Do You Know Anything About Fimblemas?

Australians celebrate Christmas in the summer, which is all very well but doesn't leave much cheeriness for the long dark winter. At least that's what I always thought. Then, the other day I was browsing an obscure corner of the internet and found a website dedicated to revealing the Truth About Things. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, Australians have been having a sneaky midwinter festival called Fimblemas.

Fimblemas cards and gifts can only be made, they can never be bought. (One reason for this was so that grumbly types could never say 'Chuh! Fimblemas! That was just dreamt up by some card company').

On the first day of Fimblemas, people start to make their gifts. On the seventh day of Fimblemas, all the gifts are left out, to be collected in the dead of night by Mother Fimblemas. She leaves hand-written receipts for all the gifts, and these are kept by Australian children in their Fimblemas receipt-books.

During the next week Mother Fimblemas and her helpers sort through all the gifts so they are ready for delivery on the fourteenth of Fimblemas.

Mother Fimblemas lives, of course, at the South Pole. Her carriage is drawn by magical penguins, who can fly. She is kept warm throughout the freezing winter flights by her voluminous cloak and by the fact that a wombat is curled up on her head, hibernating.

Do you know anything about Fimblemas? For example, when IS Fimblemas? (The website didn't say, and it has since gone off-line - purportedly for not paying its hosting bills, but probably for revealing the Truth About Things). Do you know any Fimblemas customs? Fimblemas songs? Fimblemas food? Fimblemas games? Fimblemas decorations?

It is astonishing to think that Australians have kept this a secret for so long. And yet, thinking about that website, with its neon-green type and extensive collection of lizard-people photos, I can't help but think it must be true.

Moon-Dog

 This story is now nine years old. I wrote it in 2003. A good few of my greetings cards were originally illustrations for the story, so I've put them in here.

At the edge of the sky there are blue hills which can sometimes be seen and sometimes cannot. They rise in ridges as if made of cloud which has been whipped by the wind, and indeed some think they are nothing but clouds, as their shape seems to change and they disappear on clear evenings. But I met a traveller who had been to those hills, and hills they are, though unlike any in the lands we know.

The stone there is deep blue and lies beneath a blanket of lichen, a patchwork of smoky blue, hazy purple, and bottle green, threaded with gold. A kind of heather grows over the slopes but it is as soft as moss, while the moss itself is thick and forms green cushions.

From these come an eery music and my traveller could be forgiven had he thought the hills were haunted, but it is only the little bees, singing as they sell honey at their market stalls. They can be heard because it is so very very quiet there.

Quiet too are the valleys that fall through the hills in purple shadows, lined with velvety grass. The valleys are narrow, ending in thin silver streams and darting kingfishers, black-barked sloes and meadowsweet. When my traveller was in a valley there, he saw that overlooking it was a little clump of trees which gathered about as if hiding a secret. Beyond their dark boughs could be seen a little roof, overgrown with bramble and dog rose. This was the house of Nora.

Nora was a good witch. Good witches spend more time gardening and drinking tea than casting spells, and accordingly Nora had a beautiful garden and a very large teapot. She spent her days drying herbs, reading about other witches who lived long ago, and learning French. This was because the only living thing she knew was a French spider.

All the other spiders had moved house when they found out Nora was a witch, because spiders are very afraid of witches. They believe witches boil spiders up in potions, but of course this is nonsense. Nora wanted to explain this to Inky, as she called the spider, but the spider spoke a very old-fashioned French dialect and did not understand Nora at all, who to be honest had very poor French and mispronounced all the words.

Nora was very lonely. Besides Inky, she had only her pots and pans to talk to, and they never said anything, not even in langue d’oc, which as it happens was the Mediaeval French spoken by Inky, whose real name was Guilhelm, Comte de l’Aquitain. This means William, Count of Aquitaine. It is neither here nor there that Inky was not a count, since he was not from Aquitaine either. As a spiderling he had lived in the spine of a book on Eleanor of Aquitaine, and had become convinced that he was the reincarnation of William the tenth, on account of the fact that both Inky and the count enjoyed romantic poetry.

Nora liked poetry too, and one evening after trying to talk to Inky, while the count stared blankly back at her out of his eight eyes, she took down her favourite volume and began to read.

There were quite a few poems about the moon in this book, and this put Nora in mind of the fact that she had meant to wish on the moon that night.

