Madgy Figgy's Chair

In days of yore it was rumoured that ‘ugly old hags sold themselves to Satan’ merely to get some spiteful revenge on their neighbours. But really there was a lot more to being a witch than cursing, though of course this was a perk of the job. 

For example, the buzz of riding on a broomstick, three legged stool or even a piece of yellow-flowered ragwort and getting blind drunk on medicinal brews whilst having a right old knees up (which if you are ugly and old beats sitting hunched up in a damp cottage darning stockings). Magicking away some of the stingy squire’s favourite rum and making yourself invisible through use of ‘fairy ointment’ to do a bit of shoplifting down the local market also rank high on the list of a witch's must-dos.

If the local devil deigned to join in the coven’s full moon festivities then all the better because even more fun could be had leaping over the golden flames of the bonfire hand in hand with his devilish lordship the Bucca Boo (to give him his Cornish name), singeing hems and heels in the process, and diving for a quick snog in the bushes for good luck and prosperity.

Madgy Figgy was a witch who lived in the Land’s End area of Cornwall and her reputation has stood the test of time. She even has a pile of rocks named after her, ‘Madgy Figgy’s Chair,’ high up on the granite cliffs edging the turquoise Atlantic Ocean. Figgy sat there whilst calling up the spirits of the winds and was wont to swing herself from side to side when a storm was brewing to lure the vessels, struggling against the winds to reach the safety of the harbour, onto the jagged rocks beneath. Many a shriek echoed around the cliff tops as the witches croaked their miserable delight over the perishing crews whom they were about to rob of the treasures they were bringing home from distant lands. 

From the Chair Figgy poured forth all manner of curses and none could escape her noxious spells. She would take flight like some terrifying bird, mounted on a stem of ragwort. Figgy headed a band of witches who flew to Wales or Spain where they partied, stole milk from cows and plundered veg from the land. On their return each one alighted with all her goodies in some convenient spot near her cottage, hopefully avoiding the brambles.

No one can say for how long the Chair has been the midnight rendezvous for witches. Many a person now sleeping quietly in the nearby churchyard could attest to having seen the witches flying by on moonlit nights carrying with them the things necessary to make their charms and potions. And to this day Madgy Figgy, some say, can still be seen flying high over the windswept cliffs like a bird of prey, her cackle the sound of drowned sailor’s cries.

So Are You Listening?

...Her husband didn’t and ended up with his riled wife armed with a very large sword pinning him to the wattle and daub wall. Fortunately for him, she let her angst out on his beard rather than his jugular, severing it from his aghast face with one fatal slice.

Unfortunately for him, his beard was his pride and joy, a fiery ginger carpet tumbling down to his fleshy knees and praised in many a poem by the clan bard.

This marital incident was immortalised in verse due to the two them already being notorious characters involved in many an infamous cattle raid of the Celtic era. The stanzas, performed by quick-witted bards singing along to enchanted harps, were passed down through the ages by subsequent poets, troubadours and random delinquents, culminating in the collected works entitled, ‘One Woman One Sword: The History Of A Warrior Queen And A Beard.’

The epic poem has been translated into modern vernacular by Professor Hilary Figg to mark Women’s Day 2011. The original, being 1,279 verses in length, has not been printed here due to issues of space and reader’s attention span. However, the Celtic Queen herself who went by the name of Angry Ethel has been immortalised in this portrait discovered rolled up in an urn in the damp recesses of a cave in Pembrokeshire in 1971.

Mr Myxomatosis

Your rage is ill-formed and unable

To fit into sentences which would enable

You to vent your hatred so instead it stews

Contorting muscles and distorting your view

As if myxomatosis had spread right through

You.

Fun

Being a party animal is not something this bloke knows about. I mean, you have to neck back the beer and jump around enthusiastically to music whilst retaining some level of kudos and an ability to pull.
Mmm...not to mention the three day hangover and flashbacks.
Deffo not his cup of tea. 
Though he did tell me t'other day he's thinking of having a makeover.

The Bucca-dhu (Black Spirit)

The old Cornish word "Bucca” belongs to the same family of words as the Irish "Pooka" and the Welsh "Pwcca" meaning a person of a mischievous disposition, one about whom there is something weird or wisht (in the old-fashioned magical sense), and also a frightful apparition. Bucca-dhu is a black spirit and Bucca-gwidden a white spirit.

