The Ginger Scrolls – Part 4 (Of Many)

We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.

You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here and Part 3 Here

Now ’tis time for Part 4……..

THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……

They sailed for evil intent.

We still huddled in our homes, yearning for lost sun and warmth and food did not see, hear or sense their approach. Three hundred or so ships melting from the east, slicing through our frozen waters in their stone clad vessels like a snore through dreams.

They visited terrible vengeance, slaying our weary Out Guards, pulling down the great beloved Ice Buttock and entering our lands. They slew our King, Michelsrinus, pillaged his family and boiled his potatoes in a cauldron lined with the skins of his children. “Tasty, very tasty.” Overath murmured. “Kill them all!” was his final order to his squadrons.

“Avenge these flame hairs from our lands – sweep them out to the seas beyond our sight and nets. We besiege the Gods. There is nothing we ask of them. Woe, woe, woe upon us that we must sight such evil.”

Fires were kindled and lit along our shores to guide more avengers toward us. Swords sharpened, arrows tipped, axe heads forged and shields buffed to shiny niceness. Men of war and men of peace cojoined to attack the evil they saw in these Northern lands. They coated themselves in grease and roasted chestnuts to pass the time. Some played tag, others knitted and the greatest warrior amongst them known as Bloodlust, the height of two adult sheep, learned the basics of tap dancing.

Why did you come?

Men from the South

Why utter such hatred

From your pustulant mouth 

We sheltered in the lee of the Hidden halls, deep beneath Holy Mountain Westerneye, sheltered from the slaughter but not from the pitying screams of our Volk as they sought false sanctuary, from the bloodied axe and the striking sword, pitiful cries for clemency ignored. We cried, deep sorrowful cries of primal intent for them and yet amongst us few, guilt sodden relief that life still flowed through our piteous bodies.

Three nights of slaughter. No invader did venture towards the Hidden Halls, our brave blood refusing to betray us. Until the men from the South, sated in their need for ignorant vengeance finally set down their swords, axes and clubs and slept among the bodies of our dead.

Trebor the North wind came to our aid, forcing the invaders to leave our desolate lands and pushing the sighs of our dead and grieving South, away from our ears and memory.

 

(Translator’s note – Here the Scrolls fall silent. The in depth description and desecration of the Ghingar’s capital city of Rasmouldjensoningbirdemdeleanto, has never been recorded. If they were recorded in the Scrolls, for whatever reason the author has removed them and there is no trace of them anywhere else. Having said that it must have been pretty bad and so we can only guess at the sadness that these poor people endured. We know that the destruction of Rasmouldjensoningbirdemdeleanto, led to the first ever sponsored walk on behalf of someone or something. This is the stem of the modern day Ginger people’s love of a sponsored walk.)

 

…………One warrior amongst us stood still. Krol, the son of Rep the carpenter, bound us with fortitude. While we weak, afeared to leave the icy shell of the Hidden Halls for fear their protection would be rent from us, Krol parried our weakness and filled us with strength previously unknown in our hearts.

“The lard hair boats, be our saviour!” he cried. Many had mocked his father, Malcolm The Prepared, keeness to lash lard and spare hair together into vessels three sun cycles previously, “A mad eyed Karibou” they had called him, but now his foresight was praised for we, the remnants of the Ghingar Empire could finally set about our future with renewed vim and vigour.

 

For when we sail

To far off shores

What shall we see?

What will our children say?

 

What will be their final word on us?

That we fled our lands, their future home

That we banished them from their destiny?
That we stole their souls?

That we gave them life?

That we gave them destiny?

That we could in our darkest hours afford them hope?

What will they say?

I hope it is kind

 

To be continued………

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The Ginger Scrolls – Part 3 (Of Many)

We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.

You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here

Now ’tis time for Part 3……..

THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……

As we say “In the darkest times night follows night”. The wisest knew that such darkness and cold meant that other tribes suffered from similar tribulation. We lived with our way and them with theirs. We hope it would stay that way. It was, alas not to be.

The King of the Hup, a mighty warrior ennobled as Overath, bade blood and fury to reek vengeance upon nature itself and tear the gentle Earth apart to teach her a lesson that never more would she treat the Hup with such disdain. His rage a madness that could only be lessened by death.

He crushed the skulls of thirteen House Carls with his double headed axe and bade for the blood of others. “Tis our tithe to kill, Tis our right to life, Tis our right to blame,” he cried. The people of Hup agreed and foamed with false anger and blazed with sham rage. Strangers. To blame. To find. To punish.

