Of Michaelmas and Hell

One of our favourite Saints' Days. And it's true our numbers are already swelling, as we find stray left-over Beaker Folk in outbuildings, the White Horse and living in the Junction 13 roadworks.  But we were still a little short on numbers to do the "Throwing down of the dragon and the last days" pre-enactment as part of today's rituals.
After all, when there's just the eleven of you it's pretty hard to symbolise the 12,000 from each tribe of Israel. And then we were down to ten, after Hnaef got stuck in that dragon costume, and so we had to jettison both Dan and Reuben. And jiggle about a bit to give the impression there were more of us. And we had to skip the Michaelmas daisy-chains event due to the endless rain.

I'd like to thank Daphne Hnaef for her rather inspired idea that, to stay out of the rain and in a tribute to the "Last Things" theme of the day, we each paint our own depictions of what Hell looks like.

For myself, of course, I drew Hell as a very small place - too small for anyone ever to fit in. Daphne did a more traditional view, a Doom with the damned heading off into the eternal fires while the blessed mimsy around in the rather boring way that they do. Drayton's vision of Hell seemed to dwell, in rather too much detail for my liking, on the application of spiky implements to various parts of the inhabitants' anatomies. Whiles for his own reasons Hnaef drew a sketch-map of Luton. And Agila drew a rather realistic impression of a Take That reunion concert.
Above all, it was Ardwulf's drawing that really worried me. A six-feet high, full colour, oil paint rendering of Ardwulf himself.
So off to an early night now. I'll try to work out the appropriate programme of counselling in the morning.