Bryan's Tale

Canterbury Tale ----- By Bryan ----- delivered at Canterbury Weekend 2012

Canterbuty Tales: A true fable of Pikehand Folklore

In the 12th century a young farmhand named Bryan, worked the fields around Canterbury. He was a bit of a lad often frequenting the local hostelries, chatting up the local girls and sowing his seeds in more ways than one. He became quite a well known character not just locally but even as far a field as Plumstead.

Now at this time Canterbury was a very busy place with Pilgrimages and like minded folk visiting and praying. The church looked unfavourably on the shenanigans of young Bryan and so the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered his secret society henchmen known as the Pikehands to make an example of Bryan.

So one stormy night in the month of May Bryan was abducted and brought to the highest hill outside Canterbury known as Harbledown Campsite. He was strapped to a great oak and with 9 inch nails driven through his scrotum he was unable to move as a great fire was built beneath him, not unlike this fire we sit around today. The Pikehand torch men marched upon the hill and stopped at the great oak where the helpless Bryan stood...... well...helpless. the great fire was lit; with the flames being seen as far away as Whitstable and the screams of young Bryan heard as far as London. The church had succeeded.

Now this was when events took a strange turn. The storm rain became torrential, the great fire was dampened, the flames subsided and to everyone's astonishment Bryan was gone;....well almost all of Bryan for there on the tree hung his smoking testicles swinging on the great iron nails.

Since that day the Oak has been felled and a barn built upon the site. The locals say that on a stormy May night you can hear the soprano screams of a young man and feel the heat of a great fire, but I think that's just a load of old ****ocks.

However the irony of this true fable is that the church never quietened Bryan and his tale, ..... because today Bryan is celebrated by a delicacy often severed in local chip shops. Pickled eggs are coated with batter, deep fried and served on a metal skewer.

They are called Bryan's great Balls of Fire.