It’s All About Joseph Soggyrag — Chapter 2
LADY RAVEN AND THE ELF WHO SPAWNED THE DEVIL.
Lady Raven Lindsey Moonpuddle, not to be mistaken with Luna Moonshine, had been in the Elven Party for a good few hundred years. In reality, she was the original entryist, a mind and power inside the Party of the elves with a radical alternative agenda. She was neither witch nor land elemental, she was a weaver of reality, a mother of possibility.
Lady Raven Lindsey Moonpuddle kept demons from the shores of Albion, had exquisite tastes in coffee and was rather partial to unsweetened iced tea. She offered an ideology of spiritual freedom which transcended religion, Pagan or otherwise, and was the creator of Raven Justice. Yet this Lady of the Air remained anonymous in the public eye, a backbench Member of Parliament that few really saw.
Although she dabbled with angelic magic, Lady Raven often found it unrewarding and frustrating. Sometimes she even suspected that the angels didn’t like her much, probably, she thought, due to her Nephilim ancestry, although she could never be sure.
Lady Raven also suspected that the angels were not a hegemonic group and that some angels worked directly with demons and dark mages like Edward Crude, it wouldn’t be an over exaggeration to say Lady Raven of the Djinn and some of the choirs of angels were not enamored with Crude and monotheism, and they shared a mutual mistrust of the dominant angelic politic and its leading proponent Jal.
She took a sip of her iced tea, ‘damn they’d given her one with sugar again,’ she hated the sweetened ones, they were the very nemesis of her Raven blood. Lady Raven was concerned today about many things and she was aware she was ‘hangry’ a rare condition of anxiety, anger and ‘general out-of-sortedness’ brought on by insufficient food. She was concerned about the state of the nation and how thin this reality was being stretched by constant magical interference and the political ineptness of the human/elemental alliances that ruled this land.
This constant stretching of reality brought on by the magician Edward Crude’s attacks was tearing the veils between the worlds asunder, and consequently, driving the demonic forces away from Albion was becoming even more problematic. Lady Raven prepared her clothes for the day, of course, the primary color would be black, yet today she chose dark greens and transcendent purples as well to match the pixel colors in her jet black hair, even her dark Gothic persona was lightened and empowered by her mastery of color, tone, and hue.
So here it was again, much like in the time of Emperor Constantine, the fate of a realm, Europe or even the planet lay with her blood. She ran the fingers of her right hand through the distinguished streak of grey hair adjacent to her right temple, why did the magic always fall on her shoulders?
Why were men always so…so ‘wet’ when it came to magical nation building and fighting demons and/or rogue angels?
There was always her father, Lord Raven The Storm King, but she’d save him until later until it was time to summon the thirteen Cosmic Archetypal Grandmother Judges who were the ultimate deciders of how reality would look for the next millennia or so. She’d not reached that point yet!
Lady Raven’s parliamentary duties had been heavy of late leaving little time for her passion, the creation of tools to help the planet evolve. What would she need now?
What would the Cosmic Court need for a judgment so profound?
Human lawyers would be useless, too confused and conflicted, they’d transcend those limitations one day but that would take time. The elementals, elves and faerie folk, were too tied to the old ways, not ready to open to new possibilities, new realities that the Universe could suggest.
Who did the planet need, who could translate the wisdom of the Ravenoid Lawyers and the utterances of the Grandmothers?
She had it! Bella Sparrow Walker, Director of all possible realities, interpreter of every cosmic possibility.
There was only one problem, in this incarnation, Bella was only nine years old and the cosmic court would need the permission of her mother Sara Sparrow Breath, journalist, conspiracy theorist, retro DJ and something not many knew, a secret demon fighter! Lady Raven understood that Sara Sparrow Breath had been looking for a potential spiritual partner of Lady Raven’s ability and stature, but so far Lady Raven had remained below the radar, it had been important to keep a low profile until the circumstances were right.
It was time for a fresh iced tea, a ginormous, bucket-like iced tea which would empower her day. Idly she scanned the large menu board to see if there was anything she’d enjoy eating, but as usual, everything contained gluten, a poison to any self-respecting Raven magician.
She rolled down her electrical car window, reached out with her mind and activated the button to attract the attention of the soda server. In the past, Lady Raven would just indicate her presence through telepathy but following numerous instances of traumatized waitresses and waiters, she reverted back to the primitive technology of the outer world.
The waitress brought the iced tea out to the car, regurgitated pleasantries about having a nice day and charged a few dollars for the exchange. Lady Raven adjusted her seat and set her mind for the switch back to Albion before she took her first sip of the tea, she desperately needed to be ‘rebeveraged’.”Damn” she cursed, they’d given her a sweetened one, the second sweetened one today. Frustrated she called the waitress again!
A few moments and one mind switch later she stopped her Honda Civic at the edge of the mists of Avalon, she stepped out of her car and into the night, noticing that the rain had started to stir:
“Dear Rain,” she said, “please give me half an hour to return to Raven Towers and then you can pour until your heart’s delight!”
