it does, Uilleam. That it does. A drop of this Calvados, Lad?”

In front of the dragon, which seemed from the shadow thrown by the bulk of its body flying over the bar to be flying at midday, it was about to fly earlier and earlier into the morning and later and later into the autumn [US fall] of the year, over fjälls and fjords(15) complete with ice bergs of various sizes in the fjords that had finally broken free of their parental glaciers that ground their way slowly down from the fjord valley heads between the fjälls eroding the underlying rock on their relentless and remorseless abrasive journeys to the water from which they had been created aeons ago. The evaporation of the sea waters had created the clouds, which in turn had returned to earth as precipitation high over the fjälls eventually to solidify and become the dense glaciers having experienced their life cycles in all three phases, liquid to gas, back to liquid and then solid to return to liquid again as they melted back into the waters that had given them their aeons long experiences. The fjord in the foreground shewed its huge glacier in the process of calving a gigantic berg in the late morning light.

An impressive square sailed longship with its slack bellied red and white striped sail indicating that it was barely under pressure in a gentle breeze sailed alongside the massive piece of ice now just freed of its land bound limitations. At its prow the longship’s dragon’s head, which though larger than the height of the big man standing alongside it shading his eyes with a hand as he gazed into the distance in front of them, was a tiny relative of the vast one of the creature in the sky to its north. The longship was manned by large and strong looking Vikings and was riding high on the up swelling water with the starboard oars out ready to push it away from the berg should that be necessary as it arose out of its baptismal waters to find its natural balance and place in the fjord waters. The berg’s massive displacement as it entered the green coloured fjord waters not only caused the water to lift the longship many metres, [x by 3 for feet] it’s wash, that one could see through, was rising so high that it reached over two and a half metres [8 feet] across the ceiling right over the heads of the drinkers sitting at the tables on that side of the taproom.

Farther south in the distance, where the fjord met the open sea, the icebergs were farther apart. The smallest had melted to the point where they were so small they were now invisible and the larger ones had lost a lot of their angularity due to the sun melting away their most prominent projections. A pod of a couple of dozen orca(16) were playing and several were powering themselves upwards to emerge from and soar high above the water. Some were already completely clear of it and one had turned in the air and returned three-quarters of the way down into it’s native medium. A large cow was engaging in behaviour with a calf that couldn’t have been far past new born that could have been referred to as play, but it was hard to tell. Despite the massive quantities of water they could be seen to be displacing as they played it was totally insignificant compared with the effect of the newly calved berg to their north. In the middle distance a great white bear(17) could just be made out against the ice in the morning light as it stalked a snoozing seal upon an ice flow.

As the scene moved south and earlier in to the day the virtually unused front door to the taproom provided a scenic break for the change from mid to late summer. The relatively narrow scene that fitted perfectly between the left hand side of the front door and the corner of the room would have been instantly recognisable to every member of the Bearthwaite folk and many others who had visited the valley too. It depicted the gulley at the head of the valley in the drier weather of late summer. The gulley was the primary drain for a significant proportion of the fell top area within the Bearthwaite Beck’s watershed. It took water from many miles away and provided the source of the upper reach of Bearthwaite Beck which fed into Bearthwaite Water before leaving to enter the lower reach of the Bearthwaite Beck. The entire valley’s watershed drained into the Bearthwaite Beck and what water didn’t flow down the gulley flowed into the lower reach of the Bearthwaite Beck. Most of the year the waters flowing off the fells into the lower reach of the Bearthwaite Beck were controlled and didn’t really affect the lives of the valley’s inhabitants. However, under conditions of heavy rainfall the water deluging off the fells was too much for the pipes and channels and it fell of the fell sides as powerful forces(18) that were life threatening if not treated with extreme caution, preferably from a considerable distance.

Historically where the Bearthwaite Lonning now lay had been permanently flooded to the level of the top of The Rise, the volcanic intrusion that blocked the valley’s entrance, after which the water flowed over The Rise and descended via the Calva Marshes into the Calva Beck ultimately flowing into the Solway via the river Eden. In more recent times Bearthwaite Water had been dammed as a reservoir and water was taken from it for a variety of purposes. High up in the gulley, the tell tale, wedged, hanging stone that rocked a little as one crossed it provided instant recognition for even folk who didn’t know it well. The Devil’s bridge, as the stone was known, provided the connection between the lower portion of the gulley trail that ran up the right hand side of the ravine and the upper portion of the gulley trail that ran up the left hand side of the ravine. It was situated maybe two thirds of the way up. The springs at the sides of the gulley that as far back as the local tales went had never been known to entirely dry up could seen to be flowing albeit slowly, yet they provided enough water for the rocks to be reflectively slick in the morning light and darkened with running water.

The scene depicted a company of pack pony men, two men to each of their heavily loaded score or so of the sturdy, stocky ponies they favoured, working their way up the fearsome climb as they took the short cut on their way back home. As the four men made camp after their arduous ascent two of the ponies could be seen unloaded of their burdens on the fjäll at the top, one grazing and the other, presumably it had just finished the climb, with its head hanging low in exhaustion. The men must have taken their fire fuel up with them, for there was no fuel other than maybe dried sheep dung to be found up on the fell tops. and they had a small but intense fire going with a large kettle hanging over it. The one thing they wouldn’t have had to take up with them was water, for at all times of the year it was plentiful close by where the ravine emerged onto the tops. Many of the ponies part way up the fifteen hundred foot climb were being assisted by their handlers. It seemed one would be encouraging the animal and as well as leading it would be assisting by ensuring the proper placement of its front hooves. The other could often be seen with a shoulder to the animal’s haunches providing raw strength to assist its hind legs to lift its burden up a particularly high step on the trail. At a particularly difficult part of the trail the pony that had just passed the problematic stage was resting and one of its handlers had gone back to assist the next pony. This time the pony had two men behind it each providing lift to one of its haunches.

Where the trail crossed over from the right hand side of the gulley to the left hand side it necessitated the men and ponies crossing the Devil’s bridge, a huge slab of stone that had fallen from higher up in geological times past and become trapped crosswise in the ravine. The slab was but three feet across and rose two feet from right to left as it crossed the twenty foot [6m] wide, one thousand foot [300m] drop that was below it. It also rocked a little, just a few inches [a few cm] of movement as one’s weight moved across it, but it could be unnerving for some and required steady ponies. Younger ponies were usually fitted with blinkers [US blinders] on especially problematic trails till they had settled down to the job, though the gulley ascent was the most arduous trail the pack pony men used. The scene depicted a pair of men and their pony as they were part way across the slab. Three ponies could be seen at the base of the gulley awaiting their turn to commence the exhausting route. It was going to be a long day for all concerned. Many visitors over the years on looking at the ravine and especially after having read Tommy Dowerson’s guide to the trails of Bearthwaite, which had some very clear drawings in the Wainwright(19) style of the gulley trail drawn by Tommy’s wife Sarah, had been amazed that the route was climbable by folk. That it had been a regular route for centuries ascended by heavily burdened ponies too many considered to be almost unbelievable. More adventurous visitors who had actually climbed the route often thanked their maker that they had not been born in times when such had been routinely required of a man that he and his could eat.

