The ninth day...
Nine Tall Tales
All right, so…
Merlin
Vignette
FR-C
“All right, so… the Knights of Ordrhûn were attacking, climbing over the wall in that slow, unstoppable way that they had, getting your sword stuck in their bodies and basically kicking the crap out of you all and…
“Okay, you don’t need to hear about that. Well, it was just about when you’d been knocked unconscious; I could tell because you stopped screaming for your father… who was leading the floating company and thus it made perfect sense to call for him when your position needed support.
“Where was I? Oh, yes; I was making supper, when I slipped with the bread knife and accidentally cut the ropes holding the drawbridge up, so it fell open and… well, it seems to have squashed something terribly important to them. Now there’s just a lot of old armour and… very old meat.”
“You accidentally opened the drawbridge, leaving us wide open to attack, but by pure chance crushing ‘something’ that destroyed the entire army?” Arthur asked.
“Um… yes,” Merlin agreed.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Arthur said. “I thought you might have done something right on purpose.”
He turned away, leaving Merlin stammering. “But…”
Arthur turned back. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “You said it yourself; there’s a lot of old armour and… Yeuch; much older meat. It’s not going to pick itself up.”
“Right,” Merlin agreed. “Wonderful.”
Crying Lion
Narnia
Drama
FR-C
If it had just been Gaspar, the family would never have listened, bit Mercedes was not given to fantasy and she backed her brother’s story in ever particular. Well, apart from the bit about the talking.
“But I was too far away,” she admitted. “If the lion was whispering…”
“A whispering lion is more ridiculous than a talking lion!” father roared. “I won’t have this talk, I tell you!”
“He said we had to go!” Gaspar insisted. “That it was dangerous.”
“If there are lions about it would be dangerous to go out,” father insisted. “We stay; lock the doors. Tomorrow we’ll take the dogs out and…”
“What about the story?” mother asked. “My mother…”
“Your mother was a fool!” father snapped. “There’s a bounty for lions and nothing for stupidity.”
But mother and Uncle Joachim could not forget their own mother’s stories of Aslan, the lion who had warned her of bandits in the woods and saved her from almost certain death, and so in defiance of father’s edict they took the children away from the manor and out to the dower house.
During the night, a star fell from the sky, its light and life all spent. She fell on the manor house and burned all away, leaving nothing but a crater.
A Likely Story
The Sarah Jane Adventures
Vignette
FR-C
“The ghosts came out from the building there, just walking through the walls,” Jack insisted. “They started grabbing people and there were all these bright lights and the people just vanished.
“Then this woman come along with a tin dog and there was this big whistling and the lights come back and the people come back. Then she talked to the ghosts and they went away again.”
“Right.” The policeman turned to Clyde. “Is that what you saw?”
Clyde shrugged. “I was hiding,” he said apologetically. “Still; doesn’t sound likely, does it?”
In My Day…
Transformers
Vignette
FR-T
“I used to be a god! Yeah; you’d not fink to look at this old body, but I’d fill the skies. Bloody apes saw me tear open a space bridge; fought I brung the lightning and the rain. Called me Thunderbird!
“Those were the days. Clear skies; open spaces; respect!”
He shook his head. “Bah! What would you know about ‘respect’?”
The listener looked up at Jetfire and pondered his response.
“Woof?”
Underground
War of the Worlds/Cthulhu Mythos
Drama
FR-T
“I started digging these tunnels more than fifteen years ago, in the early months of the Martian invasion. It took me time to find people to join me, but in time we grew strong.
“More have joined us over the years, here in our underground world. I know, you think it is dark and dismal, but better this than to cower under the Martian yoke; to feed them with our blood. Better to live free in the dark and feed on their servants; on men and women who would lie to us and tell us that the world above is safe.”
“It is safe!” Amersham insisted. “The Martians died out years ago. They…”
To our horror, the leader of the subterraneans - the one they called the Artilleryman - leaped forward with a shuffling spring and smote Amersham with a heavy, bone club, staving in that proud, domed brow and shattering one of the world’s finest minds. Yet it was not the shocking waste of that violent outburst that appalled us, but the visage of the Artilleryman himself.
