Demons love warmer weather and are always more active at this time of year. Here is some advice for dealing with any demons you encounter.
Try not to. This almost never goes well.
Do not believe what the demons tell you. Especially don’t believe them if they tell you it won’t hurt at all, or that you will have fun.
It will hurt. It will not be fun.
Do not feed the demons. This is harder when they pretend to be cats.
Do not give demons your blood, even if they ask nicely. Do not give cats your blood either. Not all cats are demons but it is better not to take any risks on this score.
If you find a sunbathing cat, consider that it could be a demon and proceed cautiously.
If you chance upon a sunbathing demon/cat, and think of something funny you could do, don’t do it. It will hurt, it will not be fun.
Demons never possess you for just a little while. Let them in and you’ll have a hard time getting them out again. Sitting on you is not exactly possession but can lead to possession.
It is as well to be polite and considerate to cats in case they are really demons.
Do not give the demons pets or attempt to fuzz them under the chin. Do not ask the demons if they are adorable floof beans and the bestest little cattypus ever. This also doesn’t tend to go well.
The skunk cabbage, as mentioned in this tale, is quite an innocuous-looking thing. In fairness, if prepared correctly it isn’t much of a problem at all.
To prepare it, boil the cabbage whole for an hour. Throw away the water. Do not use the water. Really, don’t, not even if you think it smells acceptable. Wash the cabbage in entirely different water, and then cut it up if you like. Cook it for a further three hours, at least. The results don’t taste of anything much, and tend to be sludgy.
Undercooking a skunk cabbage has consequences.
Inevitably, once children become aware of this, a certain percentage of them will set out to eat raw skunk cabbage, with the intention of causing olfactory distress to those around them. The results can be hideous. Sometimes of course the little dears eat far too much raw cabbage, or turn out to be more sensitive to it than anticipated.
The most usual outcome, aside from utter humiliation, is the necessity of burning anything the child happened to be wearing at the time. Quite possibly anything anyone near the child happened to be wearing at the time as well. Skunk cabbage smells do not wash out, or fade in a timely way.
The perigret is also known as the sea sausage, or the stinky sea sausage. These creatures are not native to Hopeless, Maine, but are regularly sighted from boats around the coast. Either they spend all of their time at sea, or they come ashore somewhere nearby.
Most of us only encounter the stinky sea sausage after heavy storms, when you may find a few of them wheezing out their final breaths upon the beach, or being eaten by crows. Crows are notoriously not put off by the smell and are therefore the only entities willing to eat sea sausages.
However, the perigret has dense fur that is very waterproof indeed. Their distinctive red skins are often taken as hats, and worn by fisher folk. If you are out in a boat, the smell of the perigret dissipates, or is lost amidst the smell of the catch. The consensus is that no one in their right mind would wear perigret fur indoors, aside from Judge Joe.
Helpfully, a deceased sea sausage is easy enough to peel. A neat slice from chin to tail is all you need, and the outer layer can simply be removed from the rest of the creature. This is an exceptionally stinky job, but the crows will thank you for it. It is usual to just deploy the whole skin rather than going to the effort of removing the face and feet, and many people feel the shiny noses add a pleasing, jaunty quality to a hat.
Lead research botanist and chemist of the Hopeless Horticultural Society
Notes on The ‘Phallus Flacidious’ or Hopeless Stinkhorn
The common Stinkhorn is well known beyond these shores as a fungi best described with care in the compony of ladies. Indeed, a gentleman taking a young lady with an interest in botany out into the woods does well to avoid any patching of Stinkhorns he may recall. If, however the gentleman botanist is unfortunate enough to come across a common stinkhorn while escorting a young lady on a woodland excursion it is recommended in several journals on the subject of stinkhorns he attack the fungi with his cudgel.*
One notes, no gentleman of the Hopeless Horticultural Society should ever enter perambulate the woods without a robust cudgel of some description or at the very least a sturdy walking cane.
Quite apart from anything else they are useful for incentivising research orphans, the idle wastrels, by means of swift percussion. There are also of course ‘things’ in the woods of Hopeless of more danger to both the botanist and any young lady he may be escorting than fungi of an immoral nature and whilst it is the duty of research orphans to throw themselves between danger and the botanist, they prove cowardly in such endeavours as oft as not. Scampering away at the first sign on danger.
There is however, a note of warning, while there are many verities of the common stinkhorn on the island, standing proudly in defiance of decency. The Botanist should beware of cudgelling the increasingly common ‘Phallus Flacidious’ or Hopeless Stinkhorn. A variety of stinkhorn considered unique to the island which in defiance of its more erect relatives tends to grow a little then collapse under its own weight and slump to the ground. While this is of course less of a threat to the innocence minds of young ladies, I have come to believe the Hopeless stinkhorn lets out spores that affect the mind of gentlemen as this is the only reasonable explanation of why the sight of it incites strange feelings of inadequacy in this botanist.
