It is a thing you all know lest you all throw your hands up in
abject horror at the impossibility of this question. That said…
take a look… analyze… digest… examine with microscopic
attention to detail… sniff and touch and prod and feel… and let
me know if you guess before the end of this Tidbits. In the
meantime… I shall proceed while interspersing here and there a
little hint with the sole intent of throwing you off track.
Decorated with black silver sulphide… it was originally one of a
pair of handles from a silver vase. It comes from a moderately
recent find from Suffolk, England. The date: November 16, 1992.
Whilst looking for a lost hammer… a gentleman by the name of Eric
Lawes uncovered a hoard of Roman material. I suspect this is a
rather common occurrence and is probably the reason why many enter
into the field of carpentry. I remember once when I lost a phillips
screwdriver… but that’s a story for another time.
A quickie about our Beastie. There are five different types alive in
the world today. There were originally eight… but three became
extinct. Mate them with their cousins and the offspring become
roughly 50% larger than either parent.
The day after Lawes’ discovery… a team of archeologists came
digging and discovered objects of gold and silver that had clearly
been carefully buried with the object of ultimately being recovered
by the owner… a Roman chap who lived in the neighborhood. The
discovery yielded enormous treasures which now belonged to the Crown
as treasures are wont to do. However… in all fairness… a reward
was paid to the finder to the tune of 2 million pounds. Aside from a
yield of 14,000 coins, there were gold bracelets and rings and
necklaces and such. But for me… the Beastie Thing was the main
attraction.
It’s a stunner it is it is. It is a creature highly respected by the
Chinese. A man was once trapped in a ditch and the Beastie found him
and saved him and every year after that the man fed the Beastie a
fresh pig. Now that’s respect. There is another myth in China that
states that some boys went into the woods and subsequently turned
into these Beasties. There is no mention as to whether or not they
turned back.
I have decided… as is often the case in those afflicted with my
perverse nature… to hold off telling you just what this Beastie
Thing is till next week. Why don’t you all guess… and let me know
what you think. I’ll give you all the tally next week.
Ready? Go. Look. Analyze. And of course… cogitate. (Who thinks up
these words? Whatever happened to simplicity of language?)
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at http://www.tyler-adam.com where you
will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that
says Current Tidbits… click it… and you will see represented on
our pages an image of our beastie in full glory.
And there ya have it.
That’s it for this week folks.
Catch you all next week.
Benjamin Mark