Once away from the corner of the taproom and onto the gable wall late summer had been left behind and the scene was a riot of Canadian autumnal colours, though a number of the leaves went back around the corner merging with the edge of the ravine scene. The vast forest of autumn golds, yellows, oranges, reds and browns were a spectacular sight in the morning light that took one’s breath away. However, the colours gradually faded as one moved south anticlockwise around the room and eventually the leaves started to die and drop, and it seemed as if one could smell the heavy, earthy scents of damp, decomposing, recently fallen, deciduous leaves. Falling leaves could still be seen fluttering in the cold air on their way to the ground, leaving the increasingly leafless, late autumn, early winter skeletons of the trees starkly visible revealing small groups of elk(20) browsing between them in the dim, misty, early morning light. Before one left the autumnal scene it became obvious that the weather had become colder, for in the early morning mists frost could be made out on the ground and the tips of the tree branches were encased in icicles. The early morning sun provided just enough warmth to induce the icicles to produce occasional water droplets that could be seen shining brightly as like tiny lenses they focussed the thin morning sun as they fell only to become mere films of water again as they splashed on contact with the leaves on the ground.

As one’s gaze moved anticlockwise still travelling south one was observing later into the year, yet earlier into the day and farther left along the wall opposite the bar, one left the leafless temperate climate skeletal trees behind and the scenery became subtropical. Dense, impenetrable, burgeoning, evergreen foliage covered in dank, steaming, dripping mosses, liverworts(21) and ferns. Rank green slimes, smuts and moulds(22) made the scene look noisome, gloomy and oppressively claustrophobic. The absence of any form of animal life made for a forbidding, soul leaching, parasitic feeling, as if one were somehow incarcerated in a malignantly green, mossy tomb with bars of liana and vine like vegetation. Escaping the sepulchre by moving south and further back into the night, though nearly mid winter, it became a little dryer and so looked, or maybe that was felt a little warmer. To the right of the narrow windows that were centred in the wall opposite the dragon and the bar it had become an awakening tropical rain forest’s winter dawn with monkeys and bright coloured birds of all descriptions looking riotous and raucous as they awoke to greet the new day. However, it perhaps would be better to describe the winter period as the cool dry season in the tropical climate painted. This was the temporal opposite of the land of the midnight sun that it faced, for here the closer one approached to the equator the closer the days and nights approached equal lengths.

Farther south one approached the dark where only a few fireflies provided any light at all and the tiniest trace of a glow, so slight it made one question whether it was in fact there or merely one’s imagination, indicated that the sun was just about to provide light over the extreme right hand side of the horizon provided by the lintel that was above the two narrow windows. A little farther south was as far south as one could go, and it took one into the total darkness of the tropical midnight at the centre of the wall, exactly halfway between the two narrow windows in the taproom gable end. At the equator itself every day of the year had approximately twelve hours of daylight. As one left the equatorial, midnight darkness of the centre of the wall one began to edge north again across the window towards the tropical spring, which was its hot, dry season. As one left midnight travelling north the sunlight had just finally disappeared over the extreme left hand side of the horizon provided by the giant slate lintel. Like the sun’s possible arrival over the other end of the lintel one questioned whether the perceived last trace of the sun on its way down were real or merely a figment of the imagination, or perhaps it was an after image of what one’s eyes had seen elsewhere before adjusting to the new conditions.

It was now late evening with the weather not becoming noticeably cooler nor warmer despite moving further north and into the beginnings of spring. Another slight shift to the north and earlier into the evening and such trees and animals of the tropical scene as one could see were not only fading into the gloam and were hard to distinguish but they were gradually became fewer in number and definitely farther apart. Farther north again and in the better light one could see that the fauna had disappeared completely and the vegetation become yet sparser and far less green. By the time the vegetation was disappearing it was gray rather than green and it was now light enough to see that that had nothing to do with the light, for the vegetation now truly was gray, coarse and brittle and the ground between the plants was drying and beginning to crack. It still appeared to be a tropical scene, but one was now seeing a tropical savannah in the grip of its dry season. The savannah was a vast, hard baked, dessicated plain with huge, wide, deep cracks that as a result of the drought were seen to become deeper, wider and more extensive as one progressed north heading towards the summer. Though the ground appeared hard as rock it still generated enough dust for the slight breeze to pick up and small whirling eddies could be seen that merely added to the viewers’ impression of a waterless landscape.

As far as the eye could see there was no identifiable horizon, for the scorched land shimmered with a mirage even in the fading light of the dying day. Even where the landscape met its vertically inverted mirror image it couldn’t be said to be the horizon with any certainty for both shimmered and shifted and where they met was not so much a line as a zone that could have been many miles wide. As one looked north into the better light the shimmering, shifting zone seemed to widen. In the distance three, possibly four trees,maybe survived. They were seemingly almost as wide as they were tall, but that too could have been part of the illusions created by the mirage, They were probably many miles apart, but it was impossible to say with any degree of certainty. In between the trees and nearer to the foreground, yet still hard to make out, there appeared to be scrubby vegetation of some sort. If one’s eyes were telling the truth as to what they thought they could see, it was dried, shrivelled and probably devoid of water and life. In the foreground a muddy edged waterhole with maybe a quarter acre of shallow water in it was surrounded by a myriad of creatures, both predator and prey, all too preoccupied by the shallow water to be bothered by the presence of the others. The entire scene could be summed up in a single word: arid.

Gradually as one moved north and earlier in to the day the light improved and the savannah changed though it wasn’t obvious till one realised it was no longer a scene one could associate with the tropics. The landscape was just as dry as the fractured savannah, but now the mirages gave way to rocky mountain massifs in the background with vast plains of loose, flat looking, shaley stones and sand dunes, or may be small pebble dunes, in the middle distance. The foreground vista was now of a flat steppe, still waterless and arid, but now a landscape more typical of Mongolia and the Gobi desert than the concrete hard, cracked, sometime soils of the African drylands. A caravan train of a score and a half of Mongolian bactrian camels(23) with lop sided humps, indicating it was some time since they’d had access to water and they were accessing their fat reserves for water and energy, could be seen with men who were leading the heavily laden animals rather than riding them. The men were robed and veiled against the fine sand, or possibly it was shale dust, in the air that significantly reduced visibility which segued into the sandstorm of the next scene.

