[Bordermarch] The Cormorant Gizzard

[Lathrop, Dave]

 The thought of 12th Night has set me on Fire!

I've decided to showcase my collection of "Tubular Things" for an A&S display at 12th Night.
I was at the beach recently picking out a few final items to top off my collection when I spied some other collectors milling very close to my hunting grounds.
You can only imagine my astonished facial expressions when I found those other collectors to be members of our fine barony.
They were more than happy to show me what they had been collecting, but the treasure found by one of our young Ladies really caught my attention.

At first I thought she was just another beach bum, out of money and forced to spend the winter begging for money and sleeping on the beach.
I began to walk towards her to give a few bucks to buy some Vienna Sausages, but because the salty ocean breeze was forcing her eyes into two little squinty slits, the particular young Lady of whom I speak did not recognize me when I first approached her.
As I drew closer I noticed that she was wearing a simulated wooly mammoth hair overcoat and a very stylish beaver pelt flapper hat, the overcoat's pockets were bulging to the point of bursting!

When she finally realized who I was she started screaming and began to wave an object in her hand wildly about her head! She kept pointing at the object with her other hand while doing a little jiggy kind of dance.
>From the look on her face I could tell that the young Lady had absolutely no idea what the coral encrusted object she was so proudly displaying represented!

I asked if I could perhaps look at the object a little closer and she handed it to me without hesitation.

The object consisted of two globular masses on either end of a crooked three inch shaft. The whole thing was totally encrusted with coral and weighed about one pound.
Although I knew the object had been bouncing around on the ocean's floor for untold years, it still had a rough grainy texture very similar to dried paste.

Due to my involvement in the SCA and my continuing research into all things medieval, I can say with all honesty that this object, this priceless treasure that one of our own had found on an isolated beach, was none other than the
double-ended gizzard from the two headed cormorant know to have been aboard the Mary Rose when it sank into the murky deep hundreds of years ago!

This cormorant has its place in the history books because it had the ability to dive and catch fish for the crew of the Mary Rose when they wanted something other than  French biscuits to eat.

When I told the young Lady what it was that she had been hold in her hands moments ago she tried to give the fossilized cormorant gizzard to me; I told her to keep it and perhaps share its wonder with others at our upcoming 12th Night.

Thank God I took some photographs of the thing for posterity; I'll be sure to bring them to 12th Night.

HE Santiago