She put on her coat and went out into the chilly evening. The bees were singing softly as they sat on moss cushions, knitting stripey jumpers, and the moon was curled up on a cloud. Nora closed her eyes and thought of what she wanted most in the world, and then she made her wish. Now, I can’t tell you what she wished, as all wishes are secret, but as I have told you that she was very very lonely, you can make a good guess.

Then she took a sup of tea, which she had carried out into the garden. She let a little waft of tea-steam up into the sky, which was her way of paying the moon for her wish. As it was such a lovely night she took out a plate of toast and had her supper in the garden as the bees ended their performance with a jazzy little number about honey.

The next morning was warm and bright. Nora was eating her breakfast when she heard a very strange thing. It was a knock on the door. That is not such a strange thing to you, perhaps, but you must remember that Nora never had any visitors. She wondered had it really been a knock or was it just her imagination, and while she was thinking about it she heard the knock again, and hurried to the front door.

A small white dog was sitting outside. There was no one else around. Maybe you wouldn't talk to a dog, but Nora had spent three months learning a foreign language in order to speak to a spider, so you shouldn’t be surprised that she smiled at the dog and said hello.

The dog said hello back. In English. Nora was very excited. But the dog was a dignified dog, and introduced himself properly.

“Good morning,” said the dog, ”My name is Moondog. I live over the hills –“ (he gestured with a paw) “- but I often drift by this way, and I’ve always wondered who lives here. I am quite nosy.” And he gazed for a moment at his long nose so that Nora found herself nodding in agreement.

“Well,” she said, “come in, come in. I am just having breakfast if you are hungry.”

Moondog apologised for interrupting her breakfast, but Nora told him not to be silly and set out an extra cup and plate. And what do you think she was eating for breakfast? Chocolate cake! Nora was, after all a witch, and all magical things love chocolate. Moondog was magical too. He had two slices.

Nora and Moondog talked of many things. Moondog had travelled a lot and he told Nora about marvellous places and strange beasts. He also knew a bit of history, and they talked about the witches Nora had read about and kings she had not read about.

When the evening came Moondog thanked Nora for the tea and cake and said goodbye. Nora invited him to come again the next day and he said he would like that very much. Then off he trotted, through the huddled trees and down the valley. Nora was very tired and said goodnight to Inky. The count waved a spindly leg, and off she went to bed, to dream of all the things Moondog had told her about.

The next morning Moondog came to the house again, and every day after that. When Nora was gardening or learning witchcraft Moondog would sit and play his violin, which was very big compared to him, so he played it like a cello.

Maybe it was all the chocolate cake, but Nora noticed that Moondog was becoming plump. In fact he was almost round. She thought it a bit odd that it happened so quickly, because just a week before he had been a very thin dog indeed, but it was also odd for a dog to play the violin, so she shrugged and said nothing. After a few days he didn’t seem so fat, so she thought no more of it.

But then Moondog seemed to become very thin! Very, very thin. Nora was worried and made bigger chocolate cakes, but to no avail - her friend got skinnier and skinnier.

Eventually, one day, he disappeared. He was still there, because he came in and said hello and played his violin as usual, but Nora could not see him. When she put a plate of cake on the table, two slices cut themselves and were eaten, and although this was quite funny to watch, Nora wasn’t pleased at all.

“I am very worried about you, Moondog,” she said to his chair. “Are you sick?”

Moondog shook his head, but of course Nora could not see him, so he said,

“No, no, I’m not at all sick. I will explain it all in two days, if you will wait.”

So Nora waited and in two days time, Moondog knocked on the window and she could see him again. He was so thin that even Inky was worried, and could not concentrate on the poem he was writing.

 

As soon as dusk fell, Moondog went out and Nora went with him. They walked through the trees that whispered to each other, and stood on the brink of the valley. Moondog wagged his tail at Nora and then set off at a gallop down the side of the valley. If you have ever run down a hill you will know that when you get to the bottom you are running very fast, and can run right up a slope on the other side. This is what Moondog did, and when he got to the top he leapt high into the air.

But he didn’t fall.

He stayed high up in the sky, and as the night grew darker, his white coat seemed brighter until he shone like the stars around him. Moondog was the moon.

Nora now understood. She knew that the moon grows fatter until it is a big round circle, but that it then becomes thin again until it disappears. And she knew that although Moondog was invisible for a few days each month, he was still there, and would always become nice and fat again.

