Flitter-mouse

My word: Flitter-mouse

Flitter-mouse is a Tudor period word for bat

I like this better than bat, maybe because it's more literal in its descriptiveness as bats do look a little like flying mice; although if you see one up close, you realise that they're not really like mice at all. It made me wonder where the word "bat" came from if "flitter-mouse" is what they called them in Tudor times.

Bats have become a thing of sinister intent due to Dracula, I think and his vampiric associations, although the actual vampire bat probably hasn't done much to disabuse humans of bats' blood-sucking tendencies neither. What I would say is don't tar all bats with the same brush.

I like them. I like seeing them flit about; I like the idea of them. That period at dusk where you spot the first one? Magical. I'm not scared by them although I will tell you that I have been a little unsettled by one. Only the once.

It was a sunny day. I was sat, reading. Something caught my eye, in my peripheral vision. Something was crawling across the slabs and the way that it moved was unnatural. It was black, small. It crept, jerking, ungainly and an instinct in me reacted to it: that instinct knew that what my eyes were seeing was wrong and it didn't like it.

It was a bat, on the floor, obviously disoriented and weak, hence its presence on a sunny day and its strange ground-based movement.

It is, to this day, one of the weirdest and most unsettling things I have ever seen; not because I am scared of bats but because of the rush that my body had to it once my eyes had seen it. My internal gauge did not like it. Once I realised what it was, I tried to find out how to help it. But in that instant, I can remember a very real, visceral reaction to it.

*

I've decided to write a microfiction for this letter and here it is! Henry VIII has to be the most famous Tudor king and I wanted to tie the word to the period. What better way than a story incorporating Henry?

*

The fire created shadows but Henry liked the dark. His ulcerated legs smarted, like his heart. He was not often alone. He was not alone now.

In the corner, a flitter-mouse hung. It launched itself from the high nook and flew swiftly down towards where the king contemplated.

Henry's mind was on death, the giving of it to someone else, someone once loved. He did not notice the flitter-mouse until it had scared him into a shriek. He flung out his hand like a bat, a reaction to its startling presence.

He'd wished for a sign, for guidance of what to do. He was King. He would take action.

When his heart settled, he decisively placed his seal in the wax on the death warrant.

125 words

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