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..