The Hair of a Saint

The Archdruid has lately been musing, it seems, on holy relics. Mrs Hnaef and I once attended a local history talk on a "Weligious Weliquawy from Wheims" about which neither of us can remember very much, mainly because we had to leave halfway through as we were tittering so hard. However, I feel that this exposure to the subject makes me something of an expert, and I was therefore most excited when approached in the White Horse the other night by someone of similar height and build to Young Keith, and with a similar voice, too, come to think of it, but who was sporting a very bushy red beard, so must have been someone completely different. Though he was wearing a t-shirt just like one of Young Keith's. Odd.

"Hello, Hnaef," he said to me.
"Um, hello," I said, "how do you know my name?"
"Err - you look like a Hnaef," he replied.
"Do I? There aren't many of us about."
"Erm, yes, you do. Look, would you like a pint?"
"Ooh, I wouldn't say no."
"Your usual?"
"How do you know what my ...?" but he had proceeded to the bar. When he returned, he had three pints. It transpired that only one of them was for him, and that the other two were for me. He sipped his beer slowly (on which evidence he wasn't even related to Young Keith), while I finished off my two, regaling him with stories of pre-Lent knitting adventures and the pains of withdrawal. I noticed him glancing over at the cigarette machine wistfully. When I got to the end of my second pint, I was casually holding the glass in his direction when he kindly offered to buy me another.

"That's very kind," I said.
"Oh, don't think anything of it," he said, and headed off rather quickly to the bar. I can only assume that he was so interested in my knitting stories that he wanted to reward my story-telling abilities with another pint. Imagine my surprise when he came back with three more, all for me!
"Look, this is most kind, um, what should I call you?"
"My name's, err, Heath. You can call me Old Heath. Nothing like Young Keith."
"OK, Old Heath. This is very kind. Would you like me to tell you the story of the Beanie Hat with the Mysteriously Dropped Stitch? It's one of my best."
"That would be fascinating, I'm sure. But why don't you concentrate on your pints?"

And so I did. And after the three pints, he bought me another two.

At some point in the evening - and I'm a bit hazy on the details, Old Heath explained to me about the wondrous properties of the body parts of saints. Although I explained that I'm a Protestant with liturgical leanings, and that sort of thing is anammet - amathenna - annagram - taboo to me, I mentioned that the Archdruid had recently shown an interest in such things.

"Really?" he said. "That's a coincidence. Because I have here some very holy hair."

At this point I must admit to having had something of a giggling fit, due to my childhood obsession with the adventures of Batman and Robin - who, as I explained at length to Old Heath, might well have used a phrase exactly like that. "Holy hair!" It still makes me chortle.

He went and bought me another pint. I drank it, and was calmer, though slightly less able to focus.

"This," he continued, "is the hair of a saint. One of the few saints that even your Archdruid will recognise. A saint whose works are so great that he can work miracles even in this day and age. His power, like Samson's, is in his hair. And I have a lock of it here, in this box."

"Wow," I said, "is that a weliquawy, only I can tell you a story about ...?"
"No", he said, "it's just a box. You can have a look if you like."
I had a look.
"It looks a little like horse hair."
"Well, it isn't. Not at all. Would you like to buy it?"
"The box, or the hair?"
"Both."
"Oooh!"

And so, for only £70.00 (and that's _including_ the box!), I have a gift for the Archdruid. She will have her own reliquary, containing a lock of the hair of the sainted Andy Carroll. She's going to be thrilled (and think of the income from all the pilgrims!).