The Renwick Cockatrice

Hullo again, chaps. Douglas Bladder-Warwick here, Maggie’s husband.

Had a bit of an argument with the horsebox yesterday. I don’t really want to talk about it, but just to say, I’m stuck inside with my leg in plaster and some serious painkillers.

The upside is I can now tell you all about the Renwick Cockatrice as promised in my previous blogpost, The Croglin Vampire.

So sit back, pour yourself a large one and prepare to be terrified, mystified and stupefied by this strange tale of mythical creatures and tax avoidance in Darkest Cumbria…

(And for those of you who don’t know, Darkest Cumbria, is the official name for the area around my ancestral home, Bladder Hall.)

Where is Renwick?

The first thing to understand is that the village of Renwick is set deep in the Eden Valley, which runs along the north western edge of the Pennines. Renwick is remote. Very. Even by Cumbrian standards.

To give you an idea of its isolation, the village of Croglin, which features in The Croglin Vampire, is like Manhattan compared to Renwick.

The main protagonist of this story is one John Tallentire, who lived a little way from Renwick at a hamlet called Scalehouses. Now, if Croglin is Manhattan and Renwick is remote, then Scalehouses is officially the back of beyond. And there’s a lot of beyond to be at the back of around here.

So, back in the seventeen hundreds, when the cockatrice apparently appeared, the occupants of Renwick, I suspect, may not have been the most cosmopolitan of folk and were probably desperate for something exciting, or just about anything, to happen in their village.

What is a Cockatrice?

Well, it depends who you ask. Some say the creature has the head and wings of a cockerel and the body of a lizard. Others describe it as a basilisk. I also get the impression that the creature is larger than your normal cockerel/lizard/snake combo. Otherwise surely it would just be funny not frightening?

What is generally agreed upon is that cockatrices don’t make good pets, generally being regarded as the earthly embodiment of pure evil.

Both cockatrices and basilisks were also pretty fashionable at the time, featuring in the popular horror fiction of the day, so much so that even the occupants of Renwick quickly recognized a cockatrice when they saw one.

What happened?

The villagers of Renwick were dismantling their church - clearly some early rural job creation scheme - when the cockatrice flew out of the church door and began terrorizing them. I imagine being pecked by a large, flying, reptile-like thing can’t have been fun.

John Tallentire, who may have been working at the church or just passing through Renwick at the time on the way to live it up in the fleshpots of downtown Croglin, grabbed a branch from a nearby Rowan tree.

Now as many of you will know, Rowans are magical trees, said to be the last species of tree that man could converse with and well known for giving protection against witches and enchantments. And, as this story shows, useful in a fight with a marauding cockatrice.

Maybe John chased the creature around the churchyard, leaping gravestones as he swiped at it with his branch until he caught it a blow, perhaps stunning it before polishing it off, jamming the end of the Rowan staff into the creature’s chest.

Or perhaps he tracked it over mile upon mile of bleak open fell until, just before nightfall, exhausted and footsore, he surprised it in a narrow gully and fought it to the death in hand to claw combat.

Sadly no one recorded these vital details. Nor did anyone recall what happened to the carcass of the creature, but I suspect the posse of locals with their flaming torches left over from The Croglin Vampire, duly appeared and incinerated it.

What is recorded, however, is that John Tallentire and his descendants were exempt from paying tithes (ten percent of your income paid to the church) indefinitely.

The Moral of the Story

Well, it’s obvious really, if you demolish your church, a cockatrice will appear and torment you.

But there is a more subtle point to the story, and as Maggie would say, we B-Ws are nothing if not subtle.

John must have gone to the church authorities, told them of his exploits and as a reward been allowed this most generous of exemptions. If you’re going to tell a lie, make it a whopper.

So next time your tax return is late, you could tell HMRC that you’ve been having trouble with a cockatrice. They might just believe you.

And now I’m in need of a gin myself as typing is getting a tad painful, so I’m going to attract Totty’s attention by waving my trousers out of the window.

Chin up chaps. What could possibly go wrong?

Douglas.