Book lovers, if you’ve haven’t read this: Diamonds and Snakes, have a look before I tell you about a true-blue termagant I once met!!
So, here we are, with the older, favourite daughter weeping and wailing in the woods. According to the long-ago story by Charles Perrault, her mother threw her out in disgust because she was too lazy and, whenever she spoke, vile things flew from her mouth. Things like snakes. And toads, or as they’re called in Guyana, crapaud.
What does Guyana have to do with this?
Read on…
According to the old French tale, the arrogant, lazy daughter spent the rest of her life in the woods. There she died, miserable and lonely.
Here’s what I believe really happened though.
As she sat weeping in the woods, along came a Frenchman on his horse. He stopped to admire her…of course he stopped, she was an attractive young woman. He couldn’t see her temperament, couldn’t see on her pretty face that she was lazy and bad-tempered, and even if he could, he would have stopped anyway to admire.
“What’s wrong, ma lovely chérie,” he asked. He almost fell off his steed when she explained her sorry situation. It wasn’t her plight that threw him into a fright though. It was the frogs and snakes that fell from her mouth.
Ahhh, but non, non, he was a strong man. He had seen much worse on his trips as land-bandit and sea-pirate. Besides, he saw immediately the business opportunities with the snakes and crapaud. And, of course, she was very jolie to the eyes.
“Come with me to the Windies, ma belle poochieloo. There, we will have a prosperous life, sunshine and sea and rhum,” he promised. “The only thing I ask of you is that you must only speak when I say so.”
She eyed him up and down. He was not bad-looking, he with his lean limbs, his sly moustache and oily grin. According to him, he had developed his deep tan and manly grooves in his face from years of travelling on the high seas, going to and fro, between the colonies and France.
She considered her options, freezing in winter in the forest, working her fingers to the bones, or having a home in perpetual sunshine. She agreed to sail away with him. So off they went to live on an island in the West Indies, in the Caribbean.
There, she had to learn quickly to cook and clean or he would have done terrible things to her; he also threatened to sell her to the women-starved vagabonds in those ports. No amount of her cussing him would have helped her. Together then, the two of them made a successful life selling crapaud legs that he salted and seasoned then smoked on grills to preserve. He sold them to the world along with snake skin purses that he fashioned from snakes which he got guess where!
They had many children. The children too were prolific with partners who had come to seek their fortune in the Windies during those good ol’ notorious days of the Colonies. As human beings are wont to do, the offspring travelled far and wide and settled in many countries around the world; thousands remained in the Caribbean.
(If you think I’m lying about these inter-nations relationships in that nook of the seas, check the blood of Caribbean people…you will find in their veins the Scotsmen, the English, Welsh and Irish, the Dutch, the French, the Portuguese and Spanish.)
Many of their children turned out well because even folks with rabid personalities can end up producing good children. And not one of the children, good or bad, inherited their mother’s ability to spew crapaud and snakes. Ah, but some of their other offspring? They possessed the ability to spit cusses a few feet long, with vigour, and as acidic as vinegar. They could flavour every other word with pungent expletives.
One of their finest descendants is Lucille.
Lucille lives in The Land of Many Waters, which is Caribbean although it’s at the top of South America. Its history and culture connect it to the rest of the Windies…hey, its people play international cricket in the Windies Cricket Team, and its citizens die a thousand deaths every time they lose in inter-Caribbean cricket matches…that should be proof enough.
Anyway, back to Lucille. If there were an International Cussing Contest, Lucille would’ve taken home several lead medals coated with fake gold.
When Lucille cusses her neighbours, the air turns purple, and it ain’t a pretty purple like jamoon or grapes or cute-girls’ party purple. Lucille’s cusses spray a deep dark mist around the neighbourhood as though Armageddon day is coming. One or two of her exploits have been recorded in the book, Big Ole Home By The Sea.
Sad truth to tell, there are many like Lucille in The Land of Many Waters, both men and women. As they say, we love a good cuss down. Or it is, we love a good cuss out? No matter, same jhanjhat as the East Indian people say.
Now, if you’ve read Diamonds and Toads, you may want to know what happened to the lovely younger sister who married a prince. She did indeed have a happy life. She and her husband had many children who married princesses and princes from other lands, and these children produced new royalty everywhere. Unfortunately, as happens with later generations, there had to be a bad egg or two, princes who lose the plot, forgetting that their role is to rescue beautiful maidens, not torment them.
Thus endeth this tale, dear book lovers, but not the story. It continues everywhere. And if we read them carefully, they’ll make us pause a little in our day to day trekkin’…pause and think…