Okay, our
twitter page, lovingly wrought by Stewart, has over 500 followers now. We made an agreement some time ago that we would force the twitter followers to battle the blog followers at Maeshowe on midsummer's eve. Hope that's okay.
The library lot shall wear spectacles and cardigans and shall be armed with hard backed Mills & Boons and specially customised 'loser' stamps to mark their kills. Archive blog followers, you may be few and some of you will have to fly hundreds of miles to join us, but there is a lot of smelly, dusty, old stuff that we can brandish and loads of scary moths and caterpillars too, so don't worry, there is hope. I thought that you could wear archivists' gloves and 2B pencils tucked behind your ears.
We can probably rope in some volunteers if things get really desperate but all library and archive staff shall be watching from recliners on top of Maeshowe whilst barking strategies through a loud hailer.
The victors shall take home the weird smelly plant which keeps on growing even though we stopped watering it at Christmas. If you think about it, one plant between 12 is better than one shared between 500.
According to a newspaper article I found in the Ernest Walker Marwick collection, we may have company as, up until WW2, black magic rituals took place at the Stones of Stenness
"About 60 people were there" an RAF officer told the Empire News. " all their faces were hooded and wearing blankets. They held candles and incense was burning and it was so packed that some of them couldn't get in. One man with an Orkney accent read the Black mass. And they all chanted, and I swear I can't remember it happening, but certainly there was this brand mark on my leg - a burn- but not painful at all."
Hmmmm, they don't sound like they'll be much of a laugh but we'll see. Book your flights/trains/ferries now!
Information taken from reference: D31/47/3/29
