Shadowed Guise

This is the first post dedicated to Dan after his win in the Easter Egg Hunt. His chosen topic was: “some of the folklore of the UK”. So, I’m going to give a brief overview of the subject, because it’d be a bit of a bugger to collect it all!

I’m going to avoid the Celtic views, because Ireland is it’s own country. However, I find it important to note that we, as a nation, have also cobbled together stories based on the folklore of other European nations who have conquered us in the past. Romans, Vikings, Normans, all mixed in their stories to our folklore and gave us their creatures to play with.

The problem with the majority of folklore in the United Kingdom is that a lot of it is based off of legends focusing on heroes being valiant and victorious, more so than the creatures they encounter. Stories abound about dragons, but only those who are pre-destined to be slain by a well-groomed knight, and characters like Robin Hood and the Arthurian knights get many tales and poems about them. Of course, there are also many tales of elves, duerger, fairies, imps, pixies, sprites, dragons and other assorted legendary creatures, but these are often shared quite widely too.

Excluding ghost stories, there are very few actual terrifying creatures in modern telling. Although, ghost stories themselves are fairly common, albeit usually consisting of run-of-the-mill restless dead who seek revenge for their untimely demise or wish to serve their afterlife as a warning beacon to others. Part of the growing strength, I believe, to the belief in ghosts and ghost stories in the UK is that we have a plentiful supply of creepy old buildings and small rural areas, which keep the illusion that people hold alive, a vast number of pubs hold a haunting spectre as a marketable ploy, there are numerous White or Grey Ladies throughout the country, and the Tower of London has some rather remarkable celebrity ghosts.

Other famous ghostly entities include the Will o’ the Wisp, which were the supernatural explanation for lights seen over bogs or areas where there is often some form of natural decomposition taking place. Will o’ the Wisps’ are said to lure people in to marshes and bogs, leading to the wanderers death.

One version of the origin tells of a wicked blacksmith who on his death is given a second chance at life by Saint Peter to prove he should be allowed entry, but leads such a bad life that he ends up being doomed to wander the Earth, seeing this the Devil gives the blacksmith a single burning coal for warmth, which he then used to lure foolish travellers into the marshes. The story is not too different from the Irish story of Jack o’ Lantern.

The ghostly Black Dog, made more commonplace by the Harry Potter stories where it is merged with the legends of the Church Grim, are quite a widespread piece of folklore in England, even reserving special names in different regions, for example: the benevolent, protective Gurt Dog of Somerset (Gurt being the Somerset term for large) and Padfoot in Wakefield.

The Dog often acts as a foreshadowing creature, warning of a coming death in the immediate location and quite often can haunt locations of past deaths. Newgate Prison is supposed to be the home for a black dog for over 400 years, who appears before executions, while another dog in Hertfordshire is believed to always frequent the spot in Tring where they would hang condemned men. Perhaps the most vicious of these is the Barghest, which is one of the few Black Dogs to be established as a hunter, preying on lone travellers in dark alleys.

The Church Grim, on the other hand, is more an attendant spirit to a church yard and protector of the grounds from evil, and can appear either as humanoid or canine figures.

Dogs aren’t alone in this though, as the UK has a large number of Phantom Cats, which are believed to be like panthers skulking through moors and fields hunting on livestock. Though, some believe that there are actual real big cats in the UK, but that these have been released from private collections. Typically, they’ll earn the name “Beast of [place]”, such as Exmoor, Bodmin Moor and Riber.

Most other folklore tales that feature fearsome creatures or ghosts are usually used as a warning to children or an explanation to certain strange occurrences or noises. Though there are some that exist, the lack of great foreboding forests of tall, sharp trees - such as one may find in Germanic or Scandinavian regions - makes it quite obvious that our number would be lower for these creatures.

Instead, a large part of UK folklore comes from Pagan and Druidic beliefs, focused around fertility and harvests, which brings traditions of Morris Dancing and Maypoles to events even to this day. These beliefs also provide characters, such as the Green Man, which although it seemed to start as a head surrounded by foliage, has been merged with the May Day character Jack in the Green to make him seem more like a full-bodied earth elemental, trickster and fertility symbol.

