A Perfect Royal Occasion

Perhaps some half dozen or so Christmases ago, the old man and his spouse were again invited to celebrate the occasion with his one remaining elder sibling and her family. His niece, Linda the Activist, mentioned previously in this journal, was among the other invitees to the family occasion. As Linda is again undergoing emergency hospital treatment of a serious nature, the old man offers this bit of story the old man offered to his sister after that dinner. She may have seen it at the time, but hopefully it will lighten her time a little when she returns home for what we trust will be a comfortable recovery. It went as follows:

A Yuletide Night’s Tale

(As Told by an Idiot)

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Portishead the youngest son of the Royal Household was sent to the heavily forested but distant Colony of George, where he was granted the title, William Abraham, Duke of George and Lord of the Royal Hunt.

There he met and promptly married the Princess Katherine of the neighbouring Kingdom of Nonsuch as her royal parents deemed the match politically advantageous. As Duchess of George, she immediately took charge of the ordering of the various ducal palaces and hunting retreats and loyally served the Duke for many years, bearing two children and coming to be known far and wide as the Dignified Duchess of the entire Kingdom of Portishead. In the progress of her achievements she also cemented alliances with the neighbouring kingdom of her origin.

As the ducal pair approached the venerable age when title succession should be considered, the Dignified Duchess persuaded the reluctant Duke (who, though the royal succession was already into the third generation since his appointment was determined to continue as Lord of the Royal Hunt for further generations) to order celebration of the annual Yuletide Festival of the Birth of the Lord of Hope in Hunt Castle’s great festival hall.

Anointed as Chief Lady in Waiting and Maker of the Feast (more vulgarly known by the commons as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer) was the Duke’s elder daughter, the voluptuous Countess Esther. The Honourable Esther, known throughout the great kingdom for her wit, knowledge, experience in travel and commerce and sense of adventure also bore the title of Royal Ambassador at Large for the current generation of the Royal House.

The Countess was ably assisted in her festival duties on the principal feast day by the beauteous Lady Sarah, daughter of the Countess and dear to the hearts of the ducal pair. The great Festival Hall had been gladsomely adorned for the celebration throughout with garlands of ribbon and streamers and baubles and lights and mistletoe and greenery and plenteous gifts under the traditional giant of the forest in its central place.

The other guests invited for the main feast were members of the Nonsuch Royal Family related to the Duchess who occupied quite different outposts of that far-reaching kingdom lying adjacent to the Duchy of George.

First in importance and close to the heart of the Duchess was her niece, the cultured and intellectual Princess Linda, who presided over the outpost port City of the Great White Rock from her Castle Aerie overlooking the sea and its trade and commerce between the Kingdom of Nonsuch and other lands across the wide ocean. Undeterred by the fierceness of the wild winter storm, the Princess of letters, song, painting,  and arbiter of manners and means, with firmness and resolve, joyously mounted her four wheeled carriage, took the reins of the many harnessed horses and shouted at the wind with glee through the long journey to heed the summons of her aunt, the Duchess.

From nearby, only one gatepost beyond the forested duchy border, last in importance but closest in age to the Duchess in the Nonsuch royal house, came Prince William, Earl of Nowhere with his beloved Countess Shirley. Somewhat non-conformist since his youth, with a strangely mottled visage and the huge proboscis of his ancient forbears causing him generally to be known among the people of his fiefdom as Prince Longnose, this youngest son was not his father’s favourite, so he was granted the appanage of the Fiefdom of Nowhere with all its vassals, peasants, rents and incomes on the understanding that he remain in that far off outpost, far away from the kingdom’s capital for the rest of his days. Still, before taking up his appanage, he insisted on taking one journey abroad to seek a wife and unlikely though it appeared, he passionately wooed and won the Lady Shirley, heiress of the Celtic House of Banks in the course of his travels through the Scottish moors.

Prince William and his Countess took possession of Nowhere Manor in its protective palisades and continued there for lo these many years devoted to each other and the needs of their forested fiefdom. They were only too happy to partake of what they knew would be an incomparable feast and youthful companionship to celebrate the Birth of the Lord of Hope at Hunt Castle in deep midwinter. As befit their octogenarian status they left the gathering early to slither across the intervening border and just managed to stable the troika and settle in their cozy well-lit apartments when all again went dark and they were locked quietly within the palisades of Nowhere Manor to gaze contentedly across the snow driven palisades by lamplight while at Hunt Castle the wassailing went on for many hours.

The End