Like his followers he was stoop-shouldered and bow-backed, his arms long and almost apelike. He wore the shreds of a Royal Artillery uniform and his speech had seemed to mark him as human, but his face was distorted, deformed, almost canine in its aspect. His feet were cloven hooves, and saliva dripped from his fangs as he licked the blood from his weapon, which I now recognised as a human thighbone.
“You are liars, come to destroy our paradise,” he snarled, “but we have a use even for you.”
He gave a sharp bark of command and his followers closed in, tearing at poor Amersham’s body with their claws and teeth, hooting and howling obscenely.
Through it all, the Artilleryman watched us, his eyes dark, cruel and hungry.
The Statement of Altair Black
Harry Potter
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“I went to Castle ______ with my old teacher, Harald Skoillar, exploring the library of the Dark Magister, Vermis. We were there on an academic licence from the Department for Control of Dark Magic, cataloguing the works in Vermis’s personal collection. It had been twenty-one years since the death of the Magister and the protective spells which had defied the efforts of a generation of Aurors were finally falling to the ravages of time.
“We entered the library without difficulty and spent the first day casting every detection spell in our not-inconsiderable repertoire, to make sure that no harmful curses remained to trap the unwary. It was during this precautionary process that we located the door.
“It was one of my spells that located the concealing glamour. We spent three hours identifying the glamour, unpicking it strand by strand until the door was revealed; a heavy, wooden door with a steel lock forged of cold iron. It would have proved quite impossible to open, but during my time with Abuse of Muggle Artefacts I became quite skilled at a thing called ‘picking locks’; a Muggle version of an opening spell.
“The door opened onto a staircase, leading down into the foundations of the castle. As we descended, the air grew cold; our breath fogged in the air and no spell would heat it.
“At the bottom of the stairs we entered a vast chamber. The air was thick with frost and magic; holding spells, some of them long decayed, others still strong, but they would not have accounted for the cold. There was something in the chamber; something lying on the ground. They looked like rugs, but… slippery, somehow.
“Skoillar bent down to examine one of them, and that… that was when the rug reared up like a shadow. I felt a wave of terrible despair sweep out over me. Skoillar reeled and fell and the thing was on him, clutching at him and forcing it’s face on him in an obscene kind of kiss.
“That was when I knew what it was; what they all were. Dementors.
“I know there aren’t supposed to be any in Britain, but they were there, in Vermis’s laboratory. I sealed the door behind me, but the holding spells are old; they won’t last long. They need to be dealt with.
“You’ll deal with them, won’t you, Mr Fudge?”
Excuses
Blake's 7
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“There were four… five of them, Avon. What did you expect me to do? I’m more of a lover than a fighter, and I’m not much of a lover when you get right down to it, although not for want of trying, which is more tha you can say about the fighting.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking: you don’t look like you were worked over by five big guys, and that’s because I wasn’t. Like I say, I’m not a fighter, so it would be silly to try. I gave them the bag and went on my way. After all, this way you still have a working thief and the other way you still wouldn’t have the Vandracite.”
Avon gazed levelly at Vila. “I see,” he said. “Well, isn’t it lucky that that your five big men somehow all squeezed into a taxi together and forgot your bag. And isn’t it luckier still that Tarrant happened to catch the same taxi a few hours later.”
Vila blinked. “That does sound lucky,” he admitted.
“And the taxi driver didn’t mention five big blokes; just one small, weasely man who stank of boo juice.”
“Well, these taxi drivers are very busy; things don’t stick in their minds.”
“The most powerful and unstable element in the galaxy, and you left a chunk the size of your fist in the back of a cab,” Avon accuses flatly. “What were you thinking?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking,” Vila protested. “I was in shock. I’d just been mugged by five big blokes.”
Mythology
Doctor Who
Drama, Vignette
FR-C
“My people, this is a dark time. Our crops have failed for the second year; the rains have not come. Yet, let us not fall into panic and anger. Let us look to our guiding light.
“In the darkest of times he taught us that light will always shine through in the end. He taught us that we are stronger together and that we will prevail not through strife, but by kindness. That it is reason and knowledge that will allow us to pass over these hardships, not violence and greed.
“Let us approach these troubles as we do any trouble, and ask: ‘What would the Doctor do?’”
