
From the desk of admin@penkilnburn.com
7th of October 2024
Kind Folk,
Suicide at the Age of Forty is celebrated in the Galloverse. But only if you have fathered two children first. Women are expected to live to the age of ninety and to have become great-grandmothers in the process.
Note the knowing stench of Patriarchy embedded in the first paragraph of this email to you – more embedments to follow – knowing stench or otherwise.
Numerous academics have written their doctorates on the subject of the Lore of The Galloverse. None of them seem to get much beyond debating if it should be given the title of the Gallolore; the Gallo-Lore or the Gallore, let alone agree on anything else about the Galloverse and its place in alternative universes prying for your attention. For the purposes of brevity, we will go for The Gallore.
Bill Drummond has skimmed those learned words, but proclaims to have gleamed far more while skimming forty stones across the The River Cree or while wondering at the shifting sands in The Wigtown Bay...
What follows, in no particular order, are forty of those gleams and wonders.
One:
The Galloverse exists in a parallel world.
Note: Not a future or past world.
Two:
In The Galloverse technology, as we know it in the later months of 2024, does not exist. As in, not only did the digital revolution never happen, neither did the industrial one, nor even that agricultural one as we know it. And maybe the wheel is still waiting to be invented. Or maybe they did but that was hundreds of years ago and...
Three:
But...
The Galloverse is a modern world. As in all worlds are modern worlds in their own times.
Four:
There is no fourth wall in The Galloverse.
Five:
The Covenant of The Galloverse defines everything in what can be described as the culture that controls every aspect of life in The Galloverse. All culture exists to hold those within that culture together – thus control those within it and reject those without it.
Six:
The Covenant of The Galloverse is almost an inversion of The Covenant that defined this corner in the far Southwest of Scotland in the 1680s. Maybe like many revolutions and religions of the past, they start off with the stated aim to liberating and empowering the people but end up as a means of controlling and subjugating those very same people.
Seven:
The Covenant of The Galloverse is not a written covenant, as all writing is banned within The Covenant.
Eight:
Thus, all books have been banned within The Galloverse.
Nine:
As has all spoken words.
Ten:
But...
A sign language has evolved in The Galloverse.
But...
This sign language is more of a body language.
Eleven:
Although...
Galwegian Gaelic was the spoken language in the Galloverse before the vow of silence, contained within The Covenant, was imposed on the people of The Galloverse by The Minister, it is known that...
Twelve:
There was an historical language spoken by the people before Galwegian arrived from across the waters.
Thirteen:
This other language was known as Angle Spoke. As in the language spoken by a long-lost people called the Angles who had come from other even more distant lands.
Fourteen:
These more distant lands might have been a place called The Pool of Life.
Some say The Pool of Life only ever existed in myth.
Fifteen:
Within The Galloverse, Angle Spoke is seen by some as a revered ancient language just as some in the other world revere Latin, or the Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer, or even the Lallans of Robert Burns.
Sixteen:
In the modern world of The Galloverse where the Covenant rules all human interactions, Angle Spoke is only ever knowingly used, in the singing of some of the more ancient Psalms. These Psalms being those performed on the very real long-playing record Voices From The Galloverse. Those Psalms may also have had their roots in The Pool of Life.
Seventeen:
At any one moment in time, there are only Forty Living people allowed to live in the Galloverse*. It is only when one person dies another baby is given to be born.
Or...
If a baby is born, someone is given to die.
*This might not be fact. But maybe a fiction that has been adopted as a fact. As with the politics of the modern age, in The Galloverse, Fact & Fiction can exist as bedfellows.
Eighteen:
There is another story that tells that in The Galloverse there are never anymore than Forty Men and Forty Women.
Nineteen:
All women are given the same name. That name is unknown to us. Some have claimed that name to be Hey-Hen, but others think that was just an attempt at humouring past academics, who have made it their mission in life, to study the lost culture of The Galloverse.
Twenty:
Every child in The Galloverse must learn to knit by the age of five.
Twenty-One:
The wool used in the Knitting is from the Feral Sheep living in The Galloway Hills. It is the job of the Women Folk to gather the wool from the Feral Sheep and wash it and dye it, card and spin it in readiness for the Knitting.
Twenty-Two:
Maybe there once were books in the Galloverse, but they were all thrown on The Eternal Bonfire of The Vanities.