A lot of folklore for the UK, in particular England, comes from legendary explanations of sites of interests, such as standing stones and geologic features. There was a practice during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages to form standing stones in countryside, and stories were often attributed to mystical means of their placement - such as tales of people turned to stone or the devil himself throwing huge stone arrows that buried deep in to the ground. Even place names can feature elements of folkloric reference, such as Goblin Combe (where pixies kidnap children who pick primroses).

Witchcraft plays an important role in some of the UK folklore, as it does throughout most of Europe. There are certain characters who manage to fill bogeyman roles as witches. Black Annis of Leicestershire, for example, is a blue-faced crone with iron claws and a taste for flesh who goes out onto the glens at night looking for unsuspecting children and lambs to eat, then hang their skins around her waist.

The most common use of bogeyman and witch warning is towards the dangers of riverways and standing bodies of water, with the likes of Jenny Greenteeth, Peg Powler and Grindylows as traditional scare tactics. Peg and Jenny share a common appearance of green skin, sharp teeth and long hair, and all are said to reside in the water, ready to pull children in and drown them, though Jenny will also attack the elderly and Peg tends to focus on naughty children. Grindylows, which were softened by the Harry Potter series, would actually eat children instead of drown them.

Not all malevolent water creatures were ugly though, the Morgens of Wales were creatures not unlike the Sirens of Greek mythology. Eternally young, the creatures were said to lure men to their death with their beauty or with glimpses of underwater gardens.

An additional witch story, that I’d like to add here because I had a tour of it in primary school, is the Witch of Wookey Hole. The Witch of Wookey Hole is a stalagmite in the first chamber of the Wookey Hole show caves. The stalagmite was allegedly originally a witch who frequently curses budding relationships after she was jilted, her downfall came when she cursed the romance between a Glastonbury man and a girl from Wookey, the man became a monk and seeking revenge tips a bucket of holy water on her head, petrifying her.

English witch folklore has also been used to great, though not necessarily good, effect on other cultures. If you are familiar with the concept of Voodoo, then you are likely also familiar with the traditional Voodoo doll. No, actually you probably aren’t. You see, European witchcraft used small dolls called poppets to curse and cause harm, whereas Voodoo practices used Bocheos effigies and pegs for healing energies. However, Christian missionaries decided they’d much prefer for Voodoo to be evil and hex-making, so they applied European witchcraft to local beliefs. Though it’s spread may have something to do with its ability to intimidate superstitious slave-holders.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

This is the post dedicated to Dio after her win in the Easter Egg Hunt. Her chosen topic was: “I think you’ll know what I like (and no I don’t mean furry smut, kthxbye).” Yeah, that was a major cop out right there, everybody noticed it, right?

Of the subjects that I know Dio is fairly passionate about, there can be no mistaking her love of folklore, in particular ghost stories, and the cute Loli’s and Shota’s of the world. Now, I could ramble on about Casper the Friendly Ghost, but I think that would be rather lacking of interest - primarily because I’m not very fond of Casper. But something that has become quite clear is also her enjoyment of sweet things, like desserts. Desserts, and food in general, is a subject quite close to my heart; being that a lot of it’s side effects are probably chilling out on my arteries.

Where am I going with this? Well, what happens if you add desserts, children and folklore together? No, besides Hansel and Gretel.

That’s right, you get dead, fat children who just will not stay buried!

Of my favourite ‘dead fat juvenile creatures of the night’ comes the Japanese Konaki-jijii and the Scandinavian Myling or Utburd, both of which share a similar story and modus operandi.

Besides the name and basic background, I couldn’t find much background about the Konaki-jijii on the internet, it does appear to be one of the lesser documented parts of Japanese folklore, losing out to the more cinematically-successful creatures.

The Konaki-jijii, which means “crying old baby”, is the corporeal spirit of a baby who was abandoned and left to die in the woods. Konaki-jijii would lure people with the sound of its crying, while they were travelling the woods. If the person who finds the baby picks it up to stop it from crying, they would become unable to let go of it. Once held, the Konaki-jijii would suddenly become so heavy that it would crush the person lifting it.