A Pair of Grey Eyes
Arthurian/Noir
Drama
FR-T
I’ve got a bit of a reputation in the office. I like to think of myself as focused. They usually say ‘monkish’. Either way, the Old Man trusts me with a lot of the business that might throw one of the other boys. I usually get fed the business with legs. I’m noted for my resistance to legs.
The Old Man called me into the office on a Tuesday afternoon. He was waiting with a problem client. Black hat with a veil. Neat little black jacket over a white blouse. Black skirt barely covering the tops of black stockings. Shiny black shoes with high heels and buckles.
Trouble.
“Hawk; meet Brigid de Bertilak,” the Old Man said. “Ms De Bertilak, meet your new best friend. He's one of my best men and as of this moment, your shadow, wherever you go.”
Brigid de Bertilak turned to face me, eyes glistening behind her veil. “This man... he's very dangerous,” she said. “Is he up to it, Mr Pendragon?”
The Old Man grinned. “He doesn't miss a trick, this one,” he promised. “That's why we call him the Hawk.” He turned to me. “Ms de Bertilak believes that she's being followed. Her husband was murdered last month,” he added softly. “She believes that the same man is following her.”
“More of a monster than a man,” she broke in. “Gromer Summerday is a fiend; a murderer.”
I leaned against the Old Man's desk. “What's he got against you?” I asked.
“Ain't it enough that he wants to kill me?” she demanded with a pretty little pout.
“Not really,” I replied. “See, the reasons always count. How he comes, what he's gonna do, it all depends. I gotta know, if I'm keeping you safe, is he coming to take care of business, or is this personal? How crazy is he going to get?”
“I don't know, okay!” she snapped.
Of course, it wasn't okay, but the Old Man's got a soft spot for a dame in trouble, so there wasn't much to be said.
“I'll do my best,” I promised. I went to fetch my coat.
“So, what does this Summerday look like?” I asked. We walked out of the Camelot Building. The lady made a beeline for a particularly large, European automobile with a particularly large driver sitting stoically behind the wheel. I couldn't speak for his nationality.
“He's a beast,” she replied.
“Evocative, but hardly descriptive.”
“He's a big man; six foot and change. You're a puff of air for him to blow away.”
“And yet you're parting with two hundred a day to give him something to puff at.”
“Better than nothing,” she suggested. She stopped by the door and waited for me to open it.
I got the door for her and stood by. “And what about the doorstop in the driving seat?”
“Oh, Carl is a pussy cat,” she assured me.
Carl half-turned and gave me a look through the window that suggested he thought of me as a mouse. I flashed him a smile as I got into the car beside Brigid.
“So you've got a puff of air and a pussy cat to protect you from this beast?” I asked.
She shrugged. “We take what we can get. Why else would I have married Baron de Bertilak in the first place?” She sat back in her seat and lifted her veil. That was when I saw her eyes - really saw them - for the first time.
They were grey. Wise eyes to be sitting in a face so young and pretty.
“Not much of a guy?”
“Not much of anything. Most men manage to have money, looks, brains or muscle; he had a title and a knack for pretending to be richer than he was.”
“So you married him and now you've got a pussy cat in a Jaguar. And two hundred bucks a day to spend on a bodyguard.”
“I might have more, if I live,” she assured me. “My husband finally came good a few weeks ago when some old relative in Europe up and died, leaving him a packet. Then Summerday blows into town saying my useless Baron owes him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you don't think that might be a reason to kill him? Did you inherit this... packet?”
“Of course.”
“And who inherits if you die?”
“Some... cousin or other.”
“Summerday?”
She didn't answer. That was answer enough.
That was when the Chrysler sideswiped the Jaguar and forced it against a lamp-post, which was a degree of crazy I hadn't counted on.
Merlin belongs to Shine. The Chronicles of Narnia were created by CS Lewis. The Sarah Jane Adventures belong to the BBC and Transformers to Hasbro et al. The War of the Worlds was written by HG Wells and the Cthulhu Mythos largely created by HP Lovecraft. Gosh, this is a day for initialled literary fandoms. And look; Harry Potter, created by JK Rowling. Blake's 7 was created by Terry Nation. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and Arthurian Myth and the noir genre are free.
The last story feels like it failed in its objective, as the sparsity of the genre made the tall story one of ommission.
