The Embarrassing Relatives... 3

This is my first go at a fanfic in humon's captivating "Scandinavia and the World" idiom. Still captivated by Humon. I've even had time to attempt a bit of fan-art in her idiom – it's not very good and I blushed to put it up on deviant-art alongside people who are REALLY good at it , but some of the ideas I was having bubbled up and had to be expressed. If it interests you, look up deviant: AgProv (one of my other online names) where I've stashed a handful of Discworld and SatW-related pieces.

"What defines a country?" Brother England asked, rhetorically. "We know until the end of the Ice Age there was no such thing as the British Isles. It was only the melting of the ice-cap which raised sea-levels and created the English Channel."

Denmark raised a hand.

"Sister France calls it La Manche." he said, with every indication of earnest helpfulness.

"Noted." said Brother England, somewhat testily. "That was seven thousand years ago. That set the scene, if you like. It built the stage. Just as the retreating ice shaped your Scandinavia later on. But the first really tangible evidence of actual people in Britain is the best part of three thousand years later, when they built Stonehenge..."

"Skip a bit, brother." his sister requested him. The noise of arguing and fighting grew louder and nearer.

"And when people inhabit a country, they create an avatar, a country sprite." concluded Brother England. "Brother Greece, who's a bit of a philosopher chappie, gets terribly mystical about it, and claims you and I and all the others are the product of millions of people out there having a shared dream. Consensus reality, he calls it, and he claims we're a collection of Platonic ideals."

"Plato. Wasn't he..."

"A bit of an Åland, yes." agreed Norway. Sweden glared at him.

"Well, the Greeks invented it." Denmark said, philosophically.

"I think we'd better intervene, dear. Auntie might need a hand." Sister England said, practically. "Coming, chaps?"

The Englands led their guests through a series of corridors. Sweden reflected that the house looked an awful lot bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside. He shrugged: a continuous history since Stonehenge needed a lot of storage space.

Brother England spoke again as they hurried.

"And the thing with dreams is that they flow and change over time... ah, here we are."

The door was marked Welcome To The Valhalla Retirement Home. The five of them rushed through it. They found themselves in a wide carpeted lounge, with comfortable chairs pushed back against the walls, occupied by a scattering of older people who were cheering on what looked like a three-cornered fight in the middle of the lounge.

"Oh, dear." said Sister England. "Grandfather's been on the mead again. It mixes with his medication and does funny things."

The three combatants were pretty much identically dressed, in full chain-mail hauberks , cross-gartered leggings, and protective helmets. Although one helmet had a long nasal protector hanging down in front and its wearer toted a kite-shaped shield. Another actually had horns on his helmet, and bore a round shield with a raven design.

"I stitched you up at Maldon and I'll have you again, any time or place!" bellowed the horned-helmeted one.

"Oh yeah? Just step over here, Danelaw, and I'll fetch you such a clout..."

"You and whose army, Wessex? You can't even bake cakes without making a bollocks of it!"

"Say the word. Just say the bloody word. I'll muster a fyrd and a company of fully trained housecarls, quick as blinking."

"And the two of you had better shut up now as I had both of you! Remember Hastings?"

"Piss off, Norman, you bastard, this isn't your argument!"

"Ooh, that makes me so MAD! It's Norman the CONQUEROR, you bastard!"(1)

Brother England shook his head, sadly.

"Somebody's let them get dressed up again. Auntie needs a hand, by the look of it."

The only thing preventing outright war was a large, imposing, woman in her apparent late thirties who had somehow got in between the three arguing men. She was waving her trident threateningly. It was clear she was losing patience.

"This will DO, gentlemen!" she bellowed. "I will NOT have this unseemly behaviour on MY premises!"

Denmark nudged Norway.

"I thought only Germany did the Valkyrie thing these days? You know. Seriously big women. In helmets. With a hubcap on each boob. Sing mezzo-soprano."

Norway nodded, appreciatively. Lady Germany commanded respect. But even she might defer to this one. Brother Finland would be in love instantly. But a British Valkyrie...

She was a comfortably large lady, dressed in flowing white robes, with a Greek-style helmet pushed back on her brow, and a gleaming bronze breastplate. She carried a large and wicked-looking trident, and at her back was slung a shield bearing the crossed crosses of Great Britain.

"Do you need a hand, Auntie?" Sister England asked, bustling forward.

"Thank you, dear. You take Uncle Norman back to his room and disarm him. See his axe and chain-mail are returned to the armoury. I'll deal with Uncle Wessex. That only leaves Uncle Danelaw..."

But Danelaw had lowered his axe. He was looking at Denmark with growing recognition in his eyes.

"For helved da! " he exclaimed.

"Helvede!" said Denmark. "I thought you were dead!"

Both looked at Brother England, who nodded.

"I'm afraid so, old boy. You're related."

The fully-armed Viking warrior roared with pleasure and leapt for Denmark, grabbing him where his breasts would have been, had he been a woman.

