A Wintervaltide Greeting

While the politicos of the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria slink back to their prisons and lairs, the general population of the Realm are busy preparing themselves for the pink and fluffy Feast of Wintervaltide – otherwise known to the majority of Northumbrians as Christmas.

Amid some of the worst weather we've had for many a week, people are rushing to their homes and hovels to gather with their kith and kin so that they can partake of the festivities – which in Northumbrian custom consists of mead and ale in industrial quantities. Many intelligent conversations at a gastro-intestinal level will be taking place, while heads will be thundering and railing tomorrow morning.

However, the more pious members of the populace are attending masses celebrating the entrance of the Divine Light into the human sphere. To this Cat's mind, they have the better deal.

The importance of His advent can never be overestimated. His very name – Jesus Christ – or in Hebrew, Yeshua Ha Mashiach – means the salvation of God, and the name is descriptive of the person to whom it is given. At the time of the Annunciation, the angel told Joseph that His name will be Jesus because He will save His people from their sins; during His ministry, He announced that He came to seek and to save those who were lost. Even his Pharisaical detractors in their mockery of Him on the cross recognised that He saved others even though He (to their eyes) could not save Himself.

The salvation He brings in His own person (and through His work) is of infinitely more value than the measures and means of men, and that's why my master Caedmon will be at the Abbey in Streonaeshalh tomorrow. I'll be hunting mice and patrolling my own kingdom as usual.

Happy Christmas to all!

CC

Signs Of Intelligent Life?

The cult of Nil's Son the Man Dealer continues apace; since my previous posting, there's been no sign of Beeby See and her Redistributionist cronies losing even the slightest interest in the Great Man. Daily prayers and devotions are being offered with all due reverence, flowers and candles and a somewhat aggressive piety; any persons found guilty of maligning the Man Dealer are lovingly awarded the punishment of blasphemy, and are consequently either sentenced to death or exiled to some wind-swept craggy island to feed the vultures.

The other day marked the memorial festivities for the departed Chieftain, and all of the notable monarchs, politicos, princes, satraps, governors, aldermen and other hangers-on from around the known world were present, pathologically anxious to be seen by their admirers to be paying their respects to expired greatness. It was a veritable Redistributionist bean feast. Bless.

The highlight of the solemn festival was the giving of eulogies by the hundreds of dignitaries; these lasted for several days, and the snoring from the audience was deafening. At the climax of the solemn occasion, Bugrake O'Barmy - the Holy Patriarch of the as yet undiscovered land of Ultima Thule - delivered his own oration. At his side stood a diminutive  Bongolian man, whose role was to translate the speeches into sign language for those members of the audience who were hard of hearing and still wide awake. As ever, Buggy Boy delivered a superb tribute to the fallen demiurge, and his cascading tones, meaningful expressions and skilfully crafted rhetoric tugged on the heart strings of the gathered assembly, and there wasn't a dry eye in sight.

However, the speech contained nothing that remotely resembled coherent thought or meaning, and the poor sign man had no choice but to signify by has hand gestures what was construed by the deaf members of the audience sheer gibberish...

Mourning Has Broken

After a protracted period of relative boredom with the machinations of the politicos of the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria, a little light of sunshine has finally insinuated itself into this Cat's life.

It all happened when my usual source of the latest news - Feaxede the Fox - caught me on an evening patrol through my own feline kingdom in pursuit of rodents. He excitedly told me that the soothsayers had just announced A Significant Event in the course of human history: Nil's Son the Man Dealer was dead.

As a sit down to chew my freshly-caught prey in awestruck silence, my synapses worked overtime, piecing together the strands of information I'd gleaned over the years about this remarkable man. A humble lawyer from the southern kingdom of Outer Bongolia, he had helped to set up a liberation movement (the Bongolian National Council) in a bid to cast off the tyrannical yoke of the ancient Romans, who in customary fashion had ruled the place with a rod of iron, plundered precious resources for their own personal fortunes and treated the poor and penniless aboriginal population with loathing, disgust and contempt.

In the course of his quest for the liberation of his people, Nil's Son the Man Dealer embraced the magic mushroom-fuelled cult of Redistributionism, and because of his active resistance to the tender ministrations of Caesar, ended up in an oubliette for seventeen thousand years, while a significant folklore grew around his reputation, which helpfully surrounded him with a swirling, misty mystique. Meanwhile, his supporters - in the absence of more subtle argument - were applying gentle persuasion to their opponents by tying faggots around their adversaries' necks and cooking them for dinner. Personally, I like the gravy, but I'm not so mad on the herbs, and to this Cat's mind it seems a bizarre way of preparing them.

Eventually, Nil's Son the Man Dealer was released from his confinement, and to cut a long story short, he ruled over reunited the remaining Romans and Bongolians in a New Era of Fluffiness. Which was nice. The legends around Nil's Son the Man Dealer continued to proliferate until his recent demise.

Beeby See - in conjunction with her numerous Redistributionist bosom pals - has organised co-ordinated mourning events and has already launched a new religion based on the mythology of Nil's Son the Man Dealer, and she's quickly appointed priests and priestesses to serve the new deity, who's expected to return from the Elysian Fields and usher in a global rule of peace, prosperity and biscuit.

I'm sure he was a thoroughly good egg, but I have my doubts about his divinity. Caedmon just rolls his eyes heavenwards..