Thursday, September 07, 2006

Of pigs and cookies

Peeking in the door of the store of the store in the medieval city of Carcassonne all we could see were tables with large plastic containers of different kinds of cookies. No matter that we were both mature women, a herd of knights swinging swords could not have stopped us from going into that store.

We quickly saw that plastic gloves were available and we started to pick up cookies until a sales person ran over with a bag, a very pretty gold plastic bag. On it was a drawing of a woman in Edwardian dress, holding an umbrella. We were really in a multi-time dimension, modern plastic surrounded by designs of the last century in a village of the time of courtly love.

The legend of how the town got its name was that Charlemagne had it surrounded and was conducting a siege for years and years. Dame Carcas force-fed a pig and threw it off the ramparts. Charlemagne, dismayed that those inside the walled-city, still had so much food that they could waste it, pulled up camp. Dame Carcas was so thrilled that she had saved the city blew a trumpet, and when Charlemagne asked what it was, one of his aides said, “Carcas sonne.” Carcas calls.

If a pig had wandered by we could have stuffed it with cookies, but they were much too good. Any resemblence to us as pigs eating the cookies...well...

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