Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.241: The Toad King's Throne



This neolithic stone seat - known as the Toad King's Throne - rests on the bank of a wide pond or mere not far from Burn Hill. According to the folklore of the region, the eponymous Toad King was apparently one 'Old Tom', the bactrachian familiar of Mother Jenner who led the Horsingdon Coven during the late 1700s. As the story goes, Old Tom grew so grotequely fat on the blood of its mistress that it was forced to take refuge in the pond from the prying eyes of her inquisitive neighbours, and its so-called throne was constructed by Mother Jenner herself so that, once it had been called forth from the murky depths, she could sit with the enormous toad on her lap and nurse it with her own lifeblood.

However, as already intimated more recent archaeological investigations have revealed the seat to be  older by far than the tale allows; in addition to which, there are darker rumours of something equally ancient which would draw its slimey bulk out of the pond and seat itself on the throne in order to receive bloody sacrifice from its worshippers - perhaps this was the very same entity which Mother Jenner called to her as familiar and treated as if it were her very own child.

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