Uncle Sven archive
Nov. 24th, 2022 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayUrsula Vernon is one of my favorite authors, and also a great Twitterer. She has a fondness for getting into arguments with trolls. When she gets bored of such an argument, she sometimes ends it by going off into stories about her (presumed mythical) Great Uncle Sven. Since Twitter could vanish at any moment, I have taken the precaution of archiving the Uncle Sven stories I am aware of. Enjoy!.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 10:22 PM • Jan 7, 2017.
So Great-Uncle Sven decides one day he's gonna hunt him some turnips.
"Sven!" we all said, "turnips are not what you would call a prey animal."
K.B. Spangler KBSpangler. Replying to UrsulaV.
*thumps head on table*
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to KBSpangler.
Hush, you! These boys never heard about Sven and the Turnip Incident.
On account of those records having been sealed by the gov'mint for years.
Oh God, the things they must've seen that day!
Good men, some of 'em, decent young fellas outta Bragg. Well.
Most've 'em lived, o'course, but they never held a potato peeler again.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So Sven goes out after turnips.
He says that as they are a root vegetable, they won't run too fast.
He had a limp on account of the time he fought Hitler with the dead moose.
Anyhow, so he gets out his turnip gun and off he goes one fine morning.
jon rosenberg🌿🌮🍫 jonrosenberg. Replying to UrsulaV.
What kind of turnips?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to jonrosenberg.
Well, it depends on the season, really. You wanna be careful, though.
You think you got a big female turnip in your sights and bang!
Turns out to be a big male beet. Some of 'em go white around the top.
So there you are takin' beet bucks outta season, with the warden comin'.
Many a spooked hunter put a buck beet where beets had previous Not Been --
-- if you take my meaning, and I think you prolly do.
This was a peril 'o root vegetable poaching that does not occur with deer.
And only occasional with turkey, and you gotta really want that turkey bad.
Which leads to another story, but not about Sven, so for another time.
Anyhow, Sven gets word there is one mighty-fine buck turnip in the woods.
Six forks on those roots! You see it comin' through the fog, shit!
You'd think it was Cthulhu or a real mad mop or somethin'.
Probly a turnip is not the first thing to mind, being as those don't walk.
Anyhow, he shoots that turnip like four times! But no more than that.
Was runnin low on bullets, account o' the war still bein a goin' concern.
But that turnip doesn't fall down! He only makes it mad!
And as any fool knows you don't run from an enraged turnip. Bad way to die.
So he figures he'll go down fightin'. He charges that buck turnip!
He always said he screamin' a warcry, but I dunno 'bout that.
My aunt says he was screamin' "Don't kill me, turnip!"
Hard as it may be to believe, Sven did doctor the truth occasional-like.
So he hits this turnip and goes to punch it and it ain't no turnip!
He said it were like punchin' a walrus made 'o rubber bands.
He'd know, probly, havin' herded walrus in his youth, but he got outta it.
Said there was too much politics now, people'd forgot why they were there.
Said it used to be all about the walrus. Anyhow, where was I?
Right, right. So what should this turnip be but a goddamn weather balloon?
SpotWeld is staying in SpotWeld. Replying to UrsulaV.
dang, that time o' year weather balloon is out of season.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to SpotWeld.
I know! It was a problem!
Well, now he was mad. He'd wasted those bullets and some o' his dignity.
And there's hardly any meat on a weather balloon. Feed it to the hogs.
So he's just about ready to call the whole thing a loss when who shows up?
The gov'mint men! They wanted their weather balloon back.
It was makin' silly people see aliens, which was ridiculous.
You gotta go out west for the good ufos. Ain't no jobs for 'em here.
Well, Sven thought it was he warden and he don't have a balloon tag on 'I'm.
But the bullet holes give him an idea and he shoves his arms in 'em.
An he drops flat and waits, thinkin' the warden will see a dead balloon.
But instead they drag the thing into a crate, and Sven along with it.
He gets driven clear to Fort Bragg, bein' close by, and things get hairy.
'Cos they open the crate up to a reporter from the Fortean Times, right?
To prove it ain't no alien, but an innocent weather balloon.
And Sven rolls out coated in balloon guts with one arm still stuck --
-- and the reporter's a bit of a nervous chap on account of the Illuminati.
So the reporter lets out a shriek like a panther in an outhouse.
And the soldiers scream about an alien, and Sven doesn't like aliens.
On account of things he saw in the War. He said the aliens were the worst.
So he grabs the reporter to save him, 'cos he's a civilian... well.
It all got a bit confused. The papers got it all wrong.
Sven was only trying to help that man, his arm was just stuck, that's all.
Anyhow. He never did hung turnips after that. Said you couldn't trust 'em.