Farther north the scene had almost imperceptibly changed yet again, no longer of this world the scene was still one of sand, but it was of sand, sand and yet more sand. Huge dunes of highly mobile sand with sand floored, deep gullies between them with swirling eddies of sand in the air in the gulleys and over the dunes, fine sand, medium sand and coarse sand, but all sand that given a fierce enough storm could completely reform itself into a very different desertscape. On the top of a colossal dune many kilometres [miles] long and at least a kilometre [⅝ mile] wide, and the same high too, figures could be seen, their postures indicative of folk patiently waiting the sand storm out. To discover what they were waiting for one only had to glance left towards the upper corner of the room. In contrast to the great flying green worm(24) that stretched almost halfway around the taproom and was to be seen almost sideways on, coming not quite straight out of the corner of the room was another great worm of a more modern legend: Shai Hulud,(25) the great sandworm of Arrakis, also known as Dune. At sixteen feet in diameter reaching up eight feet across the ceiling and the same down to just above the wainscot rail and yet again to the left and right away from the corner, one saw the immensity of the creature compared with the tiny waiting folk on the crest of the dune, for centred on the upper corner of the room where the two vertical walls met the ceiling the terrifying abyss that was its gullet was surrounded by the hundreds or perhaps thousands of teeth from which the fabled crysknives were made. All of which meant that the waiting folk were Fremen and the term arid was no longer applicable, for Dune was a world where moisture was the obsession not water and arid was a word containing far too many implications of moisture to be applicable there.

Having moved anticlockwise again, away from Shai Hulud in the corner, the next scene, now on the rear wall of the taproom, facing the fjords and fjälls and their glaciers, changed dramatically from the bone dry images of the deserts of Dune one had just left to travel farther north. On leaving the Fremen and the throat of the great worm in the corner of the room, the sand continued but segued into a calmer, wind free, less threatening, Middle Eastern oasis scene complete with date palms and dromedary camels(26) with huge eye lashes taking their time over drinking. Others camels were taking their time over a meal provided by the date palms, leaves, fruit and branches were all hanging from their mouths as they slowly chewed with what one could only imagine was enjoyment. The humps of these camels were firm and upright indicating there was no shortage of water for them and hence no requirement to draw upon their metabolic fat reserves for water or energy. Through the date palms one could see a small village of tents pitched in the shade in between the palms where numerous folk were going about their business.

At the water a large group of laughing and giggling girls ranging from just old enough to be with their older sisters rather than with their mothers to voluptuous, nubile girls ready for marriage were bathing wearing nothing but their gauze like face veils. A smaller group of identically attired mature women, some nursing babies and a couple pregnant, were bathing with their younger children and keeping a close eye on their youngest offspring. Some distance away completely ignoring the women and the girls was a group of men of all ages wearing robes and serious expressions upon their faces. The men were sitting cross legged at a number of low tables in the shade of the palms. Most were talking, but a few of the men with more intense looks upon their faces were playing a gambling game. A couple of the men were playing chess. Many were smoking from a hookah and drinking a white opaque liquid from small glasses. A corked wine skin presumably containing what they were drinking was hanging from edge of one of the tables in its shade.

Other men were drinking coffee from tiny thimble like cups even smaller than the glasses with the coffee making equipment next to a tiny fire of red hot embers in a brass brassier no more than half a foot high [15cm] and four inches [10cm] across. At the side of the brassier a small pair of leather bellows could be seen next to an open sack containing small pieces of dried material from the palm trees with perhaps some dried camel dung too. On the far side of the men from the bathing women was a group of boys too old to be bathing with their mothers, but too young to be talking of affairs with the men. Mostly the were pretending to be concentrating on a game of Manqalah(27) which they were playing with small stones in depressions in the sand. Unlike the men they couldn’t ignore the presence of the girls and women. Their unease was writ plain on their faces as was their fascination with the almost naked girls and women. Several could be seen stealing a furtive glance at the girls who were clearly aware of their interest, but only one could be seen glancing at the boys.

Again all was seen to be well blended in with the original painting’s theme. After Alf had extended the heavy thirty-eight millimetre [1½ inches] thick, pressure treated plywood of Daphne’s ‘canvas’ to both sides of the room and framed and supported it all with matching tropical hardwood, such that the painting that hung over the room was now ninety-four feet [29m] long, Daphne had repainted the dragon’s tail such that it went off the right hand edge of the ply and finished half way along the rear wall of the taproom. It was stunning, a one hundred and eighteen foot [36m] long green dragon whose jet black, lethal looking, armoured and spiked, forked tail tips were barely a couple of feet [600mm] above the wainscotting handrail which was four feet [1200mm] above the floor. Though the stunning dragon was huge it did not entirely dominate the taproom, for though it was the single largest image in the entire space the other scenes were so magnificent that they commanded their share of the viewers’ attention too.

The remarkable thing about the entire work was that none of the images competed with each other for one’s attention, rather they complemented each other in such a way that one couldn’t help but view them all as component parts of an integral whole, for no matter where one looked there was something wonderful to hold your attention. Rather than demand your entire attention, each sub image almost forced one to examine its neighbours. The attention that Daphne had paid to detail was truly awe inspiring especially when one considered in how short a time she had achieved it. Even the inclusion of the other worldly Shai Hulud had something right about it. One couldn’t say it didn’t belong or that it was an alien intrusion into a work that was elsewise descended from Earth’s mythologies and histories. It fitted well between the steppe and the oasis, indeed it provided a wonderful segue that linked the two very different desertscapes. That it did so by being far dryer than either, rather than being a scene of lesser aridity, tied the three together in a way that was a natural fit.

The image of the caravan of trudging men leading the bactrian camels through a vast stony, mineral dominated desertscape conveyed impressions of weary men and tired beasts working hard under difficult conditions. That was followed by the image of the endlessly patient Fremen sitting out the sandstorm awaiting the arrival of Shai Hulud, who they knew would arrive because they had called him. The Fremen, a group of desert dwelling folk who could only survive courtesy of their own recycled body moisture, a folk who lived with far less water in their bodies than any elsewhere and who considered a dead body to be wealth incalculable because of the water it contained that their death stills would recover every precious microlitre of. Finally there was the gentler oasis scene, also set in a vast desertscape, but one whose severity was relieved by the organic presence of the oasis, its life giving water enabling the date palms to exist and provide shade and food for both man and beast.

The folk there in their temporary settlement of tents had enough time away from the sheer efforts required just to survive to enable relaxing, talking, gambling, bathing and gossiping. The well fleshed women, pregnant and nursing chubby babies with their well filled breasts and their older well filled out daughters were clearly not short of water. The hawk eyed men with their well nourished camels clearly lived well enough for their entire community to accompany them on their travels. Perhaps most telling were the hawks perched near the men that an older boy was feeding with meat, for a community that could spare meat for such as hunting hawks was surely a long way from living on the edge of extremis. Yes, it was obviously a harsh environment, yet it provided sufficiently well for their needs for the adolescent to have time to consider the implications of the other sex, and it segued well from the harsher scenes of the bactrian camels and Shai Hulud into the scene of temperate plenty. It was a desert based triptych(28) that fitted well within the greater polyptych that the much wider set of themes all around the room comprised.

