Mairi-Sine’s Lucky Day
(Where Mairi-Sine is pronounced Mah-ree Shee-nuh, and x = 4)
Although normally a flock known for their good-times and easy smiles, noone was laughing when Mairi-Sine opened the metal gate to the croft with a squeak that would have made a Spice Girl wince and caused elderly birds to drop stone-dead from the trees. No-one looked up as she slammed the gate behind her and stalked purposefully across the field to where Wiry-Wooled Wendy, her love-rival, stood with her back to the gate, laughing and comparing hooficures with a couple of ditzy peroxide ewes. And everyone made very sure to find a fascinating buttercup to sniff around as Mairi-Sine, her eyes just little gleams of fury, approached Wiry-Wooled Wendy.
“You done thought you could steal my man? You thought YOU could steal MY man, you ewe, you?” she hollered.
Wiry-Wooled Wendy turned slowly to face her accuser and, as we see her turn, we – the readers of this true story – can only gasp in astonishment at her incredible physical beauty. (Gasp, people, gasp! I need you to work with me a little here.) You’re gasping because Wiry-Wooled Wendy was a terrible name for her. For, you see, her wool was really like the finest cashmere/merino/spandex blend, teased out into the softest of cotton-candy puffs. Her long, luxuriant eyelashes lifted lazily to reveal eyes of glint-flecked dark gold, which gazed steadily at Mairi-Sine. Her perfect scarlet Cupid’s bow lips twitched slightly as she looked at Mairi-Sine’s mud-caked wellies, but Wiry-Wooled Wendy seemed wholly unconcerned and gave every appearance of being even a little bored by this human intrusion into her day.
“Why, I do declare I just do not know what you mean,” she purred, the very picture of lamb-like innocence.
“Don’t come the dumb ungulate with me, Wiry-Wooled Wendy,” hissed Mairi-Sine, her brown pony-tail quivering with rage and her blue eyes flashing with anger. “I have all the evidence I need to make sure you’re tomorrow’s special on chops at Charley Barley’s butcher-shop. What about THIS, eh? Who else wears post-van red lipstick in this village?”
Mairi-Sine thrust a man’s shirt at Wiry-Wooled Wendy. It did have bright red lipstick kisses all over its collar, noted the other sheep, none of whom were paying any more attention to the formerly fascinating buttercups. And post-van red was Wendy’s preferred shade of scarlet.
All eyes were on Wiry-Wooled Wendy then, as she drawled, “Oh honey, do you seriously think I would entertain a man wearing a cheap nylon rag like that? I’ve worked hard in this village so’s I don’t have to have that sort of rough clientele any more. You’re Martin Callie’s wife, aren’t you? Well, no offence, sugah, but no Callie could afford me these days, ceptin’ for Ole Man Callie and he doesn’t get out much any more.”
She idly plucked a daisy, tied its stem into a knot with her tongue, and flicked it to a young ram who blushed hotly and managed to fall on his chin somehow, even though he was standing still.
Mairi-Sine frowned slightly. “But I have this too, you lying little yarn-ball!” she shrieked, waving a piece of paper triumphantly in the air.
“Look! Look at this address and tell me that www.sheeplust.croft isn’t you, you wooly tart! www is obviously Wiry-Wooled Wendy, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes, you…you… horny trollope!
Everyone gasped. This was a terrible thing to say to any sheep of negotiable affection and, tough though she was, if there was one thing Wiry-Wooled Wendy couldn’t abide being called, it was horny. She knew she had an embarrassing tendency for forehead swellings but she went to great pains to disguise this by filing them down on boulders, secretly at night, while the rest of the flock pretended to sleep and not hear her.
She rose up magnificently on her hind legs, with an habitual little shimmy, causing several farmers who watched her with binoculars from their neighbouring fields every day, to swoon in dead faints of desire. Striding imperiously towards the woman she struck Mairi-Sine clean across the face with an immaculately polished front left hoof, leaving an angry pink cloven mark, that looked a bit rude, to be honest.
“Get you facts straight first, little missy!” she hissed at the shocked Mairi-Sine. “WWW isn’t me, you bald, pink twit. That’s a k not a t – www.sheeplusk.croft is the web address for a gay sheep-man love club over in Luskentyre. And the post-van-painting and touch-up shop is right next-door to their garage and touch-up shop. From what I hear, your husband is quite a regular there.”