All right, so…
Merlin
Vignette
FR-C
“All right, so… the Knights of Ordrhûn were attacking, climbing over the wall in that slow, unstoppable way that they had, getting your sword stuck in their bodies and basically kicking the crap out of you all and…
“Okay, you don’t need to hear about that. Well, it was just about when you’d been knocked unconscious; I could tell because you stopped screaming for your father… who was leading the floating company and thus it made perfect sense to call for him when your position needed support.
“Where was I? Oh, yes; I was making supper, when I slipped with the bread knife and accidentally cut the ropes holding the drawbridge up, so it fell open and… well, it seems to have squashed something terribly important to them. Now there’s just a lot of old armour and… very old meat.”
“You accidentally opened the drawbridge, leaving us wide open to attack, but by pure chance crushing ‘something’ that destroyed the entire army?” Arthur asked.
“Um… yes,” Merlin agreed.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Arthur said. “I thought you might have done something right on purpose.”
He turned away, leaving Merlin stammering. “But…”
Arthur turned back. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “You said it yourself; there’s a lot of old armour and… Yeuch; much older meat. It’s not going to pick itself up.”
“Right,” Merlin agreed. “Wonderful.”
Crying Lion
Narnia
Drama
FR-C
If it had just been Gaspar, the family would never have listened, bit Mercedes was not given to fantasy and she backed her brother’s story in ever particular. Well, apart from the bit about the talking.
“But I was too far away,” she admitted. “If the lion was whispering…”
“A whispering lion is more ridiculous than a talking lion!” father roared. “I won’t have this talk, I tell you!”
“He said we had to go!” Gaspar insisted. “That it was dangerous.”
“If there are lions about it would be dangerous to go out,” father insisted. “We stay; lock the doors. Tomorrow we’ll take the dogs out and…”
“What about the story?” mother asked. “My mother…”
“Your mother was a fool!” father snapped. “There’s a bounty for lions and nothing for stupidity.”
But mother and Uncle Joachim could not forget their own mother’s stories of Aslan, the lion who had warned her of bandits in the woods and saved her from almost certain death, and so in defiance of father’s edict they took the children away from the manor and out to the dower house.
During the night, a star fell from the sky, its light and life all spent. She fell on the manor house and burned all away, leaving nothing but a crater.
A Likely Story
The Sarah Jane Adventures
Vignette
FR-C
“The ghosts came out from the building there, just walking through the walls,” Jack insisted. “They started grabbing people and there were all these bright lights and the people just vanished.
“Then this woman come along with a tin dog and there was this big whistling and the lights come back and the people come back. Then she talked to the ghosts and they went away again.”
“Right.” The policeman turned to Clyde. “Is that what you saw?”
Clyde shrugged. “I was hiding,” he said apologetically. “Still; doesn’t sound likely, does it?”
In My Day…
Transformers
Vignette
FR-T
“I used to be a god! Yeah; you’d not fink to look at this old body, but I’d fill the skies. Bloody apes saw me tear open a space bridge; fought I brung the lightning and the rain. Called me Thunderbird!
“Those were the days. Clear skies; open spaces; respect!”
He shook his head. “Bah! What would you know about ‘respect’?”
The listener looked up at Jetfire and pondered his response.
“Woof?”
Underground
War of the Worlds/Cthulhu Mythos
Drama
FR-T
“I started digging these tunnels more than fifteen years ago, in the early months of the Martian invasion. It took me time to find people to join me, but in time we grew strong.
“More have joined us over the years, here in our underground world. I know, you think it is dark and dismal, but better this than to cower under the Martian yoke; to feed them with our blood. Better to live free in the dark and feed on their servants; on men and women who would lie to us and tell us that the world above is safe.”
“It is safe!” Amersham insisted. “The Martians died out years ago. They…”
To our horror, the leader of the subterraneans - the one they called the Artilleryman - leaped forward with a shuffling spring and smote Amersham with a heavy, bone club, staving in that proud, domed brow and shattering one of the world’s finest minds. Yet it was not the shocking waste of that violent outburst that appalled us, but the visage of the Artilleryman himself.