As one’s gaze moved farther north the sand gradually changed from a predominantly dull, dark yellow, brown colour to a darker browner soil rather than sand that eventually became a rich black loam. On the rich, productive looking black soil lay a large farm with a lake reaching to the horizon nearby. A skein of several hundred wild geese in afternoon flight were descending over the lake on which the leaders had already alighted. One could see those about to alight were doing so in the fashion of all heavy water fowl. They had their legs out in front of them with their toes held up so that the webbing between them acted as skis to assist them to settle on the water whilst their outstretched wings with feathers extended slowed them down. The birds behind them were gradually assuming their landing stances as they lost altitude and closed upon the water. Two fishermen were casting a net from their boat in the bottom of which could be seen the fish that evidenced their earlier successes.

At the edge of the lake a couple of men in their forties or fifties were watching the wild geese and carefully rolling up a large net that was weighted at regular intervals all around its edges with stones. Presumably the geese too were a catch to be harvested just like the fish. In the distance far behind the fishermen and their boat an osprey could be seen powering itself back into the air amidst the water that was pouring off its waterproofed feathers after its obviously successful strike, for it had a large fish in the talons of its right foot. Maybe half a mile to the fishermen’s left a heron could be seen standing maybe ten feet from the shore in the reeds in the classic fishing pose that they adopted. Doubtless there were frogs as well as fish to be found in the reeds. A boy of maybe ten and a girl a year or so younger were rod and line fishing off the end of a jetty some twenty feet out into the lake. The girl’s rod was flexing down indicating she had hooked a fish of some size which the boy with their landing net already in the water was reaching out to with his excitement visible on his face.

Not far from the shore was a substantial, two storey, wooden log built house with large windows with opened heavy wooden shutters and a veranda all around it. The out buildings were constructed in the same fashion and a just discernibly pregnant woman wearing a bright red apron and head scarf was hanging out washing on a line strung between one of the out buildings and a nearby larch tree just fresh in leaf(29) whilst an older woman could be seen with bare arms washing clothes in a large wooden tub with another for rinsing them in to her side. A blonde, teenage girl with her hair in braids was milking a red cow into a wooden pail whilst another, full uddered, of the same breeding patiently grazed, awaiting her turn for milking. Their companion also of the same breed had no need of milking due to her calf who was taking care of the matter. High in an as yet barely leafed oak tree a great, white, arctic owl(30) gazed down disdainfully at all the activity below. Perched on its right leg, most of its attention was on the remaining half of a lemming(31) clutched in the powerful talons of its left foot.

A flock of a score or so of gray coloured geese with white necks and heads grazed peacefully in an open paddock whilst a gander was up on his feet with wings extended clearly making enough noise to let the world, and the dozen or so goslings, know that he was the alpha gander. On a small pond with raised earthen sides, presumably made by using the earth that had been dug out to create it, a dozen buff coloured ducks with a couple of bright green headed drakes could be seen to be doing whatever it was that ducks do on water. The ducks all appeared to be mallards,(32) though all their wing flashes were iridescent teal rather than the more typical electric blue. Half of the ducks were upside down presumably seeking food whilst the rest swam aimlessly in the pond presumably created to keep them nearer to hand than on the lake. The ducks were accompanied by a flotilla of several scores of mobile balls of yellow fluff. One could tell they were mobile by the tiny rippling wakes they left behind them. Closer scrutiny gave away that they were in fact ducklings who were far safer on the pond than the lake where predatory fish would regard them as tasty snacks.

Next to a large partially covered pile of logs a tabby cat was waiting patiently in the typical feline hunters’ pose, presumably there were rats in the log pile for it would be dry under the tarpaulin sheet. A tall, muscular boy, who had some years yet in front of him before he fully filled out, was splitting the logs ready to dry out ready for burning later in the year with a heavy double bitted axe. He was somewhat younger looking than the milkmaid who presumably was his sister. Whilst the boy split wood, a large, long coated, black and white bitch snoozed together with a lean rangy hunting hound in a nearby patch of thin, spring sunshine ignoring the flock of sheep busy grazing that were in her care. The sheep were ignoring the presence of a similar number of lambs most of which appeared to be mounted upon springs, for few had all four feet on the ground. A few were disturbing their dams with their demands to be fed and one was painted such that the head butting motion that lambs use to force their dam’s milk to let down could be seen to be impacting the ewe’s udder.

Another young girl was busy drawing water from the well using the well pail still on the end of its rope to fill a pair of wooden pails hooked up to her shoulder yoke whilst a tortoiseshell queen cat with her five kittens were enjoying a game of flick and chase with a mouse high in the air that appeared to have expired as a result of the game some time before. A huge, white, blue black spotted sow with a dozen piglets was wallowing in the mud and reeds at the lake edge whilst her horizontally striped young seemed to be chasing each other simultaneously both up and down a small rise maybe eighty yards away [80m]. Presumably the boar rooting at the water’s edge for succulent edible reed roots that was being petted by a young boy of maybe five was the piglets’ sire. At three-quarters of the size of the sow but with massive and impressive looking tusks he appeared to be a pure bred wild boar rather than a domesticated pig like the sow which was doubtless why her young had the classic horizontal stripes of their less domesticated cousins.

Farther away in front of an open doored building that appeared to be a stable, for within it a couple of farm horses could be seen lipping over some green looking hay from a manger made from branches tied together with leather thongs, a powerfully built man in his late twenties with massively developed upper body musculature was shoeing a colossal, gray, draught stallion with neatly trimmed long white feather(33) around his hooves. Whilst the farrier was working the glowing steel shoe on the anvil the bored stallion was stretching to reach a large clump of lush looking grass that grew around the foot of one of the posts sunk into the ground that supported the rail he was tied to. Behind the farrier an older man could be seen to be sitting at a shavehorse shaping a long tool handle of some sort with a drawknife. The two men were remarkably alike save for their age and it was reasonable to conclude they were father and son. If one had not noticed it before, the farrier’s long, blond, leather thong tied back hair drew one’s attention to the fact that all the folk in the rural scene, like the ship’s crew on the opposite wall, had pale, almost white, sun bleached, blonde hair.