'Scuse me, hunt. Hung Turnips was the name of the town's all male revue.
They say the real turnip buck is still out there, but I dunno.
Seems like it might be a tall tale to me.
Thank y'kindly gents and lady, for lettin' me bend your ear.
===
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 1:20 PM • Jun 23, 2019.
You know, your name reminds me of the time my Uncle Sven took up falconry.
Now Sven -- you all know Sven, of course -- got it in his head one day that he wanted to be a falconer.
"But Sven!" everybody said "Falconry is an ancient and noble sport, linked to education and conservation, and you once attacked a weather balloon with a machete because you thought The Prisoner was a documentary!"
But Uncle Sven had an idea. He decided everybody was thinking too small. Eagles, goshawks, even lammergeiers were just not big enough.
But he had read about how emus kicked the Australian army's ass once and he thought "that's the bird for me."
"But Sven! They're flightless! And not the sharpest knives in the drawer!"
Well, the same could be said about Sven on both counts, so he was bound and determined. He was gonna train an emu to hunt game.
Right off, of course, there were a couple problems. He got the egg okay and he hatched it out and it imprinted on him, but he was wearing a hat, so the emu imprinted on him with the hat, and if he took it off, that emu got mighty suspicious.
Probably there's a moral here about the sorta hat you wear defining you in the eyes of other people. Sorta worth reflecting on in these troubled times.
Anyway we could never figure out why he'd been wearing one of those Wisconsin cheesehead hats. Wasn't even a game on.
Next problem, of course, is that you're never gonna train an emu to ride on your wrist, not unless you got arms like Andre the Giant, and they're not what you call perching birds. It was a concern.
So Sven built hisself a sack out of one of those baby sacks and took to carrying the emu on his back with its legs kinda dangling. Emu seemed happy enough with it. They'd been completely disowned by every respectable falconer at that point, o'course.
Time went on, that emu got pretty big, but it still loved to ride around in the carry sack, with its head whipping around, looking at everything.
I note that the troll I was messing with has blocked me at this point, so I'm just gonna leave you with this image.
A beautiful day, tall golden fields of grass, and a middle aged man in a Wisconsin cheesehead hat, carrying his beloved emu through the fields, both of them just as happy as two dim, Good-natured souls can be.
Lar lartist. Replying to UrsulaV.
Cartoon for you: Uncle Sven (as I imagine him at least) and Emu. Thank you for a wonderful inspiration. Hope you enjoy :)
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to lartist.
Lad, you are a treasure and a joy and I am making this my lock screen.
Lar lartist. Replying to UrsulaV.
I had started sketching him and then you mentioned the Emu. Then the Hat. Then the sack. I want Uncle Sven in Little Book format just so I can illustrate them for you :)
===
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. 8:18 PM • Dec 18, 2019.
Didn't your Uncle Sven try demolition derby once?
Cavalaxis cavalaxis. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Is this the same Sven who lost his nipple while trying to fight a beaver?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to cavalaxis.
Yes, but he had a vestigial one so it didn't slow him down none.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Poor Uncle Sven. He was convinced that he could do it in one of those little Geos. You remember Geos? Said that all the monster trucks were big heavy things, and what was needed was agility!
"Float like a butterfly" he said.
"But Sven," we said. "The other half of that quote is not "sting like a Geo."
But would he listen? Not a bit of it.
You couldn't tell Sven anything when he got in one of his moods. Like the time he decided that old Miss Emily down the road was the messiah.
"Sven," we said, "Miss Emily had four husband's! And two wives!"
"Jesus said love thy neighbor," he said.
"Not carnally!" we said.
Anyway, it's just a good thing the monster truck rally was in town, because he was trying to start the Second Church of Miss Emily, the first having already been started by one of her husband's, who I am given to understand was one of those tent revival boys.
Local legend has it that she made him holler Hallelujah, if you are pickin' up what I am puttin' down, and became a convert on the spot, as it were, although this did make him something of an apostate as far as the Baptists were concerned.
Anyway, we asked Sven why he didn't just join the First Church of Miss Emily, but as it turned out, he had some serious doctrinal issues, on account of them not believing lutefisk was one of the sacraments, and of course Sven was from the old country, so things kinda splintered.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Anyhow, Sven's wife eventually put her foot down about worshiping other women, regardless of whether it was the first, second, or whatever church. Fortunately the monster truck rally, as I said, came to town.
So out he went in his little Geo, which he'd named Tanngrisnir after one of the goats that pulled Thor's cart, except of course nobody could pronounce it so they thought he said Tan Grizzly and it was blue and also a Geo so people were exceedingly confused.
They told him he'd die but he just yelled "Miss Emily is my co-pilot!" and drove full-tilt at some big ass diesel thing with a plastic shark head glued to the front.
