Short woman, short archways. Also, mysterious Woman with Fishslice

[bunn]

Was in a medieval mood today, so we went to Cotehele house for an outing.  Here is my mum, demonstrating doorways designed for seriously short people only.  This would probably be more helpful if I could remember how tall my mother is. 5'1-ish ? Less?  Considerably Shorter Than Me, anyway.

Comments

[huinare]

That spatula story. Amazing.

"Something": Lady, I'll trade you a spatula for a shoe.
"Something": ...
"Something": That is not a request, by the way.

[bunn]

I was confused. Somehow it seemed thematically akin to the Builder Who Brought a Dragonfly that I encountered a few weeks back. Oh, and the name of her house to which the errant shoe should be returned is 'Wood Nymph' which I think adds to the overall feel of oddity.

Even if it's a fox - she stores her shoes in the garden??? :-D

[huinare]

Actually, rereading the tale, I'm wondering if she was trying to imply that she thought it was someone's domestic animal, but too embarrassed to say so point blank lest it seem like an accusation. It might explain why she seemed to think the spatula's owner may have been brought her shoe.

But I rather prefer Something; it sounds like a whimsical yet vaguely menacing being.

[ningloreth]

I love the tag 'loons'.

I wonder if she'll find my sunglasses...

[bunn]

Presumably, only if Something should choose to bring them...

[ladyofastolat]

That is... odd. I wonder what sort of a being she thinks "it" is.

The Low Doors of Yore confuse me. "Oh, people were tiny in the past!" I keep hearing guides and other visitors declare, but I also keep reading books that study skeletal remains and demonstrate that this just wasn't true - or, if they were shorter on average than nowadays, it was only by an inch or two. So did the people of yore go around with permanently bruised foreheads? Was the Art of Constant Ducking something they were taught from early childhood - one of those old medieval arts now lost to us?

[bunn]

I'd have thought it was less odd if she'd suggested the fox - foxes do weird stuff like that it is known. But she referred to the Bringer of Spatulas entirely as Something : I was the one who, desperately groping for rationality, suggested a fox...

I have had exactly those thoughts about the Doors of Yore! (what a great title! Maybe for a children's book where you have to open flaps to see what's behind them). It's very odd: if you are going to the trouble of making an arch out of granite, then adding an extra couple of feet in height to the thing so you don't keep bashing your head seems like it would be easy...

Maybe all the stone arches were built by dwarves...?

[ladyofastolat]

I read a suggestion that it could be to keep heat in, on the grounds that a room with a small door and a sunken floor would be warmer than a room with a mighty door fit for giants. I think I've also read that it was a cost saving measure, although I'd have thought that More Wall would be more expensive to build than More Hole?

I prefer your dwarf idea. Vengeful dwarves, who had been beaten down by the high and lofty nobility and turned into a servant race of builders, and were wreaking their revenge by building doors that were too low for their oppressors, in the hope that they would eventually be wiped out through repeated tragic head-bumping accidents.

[davesmusictank]

Great story. Mind you i have seen foxes do strange things around our village.