The Beast of Dudley

Credulous Mugumbo contemplating dentures

Exclusive scoop from Dudley's only premier newspaper: 'The Egregious Albocracy Hippogriff Bloviate' (formerly, the Dudley Bugle). Terrifying news from the scenic, quaint, Market town of Dudley. Today it can be revealed/reviled that the good citizens of Dudley are in the grip of terror perpetrated by a beast of horrendous and unknown proportions. Mr Credulous Mugumbo takes up the story as if it was yesterday: "Yesterday, just after closing time, I was wending my weary, but wary way home after imbibing 15 pints of Dudley's finest ale, 'Old Carbuncle'- a fine hoppy ale with a pus imbued, purulent head. Not for the faint hearted and best enjoyed with a local anaesthetic. As usual, I've digressed. Anyway, as I turned the corner of a street leading to the town's cesspit, I was confronted by the hulking indistinct form of a phantasm, ill-conceived and consistent with the demented and alcohol formented (not a real word)/fermented, imbued contrivance of a simpleton. The form shifted and as my befuddled wits coalesced, I perceived with reckless and wanton abandon the shape of an indistinct fancy, which retreated and advanced in tune with my pulsating and rhythmic torso. Never, whilst sober, have I observed such an ethereal and incorporate monster. Surely I was in the grip of an inconsequential, substantial apparition and paradoxical, oxymoron". Arse.

There is no doubt that the beast observed by the Credulous is none other than the 'Beast of Dudley', quaintly known hereabouts as ' Cessy'. Cessy has been seen by the befuddled for over 12 centuries and there exists a description of the beast in the 10th century Town's chronicles, aptly called: 'Dudley Town's Chronicles from the 10th Century'. Here is the vernacular rendition attributed to Edbald, 'The Adled': "And lo did Thuckwid, the Thegn, did imbibe mightily in the Great Feasting Hall. His loins much girded with mead till he did stop and let his water gush asunder against a wattle and daub wall until flow, first waxed, then waned, then stopeth, in stutters. He then went forth in a wending way and staggered until he spied through the haze of ale, a spectre all dressed in diaphanous, inconspicuous garb……… etc".

                                                                         ᚫᚱᛊᛖ

ᚹᚺᚫᛏ᛫ᚫ᛫ᚲᚢᚾᛏ