Think it was named the White Death, but I may be misremembering on account of that being what my stepfather used to call mayonnaise.
Maybe it was the Jawsinator, although looking back, that would be a goddamn stupid name for a truck. NeolithicSheep do you remember? Big plastic shark head. Driver was from up by Richmond, I think, or maybe he was named Richmond.
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. Replying to UrsulaV.
Pretty sure the driver was named Richmond and the truck was the Jawsinator. The White Death was the truck with the Coca Cola polar bear wired to the grille wasn't it?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Ohhh, maybe. The one that used to shoot coke cans out of that launcher thing, until the Coca-Cola company sued the snot right outta him and he had to go to Cheerwine.
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. Replying to UrsulaV.
Right cause the Carolina Beverage Co said it was good advertising, so he painted the bear red and renamed the truck Bloodmouth.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Damn Bloodmouth was a good truck. Real crowd pleaser. Used to jump school buses for charity. Raised a whole bunch of money for find a cure for lycanthropy among the Amish, who are a good people who don't deserve that kinda thing.
Anyway, the Geo hit the shark head dead on and it being basically a tin can with fabulous gas mileage, the shark head went right through the engine block, but it got hung up on the rear view mirror, which he'd scavenged from a Mercedes and was what you call load-bearing.
Well, of course the big truck didn't even notice there was a Geo hung up on the front and things might have ended rather abrupt for Uncle Sven, but the truck was driving over some other car -- might've been the White Death, now that I think of it -- and the shark head came loose.
Only on the one side at first, but the Jawsinator tried some hard-braking maneuver and the Geo went flying with Uncle Sven wrapped up in the shark head and the Geo hit the wall and came apart like an automotive piñata.
Fortunately the plastic shark head was a lot tougher than a Geo, and it saved Sven from most of the damage. He struggled out and while he didn't win the derby on account of the Tan Grizzly being reduced to confetti, he did get a standing ovation from the crowd:
Always said that Miss Emily's grace saves his life. Gave her the shark head, what was left of it. She planted a real nice bunch of hollyhocks in there, and you know how hard it is to get hollyhocks going before the rust gets into them.
Anyway, it all came out alright, but it was awhile before he could eat seafood again, so my aunt always said.
FIN.
===
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 9:23 PM • Nov 19, 2022.
You know, this kinda reminds me of the time my Uncle Sven took up spelunking.
Now Sven -- you all know Sven, of course -- was looking for a place to build his new still, on account of the previous one having exploded when his neighbor, Johnson, threw a dead woodchuck in it.
God, what a mess that was! Just a rain of ethanol-soaked woodchuck, far as the eye could see. A hind leg took out the attic window and landed in my aunt's wedding trousseau. She had words, many of them one-syllable and not terrible kind, if you take my meaning.
Uncle Sven tried to smooth things over by saying that it wasn't as if she was ever gonna fit into that wedding dress again, which was by way of pouring soothing gasoline on the fire.
(He tried to walk it back, saying he meant that they were happily married and she didn't need to wear any wedding dress again, but my aunt was of the opinion that she could make herself a widow right now and no jury in the world would convict her.)
Anyhow, he was obviously pretty fired up at neighbor Johnson about this, being both out a still and forced to sleep on the couch as a result of the rain-of-woodchuck incident, plus they had a reporter from the Fortean Times sniffing around.
You gotta watch out for them Fortean Times boys, they show up whenever there's a rain of critters. They like rains of fish best, but this one was willing to take a rain of woodchucks.
Uncle Sven tried to explain that it was really just one singular woodchuck, and not exactly the picture of health at the time neither, but you know how it is with reporters.
They get an idea in their head and it's easier to get shit outta a constipated wolverine than to shake the idea loose.
Molevember, baby! Rechanmole.
Why do I senes that Uncle Sven has experience with that saying.
No, that was the other side of the family, and Bob only went up that wolverine's backside because it swallowed a diamond engagement ring.
Anyhow Sven's first idea was to declare war on Johnson in the way they did back in the old country, where you got a skald to declaim at him 'til his hair fell out. You know, the kind that leads to the sorta stories people tell when they feel the Rhinegold saga's a bit too cheery.
Normally my aunt would've put a stop to that right off, but she'd gone to her sister's, because she did love Sven, more or less, on a good day, and she said she didn't want to have to kill him, but two rains of woodchuck in a month was too much.
(Yeah, there was a previous rain of woodchuck, but that's another story and not entirely Sven's fault, though we all agreed he should not have stored the gunpowder quite so close to the gopher repellant.)
Sorry, need to get a drink. Reminiscing is thirsty work. Back in a tick.
Right, where was I?
Oh yeah, Sven had hired a skald to do some declaiming.
