Runestones 01

 MY RUNESTONE READING

By Peter Woodgate 

It seems that as a youngster I was rather gullible and my big sister Alma took advantage of my weakness. One day, out of the blue she said, “I am going to take you to a rune stone reading, my best friend is an expert, knows all about these mystical tablets.”

Well, I obviously misheard her as I thought she said “prune stones”. I knew all about prune stones and did not want to hear that I would be a thief again. This was a strange phenomenon, why, I asked myself, was I always a thief? Being gullible, of course, I didn’t realize that it was simply due to the number of prunes I ate. Alma always dished them out and made sure that I had eight prunes to go with my custard. She always dealt herself twelve so ensured she was always a sailor, sailing off to meet her boyfriend, no doubt.

    Anyway, I digress, and after explaining that the runes were not prunes she told me it would only cost me sixpence. I gasped somewhat as my weekly pocket money was only a shilling so this unexpected expenditure was pretty steep.

    Eventually, my sister talked me into it after explaining that my future would be revealed and I would be the master of my destiny. What it would not reveal, however, was that my sister was on 50% commission.

    One day, after school, Alma took me to her best friend’s house. It was spooky, she had all these candles alight and it wasn’t even dark. There was some odd music playing in the background, it was the Beverly Sisters I was told later, and, to cap it all, there was this big fat black cat sitting on the only comfortable chair in the room. I was a bit wary of cats and this evil feline stared at me throughout the reading.

    They call it a reading, but it’s more like a talking, as I was informed of what was going to happen. The caster, Alma’s best friend, produced the pouch which contained the precious lots.

However, before the mystic caster would begin. I was asked to hand over the fee. Ah, I felt a little embarrassed at this point as I had omitted to tell Alma that I had been unable to resist buying some Black Jacks and consequently possessed just a threepenny bit.

    When faced with this calamity, Alma’s best friend, I never did find out her name, stared at me and I swear that I saw the Devil in her eyes. The cat too, it looked at me and yawned showing two huge fangs before licking its lips and, I was convinced, it smiled.

    Anyway, it appeared that three pence was better than nothing so the show went on.

I was told to take, I think, eight stones from the pouch and the evil caster would then line them up, as to what pattern, I was oblivious. I would then ask the caster a question and she would tell me the meaning of each of the stones in light of the question asked. I was a bit shy but blurted out “when will I meet the princess of my dreams and the one I would marry?”

Following a little snigger the caster began touching the stones one by one. It appeared I would meet girls but none of them fancied me so my marriage prospects were never revealed.

    To say I was disappointed was not true, I was devastated and asked the evil caster why I wasn’t in the picture re marriage. She looked at me and laughed,

“Firstly”, she spoke sarcastically, “you only gave me half the fee, and secondly, you are an ugly little sod so no one will want to marry you.”

    I cried all the way home and my sister must have felt sorry for me because a couple of days later she gave me a set of Runes. It was quite a few years after that when going through some of my stored rubbish, I came across the pouch containing the rune stones. I was working then and going through a period of getting bored with my job so much so that I considered going self-employed running my own rune reading business. Why not, I thought, I can make everything up anyway. However, although pretty good on the geometry front, I could never get to grips with all those weird shapes on the stones. So, it didn’t happen, I didn’t have the courage and besides, I had a cushy job anyway.

    I then began to wonder “was Alma’s best friend correct in her information as girls came and girls went in very quick succession until one took the time to inform me that she expected a bit more that a share of a Kit Kat and a fumble in the back row of the flicks.

    Well you live and learn, as they say, and football, cricket, and table tennis were high on my agenda, so girls, they just had to wait.      

Copyright Peter Woodgate

 (Posted early by permission)