While the dangers of escorting young impressionable ladies on naturalist excursions should be obvious, one also notes that the use of the word ‘naturalist’ in this context can easily be misconstrued. As Mrs Beaton took great pains to explain to us while wielding a wooden spoon. One advises the botanist does not use the word in her vicinity, and also that he makes it very clear when inviting young ladies to take a stroll through the verdant splendour of the wild arboretums of Hopeless he is doing so in order to invest in her his knowledge of nature’s wonders and not in order to gain knowledge of the wonders of the young lady in the garb of nature…
Additional note: Unfortunately, while this botanist has on occasion requested the company of several young ladies of the island on his woodland excursions, they seem reluctant to venture out with him. Even when it is made plain that the research organ will be accompanying them into the woods.
Nevertheless one does ones best to cudgel any common stinkhorns one comes across for sake of public decency.
*This is all true, Victorian gentlemen did indeed take cudgels to stinkhorns all the time according to the Woodland Trust and I am not about to argue with botanists. They know exactly which fungi are poisonous.
(Text and logo by Mark Hayes, realistic illustration of stinkhorn toadstools by Nimue)
Poor man’s kidneys can be eaten any time after they emerge. However, the best time to harvest them is when they’ve grown a good network of blue veins and the stalks have gone properly lurid. If they actually glow in the dark then they are going over, but you can still eat them even when a bit mushy.
Take your poor man’s kidneys and cut them into rough chunks. This will allow you to spot and remove any worms – you really don’t want to eat the worms even if they have stopped moving. Once properly prepared, poor man’s kidneys can be fried, boiled or added to dishes. They don’t taste much like proper kidneys but do have a slightly meaty flavour.
Edit: Just to clarify, it’s been pointed out to me that people might think I’m talking about a poor man’s kidneys rather than the toadstool. Much the same preparations apply to non-mushrooms, but if it’s a real kidney you have to wash it thoroughly so that it doesn’t taste too much like a decomposing shark. Don’t eat the worms.
My top tip is that if you boil anything for long enough it is less likely to kill you. Boil hard and you won’t catch weird worms from the sea eggs, and they won’t hatch inside you! Boil anything for five minutes or more and you can be fairly confident that it won’t be able to eat you or infest you in any way. It might still be able to poison you, and whether it’s poisonous or not it may still taste awful.
Avoid: Anything that puts up a serious fight. Anything you can’t bear to look at as this will undermine your prepping process.
Some sea eggs are much more delicious when eaten raw. Unfortunately they can feel the same way about you! Are delicious sea eggs worth dying for? Only you can decide.
At The Crow we always have soup that has been properly boiled to death, we take customer safety seriously. However, sometimes we offer exciting specials where you can take your life into your own hands and try more exotic things.
Please always mention your food allergies, it saves Doc Willoughby a lot of time if he doesn’t have to do an autopsy.
Do you ever wonder what happens to the Yule logs after Yule? Do you even notice when they leave? During the coldest part of the year, the Yule logs will have made themselves at home in your abode. Most people welcome this due to their habit of consuming dropped items of food and small rodents. There are thus far no reported cases of a Yule log getting large enough to eat a person but I have no doubt that a large enough log would do so.
Once the worst of the snows have passed, the Yule logs will eat whatever decorations you have thoughtfully decked them with. Then they will sneak out of your home and likely you won’t give them a second thought until they show up again next year.
New arrivals on the island may have mistakenly burned the logs that mysteriously turned up at their hearths. Or tried to. This is a terrible mistake. A Yule log is so hard to burn that it will put out your fire, plunging your home into freezing conditions. As it fails to burn it emits both awful smoke and terrible screeching noises. You will be obliged to open all the doors and windows. Yule logs don’t kill people, but freezing certainly does.
Obviously it’s a bit pointless mentioning it this late in the season. Sorry about that, if you’re reading this in a non-corporeal state. There are so many things that can kill a person who wasn’t expecting them that it’s easy to lose track.
Once the Yule logs have left your home, they may not go far. They are most likely to join existing wood piles, where they continue to eat anything small and foolish enough to get close to them. If there’s one in your woodpile and you disturb it, you may be bitten. The Yule log will be at the bottom of the pile, so long as you only take wood from the top you will be safe.
Probably they breed in the warmer part of the year. I do not know how they breed. I find I am entirely happy in my ignorance.
