Sceadugenga


An unusual insect for your viewing pleasure


Com on wanre niht scrithan sceadugenga*, wrote the author of Beowulf... and the gruesome visions of monsters that inspired him can be found even this day. Behold, a fell fiend from the foulest fen, scouring the ground for the souls of men! Or is it just a Jerusalem cricket, neither from Jerusalem nor a cricket? This was the sight that greeted me upon my return from San Francisco to what I thought was the idyllic shire of Berkeley. Stepping lightly over the sidewalk last Sunday, in a semi-Dionysian rapture, I chanced to glimpse this *shadow-goer making its way from one patch of earth to another. I took its image in the dark (I had plenty of time to run inside, get my camera, then run back outside to where I saw it last...these guys are slow.)
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As I followed closer, it crawled on and onward, and at last, it once more stood on the soil; and I witnessed it gathering other hideous, slithering forms unto itself. At this point I could only run in terror.



The beast could have devoured me in an instant; but I escaped my fate by swearing an oath of fealty, that I would be its messenger to the doomed throng who sleep while it stalks. All ye who slumber in innocence: Beware, take care!

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So, it's another day, and we seem to be safe.. for now. But I see I am not alone in experiencing the Visitation: the fine magazine Cabinet has also been touched by the child of the earth. And I, for one, welcome our Stenopelmatian overlords.

Posted: Wed - May 16, 2007 at 11:29 PM | | | |

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