There is a story told of an old lady who lived long ago in Cornwall who was so fond of card-playing that she would walk almost every winter's night, in spite of wind or rain, to a nearby village that she might enjoy her favourite pastime. 

The old lady's step-daughter wished to put a stop to what she regarded as a rather scandalous past time, as the old dame seldom arrived home before the small hours of the morning!

With this in mind she persuaded a local lad to array himself in a white sheet to impersonate a ghost that was often seen wandering about a lonely spot over which the old dame had to pass. This was to scare her so witless she'd never walk that path again and thus bring an end to her card-playing proclivities.

 

The winter's night was dark and rainy when at about midnight he seated himself on a stile, whereupon he had to wait another two or three hours; the dear old lady was in no hurry to leave such pleasant company! 

At last she passed by, seated herself to draw breath, and sensing some mischief upon seeing the white figure said, 

"Hello Bucca-gwidden, what cheer? And what in the world dost thee do here with the Black Bucca-dhu so close behind thee, ready to take you away to his firey realm?"

That an evil spirit might be right behind him so frightened the young lad that he ran off as fast as he could lay feet to ground, throwing the white sheet into the brambles at his side. The old lady scampered after, clapping her hands and calling,

"Well done Black Bucca-dhu, now thee will catch White Bucca-gwidden and take him away with thee!" 

 

Of course the old lady was playing a fine trick on the young man who was so frightened he fell into a fit and was never right in the head again, thus becoming a real Bucca, as was wont to happen in the olden days when folk were far more suceptible to visitors from the spirit realm than us lot today with our heads immersed in tweets. So, the strong-minded, sociable old lady enjoyed many more years of her favourite past time and in fact her descendents still live in the area to this day. 

Success

“Prescription drugs give me love of a certain kind,
Pills I pop to relieve the tensions of my mind.
Prozac gives the feeling of the softening of reality
And with Viagra I make love with huge vitality.
Got dumped by the ex, now my life's a success -
Full of drugs and sex.”

Psycho Dog

"Had a dog I couldn’t get rid of, a psycho terrier who barked incessantly at any provocation whatsoever. 

And in an irritating high pitched yap at that like chalk on blackboard or a bus screeching to a halt.

Tried to palm him off on my boyfriend, my mum, my mum’s boyfriend, the bloke down the pub.

No takers.

They all knew his nature.

DAMN!"

Stilettos

Stilettos make him shake cos when he was a pup he was a sweet little darling and the girls loved his big round eyes and tickled his ears and stroked him under the chin and on his belly and he’d roll over in puppy delight until one angsty stilettoed lass came along and spitefully stood on his puppy dog tail.

This incident ended his innocence when it came to women.

‘Happens to us all’ said his dad. 

 

Suburban Nemesis

He tries to be good but has some innate tendency to get it wrong, to stay in bed too late, to not be arsed, to come across as plain odd.

He’s an expert at misunderstanding the complexities of social etiquette and doing what’s expected. He dribbles a bit and scratches his arse and has a reputation for spilling red wine on cream carpets. 

He doesn’t watch the relevant TV programmes either cos he doesn’t have a TV and his clothes are scruffy, in fact he rarely takes them off and the chemical sprays of human hygiene make him cough.

He feels the world is in cohorts to chain him to a desk, in an office where double-glazed windows are tinted and locked. A place with CCTV cameras on all floors, cards to swipe in and out of all doors; his ID computerised on endless files.

His paranoia is continually on the rise.

Happy(?) New Year!

He wishes humans had evolved the ability to hibernate over winter and to live on cake, tea and chocolate alone. 

As we haven’t he’s a gloom connoisseur predicting environmental chaos which he’s really looking forward to cos it’ll mean he won’t have to get up for work as the office will be 10 foot under water and swamped with sewage. 

And, fingers crossed, the swindlers in Parliament will have drowned too. 

This thought is one of the few things that actually cheers him up.

A Beastie Christmas

Beastman’s up for a right old raucous Festive Season, it brings the animal out in him; he lets rip and stuffs his face full of mince pies, pet cats, Christmas cake and gallons of wine, nice! For it’s the time of the year for a right old knees up to chase away those winter blues cos the longest night is past; it’s a time for bloating out one’s gut gggrrrrhhhhhhhhhh!!!