A flock of three or four dozen medium sized hens of all colours busily scratched in a midden sufficiently large to indicate the steading(34) had been there for some time whilst ignoring the two walnut combed, metallic green feathered cockerels engaged in squaring up to one another competing for the right to mount them. The hens were clearly indifferent to the outcome, for it was the way their world worked. One or the other of the cockerels would win, the other would either not survive or would become subservient to the winner. Whichever cockerel won they would be regularly mounted by in his drive to propagate his genes which would take time off them in their ongoing search for worms, seeds and aught else edible to be found in the midden. However, none of the hens would move too far away from the dominant cockerel because he could only mount one of them at a time which would allow the rest of them to search for food undisturbed, and he would prevent all other cockerels from bothering them. The four dozen or so chicks that hadn’t wandered far away from the hens ranged from tiny, golden yellow, attractive looking balls of fluff to much larger, dirty off white, scruffy looking creatures that only a mother could love.

The farmstead was clearly a prosperous, well ordered and peaceful place, other than the combative cockerels that was, inhabited by a multi generation family. Far away in the background was a range of mountains so high that three of the summits reached several feet onto the ceiling. Though the mountains were partially hidden by the clouds the three summits were above the cloud cover and clearly visible. The dragon’s tail was high in the sky over the farm seemingly unnoticed by any of the inhabitants, or may be they were so used to its presence that it didn’t warrant a glance. As one progressed further north back towards noon the neatly cultivated, weed free farmland gave way to a vast, dense, coniferous forest that shewed evidence of having been progressively cut back over many years. Eventually the forest disappeared behind the widening bulk of the airborne dragon till at the corner where the wall met the sloping plywood sheet that was over the bar there was only the dragon and the sky to be seen. Once round the corner one was heading back towards the encampment and children could be seen playing with a group of dogs that could only be sled dogs. A half dozen dogs of the same breeding were sitting waiting patiently for scraps thrown to them by the butchers.

The effect was vastly more astounding than the original fifty foot by five foot painting had been. Pete nervously asked, “Daphne, you have done so much for us, please allow us to reimburse you some how for so much effort.”

Daphne had replied, “I appreciate you do not wish to be thought of as taking me for granted, but I have enjoyed painting the taproom enormously, Pete. Rarely am I able to enjoy other folks’ enjoyment of my work, and though I do say it myself, this is a truly splendid piece of work, definitely one of my best if not my very best, much of which is due to the canvass which in truth is the entire room. Few artists have their work seen by, never mind enjoyed by, as many as will be in here enjoying themselves and talking about the room. And some how I do not believe it will be because they’ll be a captive audience nor because of the drink. Working with Alf has been an amazing experience, for he has a true artist’s eye for place, setting and colour which has been critical for this work. His suggestions for the work itself coming as they did from Bearthwaite’s history, traditions and what he said were the sǫgur of long ago were of enormous help. I know Alf says he can’t paint, but with his aid I created something far better than I could have achieved on my own.

“His idea to have two suns with the light from their upper edges just at the horizon created by the extreme ends of the window lintel in the gable end wall, one sinking and the other rising, with the narrow strip of the total darkness of a tropical midnight between them fading at its edges, their facing sides identical in every way and their far sides darkening and sinking on the left as the gloaming dusk light disappeared and lightening and rising on the right as the dawn visibility emerged with the dragon flying towards the rising sun and its tail leaving the setting sun was clever, very imaginative. That the narrow space between the two windows is pure black only relieved by the light emitted by the dozen or so fireflies which barely enable one to see anything other than the flies themselves is an incredible effect. Originally I had it going gray at its edges next to the windows. I painted the space several different ways, but eventually I decided that pure black with just the fireflies was much the best effect.

“The concept of the entire scene starting over the bar on the day of the arctic summer solstice starting at midday over the bar going anticlockwise earlier into the morning and south till it reached midnight at the equator opposite the bar to continue working its way back north through the evening and afternoon to noon again is astonishing. A day not only going from noon via dawn to midnight then via dusk back to noon again, but as it does so working its way from high summer through autumn to mid winter and on through the spring to reach high summer again is a truly remarkable concept. I’m aware that the entire work is not completely consistent and I’m certain that experts on the way that the rotation of the earth as it moves around the sun affects the light and the seasons would be able to point out those inconsistencies rapidly. I’m also aware that the rate at which the time of day and the seasons change as one goes around the room is anything but constant, but I’m an artist not a scientist and it is a work of art not a production for a scientific journal.

“To me the most remarkable portion is the few feet centred on the equatorial midnight above the lintel and having the gloam fading into and out of the sides of the narrow centre jet black of the night with just a single firefly high up above the ones between the windows just on the dawn side of centre is wonderful, but despite the lack of detail to see it was extremely difficult to paint. It took me a long time to get the shading of the blacks and the dark grays to look just right. The emerging and fading barely visible, tropical jungles, starting with the hills in the foreground and falling back to the mountainous peaks high up on the wall, with the odd few reaching onto the ceiling through the maroon clouds, all well to the out sides of and way above the suns in the centre and the barely lit clouds between and above the suns, darkening and purpling to the left and brightening and pale bluing to the right, yet both reaching up onto the ceiling, was a truly inspired segue for the two halves of the room.

“The only portion of the entire work that still perplexed me when I started painting was what I would use to segue from the dry season savannah scene to the temperate farmland late spring scene. I needed an additional scene but was lacking inspiration. Neither Alf nor I could come up with anything either of us liked. It was Brigitte’s friend Jane who asked me why did it all have to be scenes from Earth. She suggested that since the dragon was a creature of fantasy why not use another such. She suggested the sandworm from Dune and that it should be painted as a monstrous creature centred on the corner of the room spanning across the two walls and up onto the ceiling. She also suggested the oasis scene as a segue between the desserts of Dune and the plenty of the farmland. I had read Dune, but it was a long time ago, so I reread it that night and the idea was exceedingly good, but not good enough till I visualised and then created the rather small Mongolian steppe scene between the African savannah and the sandworm of Dune. The similarly sized, yet slightly busier Middle Eastern oasis scene between the sandworm and the temperate farmland took me a few hours to sketch out, but that placed the sandworm between the desperate conditions on the silk road(35) travelled by the bactrian camel train and the more relaxed Middle Eastern scene with the dromedary camels at the oasis, which segued all the desert scenes together and even made the scenes easier and less arduous as one progressed towards mid summer.

“I love the tightly focussed light that shines straight down the throat of the sandworm highlighting the reflective paint spots that suggest the fires within the beast, and whatever it is that they did to the tiny LED to create the flickering flames of the dragon’s breath is marvellous. Hal and Pat’s additional adjustable spot lighting that draws attention to the highlights of the entire creation as it should be viewed has been superbly executed. The spotlight that starts at the base of the ravine shining on the ponies waiting to ascend and then progresses up the ravine in a serious of steps moving from one pack pony to the next culminating first on the exhausted pony at the top, then on the rested one grazing and the men setting up camp for those still on their way up, to return to the ponies at the base again to repeat the cycle is truly amazing, for it compels the viewer to see the scene as it should be seen and enables them to better envision what it must have been like for those ponies and men.

