While most dogs, given half a chance, will dig up bones, Edward does not. This turns out to be an exceptionally useful skill that islanders will enjoy making use of.

Dead people have been our major import for longer than I care to think about. We have a long and noble tradition of taking the victims of the sea and giving them decent burials. Admittedly that’s always after we’ve carefully gone through their pockets, for evidence of their identities and anything else they might have no further use for.

As a consequence of having so many people to bury, the island graveyards are packed. The thin soil in the graveyards means previous burials are never that far beneath the surface. No one wants to use decent, farmable soil for planting the dead, while much of the island is either far too lightly soiled, or far too boggy.

This has resulted in many unpleasant incidents of accidentally digging someone up while trying to bury a new arrival. Some of our deceased islanders strenuously object to being unearthed, while others are simply unpleasant.

Edward, for reasons best known to himself, has a deep aversion to digging up bones. He does however, very much enjoy digging. Take him into a cemetery and he will cheerfully dig a hole that you can count on not to have any bones in it. By this means, usable grave sites can be identified.

It’s quite possible that Edward is looking for something. We have no idea what, except that it isn’t human bones, and he thinks it might be in one of our many graveyards.  This will probably be fine. Probably. There’s no reason for alarm about the idea of a dog on a mission, driven by motives we cannot begin to imagine.

(Thanks to Russel Allison-Hinton for the photo. Story by Nimue.)