[Ansteorra] Stirring the bunnies....

[cehuse]

Oh! That is just too funny! LOL

Maria
(who will have bunnies on her device!)

*** St. Theresa's Prayer ****
May today there be peace within
May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to
be....
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has
been given to you....
May you be content knowing you are a child of God....
Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the freedom to
sing, and dance,
It is there for each and every one of you....

> -----Original Message-----
> OK, here's the "stirring the bunnies" story.....
>
> A long time ago, in a barony right down the road, way back when the
> glorious Kingdom of Ansteorra was a hazy smear upon a map, and known
> as the Region of Ansteorra, there dwelt in the (brand new) Barony of
> Bjornsborg a cluster of Interesting People in adjoining apartments
> (which had once been separate rooms in the same stately home).  And
> in and among this cluster of college apartments was held the very
> first King's College of Ansteorra -- masterminded by soon-to-be
> Mistress Clare St. John, who lived one house over, one floor down.
> And while attending a class in the apartment of a fellow named Red
> Orm Skjoldbidig, who did some Odd Things even by today's standards, I
> beheld for the first and only time a dented bucket of .... well, I
> didn't know what it was, but it looked sludgy.  It was propping open
> an interior door -- which I must assume was never closed.  Above it
> hung a carefully lettered sign which read "Do NOT Stir the Bunnies".
> Since this was my very first event, I just tallied it up as one of
> the many odd and remarkable things to be seen.  I do recall that
> during the class someone accidentally bumped the door, causing a
> number of people to recoil in horror and cry out "Watch the
> bucket!!!!" but fortunately, tho the hideous contents shuddered,
> there was no spill.  Someone intoned "Thank God!  It didn't break the
> seal."  And then class resumed.
>
> It was some months before I learned the truth of the matter.  Red Orm
> had somehow procured some dead rabbits and decided to experiment with
> tanning.  Said bunnies were skinned and the skins submerged in a
> tanning solution, and it wasn't long before everyone in the building
> began to realize why tanneries are usually sequestered to the very
> edges of town.  According to my sources, the stench was unholy.
> Stirring made it worse.  Much, much worse.  The bucket was duly
> Banished from the apartment.  Alas, movement of any sort activated
> the stench.  Apparently, the bucket of now-dissolving bunny skins
> made it to the middle of the apartment and No Further.  It was placed
> in an area out of the main traffic -- propping up that interior door
> -- and Detente, of a sort, was reached.  The bucket of bunnies
> remained, with its sign to alert the unwary.
>
> The memory of the Stench and its warning sign long survived the
> bucket itself, and the phrase "stirring the bunnies" came to mean
> words or actions which incited that which was better left un-incited,
> i.e. "to set the cat amongst the pigeons" or to otherwise Raise a
> Stink.  One finds its usage in such phrases as "oh great, she's
> stirring the bunnies again!" or "well, you've got the bunnies stirred
> up now!" , and has even inspired the descriptive noun
> "bunny-stirrer", as in "yep, he's a bunny-stirrer."
>
> This is the tale as I both witnessed and learned it.  I hope everyone
> is sufficiently enlightened.
>
> Mari