As a side note, and in explaination to the “old” portion of the name, it is said that the baby has the face of an old man. Although, I contend that most babies have that wrinkled rubber face that befalls old men and Yoda. In fact, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman drew the best comparrison, with identifying babies as smaller versions of Sir Winston Churchill.

Searching for Mylings, however, bought up the expected wealth of information, and variants on the story. Among variants include that the creatures exist in bogs and moors to drown travellers, which I think is probably a more modern take on the sinking concept to aid more rational minds, and that they were often seeking vengence (often without a target) and so would be deliberate in killing.

Mylings are corporeal spirits of unbaptized or murdered children, with the Utburd alternative name meaning “that which is taken outside” in reference to unwanted children being abandoned and left to die in woods or other areas. Because the children were not given a Christian burial, they were believed to be unable to enter Heaven, and so these child ghosts would then haunt the place where they had died.

The Mylings’ hauntings would try to attract people to the area, so that they could try to persuade someone to bury them properly on sacred ground. Persuade is probably a generous term, as most of the stories I’ve come across tend to have the little darlings chase wanderers at night and jump on their backs, screeching a demand to be carried to the nearest graveyard.

The Mylings weren’t successful though, as mylings could often be enormous, and were said to grow increasingly heavier as they neared the graveyard, to the point where the person carrying them would begin to sink into the soil from the weight. When a person began to sink and unable to continue - and, indeed, if they were not crushed first - the Myling would ferociously tear apart them in rage.

Now, I know that this may seem a bit hard to think of in a world of science and visuals, so I’ve scoured YouTube to try and find the best way to show you what this would be like. Now, anyone who has had or given a piggyback or horsey ride will know that it can be a fun and enjoyable experience. If it’s with children, then it can be quite touching and a bonding experience, and if with a young adult then it can be cute and carefree - if you are still in college, go grab some friends and have a piggyback joust, purposefully crash too.

An encounter with a Myling or Konaki-jijii, however, will go from something sweet and inncocent, like this:

to, mere moments later, carrying this on your shoulders:

This is why monsters, particularly juvenile ones, should learn that cookies are a sometimes food.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

Since I was a little kid I can remember my mum making us bread and butter pudding for dessert; not to be confused with bread pudding which is more cakey.

The bread pudding recipe seemingly passed down from her mother and with very little change, at times it seemed like they were still following ration book provisions of flavour and taste. The thing is, although it was a staple of growing up, and was a very economical dessert, there was no escaping that it tasted like a milky squishy bread under a hard bread, with dried fruit inside.

Bread and butter pudding is supposed to be easy and simple. It’s bread, butter, dried fruit, and a mixture of sugar, milk and egg.

Now, at times I can be quite inventive, and more often than not I can be lazy and cheap. I realised that sugar, milk and egg is custard; a very milky bland custard, but custard none-the-less. So, if I want to make a bread and butter pudding, surely I can substitute milky custard for ready-made custard, and benefit from vanilla flavouring?

Seriously, how hard can it be?

Cooking With Guise - Bread and Butter Pudding (Cheating!)

 

I wasn’t going to go overboard on ingredients or expense, because I was being very cheap. I pretty much went for the lowest common denominators of what was available at my local supermarket and what I had in the cupboards at home:

• Stay Fresh White Bread (I used about 12 slices in all)

• Butter (I used Light butter, because I’m big enough, sadly)

• Dried Fruit (raisins, sultanas, dried lemon rind - all from cupboards store)

• Ground Cinnamon (cupboard)

• Ground Nutmeg (cupboard)

• Ready-made Custard (I used 2 tins of cheap, but I’d highly consider low fat)

The first step was also the most time consuming, buttering the damn bread. Now, I like to use a back-forward sweeping motion that I was taught. When I was first learning to butter bread, I met up with an old frenchman who worked as a janitor in our apartment block, I asked him to train me and he started to show me how to do all these martial arts moves like blocking and chopping actions, turns out that it was his way of teaching me his culinary arts.

After spreading the butter evenly over the bread, you must focus your energies and with deft strokes remove the crust from the slices, and then as you would a foe, quarter or cut to ribbons the remaining body. You should lay his body in to a shallow grave, or create a layer of buttered bread at the base of a container. It’s best to use a square or rectangular container to get a tighter fit.