“To the North, to the North. The Ghingars have wrought this upon us with their devilry and odourless magic. It is they who must be stopped. For they are seeking to capture our souls for their own evil intent. They seek to starve us and steal the sun from us – we must destroy them. Summon the other Kings from Lup, Jup, Cup and Wup – I declare Council must be opened!”

It was as if they had become a single terrible beast spoken of in our own fables but never seen, whiffed or heard. A beast of ignorant rage and no more. “To the toll booth then –who has change?” cried mighty warrior Overath. With the Lups, Cups, Jups and Wups now in unison with the Hups, they sailed in mighty force in stone clad ships, captained by the black hearted sailor birds of the Vogts tribe, half man half puffin who sought no more reward than fish for their black hearted deeds.

 

They sailed for evil intent.

We still huddled in our homes, yearning for lost sun and warmth and food did not see, hear or sense their approach. Three hundred or so ships melting from the east, slicing through our frozen waters in their stone clad vessels like a snore through dreams.

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The Ginger Scrolls – Part 2 (Of Many)

We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.

You can read Part 1 Here

Now ’tis time for Part 2

THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……

 

Ours was a simple world, made good by kindness, potatoes and a lack of foot disorders.

Kindness would be shown to strangers who ventured to our Homestead. The stranger would find life so satisfying that he would stay in perpetuity. On these rare times we would learn of the times in other worlds, the rise and fall of empires far to the South, East and West –  of men of different creeds and living their lives with many more laws, too many I would wager for peace to be allowed to roam over their lands and their people.

For the outsiders, where contentment was a threat rather than a treat, the non-return of strangers, or Nonomers as they were titled, from our lands only saw a further sense of mystery wrap itself around our people.

Tales of devilry and witchery amongst we Ginghars came common to these ignorant tongues. Tales were told by their story men and women of how we would eat our own, raw flesh torn limb from limb. How we savage hearts would allow our women to lay with wolves to produce offspring half man half wolf and how these desperate creatures were used by us to mortify the souls of neighbouring peoples.
Such tales are nonsensical in construct and meaning. Our great thinkers communed closely with the Wolf King, Haan for we bordered each other’s land and it was in each other’s interest to understand each other’s lives. But as we learned, efforts to understand anothers nature were oft seen by other men as an opportunity to curse our namewith their peoples in the name of greed and ignorance.

We lived on vegetables with animal flesh barely passing our lips – only then when the wolves left us offerings at the beginning and end of the dark season to mark their return to the forests that neighboured our lands. Again this was taken as signs of sorcery and witchcraft from our eventual foes.

For we ever understood their ways. We had no good or evil only what we termed Way (author’s note – the Ghingar term used here is actually Veluxmindacimentorroulatersnttfghping – literally translated as “direction of life within our snowy lands – we consider Way to be an appropriate translation).

 

Way of life, Way of death, Way of things, Way of meaning, Way of loving – we had many Ways.

(Note; there is now a lengthy passage in the Scrolls on agricultural techniques employed by the Ghingar. The main topic is how they managed to grow so many root vegetable in such Northern climes and only having snow and ice to grow them in. Whilst this may be considered an agricultural miracle, it is not considered relevant for gingerfightback’s purposes to include these pages. For an in depth assessment of Ghingar growing techniques the reader may like to obtain a copy of “In Ice and Snow We Made Things Grow – Ghingar farming practices and rituals – by Douglas Sandwell – OUP – 956 Pages and includes pop up lettuce).

 

The Dark Stayed…….

……………………………………………..Why the Sun decreed to stay in that year nobody will ever reason. Why the famine took hold, why the fish left the sea waters and why the reindeer moved deeper into the forest, man will look askance at man and never find an answer.

When Mother Sun departed, we bade her farewell and sought her return with due speed. But she did not return at the known time, leaving us and other men to speak with hoar frost breath.

No plant or animal would grow that season. Haan led his tribe further into the Taiga for sustenance, their howling farewells bidding us safe return to summer warmth. Our left flank was exposed. We huddled in our homes for warmth and boiled snow and ice for miserly sustenance, only our stories and madrigals keeping us from mind loss and starvation.

 

The dark is upon us

But your beauty lights my soul

A bright arc fills mine eyes

You are near to me

That I know

Dance with me

Sing with me

Laugh with me

Lie with me

My love

Be among my dreams

And dart among the stars
As we say “In the darkest times night follows night”, so the wisest of us knew that darkness and the cold in our lands could only mean that other man tribes suffered from similar tribulation.

We lived with our way and they with theirs and this it should stay.

It was, alas not to be.

Part 3 to follow……….

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