Twenty-Three:
The Eternal Bonfire of The Vanities is not its real name, just the name that we have given it as we write this email to you.
But...
Twenty-Four:
There is a bonfire at the top of Cairnsmore – the mountain that oversees everything that exists in The Galloverse. This bonfire is never allowed to go out. It is the job of The Lads in The Galloverse to not let this bonfire go out. It is where all the unwanted is thrown and the bodies of the dead are cremated.
Twenty-Five:
The Lads are the males of The Galloverse before they reach the age of 17.
Twenty-Six:
Between the ages of 17 and 23 The Lads have to then become members of one of The Voices Of The Galloverse.
Twenty-Seven:
What we in the other culture, might have known as a band or a choir or even a choral ensemble, is known in The Galloverse as a Voice.
Twenty-Eight:
There are three Voices in The Galloverse. These three Voices are Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and The Wild Swans.
Twenty-Nine:
After reaching the age of 23, members of each of the three Voices have to leave their Voice and take up the trade of their father. Or become one of The Lost.
Thirty:
In The Galloverse, when young Women reach the age of 23, they have to select a member of one of The Voices to be their Man For Life.
This process of selection is called The Choice.
The young Men who have just turned 23 have to stand in line.
The Minister then gets to choose which of the young Women who have just turned 23, gets to choose her Man For Life first.
And then second.
And then third.
And then fourth.
Until of all the young Women have chosen a Man For Life.
This, according to The Covenant, is the last choice each of these Women get to make in their life.
Thirty-One:
The Black Loch is a Loch in The Galloway Hills.
All Lochs in The Galloverse are Holy.
But...
The Black Loch is the Holiest of them all.
As both the scribed and spoken word are banned in The Galloverse, at the age of 17 everyone in The Galloverse is expected to (made to) dip their left hand in the waters of The Black Loch.
This dipping of one’s Left Hand in the Waters of The Black Loch, is the symbolic pledging the rest of one’s life to The Covenant.
But the water of The Black Loch may appear to be black...
But in reality, it is just water.
Thus...
On this Pledging To The Covenant, one also must paint one’s left hand black, as a sign that one has committed the rest of one’s life to The Covenant.
And...
One is expected to repaint one’s left hand every day of one’s life. This action, to us that are not from The Galloverse, might be seen as the same as a form of ritual prayer.
Thirty-Two:
Strangers are banned from The Galloverse.
Thirty-Three:
Mirrors do not exist in The Galloverse.
Thirty-Four:
The religion in The Galloverse is fixed and constant.
The religion in The Galloverse is The Sun.
The religion in The Galloverse is The Passing Seasons.
The places of worship in The Galloverse are the standing stones, the caves, the summit of Cairnsmore, The Black Loch and of course the running waters of The Penkiln Burn.
But...
All of these are secondary to The Patriarchy, as represented by the erect standing stones and the rising of the sun on Midsummer.
The religion of The Galloverse distrusts The Wandering Moon.
The Wandering Moon to some, represents the hidden powers of The Matriarchy.
In The Galloverse, it is said in The Covenant, if The Matriarchy were ever to take control, The Galloverse would crumble and collapse.
Thirty-Five:
All trades in The Galloverse are hereditary.
There are Eleven official trades in The Galloverse.
There is The Butcher.
There is The Farmer.
There is The Grocer.
There is The Fisher.
There is The Tailor.
There is The Joiner.
There is The Banker.
There is The Builder
There is The Hunter.
There is The Minister.
And...
There is The Artist.
All of these trades are equal. None are more equal than others. Each of these tradesmen have to wear the clothes of their trade. These eleven trades are the only trades needed for the survival of The Galloverse. But all of these tradesmen are held responsible to provide a son and heir.
There may have been other trades in the past. But there is no longer a demand for them. Even if some of those trades from the past are romanticised in the stories told by The Story Tellers.
The Story Tellers are Grandmothers without Grandchildren.
There is one other trade that is never even listed in The Eleven. That is the trade of being The Fool. According to those academics referenced above, the purpose of The Fool in The Galloverse seems to have evolved over the generations.
Then there are The Lost. Being one of The Lost is often what Precentor of a Voice ends up being when he is unable to adjust to the life after being the Precentor of a Voice.
Thirty-Six:
The Minister’s first and foremost trade is to keep The Galloverse tied to the mast of The Covenant.