Problem was that it's damn hard to find a reputable skald these days, or even a disreputable one. Sven knew a guy, of course -- Sven knew lots of guys, that being part of his problem, really, though not in the biblical sense, as he was pretty faithful to my aunt.
(Well, except for the time he decided Miss Emily down the road was the messiah, but in Sven's defense, I never heard that was anything but genuine worship.)
Anyhow, he called up the guy he knew, fellow name of Ingvist, but Ingvist'd gotten out of the skald business and became an electrical engineer, on account of there being more money in it. Which you can't really blame him for. Not a lot of declaiming to be done these days.
So after Sven exhausts his connections, he finally decides he's gonna do it hisself, and why not? Blood of Vikings flows in his veins! Why, he once nearly burnt a monastery down! (Again, as I said, don't store the gunpowder near the gopher repellant.)
So he gets a couple books on declaiming and studies up. My aunt came home, thankfully, and talked him outta hanging on a tree for nine days and nights to gain wisdom, otherwise things might have gotten a bit outta hand there.
Anyhow, Sven got hisself a goat hide -- I dunno why you wear a goat hide to declaim, could be that was just in our particular bit of the old country -- and stomps outside to have it out with neighbor Johnson.
He had worked up a whole screed on the subject of when it is appropriate to dump dead woodchucks in your neighbor's moonshining equipment, the upshot being "never" but said with a lot more alliteration.
And who does he see coming at him but Johnson! ALSO wearing a goat hide!
Turned out Johnson's family name was actually Johansson, but it had got changed during immigration.
Not by Ellis Island, on account of that being a popular legend, but because they were trying to distance
On account of Old Man Johansson being caught in-flag-rantee de-licto with what was either a walrus or an attractive young lady in an extremely convincing walrus costume, depending on who you asked.
(And look, I'm not here to judge. You want some erotic pinniped roleplay in the bedroom, that is between you, your god, and the young lady in the walrus suit.)
But those were less enlightened times, I fear, and Old Man Johansson was shunned as a pervert for following his particular and highly specific flippered bliss, and so his family emigrated and changed their names.
Where was I?
Right, the mutual declaiming.
Now, them who've seen two gifted skalds declaiming at each other in pitched poetic battle are counted among either the blessed or the cursed, depending on a couple factors, mostly related to the quantity of alcohol and whether they were upwind of the goat hides.
But I'm afraid the key word there was "gifted." Johnson's poetic skills involved five lines and the word "Nantucket" and Sven, well, god love him.
Basically imagine that a pair of Time-Life book collections about World War Two came to life and tried to have a rap battle.
Whitest thing that town had seen since the Daughters of the American Revolution took up line dancing.
Fortunately for everybody, the game warden was driving by, on account of him suspecting Sven of poaching -- which was a flat out lie, because Sven's trained emu was terrified 'o deer after the incident -- but he'd been lurking in the neighborhood just in case.
He rolls in before the bystanders suffered anything more than nosebleeds, jumps out of his truck, and demands to know what in the Sam Hill is going on here, with the shouting and the goat hides and six separate attempts to rhyme Nantucket with something other than bucket.
Well. The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but neither Sven nor Johnson had much love lost for the warden, and they turned on him like a pair of pelicans on a school of authoritarian sardines.
And the warden, sad to say, only knew country music, which is no defense against a hot skalding. Actually works against you, because if you try to whip out a verse to defend yourself, you end up agreeing you deserve it.
Now, I ain't saying that warden didn't deserve what he got, but I do think it's a bit much to keep declaiming at a man once his private hairs have fallen out.
Fortunately for him, my aunt and Mrs. Johnson felt the same way, because they came out and put a stop to the festivities.
Those ladies read Sven and Johnson the riot act up one side and down the other, until the two men were hunkered down alongside each other, trying to retreat into their goat hides, like a pair of box turtles facing off against the Golden Horde.
Anyway, not much more to tell. Sven and Johnson went down to Olly's to drink and maybe lick their wounds a little, and once they were good and drunk, it came out that Johnson only threw that woodchuck because it landed in his gutter during the prior rain-o-woodchuck.
Johnson had missed the rest of the brief rodent-related weather pattern and thought that Sven had been targeting him specifically, but he hadn't know about the still being hidden in the hydrangeas, it being top secret and all.
So there was some mutual apologizing and commiseration and they both shook hands on it and then Olly had to call a cab to take them both home because the apologizing had taken around three hours and involved most of a bottle of livrit.
And Sven took up spelunking the next day, to try to find a good cave without either woodchucks or neighbors, where he could set up his still without causing any trouble to anybody.
Mrs. Johnson and my aunt became pretty good friends, so it all worked out. But my aunt always swore afterward that she shoulda let Sven hang in those hydrangeas for nine days and nights, because maybe it woulda knocked some sense into him.