“Too the spot light that in turn focusses on what may otherwise be missed is amazing. The polar bear stalking the seal, the falling leaves and the water lens droplets from the icicles, the elk, the perhaps repulsive lower forms of plants in the depressing subtropical scene, the fireflies, the drooping humps of the bactrian camels, the tiny Fremen on the dune top, various aspects of the oasis scene, the heron, the osprey, the fish in the boat, the boy’s excitement at his sister’s catch on the jetty, the owl with half a lemming, the mouse in the air and many more. In truth the sheer size of the room at ninety-four by forty feet [29m x 12m] has enabled me to create a wonder and it has been a privilege. As for money. No. That is no more the currency I deal in under circumstance like these than the currency that Bearthwaite folk use. This is the first place ever where I have seen Stephen so happy, so unselfconscious, so relaxed. Here he can truly be himself when he is not working, and I have to admit that I feel very much at home here, which is much aided by Gladys’ punch and the ginger bar snacks both of which are unavailable anywhere else. This is indeed a very small price for me to pay for the contentment that Bearthwaite has given us both, and as I said I enjoyed doing it.”

“Aye well, Lass. That’s much appreciated, but don’t create(36) when you never get charged for a room here because you won’t be. Is there by any chance anything we could do that you would accept? Not payment as such, but let’s rather say a favour in return for a favour.”

Daphne hesitated a little before saying, “You all know that Stephen runs a small company that does private security?” There were nods from the five others present. “Well, they only have one client which is me. They handle every aspect of security regarding my movements. For reasons that are not relevant I have collected many enemies over the years because I am regarded as a desirable political possession for propaganda creation purposes and I won’t play that game. I am grateful that as communications technology has improved in leaps and bounds over the years and as my power has likewise increased I rarely need to go anywhere I don’t wish to any more and I have enough money to be able to say, ‘No what you can see over the internet is it. I’m not travelling to meet you.’ I had a few clients who wouldn’t accept it, so they had to find someone else when I wouldn’t change my mind. Most didn’t find anyone whom they considered acceptable, and they got back to me on their hands and knees with tears in their eyes. Stephen couldn’t stop smiling at that for weeks. Fortunately I have some very good contract lawyers, who insisted decades ago that all my meetings were videotaped and all correspondence is copied multiple times and those copies are kept safe in many different places. To be honest I have no idea where they are all kept, but I have been very grateful for that a number of times over the years.’

“Stephen’s employees run the diversionary decoy operations that provide the distractions for the idiots who would hurt me if they could. Stephen plans everything including the decoy operations, but only he provides my close up protection, and nobody else ever knows where I am really going. He is very good at what he does. Unarmed he is lethal, armed he is much more dangerous, and anything and everything in his hands and elsewhere too is capable of becoming a weapon. He tells me you have some security issues with outsiders. Would it be possible for you to allow him to listen to your security people and possibly make some suggestions? It would make him very happy to be able to help you, for he would see that as a small repayment for what you have given him. He has some amazing tricks, mostly that he has dreampt up himself that are especially useful in places like the UK where carrying a firearm is not usually permitted, and in Stephen’s opinion even when special circumstances grant an exception the strings attached make it not worth doing, for there is still a risk of a long gaol sentence if you use one even under justified circumstances. I know he has said many a time that there is no way if he were a UK police officer he would be prepared to be one licenced to carry and use a fire arm because the risk of being successfully prosecuted for murder under really scary circumstances was far too high.”

Sasha replied, “I can arrange for him to meet with all our appropriate folk. Thank you.” There were smiles all around and Sasha exchanged some knowing looks with the others as talk resumed about the painting, though that it was Jane who suggested the dramatic depiction of the sandworm was not mentioned. The following Saturday there was an amazed but usual sized crowd of men in the taproom. Business had been brisk and many had said they would be bringing friends the following Saturday. The Saturday after that was packed with many local drinkers truly thankful for the recent taproom extension so that they could have a seat at a table rather than have to sit on a bar stool drinking at the bar or worse even have to stand. The following Monday a number of television companies telephoned expressing their wish to film the taproom and interview the creator of the dragon in the taproom of the inn. They also expressed wishes to film the two substantial dragons in the bestside too. Pete took the companies’ details and said he would get back to them. He intended to seek advice from Ben Gillis the Bearthwaite publicist and media handler concerning who he recommended should be allowed in to do any filming.

Unfortunately the lonning was unflooded so passable and on Wednesday evening an independent television crew from down country(37) arrived and forced their way in to the Inn via the main doors at the front of the building that opened into the bestside hurting several women in the process and subsequently causing some damage in the taproom. Brigitte had been pushed aside and had cut her hand quite badly on a broken glass when she’d fallen. She’d pressed the assistance required immediately number on her mobile phone. Most of the television crew had been seriously hurt and all had been incapacitated within seconds of their forced entry into the taproom. Many of the mature men had held back in order to allow their sons and grandsons to acquire a taste of manhood. Most of the dozen or so television crew had been knocked down and kept there by teenagers and a few lads scarce more than ten. Peter, Gustav’s trans son and Pete’s grandson, had used a heavy open fire poker, forged by Black Simon a local blacksmith, to good effect and had ensured that three of the men would need the attention of the casualty department of a local hospital to set their broken bones.

Less than ten minutes later a crew of seriously hurt media men had been dumped outside the frontage of the Green Dragon and were waiting for ambulances that they had had to ring for themselves. They were looking in disbelief at many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds worth of completely destroyed equipment and their burnt out vehicles. Though they’d seen the faces of the youngsters who’d taken them out they’d never seen the faces of the hooded men who had damaged them, their equipment, and their vehicles. By the time an ambulance was available the lonning had been flooded and the water was too deep for any road vehicle and the ones that had arrived on seeing the depth indicator had turned around at The Rise. The TV crew realising that the locals were prepared to ignore their suffering and watch them die had to call upon the services of the air ambulance which meant they would have to account to the police as to what exactly had happened. Alf had subsequently said, “That lad of yours has a fair idea of how to cripple a cunt from outside intent on doing damage here, Gustav Lad. If there were any here who ever doubted that he’s lad I reckon there won’t be any now. I have to say I was well impressed by the way he battled(38) using brains rather than main force to tek that bastard as hurt his sister out. Bertrond said that he reckoned his lass Violet had made a right good choice of a lad te tek up wi’, trans or no. That interview with Ben made for fair impressive viewing and he did us all proud saying what he did about Bearthwaite folk.”