The End

Ugly Ducklings

When you are a designer, or craftsperson, or artist, it's a bit like being a parent. Your creations all have their quirks and flaws but you want the best for them and hope that they will go out into the world to be appreciated. When you notice that one design tends to be neglected, you feel a bit defensive of it. You might give it a better spot at the next market you do, in the hope that it will catch someone's eye and feel better about itself. When this approach repeatedly fails, at long last you give in and let it retire from public view where it can no longer be humiliated. But cleaning out shelves or reorganising stock, you sometimes come across it, and when you do, you tell it that somewhere there is someone who would love it if they ever saw it.

I have a number of these ugly ducklings. I fear, in my heart of hearts, that they will never be swans. But I love them all the same. What they lack in commercial appeal or beauty or appropriateness, they make up for in idiosyncrasy, or outright weirdness. And just to show that I by no means disown them or am ashamed of them, here they are.

My werewolf. Well, I'm not really sure if he's a werewolf or a troll. I painted him around the time I was obsessed with 'Peer Gynt' which teems with trolls, but now he looks more like a werewolf to me. I modelled him very loosely on my husband who has rather amazing cheekbones but not, I am glad, an extra pair of ears.
As a greetings card, the Werewolf has limited usability. There are a lot of people who, on receiving this as a birthday card, would wonder just what exactly the sender was trying to say about their eyebrows. I like the coldness of the landscape behind, and I like the personality of the werewolf who does not, I think, much care about his unpopularity. I also like his coat, and wish I could find one like it.

My Carnivorous Lipstick Beetle. She wears high heels and inhabits shaded corners of jazz bars. I will admit that she is a bit jaded with it all, but give her a gin & tonic - or maybe just a gin - and she'd have plenty of anecdotes to tell you.

My Kobold. A kobold is like a brownie - he'll clean your house but get very annoyed if you are messy. The element Cobalt was named after kobolds, because they were meant to infest mines.


I have lots more of these - my Lady-troll, my Trainspotter-troll, my Top-hat Man ... which I might and might not display at a later date. These three were feeling particularly down today, when I found them in a box on a bottom shelf. I said I'd bring them out for the morning so they could have a look around the internet. I'm pretty sure the Werewolf is off to some blog about travelling rough; the Carnivorous Lipstick Beetle has probably already beetled off to an mp3 of Billy Holiday, and as for the Kobold with his cleaning mania - much as I love him, I have to admit he's headed for some Youtube clips of Kim & Aggie's Housecleaning adventures.

Gargoyles

Dublin is not quite as infested with gargoyles as some other European cities. This is a result of gargoyle-hunting, which was in vogue about a century ago. Being slow (one might say even motionless) creatures, hunting gargoyles required no speed and little skill. Sharp eyes and an axe did the trick.

It was a perfect after-dinner sport, when a gentle amble through winding alleys was enlivened with the hope of bagging a few specimens. As this pastime gained popularity, interest grew in the creatures themselves.

Their independence and love of window ledges suggested a kinship to cats, and so there was a brief movement to domesticate them. Gargoyle-fanciers vaunted them as uncomplaining and placid, but most people found them to be unaffectionate. In the end the venture failed due to their complete failure to breed in captivity.

Questions were eventually raised as to the ethics of gargoyle hunting. Claims that the gargoyles fed on roof-slates, and were to blame for the shoddy state of many church spires, were, frankly, taradiddles¹. And not even Preston Blumenthal (a travelling chef and wizard of the time) served them for dinner more than once. Gargoyles, as we now know, contain little or nothing of nutritional value, and their flesh is exceedingly tough.

As a result of petitioning, gargoyles were eventually granted status as a protected species. Gargoyle hunting, as a sport requiring no perceptible movement, was superseded by golf. The remnants of what was once a healthy and thriving colony still cling to old buildings around the town. One would think, gazing about at the erstwhile nesting places of their former friends, the stony faces would look sad, but by and large they all look as though they are grinning to themselves. There is just no understanding gargoyles.

¹cobblers²

²balderdash^3.

³tommyrot⁴

⁴piffle⁵

⁵hogswash^6.

⁶codswallop⁷

⁷bilge⁸

⁸flim-flam⁹

⁹somewhat lacking in veracity

Once, there were THREE SPIDERS...