The rain honored her request immediately and Lady Raven donning the memory of being a priestess of these lands raised her arms and cried:
“Ydal fo Nolava, trap eht stsim rof em,” her magic emboldened by the reflective language of Avalon.
The mists parted as she drove to the edge of the lake.
The barge of Avalon moved soundlessly to the water’s edge and she could see the tall fairy ferryman. With a slight bow of his head, Markel the Ferryman of Avalon’s Goddess lowered a ramp and Lady Raven drove her Honda Civic, sparkling in its silver glory, onto the ferry before it (the ferry) moved away silently into the mists.
The first thing Lady Raven wanted to do when she arrived at Raven Towers was to start to set up her art room in the tower itself and she felt a wave of irritation when she realized that her father was present and uninvited. It was too early, there was too much preparation to do before she wanted to involve him.
Yet here he was, maybe she could utilize his magic to strengthen her creation of the three Ravenoid Lawyers who were to serve in the Cosmic Courts of Reality, the domain of the Grandmothers. Ravenoid Lawyers who hadn’t returned to this world for the last seventeen hundred years, umm perhaps her father’s magic may be very useful after all.
“Daughter Shelda Raven Mistress,” the Storm King said as he bowed deeply before her. He knew her power and loved and honored his daughter in a way that only the Storm King was able
Her initial misgivings melted immediately, as although being demonstrative didn’t always come that easily to her, below her thick, feathered skin she adored being truly loved by someone who could really see her, someone who could see her powerful potential from every which way and who just loved her when she temporarily forgot who she was.
Lord Raven had a number of questions for his daughter regarding political and metaphysical affairs, he wanted to understand why the witches, elves, and druids were behaving the way they were and how the elementals were actively mythologizing themselves as both a spiritual and political tactic. He wanted to know everything his daughter knew about Edward Crude, the Dark Mage.
Lady Raven told him of her plans to recreate the three Ravenoid Lawyers from the spirits of her Black Djinn Tribe for the Cosmic Courts of the Grandmothers and her concerns about working with Bella Sparrow Walker.
Lord Raven assured her that demons were already breaking through all over Albion and it was time to team up with Sara Sparrow Breath and banish the bastards once and for all. He suggested she summon Duganor her Fae brother to fight and help her raise a spirit army and insisted he’d only evoke the Grandmothers once Edward Crude was captured.
He ( Lord Raven) showed her the silver lights of time when he, Edward Crude, would make his first and perhaps fatal mistake, we must be ready he impressed on her, our blood must be cleansed of the violence we’ve introduced to Albion.
Lady Raven sighed, all of these concerns and demands at once, this was why it had been too early to introduce her father, yet right now her work was to resurrect her beloved three Ravenoid Lawyers, beings who’d not interacted with this world directly since the days she (Lady Raven) had defeated Emperor Constantine.
Martolas stood on the raised stage in front of thousands of elves, fairies and the odd human witch from the elven and faerie traditions in the deep forest, to describe the atmosphere as energized was a grave understatement, there was a huge excitement, ordinary land elementals could claim back their own metaphysical politics and again would have a real voice in the running of Albion. Too long had they been excluded and marginalized, first by the witches and the Wiccan press and then by the ‘Blue Witches’ of the New Elf Party.
Martolas talked of human injustice and centuries of inequality, he talked of the unheard stories of the land elementals and the purity of their myths and truths, their magic and their relationship with Ceridwen!
The pitch and volume of Martolas’s voice notched up a level and his audience was transfixed:
“The re-emergence of Edward Crude and his attacks on Albion have become both politically and personally intolerable for me, for as many of you know, I’m very old, thousands of years old in fact. Yet many of you don’t know I’m originally from Wales, one of Ceridwen’s first elven subjects…”
Back before time began, Martolas was a young elf and father of a small family of eleven sons. They all served at the pleasure of the Lady Ceridwen whose life was Divine and perfect apart from one thing, her beloved son was deformed and (there was no other way to say it) as ugly as your left hand before toilet paper had been invented.
Ceridwen had gathered her elven and faerie folk, along with her witches, calling for options, ideas, and magic to give her son Divine status. She encouraged the creative free flow of thoughts and gave her guys permission to express themselves, however initially ridiculous their notions may be.
At first, there was a nervous silence, no sentient being wanted to be seen as a fool, particularly when the Goddess was asking for help. A witch called Martyn Smitherson cleared his throat and started staring into the hearth fire for inspiration. Smitherson (a Master butcher) whose work doubled as Ceridwen’s favorite gardener, suggested tentatively that Ceridwen ordered the mass production of cookies made with magic mushrooms and decreed that everyone would have to eat at least four every day and that way Ceridwen’s son Joseph Soggyrag would be seen as beautiful.
All present approved of the mass production of cookies but felt that the magic mushroom component was a little too random and unreliable giving no guarantees of success, ‘but hey good opening gambit, Martyn Smitherson!’