It had been decided that Peter should be interviewed by Ben Gillis after the police had got nothing of any use from him. The footage had gone viral for though a few years older he only looked to be ten or eleven and he was of a slender build. In the vernacular he wasn’t six stone [38Kg, 84 pounds] wringing wet through. He’d admitted to seriously injuring the heavily built man of six foot two who’d hurt Brigitte his sister. “My sister needed twelve stitches in her hand after that man hurt her. Fortunately we have a highly skilled doctor here who had the stitches done within minutes of her being hurt. That bastard should consider himself lucky that I only brock his legs with the poker from the fire and I didn’t use the brocken(39) glass that cut my sister’s hand on his face. He was even luckier that I sorted him out before Ron Brigitte’s boyfriend found him. He’d have wethered(40) him. The police said that I’d possibly left myself open to a charge of using undue force. My solicitrix has told them to bring it on and we’ll see where it will get them. He’s twice my size and over thrice my weight. She reckons any magistrate will tek one look at his size another at mine and probably the video will mek no odds because a verdict will already have bin reached by then. Family is family and they look after each other. In a way all Bearthwaite folk are family no matter where they originated and we look after each other.”

A carefully edited copy of the invasion of the inn had been provided for the police to look at along with much footage from mobile phones that shewed no trace of the hooded men, for all that had been filmed had been the film crew’s invasion and the response of the youngsters in the taproom on being assaulted. Elle had had all put their phones away as soon as there’d been a risk of incriminating any locals and explained why. Sasha had done the same in the taproom. The investigating police officers had asked for original footage but had been telt that they already had all that was available. The Bearthwaite folk they took in to assist with their enquiries refused to say anything till one of the Bearthwaite solicitrices was present and the police got nothing that was of any help from any of them even after their solicitrix was present. The police applied for a warrant to impound all and any mobile phones they could find in Bearthwaite and the CCTV film from the inn, but were refused. The chief magistrate had sent the police representative away with a flea in her ear(41) saying, “You have asked, outrageously I may add, Madam, in effect for a search warrant to enter and search every building in a small town and to search every inhabitant there too. In addition you have asked for the right to search any person from elsewhere you even suspect may have been in the Green Dragon Inn that evening. No such warrant has ever been granted before in the United Kingdom and this bench is not going to be the first to so do.”

The magistrates weren’t from Bearthwaite, but they all knew Bearthwaite was a law abiding society that dealt with its own problems and they’d never had a resident from there up before them and six of their colleagues were highly thought of magistrates from Bearthwaite known for their considered and forward thinking judgements that had enabled numerous petty criminals to find a better life that did not bring them into conflict with the law again. Many of the local bench, who were all doing the job in order to improve their local society, were trying to model their judgements on those of their Bearthwaite colleagues with a view to assisting to decrease the proportion of petty criminals by offering viable alternatives. Typically when such an offender was sentenced Bearthwaite magistrates would inform them of what they could normally have expected before offering an alternative. They also ordered that should the offender reoffend they would be sentenced for both offences at the upper end of the allowed tariff since it would be clear that they held the court in contempt. There were some reoffenders, but not many and none had any sympathy for them. As Sasha said regarding the magistrates, “None wish to upset folk they have to work with do they? I heard that the general consensus of opinion amongst the local magistrates is that a bunch of rowdy thugs and bullies at best described as unscrupulous paparazzi were shamed because they were sorted out by a bunch of kids and that they approved of that.”

The footage of grown men physically forcing their way through a group of women and pushing them aside with no regard for their safety purely in order to obtain the footage they desired did not redound to their credit. That many of the women were elderly, some no more than girls, and a couple of the women obviously heavily pregnant meant none who saw it were kindly predisposed towards them. That some of the women then proceeded to make a start on disabling them was subsequently embarrassing for them. Gladys the landlady had attended many a good brawl over the years, though all were long in the past, and that all the drinks trays in the Dragon were rather thick stainless steel was no accident, for that was her weapon of choice and there was always one within easy reach wherever she happened to be. Felicity Granger, who was head of games and sport at the BEE and an ex military combat instructrix, dealt with several of the men all of who were found to be in need surgery when she’d finished with them. That the invaders were filmed assaulting adolescent boys, some of who weren’t even starting on puberty, who reduced them to piles of moaning injured, many with multiple broken bones, made the television company a national laughing stock.

Eventually the phones that had no hooded locals on them were handed over, the footage on the rest was mostly destroyed along with all other Bearthwaite footage that it was not considered wise for outside eyes to see. The CCTV footage was edited and copied with no date and time on it and no hooded locals in evidence either. After all of the undesirable footage had been erased several dozen Bearthwaite citizens decided to acquire new phones. Many Bearthwaite folk were requested to make official statements, but all refused and maintained that they hadn’t seen any of the supposed hooded men, and that they not only had no idea who any of them were they had serious doubts as to whether there had been any such folk. Michael Graham the local police sergeant, who was Bearthwaite born and bred, again was telt by senior officers to stay away from any involvement and to keep his mouth shut, and yet again he was only too happy to comply with his orders. Bearthwaite being Bearthwaite had retained all footage of the event that could potentially be useful in the future to identify the outsiders, but it was so deeply hidden that it was only available to even the Beebell directorate under serious conditions and with the majority vote of their colleagues. Few of them knew where it was hidden.

Ben Gillis advised that a small, localish, independent TV company that he had a good relationship with would be best to film the taproom and the bestside dragons, for they would respect any request made, and they would be able to sell on their report and would owe him a gey large favour that Bearthwaite could call in at any time which would be worth way more than mere money to them all. The small crew of six from Rheged(42) Productions interviewed Alf and his team of joiners who’d installed the plywood ‘canvas’ and he was happy to talk about his input into the ideas that ultimately came to life on the room’s walls and ceiling. The main artist he explained was an elderly, Bearthwaite resident who was in poor health, but numerous others had worked under his direction which meant all he had to do was put the finishing touches to what his mind had provided the artistic creativity for. The painting itself that hung over the bar Alf said had taken three months to plan but the entire room had been a couple of years in the planning. The artist’s doctor had advised him against talking to them, and he had asked that his name not be disclosed, for he had yet other work in hand and he didn’t wish a breakdown of his health to interrupt progress. As for the two substantial dragons in the bestside, Pete said he had bought them bespoke off the internet from China and they had taken eighteen months to arrive. Bearthwaite folk didn’t approve of telling lies, but protecting their own came first, and the entire village had understood agreed when Sasha had said, “Between ’em Alf and Pete created a pretty convincing new truth. It was so good I’ll buy ’em both a pint. Daphne and Stephen may not be Bearthwaite folk, but they are more than good friends who could be if they so desired. Quite properly they have been kept out of the matter as they wished.” The value of a couple of pints was trivial, but buying the two men a pint was a symbolic recognition of the men having done a good deed and that was anything but trivial.

