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Authors: Julian Cope
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would guarantee intense Visions for at least nointeen of my favourites. How blissful it was to be home, here where at all times they keep nine full pots of ephedra boiling in the eternal fires on the slopes next to Odin’s Sitch. How blissful to know that my father held the best ephedra supplies from here to the sea. How essential to steep in the sweetness of ephedra’s other worlds. How charming to sleep on fresh heads of ephedra. How giddying to wear ephedra bracelets. Oh, ephedra my Phaedra.
The next morning at daybreak, I was eventually awakened from my slumber by an endless succession of olive-skinned men whose dangerous job it was to heat the stone bath on the far side of my cavern by pitching into its waters red-hot rocksfrom a huge fire at the cave’s entrance. Across the hillside on the steep slopes of Mam Tor, a line of women at the mouth of Odin’s Sitch were also preparing my bath by scooping up those sacred waters into their great leather bags, then commencing the long trek down into the valley and up the other side to my cavern. This tiresome job always takes the people most of the day. But my return here, however, is always the greatest cause for celebration. For here in the Land of Ashop I am royal heir to Old Tüpp’s ephedra fields, some say the greatest ephedra fields in all of N. Europe. And one day I too shall be coronated Old Tüpp of Ashop, and have my own contraption that reduces my height and lends to me the air of a Ruler. But for now, it is enough that I am Old Tüpp’s chosen son and heir. I am the sacred stranger known as Bjond – ‘the fair one from the far lands’ – the Far Reigner who appeared mysteriously one day in the boughs of the Great Tree. Or so it is said. But Old Tüpp is himself a Far Reigner of sorts. Not olive-skinned but done up day-to-day with ochre clay, and not at all short without his contraption. None but myself and the king’s own guards have witnessed this secret. Old Tüpp is one of the Old Ones, however, and he is therefore unimpeachable. He knows Longitude and the directions of things. He finds things through that knowledge that others know not. All of the Old Ones hold knowledge that none others hold. That is how they have remained supreme for so long. But there are Newcomers now who have made false claims, most divisively, that a person can live without ephedra. These are often the same people who claim for food all the respect and importance that ephedra once enjoyed. They are more than wrong; they will be the downfall of Ashop. So now, when I salute the Sun with my great horn of ephedra, I am also declaring its potency and the illegitimacyof food alone. No one can or would wish to live only by food. It is not natural.
And with that, I took my fingers and ran them around the edges of the excavated stone bath, scraping up the ephedra paste from the encrusted tidemark, moulding it with both hands into the shape of a patty, then cramming it into my mouth with furious gusto. ‘Score,’ I exclaimed in the vernacular, chewing and chewing then swallowing it down with warm ephedrine wine. Then I repeated the exercise with a similarly ecstatic verve and slid into my soft bed of feathers and ephedra heads. Score. Score. Score. But suddenly, a furious sneezing attack and the crossing of my eyes denoted a serious error. Is this a heart attack? Then a coughing, and a-spluttering, then more coughing and a furious furious s-s-s-s-s-shaking …
… Father, Bjond was returning once again to his Other World.
Map: When Old Tüpp Ruled in Ashop
11. SU TALLERI
Early evening, Saturday June 10th, 2006
Outskirts of Macomér, Birori Valley
Sobbing and hiccupping, then gulping and rubbing the tears from her eyes and nose, the inconsolable Anna brandished the accelerating Buick like one possessed as we surged then galumphed, surged then galumphed across the desolation of Macomér Industrial Estate, trying simultaneously both to make a dash for it
and
to avoid the gypsy
The next morning at daybreak, I was eventually awakened from my slumber by an endless succession of olive-skinned men whose dangerous job it was to heat the stone bath on the far side of my cavern by pitching into its waters red-hot rocksfrom a huge fire at the cave’s entrance. Across the hillside on the steep slopes of Mam Tor, a line of women at the mouth of Odin’s Sitch were also preparing my bath by scooping up those sacred waters into their great leather bags, then commencing the long trek down into the valley and up the other side to my cavern. This tiresome job always takes the people most of the day. But my return here, however, is always the greatest cause for celebration. For here in the Land of Ashop I am royal heir to Old Tüpp’s ephedra fields, some say the greatest ephedra fields in all of N. Europe. And one day I too shall be coronated Old Tüpp of Ashop, and have my own contraption that reduces my height and lends to me the air of a Ruler. But for now, it is enough that I am Old Tüpp’s chosen son and heir. I am the sacred stranger known as Bjond – ‘the fair one from the far lands’ – the Far Reigner who appeared mysteriously one day in the boughs of the Great Tree. Or so it is said. But Old Tüpp is himself a Far Reigner of sorts. Not olive-skinned but done up day-to-day with ochre clay, and not at all short without his contraption. None but myself and the king’s own guards have witnessed this secret. Old Tüpp is one of the Old Ones, however, and he is therefore unimpeachable. He knows Longitude and the directions of things. He finds things through that knowledge that others know not. All of the Old Ones hold knowledge that none others hold. That is how they have remained supreme for so long. But there are Newcomers now who have made false claims, most divisively, that a person can live without ephedra. These are often the same people who claim for food all the respect and importance that ephedra once enjoyed. They are more than wrong; they will be the downfall of Ashop. So now, when I salute the Sun with my great horn of ephedra, I am also declaring its potency and the illegitimacyof food alone. No one can or would wish to live only by food. It is not natural.
And with that, I took my fingers and ran them around the edges of the excavated stone bath, scraping up the ephedra paste from the encrusted tidemark, moulding it with both hands into the shape of a patty, then cramming it into my mouth with furious gusto. ‘Score,’ I exclaimed in the vernacular, chewing and chewing then swallowing it down with warm ephedrine wine. Then I repeated the exercise with a similarly ecstatic verve and slid into my soft bed of feathers and ephedra heads. Score. Score. Score. But suddenly, a furious sneezing attack and the crossing of my eyes denoted a serious error. Is this a heart attack? Then a coughing, and a-spluttering, then more coughing and a furious furious s-s-s-s-s-shaking …
… Father, Bjond was returning once again to his Other World.
Map: When Old Tüpp Ruled in Ashop
11. SU TALLERI
Early evening, Saturday June 10th, 2006
Outskirts of Macomér, Birori Valley
Sobbing and hiccupping, then gulping and rubbing the tears from her eyes and nose, the inconsolable Anna brandished the accelerating Buick like one possessed as we surged then galumphed, surged then galumphed across the desolation of Macomér Industrial Estate, trying simultaneously both to make a dash for it
and
to avoid the gypsy
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