| Eled the Worm-Tamer | |
Thus sing all small goblins on their first day at school. Like so many nursery rhymes, the meaning of "Eled the Worm-Tamer" is elusive.Eled the Worm-Tamer vowed to be rich 
How can a mountain "stand in a ditch"? Who or what is the "Worm Michael"? Who is the "me" of the rhyme? And yet there seems to be some factual basis behind the ditty, since there was a goblin in antiquity known as Eled the Worm-Trainer. The historical Eled ran a Worm Circus in the High and Mighty Days of the Empire of the Labyrinth. There are descriptions still extant of some of the displays and events that took place in Eled's Worm Circus. one account, for example, records how sixty worms balanced end-to-end to form a teetering tower of worms, the top of which disappeared into the clouds. On another occasion, Eled himself battled a huge sixty-foot-long worm with razor-sharp teeth, who could put its victims to sleep by reciting long elegiac poems. And in yet another display, Eled trained six worms to think logically. This last was, perhaps, his greatest achievement as worm-trainer, but it was also his last, since it proved extremely unpopular with the other goblins. What happened was this. Once the worms could think logically, they said to themselves: "Why should we do all the work (thinking), while Eled takes all the profit and just gives us worm food? Let us strike for a percentage of the profits. With this percentage (which we won't spend since worm food is dirt cheap) we will hire the services of vast hordes of huge sixty-foot-long worms with razor-sharp teeth, who can recite elegiac poetry, to form an army with which we can smash our goblin oppressors forever! Then we shall build a Golden New World, where worms can be free - free to live their lives in peace and plenty - free to live and love as only worms can in the secure joys of wormhood and wormliness, reaching ever onwards, ever outwards towards a better future and the ultimate happiness of worm domination! Wriggle! It's so exciting! Let's eat some more dirt!" Fortunately for the goblins, this plan never reached fruition, because the prospects so dazzled the worm's minds they lost their powers of reason and started trying to lift heavy metal objects, which inevitably squashed them all. It was, however, a narrow squeak, and Eled the Worm-Trainer was ruined. He spent his declining years bashing a small worm named Mitchell over the head with a spiked mace (see fig. 72). |
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