Like his followers he was stoop-shouldered and bow-backed, his arms long and almost apelike. He wore the shreds of a Royal Artillery uniform and his speech had seemed to mark him as human, but his face was distorted, deformed, almost canine in its aspect. His feet were cloven hooves, and saliva dripped from his fangs as he licked the blood from his weapon, which I now recognised as a human thighbone.
“You are liars, come to destroy our paradise,” he snarled, “but we have a use even for you.”
He gave a sharp bark of command and his followers closed in, tearing at poor Amersham’s body with their claws and teeth, hooting and howling obscenely.
Through it all, the Artilleryman watched us, his eyes dark, cruel and hungry.
The Statement of Altair Black
Harry Potter
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“I went to Castle ______ with my old teacher, Harald Skoillar, exploring the library of the Dark Magister, Vermis. We were there on an academic licence from the Department for Control of Dark Magic, cataloguing the works in Vermis’s personal collection. It had been twenty-one years since the death of the Magister and the protective spells which had defied the efforts of a generation of Aurors were finally falling to the ravages of time.
“We entered the library without difficulty and spent the first day casting every detection spell in our not-inconsiderable repertoire, to make sure that no harmful curses remained to trap the unwary. It was during this precautionary process that we located the door.
“It was one of my spells that located the concealing glamour. We spent three hours identifying the glamour, unpicking it strand by strand until the door was revealed; a heavy, wooden door with a steel lock forged of cold iron. It would have proved quite impossible to open, but during my time with Abuse of Muggle Artefacts I became quite skilled at a thing called ‘picking locks’; a Muggle version of an opening spell.
“The door opened onto a staircase, leading down into the foundations of the castle. As we descended, the air grew cold; our breath fogged in the air and no spell would heat it.
“At the bottom of the stairs we entered a vast chamber. The air was thick with frost and magic; holding spells, some of them long decayed, others still strong, but they would not have accounted for the cold. There was something in the chamber; something lying on the ground. They looked like rugs, but… slippery, somehow.
“Skoillar bent down to examine one of them, and that… that was when the rug reared up like a shadow. I felt a wave of terrible despair sweep out over me. Skoillar reeled and fell and the thing was on him, clutching at him and forcing it’s face on him in an obscene kind of kiss.
“That was when I knew what it was; what they all were. Dementors.
“I know there aren’t supposed to be any in Britain, but they were there, in Vermis’s laboratory. I sealed the door behind me, but the holding spells are old; they won’t last long. They need to be dealt with.
“You’ll deal with them, won’t you, Mr Fudge?”
Excuses
Blake's 7
Drama, Vignette
FR-T
“There were four… five of them, Avon. What did you expect me to do? I’m more of a lover than a fighter, and I’m not much of a lover when you get right down to it, although not for want of trying, which is more tha you can say about the fighting.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking: you don’t look like you were worked over by five big guys, and that’s because I wasn’t. Like I say, I’m not a fighter, so it would be silly to try. I gave them the bag and went on my way. After all, this way you still have a working thief and the other way you still wouldn’t have the Vandracite.”
Avon gazed levelly at Vila. “I see,” he said. “Well, isn’t it lucky that that your five big men somehow all squeezed into a taxi together and forgot your bag. And isn’t it luckier still that Tarrant happened to catch the same taxi a few hours later.”
Vila blinked. “That does sound lucky,” he admitted.
“And the taxi driver didn’t mention five big blokes; just one small, weasely man who stank of boo juice.”
“Well, these taxi drivers are very busy; things don’t stick in their minds.”
“The most powerful and unstable element in the galaxy, and you left a chunk the size of your fist in the back of a cab,” Avon accuses flatly. “What were you thinking?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking,” Vila protested. “I was in shock. I’d just been mugged by five big blokes.”
Mythology
Doctor Who
Drama, Vignette
FR-C
“My people, this is a dark time. Our crops have failed for the second year; the rains have not come. Yet, let us not fall into panic and anger. Let us look to our guiding light.
“In the darkest of times he taught us that light will always shine through in the end. He taught us that we are stronger together and that we will prevail not through strife, but by kindness. That it is reason and knowledge that will allow us to pass over these hardships, not violence and greed.
“Let us approach these troubles as we do any trouble, and ask: ‘What would the Doctor do?’”