Gertrude Piddlebottom an elf whose particular skills involved the healing of witch and non-aligned human urinary tracts, suggested the complete destruction of all known creation, changing around a few minor details, such as the definition of beauty, starting again and letting the ‘Divine Splendor’ reorganize itself so Joseph Soggyrag was gorgeous. Although all present did their best to remain non — judgmental, the general consensus was that Gertrude Piddlebottom was taking the piss.
Martolas lit his pipe, whilst vociferously denying that he was smoking ‘wacky backy,’ and blew the smoke around the room to encourage alternative modes of thought. Several other land elementals also lit up and soon the room was filled with hallucinogenic smoke which resembled the mists of Avalon. After a short while, it began to dawn on all present that no-one was actually speaking but everyone had silly grins…
And then Martolas’s youngest son, Gordon the Elven Wainwright said:
“Urm…well, hope you don’t mind but I may have something, is that OK Dad?”
Martolas nodded and said, “Go ahead son, no-one else seems to have the first idea!”
“Well” said Gordon, “what if you used your giant cauldron, Lady Ceridwen, and gathered all of your magical herbs and stuff and made a potion so utterly clever and awesome, that when Joseph Soggyrag drinks the mixture he’ll know everything in the whole Universe and he’ll be able to sort it all out for himself.”
The room returned to silence for what seemed like a cosmic age and finally, the Lady Ceridwen stepped forward and said:
“Gordon the Elven Wainwright, it seems I’ve misjudged you, you’re not such a fool as I thought.”
“ Thank you, Mam. Thank you, Mam” said Gordon with an overly foolish grin!
“Never do I allow a good service to go unrewarded son,” she said, “You will have the honor of stirring the cauldron constantly for a year and a day, by your hand will the evolution of all things come to pass.”
“But, but” stammered Gordon “what about sleep? I can’t stay awake for a year and a day and if I burn the mixture by not stirring I could destroy all of creation just because I be so tired!”
“I’ll feed you pomegranates and charmed mouse droppings young Wainwright,” Ceridwen said “…and your name will be honored forever in the mythology of this Isle!”
Martolas beamed: “My son I’m so proud, so proud of you.”
“Martolas,” said the Goddess “your role also must be honored, you too will eat pomegranates and charmed mouse droppings and your responsibility will be to constantly keep the fire heating the cauldron alight.”
“Fool of a Wainwright,” bellowed Martolas. “Now you’ve damned the whole family forever.” Yet as much as he protested, the path was fixed, the Goddess would not change her mind. She left the group after instructing Martolas and Gordon to come to her kitchens at dusk the next night to commence their duties.
Throughout the following year and a day both elves, son and father, lived in terror of the concoction burning or the fire going out, and both would bicker and grumble about their unimaginative diet. They longed to taste the mixture, the longing was so intense, that in the dim of the early hours one or the other of them would swear that they could hear the cauldron singing to them. Yet both were terrified as they were under pain of death and they fervently believed that Ceridwen had a rather nasty side.
At last the final hours of the Divinely ordained mission approached, apart from being thoroughly sick of each other and their limited diet, both elves remained pretty unscathed physically and emotionally, and like all sentient beings as they near the end of a mammoth project, Gordon momentarily had a lapse of concentration.
The omniscient potion, bubbling away at a high temperature, suddenly spat and burned his finger, without thinking, and as a reflex, Gordon put the digit in his mouth, tasted the potion and found he knew everything!
His first thought was, ‘cool,’ and the second, fast upon its heels, snapping like a rabid dog was, ‘Oh shit now I’m in trouble!’
Like any omnipresent Goddess, whose son is as unpalatable as last month’s stew, Ceridwen was in the kitchens with them both in an instant. Gordon screamed and ran out as fast as any being, who’s just coming to terms with the entire knowledge of existence, could run.
Ceridwen screamed like a furious banshee as she chased him. Gordon, unprepared as he was for demonic histrionics, decided it may be a good time to shapeshift into a hare and run like he’d never run before.
Although he enjoyed the speed and the motion, he found his huge ears were a distinct disadvantage when being chased by Ceridwen in the shape of an angry wild dog.
Gordon wisely shapeshifted into a hawk, he knew if Ceridwen were to throw up an angry storm that he’d be able to hover safely in the eye of the torment until it subsided. Gordon though was unprepared for Ceridwen’s guile and quick thinking, she turned herself into an eagle and dive bombed him from ridiculous heights. He swooned and plunged into the river below and as a newly experienced salmon started desperately to swim upstream against the current to find eggs to fertilize. For a moment he thought he’d found his freedom and then out of nowhere came this giant otter snarling and snapping.
In desperation, Gordon leaped from the river and as he landed on the bank he transformed himself into a seed of corn, his last thought as he was gobbled up by a hen was ‘wow I impregnated the Dark Goddess as my seed!’
“So,” said Martolas to the huge crowd, “I inadvertently became the father of the son who fathered himself in the belly of the Goddess, who was born the Taliesin and eventually became Edward Crude, but that’s another story!”
‘Wow’ thought Sara Sparrow Breath, that's why Ceridwen allowed Edward Crude to live!’
