A traveller for dinner?
Having stumbled across a strangers' encampment, a man wonders how he will be treated
I cannot recall how I found myself in the strangers’ encampment beside a roaring fire, listening to the painted people speak.
“Meah nev ahnah,” said one, or something like that, for I could not understand their tongue. He pointed to me and then at a boulder by the fire. Having heard the stories, I feared they might roast me alive on the hot stone.
Instead, a crone appeared, scraping some glutinous mixture onto the rock with a flat stick. Once the liquid had turned a golden brown, she peeled it off like a skin, handing it to me to eat.
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This story was originally written in response to a word prompt "pancake" in the fb group Writers Unite!
'Pretani' a Graeco-Roman word meaning "painted people" refers to the tribal peoples of the island off the north west coast of Europe that came to be known as Brittania by the Romans. Both names may have derived from the Celtic term for the islands and its people, the Roman letter B substituting for the Celtic A. The modern Welsh-language name for the island of Great Britain is 'Ynys Prydain'.
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About the Creator
Raymond G. Taylor
Author based in Kent, England. A writer of fictional short stories in a wide range of genres, he has been a non-fiction writer since the 1980s. Non-fiction subjects include art, history, technology, business, law, and the human condition.
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Comments (3)
So that is how pancakes got originated. Very interesting.
Ummm... pancakes!! What an imaginative story from the pancake prompt!!
very creative.