O how they clanged, those gubernatorial bells! It is eighty years now since their peals sounded, but still I hear them in my head. They clanged ceaselessly, all day and all night, deafeningly loud, for years on end. Cows stood dazed in the fields around the bell-tower, many, many cows, too many cows to count, all dazed and stunned, and in those days no cowherds came to give them succour.
In your tongue, “gubernatorial” refers to governorship, but in my land at that time the gubernatorial bells were the ever-clanging bells of the ferocious tyrant known variously as the Gub or Guber or Gubernat. Some said the Gub was a fiend in human form, but none had ever seen it, so how could they be so sure, muttering darkly in the corner of the tavern, professing a knowledge they did not have, rewarded with a refilled tankard by some credulous foreign person on an ill-advised visit to our bell-blasted village?
Dobson came here once. He crashed through the tavern doors, a clumsy adventurer – for he was young then – and jabbered at anyone who would listen that he wanted to go up the hill to the castle, to meet the Gubernat face to face.
- Quotation from “A History Of The McGuffey Readers” by Henry H Vail
- The Story of the Lame Dog, The Caged Bird, The Drowned Cat, The Gold Watch, The Whisky Boy and the Insane Boy
- The Taxonomy of Ducks, Swans and Geese is in a State of Flux
- Titans of the Silver Screen (Walt Dinsey)
- Killer Bees: The Mystery Solved
- A Bag on your Foot
- Clot (Ferenc Puskas).
The Quotation alluded to in “Clot” from “What Philately Teaches” by John N Luff can be found on the Hooting Yard Web Site, along with a transcript of all the stories in this episode. This show was first broadcast on the 15th of June 2005.
