St Muckymuck: The Good Old Days

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS:

IRRELIGIOUS, IRREVERENT, AND IRRELEVANT.

THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL.  ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.  

IN FACT, ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYTHING AT ALL WILL BE REMARKABLY COINCIDENTAL.

Kilcathclyde - A little background information......

St Mocheomoc, also known as Pulcharious, was a 6^th century Scottish monk who hailed from the island of Hodrumoch off the north west coast of Scotland, 182 miles from the nearest neighbouring island of Heedrumoch.

Hodrumoch was famous for its inclement weather conditions which led to the population of the island being completely wiped out by the great cyclone of 632AD which raged for 40 days and 40 nights.

Mocheomoc and 88 of his fellow monks made their escape by sea huddled onto a small log raft, lovingly designed and built by a local boat builder called Hector McSplinter.  The monks endured a 47 week journey over rough waters, variously suffering from tongue scurvy, dysentery and Legionnaire’s Disease.

Legend has it that one night while clinging to the underside of the raft, Mocheomoc had a dream in which Noah came to him and told him to head for the shores of the River Cathclyde, to a sleepy hamlet called Kilcathclyde in the lowlands of central west Scotland to tend to the spiritual needs of the godless locals who were desperately in need of his guidance. This he did.

By the time they disembarked from their little handmade log raft, there were only 23 monks left. The rest had been dismembered, cooked and devoured by the surviving monks. All that remained of them were their bones, brittle, dry and licked clean of all flesh by the hungry monks.

Kilcathclyde at that time had only 33 inhabitants, most of whom were inbred, insane maniacs and were clearly ripe for conversion to Christianity. Mocheomoc decided to plant roots in this unholy place and founded his monastery on the very spot where he and his brother monks disembarked, on the shores of The Cathclyde.

He decided his monastery would be called Mochery Abbey and his order would be known as The Benadichloch Brothers. 

Mocheomoc did not have much initial success in converting the 33 inhabitants to Christianity, mainly due to the fact that his order was forbidden to speak or have any contact with another human being. As a result, he recanted this rule, allowing the brothers to speak for 7 minutes a day.

Unfortunately, this also had little effect as the monks could only speak the ancient Caledonian language of Teuchteronia.

Mocheomoc was known for his devotion to sea-birds which ironically led to his death  on Friday March 13^th 655AD when he was mercilessly pecked to death by a flock of 153 seagulls he had been tending for 7 years. It was believed that one of his enemies had poisoned the seagulls’ feed, rendering them insane and they viciously attacked and killed him. It was known as the Day of the Thousand Pecks and a stain glass etching depicting his death scene took pride of place for centuries at the entrance of Mochery Abbey.  Mocheomoc was beatified in 702AD and was thereafter known as the patron saint of penguins.

The present day St Mocheomoc’s Metropolitan Cathedral stands on the exact site of Mochery Abbey. The Mochery was demolished on 11^th April 1144 when a meteor hit the bell tower which killed all of the Brothers instantly. To this day, it’s believed that on the 11^th April each year if you listen closely, bells can be heard pealing their gruesome cacophony into the night air.....

The Cathedral was built 1161 and was remodelled in 1415 in celebration of the end of the Black Death. It was a splendid example of Gothic architecture with a classic spire and the people of Kilcathclyde flocked to it faithfully for prayer and succour.

The interior remains unaltered in all those centuries, only the people have changed, but the problems remain the same..........

©2010 Steven Gorman.  All rights reserved.