Ancient and Modern
by Roger Ley
Other stories by Roger Ley
The White Witch was in her garden, lifting combs from the bee hive, when the deputation from the âOld Unsâ arrived. Sheâd discussed the honey stock with the Queen and theyâd come to an agreement, but she wore her wide brimmed hat and veil just in case any of the foragers hadnât received the Queenâs message yet.
Tan Boreham and Mother Nancy waited quietly while the Witch wrapped the honey combs, placed them in her wicker trug and replaced the hiveâs roof. Tan held his cap in both hands, he bowed respectfully and Nancy curtsied as the witch walked over, pushing back her veil and passing the back of her hand over her forehead. Tan had been the keeper of the village bowling green these past fifty years, and heâd been Church Warden longer than that. In his younger days, two hundred years ago, heâd been the village grave digger as well. Old Mother Nancy, had lived in the village time out of mind and, like the witch, could remember the oldest part of the flint church being built six hundred years ago to replace the ancient wooden one. The Witch recalled that there had been some sort of romantic incident at the time. It hadnât ended happily and old Nancy still never had a good word to say about any builders and contractors who did work around the village. âGood for nothinâ masonsâ she called them.
âTan, Mother Nancy, how can I help?â asked the Witch.
âItâs them there Mormons, Madam Esme,â said Tan.
âThe Church of Latterly Saints,â chimed in Nancy.
âTheyâre a foolinâ with the village records. Weâll all be uncovered if they have their way,â said Tan.
âWhat are they doing with the church records?â asked the White Witch.
âThey be a baptisinâ the dead so theyâll all go to Heaven, like it or not,â said Tan.
âThereâs one of them in the Church now along with his infernal âlectric computertator,â said Nancy. âThey mean to do it all over the country, and what a pickle we shall all be in then.â
âSurely, if theyâre in the Parish records, then people have already been baptised,â said the Witch.
âMaybe itâs the wrong sort of baptism,â said Nancy.
âNew fangled nonsense, computers and the like,â said Tan. âThe trouble is that some of us was baptised hundreds of years ago, and these here Mormons will find out, and the catâll be out of the bag for us Old Uns. The modern folk will find weâre livinâ among them, and who knows what the endâll be?â
âHow many Old Uns are there in the Parish?â asked Mother Nancy.
âWell,â said Tan, âthereâs six in the Alms Houses at the moment. Then thereâs four in the cottages down Pound Lane, two on Laundry Loke includinâ me. Mother Nancy here livinâ next to the village stores and of course thereâs Becky as runs the Tea Rooms. Sheâs the youngest of us, barely over a hundred.â
âAnd donât look a day over thirty, much like yourself, Madam,â said Mother Nancy.
âHow many will appear in the Parish records though?â asked the Witch.
âAll of âem exceptinâ me, I suppose,â said Nancy. âThere werenât a deal of record keepinâ when they first built the Church, all that scribblinâ and scratchinâ started about four hundred years ago, as I recall.
âIâll see what I can do,â said the Witch, and the two Old Uns took their leave. Nancy curtsied again and Tan didnât replace his cap until the two had walked up the garden path and heâd closed the gate behind them.
Thereâs always something needs dealing with, thought the Witch. Plums to jam, apples to pick, herbs to dry, and now this. Her power came from the soil and Autumn was her busiest time. She walked back to the house with her honeycombs, in the kitchen she poured herself some gooseberry cordial and added a couple of blocks of ice from the tray in the refrigerator. Not all of the modern folksâ inventions were âinfernalâ she thought. She sipped her drink and pondered the best course to take. If sheâd known beforehand, she could have easily altered the records, added some imaginary funerals, erased some baptisms perhaps, but it was too late for that now.
She walked down to the Church. She had no problems going inside. Like so many others, it had been built on the site of one of the old religionâs holy places, in the times of the burnings and conversions. The old altar stone was built into the back wall of the Lady Chapel and the Witch still used it for some of her major rituals, including the equinoxes and solstices; she had a key to the church door.
The Church smelled musty but not damp and she introduced herself to the young man who had been contracted by the Mormon Church. He told her his name was Henry and that heâd finished scanning the records for the day, and was letting the computer extract the names and connect the dates of births, deaths and marriages into family trees. As he was packing away the rest of his equipment, he told her the job would take another two days.
âHave you found any anomalies?â asked the Witch.
âI wonât know until the database is complete,â said Henry. Thereâs a massive amount of statistical information to be extracted. The Church of Latter Day Saints will be making it available as part of their agreement with the Church of England. Death rates, life spans, infant mortality, fertility, causes of death.â He was quite animated and obviously enjoyed his work.
While they talked, the White Witch surreptitiously probed the workings of his computer. She was surprised at the simplicity of its function. There were only two variables involved, she was used to manipulating dozens at a time. She changed some noughts to ones and âmagicallyâ the Old Uns records disappeared from the device.
She made her excuses and left. The Sisterhood would have to be alerted. The records in every parish would need to be âadjusted.â Sheâd come back on Friday and finish the job here. Sheâd bring Henry a cake or better still, some elderberry wine. He was a fine looking fellow and she fancied she might have a use for him. Meantime, there were sloes to gather from the blackthorn bush in the west corner of the churchyard. She needed to make sloe gin for the celebration of the winter solstice. It was her turn to host the Coven this year, and the ladies did like their tipple.
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