| Runcet, Hamish (the Vestal Verger) |
Retired mystic of Church of St. Edwy's in Sluicegate Weirs (1889-1925) [St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies, 100-5]. Highlights of his life include:
- Never allowed the sanctuary light to ever go out; In 1903 he stopped using beeswax candles after hearing a voice telling him "The Bee is unclean. Use not his gummy secretion" (noted in his autobiography Exfoliations from a Blazing Tulip). His candles are now made from human earwax.
- Runcet's account of an angel finishing his church cleaning was told in his letter to Clotilde, the Man Nun of Ouvrage.
- Able to read the mind of his parishioners until he lost his clairvoyance due to a blow to the head; took up rhabdomancy, or rod divination.
Today he makes indulgence bags for children and still issues predictions; in 1965 he predicted that:
- President Johnson will turn out to be a brass automaton, with clockwork insides, operated from the planet Buggog.
- Charles de Gaulle will turn out to be the angel Abdiel, whose ambition is to reverse the direction of the earth's spin.
- In 1980 Bishop Pike will be burned at the stake in the Rose Bowl, by the order of Governor Wayne.
- A Jesuit Air Force will strafe and bomb world centers of atheism.
- The wax statue of Piux XII in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral will be given the power to see and hear and will some day rule New York.
Puccini's opera Il Monasterio Segreto (The Turkish Bedstead) is based on the Verger's early life.
First let's understand what a Vestal Verger is. Vesta was the ancient Roman goddess of hearth, home, and family and the gentlest of all the gods, never leaving her home on Mount Olympus. Seldom depicted, her form was that of a sacred flame, similar to that seen in her temple, where priestesses known as Vestal Virgins dedicated themselves to serving Vesta and keeping the ceremonial fire from being extinguished. Vestals usually spent three decades in service (hence Runcet's thirty year-plus run at St. Edwy's): enrolled before they were ten years old, they spent a decade in training, another in service and a final decade of training replacements. Once completed, the women were able to renounce their vow of celibacy and marry.
A verger is an assistant in religious services, a silent escourt of the religious leaders as they move about the church. The title comes from the ceremonial rod that may have been used in previous centuries to keep back crowds from his escort. Hence Runcet's later interest in rhabdomancy.
Myers notes that the Verger may be based on a famous nineteenth century French mystic, St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (1786-1859), known as the Curé of Ars who was a renowned confessor, because he knew the sins people had confessed before they were able to tell them to him.
"If you should try to make candles of earwax yourself, make sure you take the wax out of your ears first!" (Thanks, Al...)
The opera, whose Italian title translates to The Secret Monastery, is pure Bellairsian nonsesne since, obviously, Puccini wrote no such opera. The closest Myers can come is an obscure opera, Il Matrimonio Segreto, by an even more obscure composer, Domenico Cimarosa. (Thanks, Al....)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_(mythology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verger
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| Hamish Runcet |
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