In my Histories I should reject the lure of airy rhetoric and resume the simple speech of the ordinary citizen. And so it is time, once again, for our regular round-up of the portents that have been seen around the orb of the world and which surely announce the end of days. Many of these reports of such strange happenings were sent in to the domus ecclesiae by readers around the known world.
In the realm of the East Angles an apparition was seen in the sky which was said to resemble a warrior queen of those parts who many centuries ago had fought against the men of Rome. These reports are likely to be true for, so it is said, excitement about those events still lingers in those parts.
This apparition, though, was as nought compared to events in the east where the impending coming of Antichrist was clearly signalled. The rulers of Cathay deployed an army of – they said – one hundred thousand ducks to combat a plague of locusts that was sweeping the lands of Pakistan. There were many such plagues of locust in the past. Indeed, I recorded at least two in the original ten books of my Histories. Woe to us that we did not heed the suggestion of Hospicius of Nice, who argued that a massive crowd of specially-trained ducks would solve the problem, largely because we thought he had been smoking his Egyptian weeds again. How fortunate was father Moses that Pharaoh was unaware of the duck issue. Such are the ways of men.
Meanwhile, in the north of the land of the Angles prodigies of a different sort were reported. Inhabitants of the city of Eboracum reported finding unusually large chipped potatoes in their meals. The folk of that province are greatly addicted to the chipped potato, which they consume with fried fish in great quantities. Consequently it seems that this was a big thing for them although, to be honest, in the great scheme of portents it seemed to be small fry.
At the southern extreme of the Kingdom of the Angles, Saxons, Britons, Picts, and Scots, in the lands of the Cantii a wonder was sighted during the ravages of the plague. During the sermon of a dean of the church of Canterbury, a cat was seen to wander under the robes of the holy preacher, whereupon it seemed to disappear. This became a great story told and retold by those people, or a viral internet hit as they say in the language of the common folk, for these people enjoy a simplicity of mind. I once saw Bishop Ragnemod of Paris perform a similar trick with a rabbit at the Council of Mâcon, though it was poorly received by the assembled fathers, who said that even Praetextatus of Rouen’s hymns were worthier of greater attention. Agiulf says he saw Bishop Salonius of Embrun do something similar with a Thuringian dancing girl but I put little faith in such vulgar tales.
Whatever the meaning of this was, it surely unheeded, for not long afterwards the people of the Cantii were visited by a plague of flying ants, for such was the Almighty’s imagination in creating new scourges of his errant flock. I was told that this portent and visitation on the people of the Cantii was probably related to the fact that Count Nigellus the Fool, of whom I have told you much already, had his dwelling among them.
Shortly afterwards, as if all of this had not warned us all of the Almighty’s wrath and, yet, simultaneously of his great mercy towards those who turn from the paths of the wicked, around the planet Mars, a green glow was seen, the like of which had not been seen since the last time Monegund prepared one of her ‘special’ meals in the domus ecclesiae.
Woe to the peoples of the earth when the Lord God who has mercifully sent so many admonitions and warning has to go on repeating Himself almost as though no one were listening. As if a green glow around Mars were an insufficient warning to us all to ‘get the vote out’ as some wise folk said, the phenomenon that is called the ring of fire solar eclipse arrived in the month of June, when many of these other wonders were reported. At this point a man asked with a loud voice whether with this one the Almighty wasn’t overdoing it a bit. Although this fellow was doubtless possessed by an unclean spirit, I had to admit that he did seem to have a point.
Across the wide Atlantean sea a portent of far greater import was seen when one of the great idols of the city of ‘Washington 600’, as it is for some reason called, was struck by lightning. This idol stands quite near to the residence of the dux of the North Aremoricans. Many saw this as a divine warning to Donald Dux, whose controversial performance art had at that time reached new levels of creativity.
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Once again we were compelled to wonder both at the patience of our merciful God who seems not yet to given up on mankind in spite of everything and simultaneously begin to get the impression that in His wisdom He was beginning to abandon any pretence at moving in mysterious ways when the tower house of Donald dux was struck three times by lightning. Even the most skilled of the doctores of spin, wise in the favorable interpretation of portents, could not think of a positive reading of this one, from the point of view of the dux himself.
Gregorius Turonensis: Historian and Political Commentator 