A Digression Concerning a Mammoth, a Magistrate, and One Extremely Unhelpful Gremlin

The following incident has no meaningful bearing upon Aesir respiratory physiology. I state this at the outset because several of my colleagues have developed the unfortunate habit of pretending that every anecdote contained in a scholarly work must somehow illuminate its central thesis. This one does not. It illuminates nothing. I include it because I have now attempted on three separate occasions to remove it from the manuscript and, on each occasion, found myself putting it back.

The events occurred during my second northern expedition, while I was residing for several weeks outside Hradsk, where I had been granted access to a seasonal Aesir encampment for the purpose of recording pulmonary measurements among working mammoth herders. The work itself proceeded admirably, the Aesir having proved patient subjects and the weather merely hostile rather than murderous. Only two of my instruments froze solid.

On the seventeenth morning, I was informed that one of the younger mammoths had developed what its handlers described as “a troublesome fascination” with my field pavilion. This was not entirely news to me. The animal, a bull called Orum, had already removed one guy rope, consumed a canvas sample bag, and discovered that my assistant could be made to produce an entertaining noise by approaching him from behind. I had therefore requested that he be kept some distance from my instruments. The request was acknowledged with great seriousness. Nothing was done.

At approximately half past six, while I was inside the pavilion reviewing the previous day’s measurements, Orum inserted his trunk through the entrance, seized my coat, and withdrew it. I followed. This was my first mistake. The coat was of no particular value, but it contained my spectacles, a notebook, two pencils, a brass caliper, and the only key to a specimen chest which had already frozen shut once that week. I therefore pursued the animal across the camp while wearing shirtsleeves in weather cold enough to make breathing feel argumentative.

Orum regarded this as a game. Whenever I approached, he retreated several yards; whenever I stopped, he stopped. If I turned away, he advanced and waved the coat. I wish to emphasise that I am not attributing Human motives to an animal. Anthropomorphism is a serious error in behavioural study. He was mocking me.

After perhaps ten minutes of this, one of the herders attempted to intervene. Orum promptly placed the coat on the ground, stood upon it, and refused to move. The herder informed me that this was “good progress.” I asked what poor progress looked like. He considered the question and pointed toward the river.

While we were thus occupied, a Gremlin named Vekk appeared. I had met Vekk twice before and disliked him on both occasions, which was not prejudice, since I have known many Gremlins of excellent character. Vekk was simply a thief, and, regrettably, a very good one with locks.

Seeing my difficulty, he announced that he could recover the contents of the coat without disturbing Orum. I asked how, and was told that explanations cost extra. I declined. He then offered to retrieve the key alone, then the spectacles, then anything else I cared to name, until I told him to go away. Vekk sat down on an overturned bucket and waited, and the situation remained unchanged for another quarter hour, at the end of which I hired Vekk.

His method consisted of approaching the mammoth from behind, crawling beneath its belly, and extracting the contents of the coat one item at a time while Orum remained occupied with the herder in front of him. This was, to my irritation, successful. He recovered the notebook, the pencils, the caliper, and the spectacles. Then he vanished.

I did not notice the absence of the key until several minutes later. Vekk denied possessing it. I pointed out that he had been beneath the only mammoth standing on the only coat containing the only missing key. He replied that this was circumstantial.

At this point the camp magistrate became involved. I should clarify that an Aesir seasonal encampment does not possess a magistrate in the formal municipal sense. It possesses a person who is expected to settle disputes, record trade agreements, and prevent arguments from becoming axe fights. In this instance that person was an elderly woman named Yrsa, who listened patiently while I explained the situation.

She then asked Vekk whether he had taken the key, and Vekk said no. Asked whether he knew where the key was, he said yes. I objected, upon which Yrsa held up one hand and put the question to Vekk directly. He replied that it was for sale.

There followed a legal discussion of approximately twenty minutes concerning whether a man may sell an object which he insists he does not own, and whether purchasing said object constitutes acknowledgement that the seller lawfully possessed it in the first place. Vekk argued his own case. He was excellent. At one point he cited a municipal salvage ordinance from a city nearly six hundred miles away. It did not apply. He cited it anyway.

The argument attracted spectators, and more importantly it attracted Orum, who wandered over still carrying my coat. This should have simplified matters. Instead he dropped the coat directly onto Vekk, who disappeared beneath it, and then Orum sat down.

There are moments in scientific life when the trained observer must suppress emotion and record events impartially. I did not. Yrsa did, and she laughed so violently that she had to sit down.

Vekk emerged several seconds later from beneath the coat, covered in mud, swearing with considerable inventiveness, and accusing the mammoth of judicial interference. At this point the missing key fell out of his sleeve. There was silence. Yrsa picked it up. Vekk looked at the key, then at me, then at Yrsa, and announced that the evidence had been planted. I confess that I admired this, though not enough to forgive him, only enough to record it accurately.

The matter concluded with the return of my property, a small fine levied against Vekk, and a larger fine levied against me for what Yrsa described as “causing a public dispute through excessive attachment to a coat.” I protested that I had been the victim. She informed me that victims are not exempt from being troublesome, which I later learned was an established principle of Aesir camp law.

The coat was eventually recovered with one sleeve torn by Orum. Vekk attempted to buy it from me before I left, and when I refused he offered twice its value. I refused again, upon which he asked whether I would at least sell him the damaged sleeve. At this point I boarded the southbound train.

As stated above, none of this bears upon the structure of the Aesir lung. I have nevertheless preserved the account because there are limits to what a man should be expected to endure without eventually making other people read about it.