Times were tough for the folks near the ford of the river. Not just these, where the great ox crossed, but, throughout the country confusion ruled with its fickle scepter.  These people of the ox ford seemed closer to the old gods, not those of Jupiter and Mars brought by the Romanesque, but the true gods of the old forest and marsh. 

They called for the high seer seeking a direction. 

The message went out to the dark oak forest and was heard by Marcus the Latinate.  An aged feeble bastard child of forest witch and raping conqueror, the last of the great forest priests was he.  He knew in his hurt heart the answer to their cry but would assure the truth by oracle.  His shewolf-dog howled in seeming pain. 

Marcus gathered his remaining acolytes for the arduous journey to the cream white Wampish Stone.  It was named that because of the twisting and turning of the victim before sacrifice.  Like all seers before him he required a small creature such as rat for discerning and judging a thief, or an owl for choosing course, or a cat for seeing into the darkness of the future.  The animal would be bludgeoned with a blessed oak bough.  The resulting patterns of fur, feather, organs, blood, bone, bile, entrails, and such, would provide a detailed and clear answer.   

For this question of the future a grey tiger cat would be required, a “toonsis” in the old language.  The cat was quickly acquired from a dairy maid at the village over the hill and across the dale.  It was quite scrawny and made much noise, but, it would do. 

The full moon rose through the forest casting its own divination. The toonsis was smashed into the Wampish with the heavy oak limb by the youngest novitiate.  Its demise was quick and presumed painless, though, the whomps and crunching sounds made everybody a tad sick.   

Marcus used his great ash staff to rise from the log where he had been consuming the many required quaffs of the magic elixir called “scruffy” that made the visions possible.  He stumbled as he tried to wipe the dregs and drool from his long white beard as he made his way to the future’s witness Wampish. 

It seemed as all time stood still as he gazed into the remains of the battered cat.  The moon too stood still and turned as red as the bloody stone upon which it shone. All remained frozen except Marcus’ grimace which turned from slightly merry to abject horror. 

Then a shooting star, a heavens messenger meteorically startled the gathering as it passed before Marcus’ glazed eyes. 

He looked to his poor following as they scratched themselves beneath their rough wool garments.   

“I can see no order to the future in this mess”, with a tear in his eye scratching himself, “and never again will the future be divined in a smashed cat.” 

“I have seen many inexplicable things, like strange dressed persons with silver gourds of blood that spurt the Latin word for the pork forequarter “PETA” on the skins that bitchy women wear at snowy mountains. Why would they do such a thing? And I saw the usual flying metal monsters and metal fish and vision boxes, and such,  ….but the ugliest confirmation that life will no longer be as it should…..A lowly wife chastise her lord and husband for simply being as a man.  She used what we have done this day as a derisive oath and referred to him as cat-o’-wampish.  Truly the future is kitty-corner and topsy-turvy.  Woe to all mankind.”