The Minister, in this telling of the story of The Galloverse, is older than any of the other living tradesmen in The Galloverse.
But...
As yet, The Minister has not procreated a Son & Heir. Secret rumours run through The Galloverse as to why The Minister’s Wife has not provided The Minister with a Son & Heir.
The clothes of The Minister’s trade are a black three-piece suit and white dog collar.
Thirty-Seven:
The duty of The Artist is to oversee and protect and guide The 25 Paintings and the easels The 25 Paintings are positioned upon.
Not one of the Folk alive in The Galloverse knows where or when The 25 Paintings arrived in The Galloverse. What is known is that each year it is the responsibility of The Lads of The Galloverse to completely repaint The 25 Paintings.
This repainting is done within the confines of The 25 Paintings Tea Rooms.
The Lassies have to knit the squares of wool while The Lads do the painting.
The 25 Paintings Tea Rooms are of no fixed abode.
The 25 Paintings Tea Rooms travel and traverse The Galloverse...
From The Mull of Galloway to the summit of Cairnsmore...
From within the Cairnholy or Torhouse stone circles to the island in The Penkiln Burn just above Queen Mary’s Bridge.
From the shores of Loch Trool to tidal flats of The Wigtown Bay.
It is also the job of The Lads and The Lassies of The Galloverse to carry The 25 Paintings and the their 25 easels to wherever their Tea Rooms are to next set up and Brew Tea. And for where their finest Darjeeling Tea is to be served. And the repainting begins again.
If you are reading this you probably know about the real history of The 25 Paintings, and the reality that they are on a Twelve Year World Tour, but for those final two years of this Twelve Year World Tour, they are entering The Galloverse.
If you are reading this and you don’t know about the real history of The 25 Paintings and the reality of their Twelve Year World Tour, put “The 25 Paintings Twelve Year World Tour” into a search engine of your choice and then you might know.
Search engines do not exist in The Galloverse.
Neither does technology that once existed when the modern world, as we know it and live it, existed.
The Galloverse is not Post Apocalyptical.
The Galloverse is Parallel.
The clothes of The Artist’s trade are a pair of paint splattered jeans, a frayed blue shirt, a pair of paint splattered walking boots and a black leather coat. All of these items of clothing have been handed down through several generations of those who have been the son and heir of the previous Artist. Nothing is known as to the origins of these clothes worn by The Artist.
Thirty-Eight:
All visual art in The Galloverse must be contained within The 25 Paintings.
And...
Not only is the Scribed Word outlawed in The Galloverse, so is all visual art that attempts to figuratively depict The Galloverse. Thus, there is to be no depicting of the landscape, living creatures and very especially the human form.
Only the three primary colours of Red, Yellow & Blue and Black and White can be used on the annual repainting of The 25 Paintings. This repainting of The 25 Paintings is done to celebrate the coming of Spring. All other colours can only be used by God, as in The Sun. As in the ultimate Patriarchy. Thus none of the paints used in the annual repainting of The 25 Paintings can ever be mixed with each other.
The paint used in the repainting of The 25 Paintings is found in one of the Gold Mine Caves in the Galloway Hills. In another world this paint may have the brand name Golden.
Also...
And of equal importance to the above...
Only rigid straight lines can be depicted on The 25 Paintings.
Curves and circles and squiggles and anything else that can be seen to be not rigid and straight, would be seen to be the hidden forces of The Matriarchy. These forces must never be allowed onto The 25 Paintings or The Sun will not rise and The Seasons will not turn.
Thirty-Nine:
Not much is known about The After Life in The Galloverse. But it is known that the entrance to The Underworld in The Galloverse is through the Dirk Hatterick’s Cave near Creetown.
And...
The Underworld of The Galloverse looks pretty much like Bill Drummond’s Under The Junction, as in his wall under Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham, England. Thus, nowhere near the real Galloway in South West Scotland.
Forty:
The Covenant is fixed and ancient and unbending. But as there are no written words in The Galloverse and the human mind is weak, academics who have studied the history of The Galloverse, tend to agree that The Covenant shifts from generation to generation. Each shift might have happened to protect The Galloverse from both the outside world, and the weakness that might underly all human existence. And the threat that the hidden forces of The Matriarchy, might want to bring The Patriarchy down. And if that were to happen, The Sun would never rise again. Or that is what they are told by The Minister.
That is all for today.
Kind Regards,
admin@penkilnburn.com