22846 words including footnotes

1 AI, in this context artificial insemination.
2 STEM, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
3 Zymurgy, a branch of applied chemistry that deals with fermentation processes, as in wine making or beer brewing. The word is often used to include all aspects of alcohol distillation too.,
4 GCSE, General Certificate of Secondary Education. Examinations usually taken by 15/16 year olds in the UK.
5 A’ level, Advanced level. The qualification that follow on from official school leaving age in the UK. Usually taken in three or four subjects and examined at the age of eighteen.
6 Sǫgur, plural of the Old Norse word saga. A saga being that which is said or recited. Pronounced Sorgur. IPA sɔ:gə:r.
7 The IPA. International Phonetic Alphabet, is a standardized system of symbols that represent the sounds of spoken languages.
8 Drystun, dialectal drystone.
9 Yan or twa, dialectal one or two.
10 A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are found in remote mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ulster and Wales. They are particularly common in the Scottish Highlands, but related buildings can be found around the world, for example, in the Nordic countries there are wilderness huts. In the context here a basic shepherds’ shelter with no utilities.
11 Svetlana is referring to Scoville units. The Scoville scale is a measurement of pungency (spiciness or heat) of chile peppers and other substances, recorded in Scoville heat units (SHU). It is based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicin is the predominant component. Pure capsaicin has a rating of 16,000,000 Scoville units. At 16,000,000,000 Scoville units, resiniferatoxin, or RTX, is rather toxic and can inflict chemical burns in minute quantities. The primary action of RTX is to activate the sensory neurons, nerves, responsible for the perception of pain. It is currently the most potent TRPV1, a nerve pain mechanism, agonist known. RTX is a naturally occurring chemical found in resin spurge Euphorbia resinifera, a cactus like plant commonly found in Morocco, and in Euphorbia poissonii found in northern Nigeria It is a potent functional analogue of capsaicin, the active ingredient in chile peppers. Unlike giant hogweed there are no restriction in the UK concerning either plant.
12 A yard of ale or yard glass is a very tall beer glass used for drinking around 2½ imperial pints [1·4 litres] of beer, depending upon the diameter. The glass is approximately 1 yard [90cm, 36 inches] long, shaped with a bulb at the bottom, and a widening shaft, which constitutes most of the height. It is associated by legend with stagecoach drivers, though was mainly used for drinking feats and special toasts. Drinking a yard glass full of beer as quickly as possible is a traditional pub game, the bulb at the bottom of the glass makes it likely that the contestant will be splashed with a sudden rush of beer towards the end of the feat. The fastest drinking of a yard of ale in the Guinness Book of Records is 5 seconds.
13 A score and a half or more decades, a score is twenty, so the implication is more than three hundred years.
14 A plaster or wooden pattern is withdrawn from between the two halves of a casting mould before the metal is poured in to fill the void thus created. A polystyrene pattern is left in situ and the intense heat of the molten metal vaporises it away almost instantly when it is poured into the mould. Sometimes referred to as lost foam casting it is similar to investment casting which typically uses a wax pattern.
15 Fjälls and fjords, fells and fiords.
16 The orca, Orcinus orca, or killer whale, is a toothed whale that is the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. It was at one time believed to be the only extant species in the genus Orcinus, but it is now believed that there may be as many as a couple of dozen different species of them. Orcas are recognizable by their black and white patterned body. Males typically range from 6 to 8m [20 to 26 ft] long and weigh in excess of 6t [6000Kg, 13200 pounds]. Females are smaller, generally ranging from 5 to 7m [16 to 23 ft] and weighing about 3 to 4t [3000-4000Kg, 6600-8800 pounds]. Orcas may attain larger sizes as males have been recorded at 9·8m [32 ft] and females at 8·5m [28 ft]. Large males can reach a weight of over 10t [10000Kg, 22000 pounds]. Calves at birth weigh about 180Kg [400 pounds] and are about 2·4m [8 feet] long.
17 A great white bear, the polar bear, Ursus maritimus.
18 Forces, this is an ancient use of the word. Used as a noun in this sense a force is a powerful waterfall. There are any number of such permanent forces in northern England that are popular tourist destinations. Examples would be Aira Force and Force Jumb.
19 Alfred Wainwright, the one name above all others who has become associated with walking in the Lake District. His seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, first published in 1955–66, has become the definitive fell walkers guidebook.
20 Elk, Alces alces, referred to as Moose in some parts of Earth.
21 The Marchantiophyta are a division of non vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information.
22 Myxomycetes, or slime moulds, are a group of free living amoeboid and sessile primitive organisms with complicated life cycles. The smuts are multicellular fungi. A mould is one of the structures that certain fungi can form.
23 The Mongolian or bactrian camel, Camelus bactrianus, is one of the two extant double humped camels. The other, the wild bactrian camel Camelus ferus is a completely different species. The two are believed to derive from a common ancestor from which they diverged about a million years ago. Feral camels are Camelus bactrianus rather than Camelus ferus. A third double humped camel, the giant camel, Camelus knoblochi, that also was found in the Gobi desert area became extinct some twenty thousand years ago.
24 Worm used thus is an ancient usage for a dragon.
25 This scene is based on images from Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune.
26 The dromedary camel, Camelus dromedarius is the single humped camel.
27 Manqalah or mancala is a family of two player turn based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface.
28 A triptych is a work of art that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi panel works. As here, the middle panel is typically the largest and it is flanked by two smaller related works, although there are triptychs of equal sized panels.
29 Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus Larix.
30 Great, white, arctic owl, Bubo scandiacus.
31 A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic. Lemmings form the sub family Arvicolinae, also known as Microtinae, together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also includes rats, mice, hamsters and gerbils.
32 Mallard, Anas platyrhynchos. Probably the most common duck on Earth. The duck from which most, but not all, domestic ducks are derived.
33 Feathering or feather is the long hair on the lower legs of some breeds of horse and pony. On some horses, especially draft breeds, the hair can almost cover the hooves. While nearly all horses will grow longer hair on the lower legs and back of the fetlocks at times, particularly in the winter. Feather refers to the particularly long growth that is characteristic of certain breeds.
34 A steading, a farm and its buildings, a farmstead: Scottish, Northern English.
35 The Silk Road was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid 15th century. Spanning over 6,400 km [4,000 miles], it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds.
36 Create, used thus to make a fuss.
37 Down country, to the south. Just how far south down country is depends on who you talk to and the exact context.
38 Battled, dialectal fought.
39 Brock and brocken, regional pronunciation of broke and broken. IPA brɐk and brɐkɛn.
40 Wethered, castrated. A wether is a castrated ram.
41 To send away with a flea in one’s ear, an expression which means to be given a sharp, strident, or disconcerting reproof or rebuff.
42 Rheged was an old kingdom that held lands north of the Solway estuary in what is now Scotland and south of it in what is now England, hence the use of the word localish. Unlike today when the Solway is seen as a geographical feature that separates and divides the land to its north from the land to its south, back then it was seen as a highway that connected the two parts of the kingdom.