THE TRAIN NEXT passes through the Feltwhistles, a group of three small villages merged into one. This enclave is home to the Feltwhistle Peculiar, a pig unique to the area. Being bred for bacon, the characteristics of the animal are its extreme fatness and the shortness of its legs, which also enable it to be rolled to market. There is of course an annual pig-rolling race down Whistle Hill, and it is rumoured that some wags take it to the extreme and roll their wives as well. The local hostelry is named for the traditional skill of pig-boring, a humane if protracted alternative to the knife. A champion pig borer has his or her own collection of tediously boring tales which could cause the unwary listener to lose the will to live. The plump ladies of the town serve very tasty rolled bacon rolls on the station.
The fields of cabbages return, stretching away on all sides as far as the eye can see, until the train slows for a refuelling stop at Seven Bangs.
SEVEN BANGS
•HALT•
(SEVEN BHANGS)
POPULATION: 27
A REFUELLING STOP
HOSTELRY: The Jolly Green Cabbage Dragon.
IT IS HARD to know what to make of the blackened deep craters visible from the small station here.
An elderly local on the station platform regales the stranger with tales of a fire-breathing dragon and then tries to sell the unwary travellers what he describes as dragon detectors, which are nothing more than sooty bits of kindling. The real story, though unlikely, is far more mundane. The B’hang family, having heard stories about the endless fields of lush green cabbages of this land, migrated here from the Counterweight Continent in order to produce industrial quantities of the Agatean delicacy called Grimchi, a preserve of fermented cabbage. They harvested their crop of the Jolly Giant cabbage variety, chopped it up and added the local, rather watery, pickling vinegar and their own special seven-spice-black-powder. They then stored this mixture, as was traditional, in giant ceramic pickling jars buried in deep pits. A characteristic of the Jolly Giant cabbage, which every soup-making Sto Plains housewife knows, is that when water is added there is a three hundred per cent increase in volume. The first explosion set up a chain reaction, filling the air with shards of pottery, and great gobbets of foul-smelling sludge, and creating the deep craters we still see. The B’hang family moved swiftly on, as did most of the villagers, afraid that there might still be undiscovered jars fermenting away. Such was the disturbance to the underlying strata that the railway engineers specified the building of extra deep foundations under the track to prevent subsidence and in case of further explosions.
After about an hour the horizon darkens as the Forest of Skund comes into view. The deepest, darkest part of this extensive and sinister woodland extends widdershins of the River Ankh but its turnwise fringes come within a few miles of the railway and this is where the village of Fratchwood is located.
•FRATCHWOOD•
POPULATION: 150
NEAREST CLACKS: at Seven Bangs
ACCOMMODATION: Woodcutter’s Arms.
MARKET DAY: Tuesday.
Kindling Thursday Fair, mid Ember. A small village at the edge of the Forest of Skund reliant on furniture-making and charcoal burning.
THE WOODCUTTER’S ARMS, which is the only hostelry in the area, is known to the locals as ‘Finger Jack’s’ after a previous landlord, who kept all his fingers, somewhat unusually, in a jar behind the bar. The ones he used were loaned him by an Igor and it would appear they came from the hands of someone quite refined because they fluttered in alarm every time he uttered an oath and insisted he washed them after visiting the privy. There were rumours that he watered his beer and a very unpleasant conclusion was drawn after he was seen to wash his hands every time he came out from the beer cellar carrying a fresh barrel for behind the bar.
Now under new management, the Woodcutter’s Arms is almost famous as the retailer of the ‘Fratchwood bodged chairs’ that have long been a tradition in these parts. They are sold from the old stables where the chairs are penned to prevent them wandering off. Not far away is one of the small forest glades where chair-bodging still goes on. This ancient craft is carried out on ‘pole lathes’ that are powered by the spring action of a still growing sapling and a hearty stamp of the operative’s right leg. The results are surprisingly well finished; chair legs, arms, stretchers and back rails all go off in huge bundles to the ‘buttick and basher’ who makes the seat and finishes the construction. One can, if one has the time, order a chair with the seat ‘made to measure’ for one’s own posterior. These are said to be remarkably comfortable but they do have one slight drawback. Fratchwood timber is harvested from the trees of the enchanted Forest of Skund. It is not in any way in the same league as the famed Sapient Pearwood, but it does tend to move about a bit, on its own, when you are least expecting it. Little can be made from this wood that is not firmly nailed to the floor – or fastened to something else substantial. The ‘Fratchwood bodged chair’ is an exception as it generally only moves away from fire and sometimes incontinent dogs. It will, I’m told, shuffle up behind you and, if it likes you, nudge the backs of your knees and wait for you to sit down. The chairs don’t move very fast and this tendency usually fades as the wood ages and dries out.
The Carrack Mountains are clearly visible on the horizon as the train approaches Fustic Wells, the next station stop, located at the foot of a shallow escarpment.
•FUSTIC WELLS•
POPULATION: 370
CLACKS TERMINAL
ACCOMMODATION: The Majestic Hotel.
MARKET DAY: Wednesday.
Dipping Day Fair in Sektober.
A small spa town where the particular quality of the waters has been found effective in treating all foot-related ailments.
ONCE AN OBSCURE village with an odiferous spring, Fustic Wells has now developed into a much frequented spa. The yellow-stained waters originally used by trolls as a drench to encourage the growth of beneficial lichens were found to have some efficacy in the treatment of human foot ailments, and several local matrons came forward who had taught themselves podiatry as something to occupy the long winter evenings.
In the new grandiose pump room built of concrete but fronted by a façade of Ephebian-style columns, mature and well-upholstered women in white coats, wearing stout rubber gloves, wait by their slipper baths, foot wells, heel sinks and toe basins ready to tend the weary traveller’s feet.
Fustic Cake is a local speciality reputedly made using spring water. It is a bright yellow, curiously textured confection which is supposed to taste like seed cake. Alas, it does not taste like any seed cake I have eaten.