The End.
===
[If anyone knows of any more that I've missed, please let me know!]
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 10:22 PM • Jan 7, 2017.
So Great-Uncle Sven decides one day he's gonna hunt him some turnips.
"Sven!" we all said, "turnips are not what you would call a prey animal."
K.B. Spangler KBSpangler. Replying to UrsulaV.
*thumps head on table*
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to KBSpangler.
Hush, you! These boys never heard about Sven and the Turnip Incident.
On account of those records having been sealed by the gov'mint for years.
Oh God, the things they must've seen that day!
Good men, some of 'em, decent young fellas outta Bragg. Well.
Most've 'em lived, o'course, but they never held a potato peeler again.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. So Sven goes out after turnips.
He says that as they are a root vegetable, they won't run too fast.
He had a limp on account of the time he fought Hitler with the dead moose.
Anyhow, so he gets out his turnip gun and off he goes one fine morning.
jon rosenberg🌿🌮🍫 jonrosenberg. Replying to UrsulaV.
What kind of turnips?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to jonrosenberg.
Well, it depends on the season, really. You wanna be careful, though.
You think you got a big female turnip in your sights and bang!
Turns out to be a big male beet. Some of 'em go white around the top.
So there you are takin' beet bucks outta season, with the warden comin'.
Many a spooked hunter put a buck beet where beets had previous Not Been --
-- if you take my meaning, and I think you prolly do.
This was a peril 'o root vegetable poaching that does not occur with deer.
And only occasional with turkey, and you gotta really want that turkey bad.
Which leads to another story, but not about Sven, so for another time.
Anyhow, Sven gets word there is one mighty-fine buck turnip in the woods.
Six forks on those roots! You see it comin' through the fog, shit!
You'd think it was Cthulhu or a real mad mop or somethin'.
Probly a turnip is not the first thing to mind, being as those don't walk.
Anyhow, he shoots that turnip like four times! But no more than that.
Was runnin low on bullets, account o' the war still bein a goin' concern.
But that turnip doesn't fall down! He only makes it mad!
And as any fool knows you don't run from an enraged turnip. Bad way to die.
So he figures he'll go down fightin'. He charges that buck turnip!
He always said he screamin' a warcry, but I dunno 'bout that.
My aunt says he was screamin' "Don't kill me, turnip!"
Hard as it may be to believe, Sven did doctor the truth occasional-like.
So he hits this turnip and goes to punch it and it ain't no turnip!
He said it were like punchin' a walrus made 'o rubber bands.
He'd know, probly, havin' herded walrus in his youth, but he got outta it.
Said there was too much politics now, people'd forgot why they were there.
Said it used to be all about the walrus. Anyhow, where was I?
Right, right. So what should this turnip be but a goddamn weather balloon?
SpotWeld is staying in SpotWeld. Replying to UrsulaV.
dang, that time o' year weather balloon is out of season.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to SpotWeld.
I know! It was a problem!
Well, now he was mad. He'd wasted those bullets and some o' his dignity.
And there's hardly any meat on a weather balloon. Feed it to the hogs.
So he's just about ready to call the whole thing a loss when who shows up?
The gov'mint men! They wanted their weather balloon back.
It was makin' silly people see aliens, which was ridiculous.
You gotta go out west for the good ufos. Ain't no jobs for 'em here.
Well, Sven thought it was he warden and he don't have a balloon tag on 'I'm.
But the bullet holes give him an idea and he shoves his arms in 'em.
An he drops flat and waits, thinkin' the warden will see a dead balloon.
But instead they drag the thing into a crate, and Sven along with it.
He gets driven clear to Fort Bragg, bein' close by, and things get hairy.
'Cos they open the crate up to a reporter from the Fortean Times, right?
To prove it ain't no alien, but an innocent weather balloon.
And Sven rolls out coated in balloon guts with one arm still stuck --
-- and the reporter's a bit of a nervous chap on account of the Illuminati.
So the reporter lets out a shriek like a panther in an outhouse.
And the soldiers scream about an alien, and Sven doesn't like aliens.
On account of things he saw in the War. He said the aliens were the worst.
So he grabs the reporter to save him, 'cos he's a civilian... well.
It all got a bit confused. The papers got it all wrong.
Sven was only trying to help that man, his arm was just stuck, that's all.
Anyhow. He never did hung turnips after that. Said you couldn't trust 'em.
'Scuse me, hunt. Hung Turnips was the name of the town's all male revue.
They say the real turnip buck is still out there, but I dunno.
Seems like it might be a tall tale to me.
Thank y'kindly gents and lady, for lettin' me bend your ear.
===
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 1:20 PM • Jun 23, 2019.
You know, your name reminds me of the time my Uncle Sven took up falconry.