Swivelling on one elegant ankle, Wiry-Wooled Wendy fell back down on all fours and strolled back to her sisters with a haughty this-conversation-is-ended-type shake of her tail. The last remaining Peeping-Tom shepherd, fainted clean away.
Meanwhile, Mairi-Sine, eyes wide and face drained of all colour, sunk to her knees, failing to avoid a small pile of day-old dung. Clutching the web address to her chest, she raised her face to the pouring rain. (Dramatically it had suddenly started to rain, almost as if events were being guided by some unseen narrative voice.) She wept. Tears of purest joy she wept.
“I’m free! Free of him at last!” she sobbed. “I would never have got an anullment from that deathly boring Mirror-reader of a husband if he’d only been having it away with a ewe because the “Cultural Sensitivity” and “Loneliness Exemption” laws won’t allow bestiality cases against Highlanders any more. And it’s all “Don’t ask, don’t tell” now anyway. But thank God! He’s having an affair with a MALE sheep! The court in Stornoway is sure to deem man-on-RAM action an abhorrent sin against nature. It’s perfect! Think of the leverage I’ve got! Oooh, wait til the Reverend Alec hears this!”
“I think the Reverend Alec was the founder member of www.sheeplusk.croft, actually,” piped up a small tup from the middle of the crowd.
“Well, in that case, he’ll just have to come out even more strongly against it in the papers to deflect suspicion away from himself,” trilled Mairi-Sine, hopping around in excitement in the bright sunshine which had appeared just as suddenly as the rain had stopped – about a paragraph ago now.
“Then I’ll have public opinion firmly and self-righteously on my side and, sure as eggs is eggs, I’ll get a very generous alimony settlement. Now I can run away and become the astronaut I’d always dreamed I’d be some day!”
And, with that, she gaily wiped the day-old dung from her knees and skipped back up the croft to the open road, a whole new world of whole new worlds and space-diapers opening up gloriously before her.
“But why was she so upset about you then, Wend’, if she just wanted rid of him anyway?”, asked Betty, as tragic a case of mutton dressed as ham as there’s ever been – she’d attempted to dye her wool a baby-pink but the total effect was more of a bacony-pink. Streaky-bacony-pink.
“Well, for the look of the thing, of course,” said Wiry-Wooled Wendy patiently, nodding in quiet admiration at Mairi-Sine’s retreating form which was now bobbing and dozee-dohing happily on the horizon. She understood, all right.
“Just for the look of the thing,” she repeated softly to herself, before turning back to the others.
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:35 am
… the rain had stopped – about a paragraph ago now. It’s been like that here for days – rain then sun, then rain. Sometimes it changes every sentence. Oh, for the old days, when you knew you could leave your coat at home until the next chapter.
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:33 am
Mah-ree Shee-nuh Could you send me her add.
…..and become the astronaut…..”
No, there’s no escape (even in that respected scientific field) from the turbulent “dangerous liaison”. In fact it apparently goes to the ridiculous altitudes of extremity.
Y;-) Paddy PS:
“I’m traveling in some vehicle
I’m sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
There’s comfort in melancholy
When there’s no need to explain
It’s just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed
So now I’m returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl” Guess who?
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 am
“…you ewe, you?? she hollered.
Brilliant.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
“Horny trollope.” Hee hee.
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:54 am
‘Mutton dressed as ham’ had me guffawing like a loon. Well played Miss Sam a most delightful interlude from the tedious head smacking against the ‘putor work I find myself engaged in this day, well bloody played!
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
“an angry pink cloven mark, that looked a bit rude, to be honest.”
Haha, you naughty girl! You ought to have your pearly white bum spanked for that, although I’m certainly not imagining any such thing.
“Wiry Wooled Wendy” MUST be pronounced “Wiry Woollud Wendy”, otherwise it’s a tongue twister.
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:39 pm
When I was in school, I’d ask girls in my class I fancied to read “Isle of Ewe” out loud. It was a cheap trick, and I’d forgotten all about it until I started reading this
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Gemma and I have some advice for you….
pop over
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Eh thats from the Missus and has nothing to do with me
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Well done, ewe!
(no I don’t like over cooked ewe)
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Sneezy, did you eat of the cake and the custard yesterday? Did you drink of the neat gin? Did you slaughter an otter in my name? You did? Why weren’t you studying? Any high priest of mine has to buckle down to his studies, you know! Hope it’s going well, hun.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Hi Paddy, welcome! I remembered mistily it was Joni Mitchell although it’s been a while and I had to look up the name of the song , Hejira. How is that significant though? I’m a bit dim. My mammy still loves me and everything but I’m just that bit dim. You have to tell me now why that song is pertinent to a post about sheep bestiality in the Hebrides. You have to, y’hear!
