As the Holidays approach, it is only appropriate to offer our readers the Weekly Wormwood Recipe of Renown that has become so famous throughout Wormwood Valley during the Holiday season.
First, some history.
Snafflegrass is a noxious weed first planted eons ago to keep out the insectoid creatures of the Wormwood Forest from the edges of the Valley's abundant farmlands. The first farmer to employ Snafflegrass was Farmer Hiles of Gam. He had been growing the weed in his basement for decades, much to the dismay of his wife, the lady Bountainhew. She was best known for her oversized Blackbird pies, and the Snafflegrass filled the kitchen with such a horrid odor that it eventually worked it's way into the very fabric of Lady Bountainhew's nostril cavity. This unfortunate event destroyed and contorted her nostrils to a most ghastly shape, and even worse, removed her sense of smell all together. It was without even noticing, that her pies began to take a turn for the worse, for she had eventually lost her sense of smell entirely. Sadly, the final straw was the Wormwood Valley Pie Extravaganza and Carnivale' where she was expected to deliver another award winning Black Bird pie. As Lady Bountainhew stood before the crowds and unveiled what she deemed her finest confectionary creation, the smell of the Snafflegrass, permeated into the pie crust and even the black bird filling, reached the crowd with devastating and horrid results. The smell of Snafflegrass of course leads to immediate vomiting, followed by an extreme thirst, and often capped with a good deal of time spent in the water closet.
She was astonished! flabbergasted! Stupefied! Bewithered! For the crowds fled in a dire panic at the smell of her pie, and the Wormwood Valley Pie Extravaganza and Carnivale' was never held again. In fact, just the sheer mention of said event will often lead to similar maladies and sickness amongst any in earshot. Well when Lady Bountainhew returned home, you can be sure that all Snafflegrass was immediately eradicated from the Hiles of Gam home and Farmer Hiles was never again allowed to cultivate Snafflegrass in the farmhouse basement. Since he had no control over the development of the plant, it remained in it's toxic, foul-smelling, albeit beautiful looking state and so it remains to this day.
Sadly for the Gam household, in a fit of anger and frustration over her public debacle of nostril intoxication, Lady Bountainhew vowed to eradicate all the snafflegrass from the Gam farm. As she did, the insectoid creatures (which can grow to quite unmanageable sizes you know) moved ever closer towards the Gam household and crops. Soon little was left of Farmer Hiles of Gam's croplands, and it was on a crisp November morn that as Lady Bountainhew hung hr freshly laundered sheets on the clothes line, she encountered a Wormwood forest Snot beetle, just feet away from her clean laundry, slyly creeping through the tall grasses. She ran of course, as anyone with a bit of sense would, but it was to no avail. The Wormwood Snot Beetle had her in it's slimy oozing spray, and she was believed to have been dragged into the darkness of the woods, lost forever.
To commemorate the sad loss of Lady Bouintainhew, a gravestone was set in the Wormwood cemetery, surrounded by a beautiful, but quite pungent flowering array of snafflegrass. For everyone in town assumed it to be her favorite. It is in honor of Lady Bountainhew and the Wormwood Snot Beetle that the traditional Wormwood wreath of Snafflegrass is placed upon many a door. Snafflegrass tea is offered this time of year as a barrier against the cold chill of Wormwood Valley evenings, often served piping hot with just a touch of Snot Beetle for that extra kick.
And if your feeling extremely festive, it is an old tradition to share a spot of Snafflegrass Tea with the ghost of Lady Bountainhew by pouring just a smidgen on her headstone before mid winter's eve.
Reporting from deep below Wormwood Square,
Inkly Tolew the Third Esq.
Manager, Operator, Owner
Wormwood Valley Information Operations Publication
No comments:
Post a Comment