Friday, June 30, 2023

skraakery


 Long before the troll doll, Norse children played with skraak dolls. 
No one really knows why.

2 comments:

James King said...

A tiny excerpt from "The Further Adventures of Shrink MCcool: The Pirates of the Dark Horse." Soon not to be published by anyone in the publishing biz.

J. Ellen Kashchack was not a thru-trekker, but a Gran Traveller, and was thus awarded special treatment by the Edge Staff. She came though every moon or two, and never leased any beasts; her entourage would bring their own kappy train, which, though pulled by large fat rodents, moved very quickly though the bush to Kashchack’s nephew’s ranch in the Skulky Valley.
But this day they were late, and Kashchack, as the couple knew her, patiently waited as the light began to fade.
“They’d better get here soon,” Jess continued. “You know how she gets after dark.” Carter nodded his head.
“They’ve always gotten here before dark. Except that one time, and they were smart enough to leave us a bank of raj-lamps to keep her from turning.” He tilted his own head. “We have one of those, don’t we?” He paused. “In case.”
Jess only shrugged before picking up a comlink and squashing the call button.
There was a definite feel to the five second pause.
“SSKKKKKRRRhhhaaaaakk,” came a sound that anyone listening would think was a small hard-shelled animal being crushed beneath a hobnailed boot, but those of Team Edge would recognize it as Arliss merely acknowledging a comlink call from the desk.
Arliss handles the Beasts at The Edge.

This small example is to show the use of the word (if it can be called that) "Skrrrhakkkk."

Mister Skirrhak (probably spelled wrong) was an industrial arts teacher at J.A. Ludicrous high school, where we, as Pirates, attended his plastics class. We mostly made pipes. He pronounced his name exactly the way your post describes, so we always called him "Skkrahhhkkk." No mister involved.
Thank you for using the obfuscation of his name, which has been misspelled here to further..obfuscate him.

It is Arliss, of course, who uses the term "Skrrrhaak" to greet anyone that calls him on the 'com at The Edge.

Now back to to your abnormally scheduled programming.

Good day.

Jay King said...

Gee whiz. And here I thought I was just rhyming King Crimson's THRAK.