An otter of the people

by Sam Catchpole

Following the exciting reports that have been flooding my desk from the Department of Research and Prophecy Translation I decided it was time to pay a visit to the research otters. To be honest I don’t get over to that side of The Holt as often as I would like, it is an extremely busy place full of startlingly intelligent young otters.

There is an atmosphere in the whole area at the moment, it feels as if big things are about to happen. The big shiny equipment of the Temporal Experimentation Team was flashing and going bing, I am told this is quite a good sign. I watched it for a while and I could have sworn a hamster flashed into existence and ate a sunflower seed. I was about to inquire further when I was met by Lucy Littlepaws, the Journalist Otter and my newly appointed writing adviser.

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Lucy Littlepaws

She was very keen for me to meet the dynamic duo who are making huge inroads into the translation of the Otterman Prophecy from the original ancient otter. Ancient otter is a tricky language, a lot of it was relied on complex whisker motions and the first written language of otters was an attempt to represent these movements on paper. There is a chance that some of the finer nuances of the language have been lost over the years. This could be due to the amount of water around, we are otters after all and waterproof ink has only been invented relatively recently.

I seem to have become sidetracked, I was telling you about the fine research otters of the Prophecy Team. The first translation wiz I met was Seska Fleetfoot, she studied ancient languages in the River Cam University, she is quite the expert in lost and ambiguous languages. I am told she speaks Ancient Otter, River Otter, and even some Squirrel. She explained to me that the only fully understood lines in the prophecy so far relate to Otters, Gin and the impending arrival of a new wildcat…

The other member of the Translation Team I was introduced to was an enthusiastic fellow named Simon Swifttail. He studied at the River Seine University, and ended up with a degree in obscure documents and fancy words. I am pretty sure that is what he said, it was close to that anyway…

Seska Fleetfoot
Simon Swifttail

He certainly said a lot of fancy words including dragon, Galapagos and for some reason, blanket… I can only assume these are vital to the prophecy!

As my visit was coming to an end there was a great deal of commotion in the temporal room along the corridor. I didn’t see the source of the noise but it sounded a lot like a series of bings and some whirs followed by several squeaks… This seems a little strange to me, I am fully expecting a report to appear on my desk in short order!!  In the chaos I took the opportunity take a quick photograph of the prophecy translation.

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42 thoughts on “An otter of the people”

  1. I love this more than life itself. Especially Lucy Littlepaws. I sense trouble ahead for these industrious otters! Wings and whirs rarely precede good things. Also, it is good that the otters wear hats. And Simon Swiftail is very dashing indeed.

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    1. I am so glad you like it!!!
      There is certainly some form of uproar in the offing…
      I am slightly concerned for the hamster…
      only the most important otters get to wear hats 🙂 but some may get bow ties…
      I thought Simon swifttail embodied his name 😀

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      1. At least the hamster got to eat a seed. Although I would rather he hung around a bit longer, to be honest. I shall be keeping a close eye on these otter-ly marvellous happenings!! 😀
        Simon is just darling 🙂

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      2. I wouldn’t write off the hamster just yet…
        😊
        Hehehehe otterly marvellous 😊😁 otter puns are the way forward!
        I am going to have to find a job for the floating sea otter…I think he might be a marine engineer…

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  2. I am most certainly with Lucy on this one (just to go with the gin and cake and wine). This is most splendid, and I’m looking forward keenly to learning lots of obscure and learned otter things and perhaps even a song or two. And there is a machine that goes bing! Oh, what joy!

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  3. You wouldn’t consider adding a button allowing us to follow you via email, would you? I hit the follow on WordPress button, but since I never get around to looking at WordPress to see what I’m theoretically following–well, what can I tell you? I’ll never see the thing.

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  4. Pingback: An otter of the people — The Otter Chronicles | Midsummer 365 Projects
  7. Pingback: An otter of the people – Project Warrior Goddess

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