"Well, that proves you're related." Sweden said, stepping out of groping range. "But how does this happen?"

"I honestly thought..." Denmark said, "I thought it was like Iceland and Vinland, or Original Greenland, you know? Nothing left except a tombstone and some archaeology."

"Not so, old lad." said Brother England. "The settlers in North America and Greenland died completely. Here, it's true the Viking colony of the Danelaw diminished in importance when Alfred the Great unified England and won it by force from Denmark. But it never died. Its people intermarried and intermingled and their language became a part of English. A lot of dialect English in the North still uses Danish and Norwegian loan-words. In a very real sense, the Danelaw is still with us."

"You never visited, you thoughtless selfish little bastard!" Danelaw said, accusingly. "Too busy partying, were you?"

"Er...yes." said Denmark, taking refuge in truth.

"Well, don't hog that beer, then!"

The older -looking Dane grabbed the bottle and took a deep swig, then belched.

Sweden shook his head.

"So... the world moves on. But old sprites carry on existing so long as they have something to bind them to the world?" he said.

England nodded.

"The Danelaw existed for several hundred years. It was conquered by the Kingdom of Wessex and absorbed into England. England out-grew the need for a patron spirit called Danelaw. But he's still around. Think of that frightful mess with Germany. You've still got Prussia walking around even though his world ended in 1918, yes? And that oik Nazi Germany still pops up now and again, even though he'd outstayed his welcome in 1945."

Sweden thought furiously. Against the background of an old Danish drinking song, he said

"Normally, if you get an invitation to dinner with Italy, you will grab it with both hands. It's usually a good night. But just now and again, when Brother Italy goes all Benito on you, you'll suddenly discover you're washing your hair that night."

"Sister Sweden told me that whenever Italy goes Roman Empire, the orgies he throws are pretty fantastic." Norway said, cheerfully. He watched Brother Sweden wince and grinned.

Brother England nodded, soberly.

"It's all jolly messy and un-necessary, really. And what with our having five thousand years worth of history, that's a lot of old sprites whose time has passed. But they still have a footprint in the world. So we opened up the Retirement Home here to make sure they're all accounted for and out of mischief. Well... they're family. You've got to, really. Or you end up with Nazi Germany popping up and making mischief, or else Roman Empire marches up to the door and tries to make an offer I cannot refuse. Rather annoying. If Scotland's around , I get him to answer the door and sort it out."

Auntie returned.

"Well, that's the old chap put to bed with a mug of cocoa." she exclaimed, in the relieved tone of one who has done a job well. "Crisis over, I think."

"Auntie Britt, I have to say you do your job superbly." Brother England said. "I'm so glad you chose to come here and take a retirement job as Matron."

"Britt?" said Sweden, interested. "That's a Swedish name!"

She laughed, heartily.

"Oh, goodness gracious, no!" she said. "If there was any Swedish blood in me, you would know. No. My full name's Britannia. I started life as a tutelary spirit for the northern English tribe of the Brigantes, three thousand years ago. The Romans called me Britannia. I've been around in one form or another for a long time. Take the trident. Dates from when I was patron spirit to the Royal Navy. Nautical, you see. But when they took me off the currency in 1971, I decided it was time to retire. Been here ever since, helping out the current custodians."

"Time for a drink, I think." Brother England said, cheerfully. He looked around.

"Where are those other two..."

There was a gap in the room and an absence of Danish drinking songs.

Sweden did the thing where the forehead is slapped with the palm of the hand.

"I think Denmark and his long-lost...son...brother...uncle...cousin or whatever, have decided to go and pillage something. For old times' sake."

"Oh dear." said England. "I hope they don't cause too much of a mess."

"Quite." said Sweden.

Hoping I have not lost my audience by adding OC's, but I wanted to explore the philosophical nature of Nation Spirit-hood. What deeper implications are there? These are hinted at in the way Humon treats Germany, I think.

Will Denmark and Danelaw cause havoc before being forcibly restrained?

Has Norway worked it out about Norman yet? Will that brief dalliance with Sister France many years ago come back to haunt him in the form of Normandy?

All this and more – in the next thrilling episode.

1 Sorry, had to stick this one in. William the Conqueror was previously known as William the Bastard of Normandy. It is speculated that part of his drive to invade and conquer England in 1066 was to get a better name. It is also suspected that, human nature being what it is, people still tended to think of him as Bill The Bastard even after he became King of England.

Before that, England ended up pretty much split in two between the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex in the south and west, based on Winchester, which faced down the Viking colony of the Danelaw, based on York and technically a part of Denmark. Alfred the Great broke the Korea-style deadlock and assimilated Danish England into a united whole. But the Scandinavian streak in the English never went away...

The national spirit of Great Britain - Britannia - was on the reverse face of the currency for nearly four hundred years. She was finally retired on decimalisation in 1971, but not without misgivings and pangs.