The Beast of London

[Lord Dragonspyre]

By the 15th century, the Templar Knights had disappeared, but deep in
the bowels of the British Museum in a case well sealed and protected
lies a strange memorial to their impact on the city of London.

London of the early 12th century was on its way to becoming an
impressive city, but its life and its blood was the Thames River.
Without the river commerce would grind to a halt as the people of
London discovered to their horror in 1216........

The first ships seemed simply to have disappeared, but the monster
wasted little time in this caution. Soon, many Londoners had seen the
gaping maw licked by flames dragging a hapless crew to its death. It
was a fire salamander, and in the Autumn of 1216 it was estimated to
be 40 feet long with jaws that gaped 10 feet wide.

By the spring of 1217, the monster was no longer a nuisance, it was a
deadly plague. No boat could navigate the Thames... no raft was small
enough, no ship was large enough to resist the demon of the Thames.
Worse, the beast was growing! The latest reports called it 70 feet
long with jaws opening 15 feet. Our instinct is to discount this
absurd growth, and yet few could impeach its source.

He, our source, enters the story in August of 1217. London had begged,
prayed, blasphemed, and killed in desperate attempts to exorcise or
appease their curse; to no avail. On June 14, four men painted
themselves with the Devil's Cross and proclaimed themselves the Dark
Priests of the Beast. They built a ship and doused it in oil; then,
they sailed it down the river. Dark Priests they may have been, but
they died screaming like any man. On July 28, London sent three
virgins (the youngest not yet 13) down the Thames to the monster. It
was thought that this would appease the evil god: the monster's hunger
exceeded even this atrocity.

On August 23, our source received his summons. His given name is lost
in his chosen name: Honorus. He was a Templar Knight and possibly a
saint. That morning, he was commanded to destroy the beast.

London in fear and desperation had turned to their most jealous
weapon, the Templars... warrior monks who fought with the fierce,
perhaps fanatic, frenzy of the devout. The city had exhausted all
other options; the monks were its last hope, and Honorus was the
greatest of the Knights.

The battle was truly a footnote to his preparation... Honorus ventured
into the woods upstream from London. He forsook shelter, clothing,
food, and sleep for four days, meditating on the coming struggle. When
the four days ended, he stalked and killed a stag without weapon or
aid. With the skin of the stag he made clothing; from its flesh he
regained his strength; and with its guts, he lashed five logs into a
raft fit for his purpose.

Honorus set the raft in motion. He had outfitted himself with the only
item he would use in this fight which had not come out of the forest
with him. A sword of Spanish steel, blue with the sky, lay in his lap.
Soon, he felt the swell of the water disturb his raft: the monster was
coming, yet he sat unmoving.

The beast broke the surface.

No human is perfect; a splinter of the collapsing raft clipped
Honorus' left foot as he leapt into the water. He had timed his jump
slightly too late, but no matter, the injury will not be important
until after the battle.

The monster was above the water only momentarily; time enough for
Honorus to drive his sword between two of its scales. The monster
thrashed in pain, turning its exposed flesh from the steaming water.
Honorus was lifted from the water as the beast rolled. He gauged his
stroke and leapt, striking the monster's eye.

Angered and half blinded, the beast threw Honorus into the river and
grasped him in its immense jaws. Honorus swam quickly past the teeth
into the monster's mouth. Inside, the questing tongue scalded his feet
as he searched for purchase again, and we shall ignore this injury for
now.

Once he had braced himself inside the beast's mouth, pushing with all
his strength against the slowly rising tongue, he took aim. Honorus
had time to make only one thrust.

When his journal recalls these events, it attributes Honorus' "luck"
in this battle to aid from the Divine. We do not wish to detract from
the glory of God, but surely He will not envy His servant. Is it
coincidence that Honorus' blade struck true to the brain? Honorus had
already studied carefully the anatomy of the salamander a week before
he was summoned to fight the beast. Did Honorus not know that the
water's rush against the beast's exposed flank would cause it such
pain? In his journal, "August 24: And once I am atop the beast and it
has rolled from the water, where then to strike?"

Two weeks after Honorus was told to lift the curse of London, the
beast was dead. The next day London celebrated Honorus; the town would
live because of him. Three days later, gratitude had disappeared.

The body of the beast had lodged itself firmly in the mire less than
half a mile downstream of London. Although it was yet intact (perhaps
due to its incredible armor), it would surely soon rot. While not so
great a terror, the rotting beast would be almost as dangerous as the
live beast, attracting disease and scavengers. No ship could move the
carcass. The people of London called upon Honorus.

Honorus' solution was difficult but practical, and he began as soon as
he had retrieved his sword. He fasted for two days; then, he ate the
cooked meat of the huge salamander and fasted for a third day. When he
suffered no ill effects, Honorus began dissecting the beast. With the
help of London, Honorus soon had all the usable meat and intestines of
the dead beast transformed into sausage.

A bizarre solution it was, but a good one. The sausage was soon
discovered to be excellent and to keep easily for very long periods of
time. Even more important, the sausage fast became incredibly popular
throughout England and much of Europe. It began to reestablish the
fame of London's trade after the Hiatus of the Beast.

Still, Honorus has one final contribution to this history... It became
vital that everyone knew from whence the incredible sausage of London
came, and thus we return to Honorus' injuries.

After the battle with the live beast and the crisis of the dead beast,
Honorus took time to recover. Six weeks after he was first summoned,
he was dressing the injuries on his feet. The problems of London were
known to him. As he dipped a strip of paper like gauze into a healing
salve, he had a thought.

One week later, each sausage shipped from London carried a fascinating
new development: a label. Just as the gauze dried and closed on
Honorus' foot, the parchment around these sausages was attached; and
all would know the fame of London from each link she sold.

In the end, despite all his other feats, it was this idea, the product
label, that survived Honorus. In tribute to this advance, the British
Museum houses the only known surviving label from Honorus' sausages.
And although even the tough gut of the Beast has long since faded to
dust, the label may still be read. If our reader could go to the
Museum and enter the Medieval wing's most treasured collection, she
could still read, in faint letters, the Label of Honor:... It Was The
Beast Of Thames, It Was The Wurst Of Thames...

[Celtic Lady]

 :Dha ha.. that was good.

[tigerlilly]

DS, I'm not sure if I should buy you a beer or throw a rock at you... 

[Lady Nicolette]

Is that original, Dragonspyre?  If so, huzzah to you.  If not, huzzah to the clever writer.

[Lord Dragonspyre]

::bows::

Thank you, thank you.

Thy praise is noteworthy, yet not for me. 'Twas another that wrote it, I simply posted.

[Aiacha]

DS, I'm not sure if I should buy you a beer or throw a rock at you... 

Why choose??  ;-)

[Lord Dragonspyre]

DS, I'm not sure if I should buy you a beer or throw a rock at you... 

Why choose??  ;-)

oh I see... pick on me when I'm out of town so I can't get to you...