Now Sven -- you all know Sven, of course -- got it in his head one day that he wanted to be a falconer.
"But Sven!" everybody said "Falconry is an ancient and noble sport, linked to education and conservation, and you once attacked a weather balloon with a machete because you thought The Prisoner was a documentary!"
But Uncle Sven had an idea. He decided everybody was thinking too small. Eagles, goshawks, even lammergeiers were just not big enough.
But he had read about how emus kicked the Australian army's ass once and he thought "that's the bird for me."
"But Sven! They're flightless! And not the sharpest knives in the drawer!"
Well, the same could be said about Sven on both counts, so he was bound and determined. He was gonna train an emu to hunt game.
Right off, of course, there were a couple problems. He got the egg okay and he hatched it out and it imprinted on him, but he was wearing a hat, so the emu imprinted on him with the hat, and if he took it off, that emu got mighty suspicious.
Probably there's a moral here about the sorta hat you wear defining you in the eyes of other people. Sorta worth reflecting on in these troubled times.
Anyway we could never figure out why he'd been wearing one of those Wisconsin cheesehead hats. Wasn't even a game on.
Next problem, of course, is that you're never gonna train an emu to ride on your wrist, not unless you got arms like Andre the Giant, and they're not what you call perching birds. It was a concern.
So Sven built hisself a sack out of one of those baby sacks and took to carrying the emu on his back with its legs kinda dangling. Emu seemed happy enough with it. They'd been completely disowned by every respectable falconer at that point, o'course.
Time went on, that emu got pretty big, but it still loved to ride around in the carry sack, with its head whipping around, looking at everything.
I note that the troll I was messing with has blocked me at this point, so I'm just gonna leave you with this image.
A beautiful day, tall golden fields of grass, and a middle aged man in a Wisconsin cheesehead hat, carrying his beloved emu through the fields, both of them just as happy as two dim, Good-natured souls can be.
Lar lartist. Replying to UrsulaV.
Cartoon for you: Uncle Sven (as I imagine him at least) and Emu. Thank you for a wonderful inspiration. Hope you enjoy :)
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to lartist.
Lad, you are a treasure and a joy and I am making this my lock screen.
Lar lartist. Replying to UrsulaV.
I had started sketching him and then you mentioned the Emu. Then the Hat. Then the sack. I want Uncle Sven in Little Book format just so I can illustrate them for you :)
===
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. 8:18 PM • Dec 18, 2019.
Didn't your Uncle Sven try demolition derby once?
Cavalaxis cavalaxis. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Is this the same Sven who lost his nipple while trying to fight a beaver?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to cavalaxis.
Yes, but he had a vestigial one so it didn't slow him down none.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Poor Uncle Sven. He was convinced that he could do it in one of those little Geos. You remember Geos? Said that all the monster trucks were big heavy things, and what was needed was agility!
"Float like a butterfly" he said.
"But Sven," we said. "The other half of that quote is not "sting like a Geo."
But would he listen? Not a bit of it.
You couldn't tell Sven anything when he got in one of his moods. Like the time he decided that old Miss Emily down the road was the messiah.
"Sven," we said, "Miss Emily had four husband's! And two wives!"
"Jesus said love thy neighbor," he said.
"Not carnally!" we said.
Anyway, it's just a good thing the monster truck rally was in town, because he was trying to start the Second Church of Miss Emily, the first having already been started by one of her husband's, who I am given to understand was one of those tent revival boys.
Local legend has it that she made him holler Hallelujah, if you are pickin' up what I am puttin' down, and became a convert on the spot, as it were, although this did make him something of an apostate as far as the Baptists were concerned.
Anyway, we asked Sven why he didn't just join the First Church of Miss Emily, but as it turned out, he had some serious doctrinal issues, on account of them not believing lutefisk was one of the sacraments, and of course Sven was from the old country, so things kinda splintered.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Anyhow, Sven's wife eventually put her foot down about worshiping other women, regardless of whether it was the first, second, or whatever church. Fortunately the monster truck rally, as I said, came to town.
So out he went in his little Geo, which he'd named Tanngrisnir after one of the goats that pulled Thor's cart, except of course nobody could pronounce it so they thought he said Tan Grizzly and it was blue and also a Geo so people were exceedingly confused.
They told him he'd die but he just yelled "Miss Emily is my co-pilot!" and drove full-tilt at some big ass diesel thing with a plastic shark head glued to the front.
Think it was named the White Death, but I may be misremembering on account of that being what my stepfather used to call mayonnaise.
Maybe it was the Jawsinator, although looking back, that would be a goddamn stupid name for a truck. NeolithicSheep do you remember? Big plastic shark head. Driver was from up by Richmond, I think, or maybe he was named Richmond.
