The Witch of Clatteringshaws
Page 11
“He goes far who never returns,” said the parrot.
Then it flew away.
The soldiers of the two armies were picking themselves up off the ground. They had slept all day, and, full of a huge Scottish tea, which the ladies of Clatteringshaws had provided, they were feeling cheerful, and burst into the songs they had sung as they marched.
“Raining, raining, raining all the day,
And yet, and yet my hoppity heart is making hay
Hoo-ray, hoo-ray, hoo-ray for a rainy, rainy day!
I reign, you reign, he reigns, they reign when the skies are gray—
Black cat, black cat a-coming downstairs,
Butter your paws and slide,
Bristle your whiskers wide—
As I went a-waltzing down Calico Alley,
A voice cried, ‘Come join us in Wvendsleydale valley!
In Wvendsleydale vale,
Where there’s cheeses for sale
As big as a pail,
Where the blackberry pie
Is twenty feet high
And lobster is served in the jail.…’ ”
A tempest of sound swept across the valley. And the hordes of Hobyahs who had come out after sunset, eager to surge up the hill and demolish the happy, careless warriors, began to dwindle and shrink and crumple. Their faulty little prehistoric nerve systems could not stand up to the strong regular beat of the music; they whimpered and shivered and began to dissolve like butter melting on a griddle.
By the time the moon had risen, casting its solemn light over the waters of the loch and the granite roofs of Clatteringshaws, there were no Hobyahs left, only a mass of little black shriveled husks, lying knee-deep across the hillside.
“Think of it, Simon!” Dido said happily. “Pa’s songs! They’ve really come in handy at last!”
Hobyahs and Tatzelwurms
Like Dido, you may still be wondering what the Hobyahs were and where they came from, and the answer is that we shall probably never know. They appeared in folk stories more than a hundred years ago and were so scary and inscrutable—perhaps because no one ever described how they looked, as they only came out at night—that their fame has spread as far as America and Australia, where tales are still told about them. Joan Aiken said that your imagination is the greatest gift you have; life will always be a mystery, but through the stories we share, we can find our way of coming to terms with it. There’s an old Chinese proverb about a very large goose in a very small bottle. How do you get it out? You imagine it out! So, although we can be sure that the Hobyahs are all gone now, they come back when we read about them. How to get rid of them? That’s up to you!
(If in doubt, sing.…)
The Tatzelwurm is another creature whose fame has grown through the power of storytelling. In the Alps in Switzerland, travelers and farmers claimed to have seen strange creatures, even up until fifty years ago, that came to be known as Tatzelwurms, from the German words for “paw” or “claw” and “worm,” so perhaps this beast was something like a dragon, a large lizard with legs. Some even claimed to have found a mysterious skeleton. But, like the people of Clatteringshaws, these travelers couldn’t help wanting to make their stories more exciting, so the Tatzelwurm grew “teeth the length of my forearm! Eyes that burned like firecrackers! Scales! Spikes! Smoking breath!” and much more besides. Malise’s Tatzen was friendly and polite, and I hope he lived to a comfortable old age in Wendsleydale.
Lizza Aiken 2004
About the Author
Joan Aiken was born in Sussex, England, to American poet Conrad Aiken and his Canadian wife, Jessie McDonald Aiken. She wrote more than a hundred books for young readers and adults. Perhaps her best-known books for children are the Wolves Chronicles, which began with the now classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, for which she won the Lewis Carroll Award. Her novels are internationally acclaimed, and, among other honors, she was a recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the United States and the Guardian Award in her native England. Joan Aiken was awarded the title Member of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999.