Day 72

The truth about the Vikings 3

As with the figureheads so with the Bling. The Vikings loved their silver and gold and liked to show it off. After a few problems in their marshy and beachy habitat they resolved never to travel without their handy Emergency Bling Pulley. 

Day 71

The truth about the Vikings part 2

They were brilliant ship builders for the most part, except when it came to figureheads; the bigger the better for those. It sometimes caused a few problems. 

Day 70

The truth about the Vikings part 1

Although they liked to dress up as fearsome warriors, on their days off they liked to skip merrily through fields of flowers in their night shifts. 

Day 69

The Sons of Sacks as they sometimes liked to be called, made use of them in a multitude of ways, here are a few. 

1 Sack racing

2 Instant emergency garment ( a bit scratchy)

3 A handy knapsack for long distance hiking

4 A nice abrasive cloth for helmet cleaning

5 Weighted sack hurling, a precursor to weighted beret throwing 

Day 68

After acquiring as many Jute sacks as they could the Saxons were starting to worry about running out. They heard there was good sacking to be had in Kent across the sea. Good maidens too as it happened and soon Kent was overrun by happy little Kentosaxons. 

Day 67

When nearly all the Romans left Briton because they couldn't stand the damp climate, clever entrepreneur, Lucre Maximus, devised a Carrier Pigeon Dating service exploiting the lack of Beaux in Briton and the desperate young Angle men. In time so many got married and moved to Briton that the area became known as East Anglia. 

Day 66

Some scholars will argue that the Barbarian helmets did not have horn attachments. This is patently not true, how else could you recognise one tribe from another ?

1 Angle

2 Saxon

3 Norse

4 Dane

Of course all horn attachments were interchangeable so deception was easy and allegiances could shift and change. 

Day 65

Whenever Boris Lotsaloot came back home to Piningforthefjordsby the villagers rejoiced at the sheer number of sacks and apples he had managed to 'acquire'; but he would insist on having long hot showers whilst singing his way through saga after saga which got a bit annoying after a couple of hours. 

Day 64

The Ancient Romans were justifiably famous for their woven goods, so where else would a rich barbarian go for his loot bags? Nothing but the best would do, nothing but the Sacking of Rome. 

Day 63

It was the Emperor Hadrian's wife Vibia Sabina who started him off on his most famous hobby.  When she wanted him out of the house for her weekly knitting circle she said "Why don't you go and build a wall or something ?"

Day 62

Some Roman Emperors were better at fiddling than others. Nero was particularly awful and his audiences ( compulsory attendance) were so fed up they tried to burn his fiddle, only they burned Rome down by mistake. 

Day 61

The gentle art of wearing a toga. 

1) find a handy assistant 

2) use clothes pegs to hold toga in place

3)gently spin around a few times and drape over shoulder, you should be left feeling only slightly queasy

4) if you spin too fast you will in all likelihood feel most peculiar and the toga will be so tight you won't be able to move. Not the best look for Senatorial Gravitas. 

Day 60

Romulus and Remus were brought up by a large family of rabbits after being abandoned as infants. They were a quarrelsome pair. They had a three day shouting contest to decide what their new city should be called, and Romulus won only because Remus swallowed a fly. The rabbits thought it was the best three days' entertainment they had ever seen. 

Day 59

Contrary to popular belief, Alexander the Great was quite a small fox with only one long hair on his head. He was however a great chef, and conquered the known world with his ultra delicious giant chocolate chip cookies ( with added vitamins and minerals). 

Day 58

When not off marauding, the fiercely independent women Spotty Foxes of the Ancient world supported themselves by setting up a mobile library service, for a small affordable fee. 

Day 57

It's a little known fact that Heracles Breakspotsalotsox trained to be a potter at first. It was the careers advisor Mouse who persuaded him to drop his surname and retrain to be a hero. 

Day 56

The Ancient Greeks loved a good evening's entertainment at the theatre, even though no one knew what the actors were saying through their masks. One of the favourites was Auntigone, the tragic tale of Auntie Delphinia who ran away from Athens and was never seen again. 

Day 55

It was a slightly different story when the real Odysseus came home. Penelope was somewhat annoyed. Not only was he twenty years late for Sunday lunch but she was totally fed up with her tapestry and she crowned him with it. Not quite the Hero's welcome he was expecting. 

Day 54

When Odysseus eventually came back from Troy, his autobiography (ghost written) was first published as "Surviving Sirens". It was soon in every teenage girls' bedroom along with posters and postcards and sets of mini figures. 

Day53

Rumour has it that Helena forgot to leave her husband a note when she went to see the new shopping Mall in Troy. It caused all sorts of problems, and there were no decent handbags there anyway. 

Day 52

For a time there was a great passion for all things pyramid. The hats were the problem. A pyramid generates a strange vortex which jumbles up the time space continuum and forces the wearer of said pyramid to watch a continuous loop of all ten box series of Starhoop SH1. It took a while for the civilisation to recover. 

Day 51

There was a definite advantage to walking like an Egyptian when taking one's strange duck for a walk along narrow mountain ledges. Carefully supervised, of course, by the Health and Safety Vultures. 

Day 50

It wasn't easy being an Ancient Egyptian Spotty fox. Not only did you have to wear scented candles on your head and keep strange ducks as pets, but it also cost a fortune in chiropractic  sessions to keep up the posture. 

Day 49

The ancient art of hurling oneself over angry bulls developed in the age of agriculture. As depicted in the frescos(1) it looks highly dangerous but in reality only very docile Bulls were chosen (2) who were made to sign non aggression contracts beforehand. It was a very popular Sunday afternoon activity. 

Day 48

Gloria was beginning to regret having subscribed to the 9007BC deluxe slate pictorial edition of "Farmers' Weekly".

Day 47

Life was hard for the Early Farmers. Five Cheese and Onion Flavour Flowers would keep a family of ten foxes in crisps for a year but they were somewhat vain and dimwitted plants. If planted at anything other than 13.75cms apart they would screech insults at each other all night. It was quite wearing. 

Day 46

It was the Cheese Salad on Seeded Brown Sandwich tree who invented agriculture 10,000 years ago, when he insisted on being moved 1.5 metres to the left because the nutrients were more tasty there. 

Day 45

The Spotties soon got fed up with yodelling and developed a form of Mountain Semaphore. Here are some of the more common signals. Note, tail position is crucial. 

1 Hi ! It's me ! Over here !

2 No I haven't got any sandwiches

3 Come up and see me sometime !

4 Taxi !

5 I don't like your sandwiches!

6 I need to go away, urgently !

7 I've got two tickets to the ballet, you want to come with me ?

8 Yes, that really is a giant spider above your head. 

Day 44

About 11,000 years ago, the late Stone Age, the Hollerscene era began. Apart from the advent of extremely localised weather systems and dense impenetrable forests, the Spotty Foxes learned to Yodel.