And he farts and sniggers and it may be cat’s blood he’s drinking but don’t be alarmed, it’s all in the Spirit of Christmas...even when he scratches his claws down the side of 4 wheel drives parked in the posh part of town and pisses in the park iced with frost at 4am on the way back from the lock in.

“Tis all in good fun, and an ‘appy Christmas to you me luvs! ... Aaaggghhh tis good to be a Beast at heart and free of yer modern obsession with possessions and Christmas cards!”

Thus spake the Beast as he staggered back from gate crashing a pagan gathering marking the solstice, hippies he had much fun scaring witless as he appeared with a blood curdling GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Treacle

She tries her best to be nice, to say the sweetest things and to smile. At the cashier, the bloke down the garage, her boss, her boss’s boss and even the cleaner of the office.

Sweat oozes out at times with the sheer effort of being nice; of not being seen as a threat, different, someone to not ask out, to lay into, to bitch about.

She spends hours at a time online dating, improving her accent, applying makeup. 

But cracks appear in her portrayal, her betrayal, of herself.

Damn!

Coupled Up

They’ve been an item for five years now and it’s incredible how long it’s lasted considering he has Neanderthal eating habits and doesn’t wash from one month to the next. It must be his animal magnetism and innate insolence towards those in authority that keeps the flame alive; she’s always fancied a rebel.
And the magic certainly does spark up, like when he graffities the underpass with her name in a heart and climbs a crane with a banner demanding an end to speciesism and corporate destruction of the natural world.
Having said that though it can be hard living in the shadow of such a character; her best mate warned her ‘once a beast, always a beast’.
His unattractive traits like the fact he refuses ever to remove his coat and his uncontrollable urge to chase cats are things she finds hard to stomach. But after five years they’re still together. It must be love.

Piskey Threshing

On her calamitous journey back from market we’ve heard about how our spirit-troubled housemaid in the tale 'Fairy Ointment' ended up in several ditches whilst under the influence of various alcoholic beverages, and fairy ointment itself which, if placed in the eye, brings the Otherworld into vision. This is a yarn she also used to tell about her night of high adventure...

“I was so weary and felt no more could I continue homeward. I was seeing all manner of strange happenings, giants looming from hedgerows, the tinkling of fairy bells and even the Devil himself upon his charger, baying hounds at his side! Then I espied the light of a lantern coming from a barn and heard the sound of corn being threshed, it must be a farmer working late thought I. 

“So I crossed the cobbles and peeped through the door and saw Piskey himself threshing corn 

with his skinny long arms, dressed in ragged clothes with a face full of pointy teeth that glistened as he raised the flail over and over bringing it down on the corn causing clouds of dust to rise up. In the half light I beheld his workers, no more than two feet high; some lugged down sheaves and placed them close by for him, others shook the straw and bore it off to the end of the barn.

"But no sooner had I spoken the words than the light went out and all vanished and I felt a handful of dust thrown into my poor eyes that nearly blinded the only peeper that I could see anything out of!

“T’was at this point I remembered that the small people have great spite against anyone who watches them or tries to pry into their doings. So I briskly carried on across the moor but the bridle-paths were all askew. It must be that troublesome Piskey playing tricks because, turn whichever way I would, the path was always before me!

“After going on for a long while, at last I saw light and heard music. But instead of arriving at a house I came all at once on a level green surrounded by furze and there I saw the small people holding a fair. Scores of stalls were covered with trinkets, buckles of silver and gold glistening with diamonds, rings, bracelets and strings of crystal beads. Not to disturb the fairy folks I crept along softly till I stood opposite a company of dancers linked hand in hand, whirling around a maypole garlanded with flowers.

“I soon got to thinking about how well the bright little buckles would look, fixed as brooches, on my shawl, and thus determined to secure them at once. I knew that turning a garment inside out serves to keep the fairy folk at bay and as there was nothing that could be so readily turned inside-out except my apron, I took it off and turned it around. But whilst trying to grasp the buckles, pins or needles so small that I didn't notice them stuck into my fingers and I cried out, 'Oh! Cuss 'e! You little buccas!'

“That instant all the lights went out, and all the fair and most of the small people vanished like shadows among the rock, or sunk into the earth. I took up my skirt and ran fast as I could through puddles and mire to leave behind that enchanted place and the devilish Piskey who I swore I could see in the moonlight laughing at me!”