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. Replying to UrsulaV.
Pretty sure the driver was named Richmond and the truck was the Jawsinator. The White Death was the truck with the Coca Cola polar bear wired to the grille wasn't it?
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Ohhh, maybe. The one that used to shoot coke cans out of that launcher thing, until the Coca-Cola company sued the snot right outta him and he had to go to Cheerwine.
Shepherd NeolithicSheep. Replying to UrsulaV.
Right cause the Carolina Beverage Co said it was good advertising, so he painted the bear red and renamed the truck Bloodmouth.
Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. Replying to NeolithicSheep.
Damn Bloodmouth was a good truck. Real crowd pleaser. Used to jump school buses for charity. Raised a whole bunch of money for find a cure for lycanthropy among the Amish, who are a good people who don't deserve that kinda thing.
Anyway, the Geo hit the shark head dead on and it being basically a tin can with fabulous gas mileage, the shark head went right through the engine block, but it got hung up on the rear view mirror, which he'd scavenged from a Mercedes and was what you call load-bearing.
Well, of course the big truck didn't even notice there was a Geo hung up on the front and things might have ended rather abrupt for Uncle Sven, but the truck was driving over some other car -- might've been the White Death, now that I think of it -- and the shark head came loose.
Only on the one side at first, but the Jawsinator tried some hard-braking maneuver and the Geo went flying with Uncle Sven wrapped up in the shark head and the Geo hit the wall and came apart like an automotive piñata.
Fortunately the plastic shark head was a lot tougher than a Geo, and it saved Sven from most of the damage. He struggled out and while he didn't win the derby on account of the Tan Grizzly being reduced to confetti, he did get a standing ovation from the crowd:
Always said that Miss Emily's grace saves his life. Gave her the shark head, what was left of it. She planted a real nice bunch of hollyhocks in there, and you know how hard it is to get hollyhocks going before the rust gets into them.
Anyway, it all came out alright, but it was awhile before he could eat seafood again, so my aunt always said.
FIN.
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Kingfisher & Wombat UrsulaV. 9:23 PM • Nov 19, 2022.
You know, this kinda reminds me of the time my Uncle Sven took up spelunking.
Now Sven -- you all know Sven, of course -- was looking for a place to build his new still, on account of the previous one having exploded when his neighbor, Johnson, threw a dead woodchuck in it.
God, what a mess that was! Just a rain of ethanol-soaked woodchuck, far as the eye could see. A hind leg took out the attic window and landed in my aunt's wedding trousseau. She had words, many of them one-syllable and not terrible kind, if you take my meaning.
Uncle Sven tried to smooth things over by saying that it wasn't as if she was ever gonna fit into that wedding dress again, which was by way of pouring soothing gasoline on the fire.
(He tried to walk it back, saying he meant that they were happily married and she didn't need to wear any wedding dress again, but my aunt was of the opinion that she could make herself a widow right now and no jury in the world would convict her.)
Anyhow, he was obviously pretty fired up at neighbor Johnson about this, being both out a still and forced to sleep on the couch as a result of the rain-of-woodchuck incident, plus they had a reporter from the Fortean Times sniffing around.
You gotta watch out for them Fortean Times boys, they show up whenever there's a rain of critters. They like rains of fish best, but this one was willing to take a rain of woodchucks.
Uncle Sven tried to explain that it was really just one singular woodchuck, and not exactly the picture of health at the time neither, but you know how it is with reporters.
They get an idea in their head and it's easier to get shit outta a constipated wolverine than to shake the idea loose.
Molevember, baby! Rechanmole.
Why do I senes that Uncle Sven has experience with that saying.
No, that was the other side of the family, and Bob only went up that wolverine's backside because it swallowed a diamond engagement ring.
Anyhow Sven's first idea was to declare war on Johnson in the way they did back in the old country, where you got a skald to declaim at him 'til his hair fell out. You know, the kind that leads to the sorta stories people tell when they feel the Rhinegold saga's a bit too cheery.
Normally my aunt would've put a stop to that right off, but she'd gone to her sister's, because she did love Sven, more or less, on a good day, and she said she didn't want to have to kill him, but two rains of woodchuck in a month was too much.
(Yeah, there was a previous rain of woodchuck, but that's another story and not entirely Sven's fault, though we all agreed he should not have stored the gunpowder quite so close to the gopher repellant.)
Sorry, need to get a drink. Reminiscing is thirsty work. Back in a tick.
Right, where was I?
Oh yeah, Sven had hired a skald to do some declaiming.
Problem was that it's damn hard to find a reputable skald these days, or even a disreputable one. Sven knew a guy, of course -- Sven knew lots of guys, that being part of his problem, really, though not in the biblical sense, as he was pretty faithful to my aunt.