Hi, Annie, welcome too! Thanks for stopping in. You’ll take a wee spot of fortified tea and a biscuit, will you?
Sassy, horniness is no joke to a ewe. It’s like we ladies having thick hair on our top lips. Calling a ewe – even one of easy lovin’ – horny, is the equivalent of calling a Southern Baptist minister’s wife a c**t. Very very bad. Very.
fmc, I’m surprised you can get peace to do anything without electioneers hammering on your door. It’s Thursday, right? I’d put iron bars up tomorrow. I was reading somewhere yesterday that Bertie has managed a “Lazarus-like_ recovery after the Enda Kenny debate which 70 odd % of people thought he came off better in. He’s the slippery one, isn’t he? They’ll be calling him the Teflon Taoiseach, soon.
Nanas, yes Wiry-Woolud Wendy it is indeed! Although her own tongue is capable of much extraordinary twisting. Witness the daisy stalk. She can tie whole strings of cherries together with it too.
Kim, there’s something very adorable about that. There’s something cheesy too, but mostly it’s just adorable.
Manuel – have popped and responded. I have to mull it over carefully. It’s not easy, you know, to turn your back on passion like mine and Alfredo’s.
Jali, mutton of any sort is an abomination, nasty fousty greasy stuff that it is. I’m from mutton country but I never learned to like it. Lamb, on the other hand, is delicious but it’s the weeping see. I can’t get over the weeping over lost gambolling innocence to ever enjoy it. And the tears turn my potatoes soggy too so all I’m left with is sprouts and mint-sauce which is not enough for a busy housewife.
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Belated birthday wishes, dear. I’m only now resurfacing.
?Then I?ll have public opinion firmly and self-righteously on my side and, sure as eggs is eggs, I?ll get a very generous alimony settlement. Now I can run away and become the astronaut I?d always dreamed I?d be some day!?
Alas, alimony exists no longer. Only if one is completely incapable of gainful employment.
Cheers.
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
I didn’t know sheep spoke like Scarlett O’Hara and Mammy. That’s awesome. As god is my witness…I’ll never underestimate sheep dialogue again.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 pm
The smarmy fuck is known as Teflon Bertie, has been for years. Actually I’m dying for one of them to call so that I can grill them on the health service. I have a list of questions printed up and poised behind the door. No sword though. CALL DAMN YOU!
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Lovely done.
‘Wiry-Wooled Wendy, her wool was really like the finest cashmere/merino/spandex blend, teased out into the softest of cotton-candy puffs. Her long, luxuriant eyelashes lifted lazily to reveal eyes of glint-flecked dark gold’.
Her mother was a bit of a hussie ?, or an ancestral throwback to an armada sheepwreck.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:03 am
I gasped, I did. I gasped like I have never gasped before.
Did she get her annullment?
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:52 am
Man on male ram action! HOT!
Y’know, this begs a question I’ve always sortof wondered about.
When the archetypical hillbilly humps a sheep or whatever, do they go in the proper entrance?
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:51 am
See that, lads? If you’re a High Priest you get a reply all of your own. Ha ha!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sam. I am studying. I am. Just on a wee break now is all.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Some of the ewes (pronounced yos – rhymes with hos) hereabouts daub themselves with dye and wear thongs. They’re known as diphthongals… ee!
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Randall, I bet there was a bit of alimoaning about that.
Kara, it’s a grave mistake to underestimate sheep-talk but they are pretty stoic about the world’s opinion of them. Frankly, my dear, they don’t give a fleecy dam.
fmc, is there nobody running that people can really get behind?
Vince, Wiry-Wooly Wendy’s mother was a ewe of some means whose family fell on hard times just as Wendy was born. She’s actually an ancestral throwback to an Armani shipwreck.
Carolyn, I knew I could count on you, girl! Mairi-Sine didn’t let the ink dry on the divorce papers before she was off to Cape Canaveral. She started as a tea-girl and worked herself up to tea-lady in just a week. By year’s end she was leading the first manned mission to Mars. It almost sounds like a work pf fiction it’s so strange.
SafeT, How are you me ole mucka? Some things are best not wondered aloud, hunny.
