7
24,06 .1898
We are near home now ,the voyage has been without incident , the blow flies are far behind us and I am free once more to continue with my tale.
Those of you who are not of Garston blood will find it hard to give credence to my story; the fact that we gave sanctuary to so many outsiders did not help in this matter. The ?foreigners? sought to discredit our history by publishing scurrilous tales and calumnies. I have no axe to grind and would ask you to consider my words as being true . Therefore ,those of you who are still awaiting the truth may read on.
I left of at that part of my history when the brewery was founded by the good Michael Aspinall. Set up on the banks of the Mersey it was to endure through the all the changes that were wrought by time. We have no need to bother ourselves with that enterprise ,a seller of good ale will always be needed by honest thirsty men.
I wish to record the important mile stones that mark our towns history and the real story of the hands that operated the levers of power. The hands of the Brotherhood of Mudmen.
When the great cathedral was built there were,as I have already indicated, two secret chambers built beneath it .Within those chambers were stored our archives and the sum total of our arcane knowledge. With the spread of our network throughout the then charted world ,our Brethren had gleaned the secrets of the ancients and all were brought back to our ?citadel? . Here they were subjected to intensive scrutiny , the rituals and ancient prayers of manifold peoples of the old world were subjected to empirical practice and observation, and it was through such trial that our Elders discovered some terrible secrets.
I have related the tale of Kings Johns innards, that is just the stuff of nursery stories when compared to the greatest discovery.
div>
When the people of Judea were subjected to their sojourn among the Babylonians they met with a world so different from that in their native land. Being worshippers of the one god, there they met with a multitude of beliefs for the Chaldeans,the people of Babylon, were at the crossroads of the old world and had come into contact with the Egyptian ,Greek, Indian and Scythian beliefs. The Zoroastrians influenced them too and this led to a fusion out of which the Kabbala was formed. Bel and Hea,Nipur and other minor gods were prayed to . The Judeans embraced none of the idols but did embrace the Kabbala and did learn some of the great secrets. The greatest secret of all was the manipulation of clay. And not as a substance for brickmaking or pottery ,but for something more powerful than that. I fear that I will lose you here if you do not keep your disbelief suspended. The greatest and most secret use of clay was for the making of what can only be called automatons.
When this knowledge was brought to us during the middle period of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, it was deemed to be too incredible. Only the Illuminati were informed ,and only those empiricists among their number were allowed to have sight of the information. Accordingly ,another secret workshop was excavated beneath the cathedral and it was their that the most trusted brethren set to work in the matter of seeing if such a thing were possible,the construction of a Golem.
Our brothers laboured long and hard in their efforts to emulate the success of the Chaldeans, the first clay model was adopted by the Brotherhood as their emblem. A man of clay, Mode Humanus. The image was engraved on to
medallions and seals ,these would only be issued to the men of who had been initiated in to our society. The statue itself was placed in our Temple as a symbol of whence we came,Mud.!!
The strict code that governed our Order meant that no one could ,or would divulge knowledge of its existence, other orders had made themselves manifest by wearing their colours openly and had been put to the sword. Like the chameleon ,we adopted the colours of those around us, so for many centuries Garston was a very catholic place. We served our lords and masters and paid what taxes they thought we should , the prying eyes of the priests and tax gatherers were never truly aware of true assets .Our true wealth was in our secret knowledge and the powers that this knowledge gave us. Our advances
in the fields of medicine led to the betterment of our peoples health. The medicinal properties of this fabulous boon of the river was still our greatest source of wealth.
The next milestone in our history came with the war between the Houses of Lancaster and York, such terror and misery was visited upon the common people when the warring Barons and Earls sought to conscript yeomen for their militias. Fathers were forced to fight against sons and brother against brother, if they were conscripted into the opposing armies. The Norris family ,our nearest neighbour espoused the Yorkist cause ,whilst that caviller Stanley waited and watched his options.
Our township took no sides and the local Earls and barons knew well enough not to attempt any conscription of our yeomanry. They were all them too deeply indebted to us, were had their letters of mark which we could foreclose on any time.
As a footnote to that period of history it should be noted that Stanley cavilled to the very last moment at Bosworth field . He held his men back on the rise above that great field of battle until he had a clear indication of which House would prevail. When Richard fell ,Stanley entered the field on the side of the Marcherman.
The next milestone, and the beginning of a dangerous part of our history takes place not in our town ,but Prague, in the kingdom of Bohemia.
The Holy Roman Emperor was resident there in the late 16th century and he caused the people to turn against the Jews , subjecting them to degradations which ,because of the royal sanction, led to murder ,rapine and mayhem . The Maharal, or chief Rabbi, pleaded with the Emperor Rudolf to desist in his actions without success. A number of our Brethren were in Prague at this very time with a cargo of mud, amongst them was one of the Illuminati, who was conversant with the construction of the Golem and he made haste to visit the Maharal. After he had identified himself as a friend , the Rabbi listened to the Intelligence that our Brother had to impart and men were despatched to the Vlatava to collect enough of the mud to commence the construction of this warrior of God. Upon completion of the Golem Rabbi Loewe and our Brother spent the night chantimg ancient Chaldean prayers and performing secret rituals over the statue.
Kabbalistic signs were inscribed upon its parts and then the Rabbi stepped forward and made the mark that, until this moment, had been unknown to our Brother. It was a Hebrew word ?Emet? an ancient word for Life. The Golem breathed life and quickly grew to a monstrous size and went out in to the night to follow the instructions written on his several parts. The Golem caused such a wave of death and destruction amongst the Christians of Prague that the Emperor begged the Rabbi to make it desist in its actions. By removing the first letter of the word Emet ,the word became death and the Golem was returned to a clay statue again. The wise Rabbi secreted the Golem beneath the synagogue in Prague where some believe it lies there still.
However the Mudmen now had the power to activate their own Golem, more of which anon.
The tales outsiders publish are many and varied ,but none of them true, The truth lies in the bound volumes from which I transcribe this narrative. As the crowns changed heads and the Tudor line ceased to be ,the Stuarts came down from Scotland to claim their inheritance and it is here that our fortunes enter another phase.
Bookmarks