(Well, except for the time he decided Miss Emily down the road was the messiah, but in Sven's defense, I never heard that was anything but genuine worship.)
Anyhow, he called up the guy he knew, fellow name of Ingvist, but Ingvist'd gotten out of the skald business and became an electrical engineer, on account of there being more money in it. Which you can't really blame him for. Not a lot of declaiming to be done these days.
So after Sven exhausts his connections, he finally decides he's gonna do it hisself, and why not? Blood of Vikings flows in his veins! Why, he once nearly burnt a monastery down! (Again, as I said, don't store the gunpowder near the gopher repellant.)
So he gets a couple books on declaiming and studies up. My aunt came home, thankfully, and talked him outta hanging on a tree for nine days and nights to gain wisdom, otherwise things might have gotten a bit outta hand there.
Anyhow, Sven got hisself a goat hide -- I dunno why you wear a goat hide to declaim, could be that was just in our particular bit of the old country -- and stomps outside to have it out with neighbor Johnson.
He had worked up a whole screed on the subject of when it is appropriate to dump dead woodchucks in your neighbor's moonshining equipment, the upshot being "never" but said with a lot more alliteration.
And who does he see coming at him but Johnson! ALSO wearing a goat hide!
Turned out Johnson's family name was actually Johansson, but it had got changed during immigration.
Not by Ellis Island, on account of that being a popular legend, but because they were trying to distance
On account of Old Man Johansson being caught in-flag-rantee de-licto with what was either a walrus or an attractive young lady in an extremely convincing walrus costume, depending on who you asked.
(And look, I'm not here to judge. You want some erotic pinniped roleplay in the bedroom, that is between you, your god, and the young lady in the walrus suit.)
But those were less enlightened times, I fear, and Old Man Johansson was shunned as a pervert for following his particular and highly specific flippered bliss, and so his family emigrated and changed their names.
Where was I?
Right, the mutual declaiming.
Now, them who've seen two gifted skalds declaiming at each other in pitched poetic battle are counted among either the blessed or the cursed, depending on a couple factors, mostly related to the quantity of alcohol and whether they were upwind of the goat hides.
But I'm afraid the key word there was "gifted." Johnson's poetic skills involved five lines and the word "Nantucket" and Sven, well, god love him.
Basically imagine that a pair of Time-Life book collections about World War Two came to life and tried to have a rap battle.
Whitest thing that town had seen since the Daughters of the American Revolution took up line dancing.
Fortunately for everybody, the game warden was driving by, on account of him suspecting Sven of poaching -- which was a flat out lie, because Sven's trained emu was terrified 'o deer after the incident -- but he'd been lurking in the neighborhood just in case.
He rolls in before the bystanders suffered anything more than nosebleeds, jumps out of his truck, and demands to know what in the Sam Hill is going on here, with the shouting and the goat hides and six separate attempts to rhyme Nantucket with something other than bucket.
Well. The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but neither Sven nor Johnson had much love lost for the warden, and they turned on him like a pair of pelicans on a school of authoritarian sardines.
And the warden, sad to say, only knew country music, which is no defense against a hot skalding. Actually works against you, because if you try to whip out a verse to defend yourself, you end up agreeing you deserve it.
Now, I ain't saying that warden didn't deserve what he got, but I do think it's a bit much to keep declaiming at a man once his private hairs have fallen out.
Fortunately for him, my aunt and Mrs. Johnson felt the same way, because they came out and put a stop to the festivities.
Those ladies read Sven and Johnson the riot act up one side and down the other, until the two men were hunkered down alongside each other, trying to retreat into their goat hides, like a pair of box turtles facing off against the Golden Horde.
Anyway, not much more to tell. Sven and Johnson went down to Olly's to drink and maybe lick their wounds a little, and once they were good and drunk, it came out that Johnson only threw that woodchuck because it landed in his gutter during the prior rain-o-woodchuck.
Johnson had missed the rest of the brief rodent-related weather pattern and thought that Sven had been targeting him specifically, but he hadn't know about the still being hidden in the hydrangeas, it being top secret and all.
So there was some mutual apologizing and commiseration and they both shook hands on it and then Olly had to call a cab to take them both home because the apologizing had taken around three hours and involved most of a bottle of livrit.
And Sven took up spelunking the next day, to try to find a good cave without either woodchucks or neighbors, where he could set up his still without causing any trouble to anybody.
Mrs. Johnson and my aunt became pretty good friends, so it all worked out. But my aunt always swore afterward that she shoulda let Sven hang in those hydrangeas for nine days and nights, because maybe it woulda knocked some sense into him.
The End.
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[If anyone knows of any more that I've missed, please let me know!]
(no subject)
Date: 2022-11-24 09:49 pm (UTC)