A Feathering [excerpt]
From the collection Blood in the Yolk
That fabuloso work of horrornithology Blood in the Yolk is now available for pre-order and will publish in just a few short weeks, on May 13th.
It contains the following stories…
Ouija Bird by EJ Trask
[extract at link]
Palimpsest at Hook Wood by Jon T
The Tasteless Death of Lance Green by Sean Thomas McDonnell
A Feathering by A.P. Murphy
Outnumbed by William Pauley III
Ravens by Author Michele Bardsley
Corvus and Crater by
In order to whet your appetite I’d like the post a short extract from my piece, A Feathering. It’s a piece of speculative fiction that centres on the long-running sectarian feud between Protestants (Orangists) and Catholics (Jacobites) in the United Kingdom down through the centuries.
The story takes as its inciting incident the punishment ritual of Tarring and Feathering which still occurs now and again in Northern Ireland, and goes back to the practice of Protestant warlord Christian “the mad Halbstadter” of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel who used it to torture Catholic nuns and priests in the Thirty Years War.
Like everything cool coming from Europe, from croissants to cheesy ye-ye pop songs, the Brits picked up on it pronto, and in turn the Yankee colonists copied it from them. Soon every community was tarring and feathering someone, whether a Tory holdout or a nagging harpy. It was all good.
This extract depicts a tarring and feathering process from 1696, inflicted on a court sheriff in a lawless enclave of London known as the Liberty of the Savoy…
He was being subjected to the rough music of the streets in ever-increasing crescendo, like a fine aria of the bel canto - punctuated with a swift percussion of kicks to the belly and slaps to the face.
Base gollumpus cocktaster!
Pissabed no-account scoundrel!
Notorious cuntlicker, noxious gundiguts!
Rapscallion whoreson, take here your licks!
Thou shag-bag, base, and lobcock shabaroon!
Taste of my shillelagh, oh Calvinickal tatterdemalion!
The torn doll pushed himself brokenly to his feet and the murmurs of my legbreakers rose along with him. They were gathering their ire to inflict some kind of righteous punishment on him. I needed only to give one word and he would be ripped apart along with his worthless legal paper.
He produced the document now, from a leathern wallet under his shit-streaked shirt, and handed it to me. It was made in the correct form under the seal of the High Sheriff of the City of London. Valid in law, but completely powerless here in our Liberty.
“Well then,” I said to him. “Here before you is Father Henry Holyoak of the Society of Jesus. Your very humble servant.” I bowed and curtseyed gracefully at him, as if this abject wretch were a duke. “Late of Douai College, and with a license to preach and administer Holy Communion from our true King, James Stuart the Second. Do you wish to see my credentials?”
“’Twould serve for naught, sir, as neither does your false king hold any authority in this realm of His Majesty King William the Third, nor indeed do I know how to read.”
“God’s bollocks!” I swore intemperately. “Are they so hard up for men at the Sheriff’s office of London that they hire illiterate charlatans?”
“Sir, I know not what is an ill-at-rat charlietown, but I’m sure it’s disrespectin’ of an officer of the king’s peace. I order you, sir, to accompany me herewith, for to face judgement at the assizes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I shall be obligated to detain you by force, Father Holyoak.” To give him his due, the bloodied and piss-soaked wretch, stinking of ordure, cheesemold and green festering meat, had assumed unto himself all the dignity he could muster, and more besides. But now I tired of this charade.
Turning, I made the flapping-wings sign with my hands. My men knew what it meant. Others had strayed into our Liberty and paid the same price. They seized him and dragged him toward the riverside, to the quays where the caulking-pots bubbled over slow fires.
A tarring and feathering might seem like a joke punishment, like a merry jape or a prank. Cough cough, feathers in your throat, sticky skin and down all over the place. Quite the laugh.
The reality of it is quite another thing. Black thick pitch is a dark substance that smells of hell, has the shimmer of hell’s heat rising off it, has the acrid taste of a mineral hell that leaves no fleshy matter to abide wherever it sticks.
Where the tar drips, the skin bubbles and blisters. My lads will dip into the tar barrel and ladle out further coatings, spreading it out all over the naked man as he shrieks and wails in torment. And you might be a stout enough fellow, a brave yeoman of consummate grit and toughness, but you will scream. There is no man born that won’t scream when the scalding pitch is being rubbed into a skin that already pulses with raw agony.
This done, no time must be lost before the feathers are applied. The tar’s stickiness is quickly lost as it cools. A barrel or tub of goosefeathers should be kept nearby for such contingencies. My lads, my Holy Army of Savoy Liberty Ruffians, were well practised in the art, and so had several tubs to hand.
[END EXTRACT]
The story will take in a fair bit of London from this period, then time-travel three centuries to Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles (1968-1998). Some alchemickal magick by a great mage named Isaac creates a sectarian monster ready to commit atrocities in the name of one side or another of this neverending conflict.
I hope you enjoyed this chunk and would like to read more… and even if not, rest assured that the other tales in this collection are of a far higher standard than my paltry offering.
Éirinn go Brách! Saoirse don Phailistín!
Cheers all.
Rabelaisian revival starts here! The world is already ready, but doesn't realise that's where it's gone.
One of the most bizarre and hilariously inventive tales I've read in a while...and that is saying something in these circles! Very much enjoying Blood in the Yolk so far...I think this is my favourite so far!😎