Sneezy, I am a benevolent prophet so I won’t smite you for your skiving. You must be getting close to done by now though, right? PS. I’m thinking of going with gas rather than candles for my eternal flame. What do you think? I’d really like some more professional looking flower arrangements for my altar too. I’ve been looking through this Martha Stewart magazine and she said all the best minor deities are using lillies this year. Our pansies in a jam-jar aren’t really creating the effect of awe I think the modern worshipper wants.
Conan, Haha! I once knew a cowardly sheep who wouldn’t stand up for what he believed in – which was mostly grass. But he just didn’t have the guts to stand up for the grass and so grew to be he known as Semicolon Gitface.
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Sam, no. Maybe Pat Rabbitte, but other than that, no.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
*bless your heart* i am dyin heah, gurlie!!! *lmbo*
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:34 pm
O Sam on high, (or is that low – I’m shite with directions) I am indeed done. As of today at 18:30 GMT. Normal service may, or may not, resume tomorrow. Right now, I could sleep for Ireland, all of the Hebrides, any part of Scotland where Gaelic is still spoken and the Isle of Man of course (because Manx is easy peasy to learn).
As for your going: Gas might be okay – as long as it’s from the North Sea – that from Kundsen would be a no-no. Martha Stewart’s a gobshite – this year’s in flowers are snowdrops and daffodils – in fact, all kinds of everything.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:50 pm
“Where Mairi-Sine is pronounced Mah-ree Shee-nuh”
Yay, pronunciation guides! You remembered! Thank you.
And what an excellent story. I do envy ewe your writing abilities.
May 24th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
yer appreciation for sheep has not gone un-noticed, now the love of a man and a beautiful ewe is a gift straight from God but its that man on ram kinda of thing that gives it a bad name , it wasn’t Adam and Steve the ram, it was Adam and eve which according to Barbara Walker is from the Sanskrit corruption of ewe so its ewe and not eve the way God intended it.
May 24th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Softcore redneck sheep porn. Now I know the Internet truly does have unplundered treasures.
Or have I missed the point somewhere?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
fmc, Pat, Rabbitte – Labour, right? It’s nothing to do with me and not my country or anything but I hope to God Sinn Fein don’t increase their seats. I read that they’re getting a lot of support from people who feel left out of the Celtic Tiger economic boom. Gerry Adam is a bad man though. I wouldn’t leave him in the same room as my granny without an armed guard. She’d savage him.
Savannah, thank you for blessing my heart, darling. I don’t deserve it – my heart is a black and deadened stone.
Fat Sparrow, away and boil your bum, you spin a niftier yarn, yourself, sweets.
Old Knudsen and Mister Foots, I wrote this tasteless story with the intent to appeal to the readership base of this blog – and bless you, if you two aren’t my very very basest of readers. xx
May 24th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Sneezy, you get your own comment being as how you’re high priest and all. I’m a firm believer in correct protocol. Glad to hear they’re all over – it’s a stressful time all right.
I saw these lovely vanilla sugar-cookie scented candles the other day so I think we ought to cancel the gas. In fact, as it’s my religion and that, why don’t we mandate them in all our holiest places – I’ve got mine in the bathroom.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
All this woolly, touchy-feely stuff. Bah!
May 25th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
He didn’t say a word as she saw right through him. She pushed the lever to the side and both shells popped out of the shotgun. I told you she saw right through him.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Sam: I am on my knees (not in day old dung -praise be!) in ‘omage (pronounced the Frencb way) no-one has ever quite captured the mind sets of our woolly friends so well. However I am seriously worried about my proclivities. Don’t spread it around but I think I’m in love with Wendy and am already singing in my heart “There’s a croft for us, Somewhere a croft for us…’
May 26th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Perhaps you are right, but it is my job to wonder anyway.
May 28th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Knackered – will respond to your lovely, lovely commetns in the morning.
May 28th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Bock, nurture your inner lamb. If you don’t you may just find it breaking out and eating the washing off the line.
Brianf, perhaps it was the gaping hole in his life which, in certain desperado Highland villages where life is as cheap as a packet of crisps, may indeed be as literal is it is sometimes figurative.
Pat, as I suspected, you are an excellent judge of character – a ewe of billable luvin’ Wendy might be, she had a heart of purest gold. Just don’t tell Doc M you’re worried about your proclivities! he’ll go after you with a spanner and a sincere wish to fix them – he’s awfully mechanical.
SafeT – you’re right, and that’s why we love you.