A Pair of Grey Eyes
Arthurian/Noir
Drama
FR-T
I’ve got a bit of a reputation in the office. I like to think of myself as focused. They usually say ‘monkish’. Either way, the Old Man trusts me with a lot of the business that might throw one of the other boys. I usually get fed the business with legs. I’m noted for my resistance to legs.
The Old Man called me into the office on a Tuesday afternoon. He was waiting with a problem client. Black hat with a veil. Neat little black jacket over a white blouse. Black skirt barely covering the tops of black stockings. Shiny black shoes with high heels and buckles.
Trouble.
“Hawk; meet Brigid de Bertilak,” the Old Man said. “Ms De Bertilak, meet your new best friend. He's one of my best men and as of this moment, your shadow, wherever you go.”
Brigid de Bertilak turned to face me, eyes glistening behind her veil. “This man... he's very dangerous,” she said. “Is he up to it, Mr Pendragon?”
The Old Man grinned. “He doesn't miss a trick, this one,” he promised. “That's why we call him the Hawk.” He turned to me. “Ms de Bertilak believes that she's being followed. Her husband was murdered last month,” he added softly. “She believes that the same man is following her.”
“More of a monster than a man,” she broke in. “Gromer Summerday is a fiend; a murderer.”
I leaned against the Old Man's desk. “What's he got against you?” I asked.
“Ain't it enough that he wants to kill me?” she demanded with a pretty little pout.
“Not really,” I replied. “See, the reasons always count. How he comes, what he's gonna do, it all depends. I gotta know, if I'm keeping you safe, is he coming to take care of business, or is this personal? How crazy is he going to get?”
“I don't know, okay!” she snapped.
Of course, it wasn't okay, but the Old Man's got a soft spot for a dame in trouble, so there wasn't much to be said.
“I'll do my best,” I promised. I went to fetch my coat.
“So, what does this Summerday look like?” I asked. We walked out of the Camelot Building. The lady made a beeline for a particularly large, European automobile with a particularly large driver sitting stoically behind the wheel. I couldn't speak for his nationality.
“He's a beast,” she replied.
“Evocative, but hardly descriptive.”
“He's a big man; six foot and change. You're a puff of air for him to blow away.”
“And yet you're parting with two hundred a day to give him something to puff at.”
“Better than nothing,” she suggested. She stopped by the door and waited for me to open it.
I got the door for her and stood by. “And what about the doorstop in the driving seat?”
“Oh, Carl is a pussy cat,” she assured me.
Carl half-turned and gave me a look through the window that suggested he thought of me as a mouse. I flashed him a smile as I got into the car beside Brigid.
“So you've got a puff of air and a pussy cat to protect you from this beast?” I asked.
She shrugged. “We take what we can get. Why else would I have married Baron de Bertilak in the first place?” She sat back in her seat and lifted her veil. That was when I saw her eyes - really saw them - for the first time.
They were grey. Wise eyes to be sitting in a face so young and pretty.
“Not much of a guy?”
“Not much of anything. Most men manage to have money, looks, brains or muscle; he had a title and a knack for pretending to be richer than he was.”
“So you married him and now you've got a pussy cat in a Jaguar. And two hundred bucks a day to spend on a bodyguard.”
“I might have more, if I live,” she assured me. “My husband finally came good a few weeks ago when some old relative in Europe up and died, leaving him a packet. Then Summerday blows into town saying my useless Baron owes him.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you don't think that might be a reason to kill him? Did you inherit this... packet?”
“Of course.”
“And who inherits if you die?”
“Some... cousin or other.”
“Summerday?”
She didn't answer. That was answer enough.
That was when the Chrysler sideswiped the Jaguar and forced it against a lamp-post, which was a degree of crazy I hadn't counted on.
Merlin belongs to Shine. The Chronicles of Narnia were created by CS Lewis. The Sarah Jane Adventures belong to the BBC and Transformers to Hasbro et al. The War of the Worlds was written by HG Wells and the Cthulhu Mythos largely created by HP Lovecraft. Gosh, this is a day for initialled literary fandoms. And look; Harry Potter, created by JK Rowling. Blake's 7 was created by Terry Nation. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and Arthurian Myth and the noir genre are free.
The last story feels like it failed in its objective, as the sparsity of the genre made the tall story one of ommission.