The Tale of Simmy Batbane

Ka-fwumpa! Ka-fwumpa!

I wake up just enough to wonder: What is that damn cat doing now?

Ka-fwumpa! Ka-fwumpa!

In compensation for their taillessness, most Manx cats have powerfully-muscled hindquarters. Simmy was a champion jumper.

Ka-fwumpa! Ka-fwumpa!

Finally, I sit up and turn on the light. Sure enough: a bat is circling the room (deosil, for what it's worth). Every time it goes past, Simmy jumps for it.

Oh, for gods' sakes, I think. I turn off the light and lay back down.

Ka-fwumpa! Ka-fwumpa!

I've just about managed to drop back off when suddenly I'm jolted upright by an unmistakable high-pitched shriek, on the bare threshold of human hearing.

Even out of mid-air, Simmycat always gets her bat.

Simmy Batbane lived to the ripe old age (for a cat) of 21, and her memory lives after her.

Slaw

Back in the days of the Hwicce, the original Tribe of Witches, warriors were esteemed as protectors of the People. One who had slain a particularly dangerous enemy frequently became known as the Bane—slayer—of that noteworthy foe. Heroes, too, would be named for the monsters that they had slain: Sigurd Fafnirsbane, Beowulf Grendelsbane.

In our day, warriors are little esteemed, and the word bane little-heard. When used, it tends to be in less lethal circumstances than previously.

Back in the bad old Jerry Falwell Christianist days (re. Christianism: cp. Islamism, the use of Islam as a political doctrine), I had a friend who earned the epithet Nazzbane from her favorite sport of shredding street-preachers into slaw.

But Now...

Well, that's OK with me. There are other ways of protecting the People from a dangerous enemy than by killing him.

For instance: let me tell you the tale of Letitia Trumpsbane....