On the first layer, I sprinkled a generous helping of cinnamon and nutmeg, and those really help the flavour after the creaminess of the custard. After the sprinkling, scatter a handful of dried fruit.

For the glory of victory, you should rest upon your first victim and additional body, laying out an additional floor of buttered bread. I left a few gaps in this layer, to allow the custard to seep through. On this layer, just add the dried fruit, as you don’t want to overpower with spices.

As a final message that you mean seriousness, apply a top body, or final bread layer. You can choose whether or not to scatter fruit here, though I chose not to.

Now, pour the custard in to either a microwavable jug or a saucepan and heat that goo up until it’s very hot and extremely liquidy; the closer you can get it to a free-flowing state the better - though avoid burning it or bubbling over. Pour this custard directly over the bread grave, making sure that it flows through to the lower regions and covers the top evenly.

If you have any custard remaining, eat it. Seriously, custard is freaking delicious.

Store the mixture somewhere cool to set for between 15-45 minutes, depending on distractions. Then put it in the oven on a medium heat for about 30 minutes or until the top starts to carmelize.

You can either serves this hot (as I did) or let it cool and set to enjoy later.

Now, it didn’t quite come out as combined as my mum makes, I could have done with leaving a few more gaps and getting the custard more spread throughout the mixture, I guess. However, there was a lot more flavour in it, from the spices and vanilla of the custard, which made it very creamy. Overall, it went down well amongst myself, a brother and even my mum.

I’m domesticated a bit more though, and it cost me very little to make, seeing as I had most ingredients left over afterwards.

 

Bonus! Bonus! Bonus!

While shopping today, I came across something that I had to buy, try and photograph, despite my assertions that Easter was done. I found Cadbury’s Creme Egg Ice Cream Bar (and I spent ages trying to find out if it was properly a lolly, a popsicle, or what it was).

The ice cream bar is a lot like a Magnum; thin, cracking chocolate around an ice cream block. In this instance though, the block contains a white vanilla ice cream bit and yellow fondant-flavoured ice cream bit, which actually makes it taste quite like a very cold  creme egg.

Have to admit, I prefer it to the McFlurry version.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

I thought it would be interesting to look at the things I learnt and how things developed during my multitude of Easter posts, mainly in explanation, apology and to avoid having to write about chocolate again. Hopefully, this may be of insight in to how my mind works and might be a slight muse to someone in the future.

I wear the ears, the ears do not wear me.

The rabbit ears, I decided early on - even before I started the Easter 2008 entries - would be a constant throughout the Easter entries. I wanted something to show that there was an ongoing theme to make the entries special, also I hoped that they might distract people to focusing on that par of my photographs.

I bought the ears (which are actually Donkey from Shrek ears, but are more hare like to me) before Christmas, thanks to inspiration from Matt at X-Entertainment, his character of Hssxxlllo Ussall and the likes of Dio and Kittymao who fed me with inspiration and art about the character and others.

I like to think having the rabbit ears adds to the photographs, so instead of just boring photographs of someone eating and showing chocolate, there is a little bit of humour involved.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually have giant ears sticking from the top of my head, nor do I need glasses constantly. Unfortunately, as I’d taken the first photographs with my glasses on, it became necessary in my editorial continuity mindset to keep that trend.

Arrgh! The horror! The ungodly horror!Making chocolate say “Cheese!”I really hadn’t intended to cover so much chocolate and candy in such a short space of time, in fact, I hadn’t really intended to cover that much candy period. The problem I had was that if I identified only a few products, I’d feel let down that I didn’t do the rest. I’m fairly satisfied now that I did such a large cross-section.

I knew that if I wrote about them, I’d have difficulty actually making a review. I’m fairly concise about whether I like or loathe something, so I reckoned that at most I’d probably squeeze two paragraphs out of each product, and most of that would be description. With that in mind, I decided to make each entry about multiple candies and place against each other in terms of taste, nausea inducement and/or value.

These scales are completely arbitary and don’t even work against each other, the value of small mini eggs against larger eggs just doesn’t scale the same. However, it did help me to get across concisely the level of my enjoyment or disgust, while being able to post within my reviewing ability level.

Taking photographs of candy is hard, especially trying to show a fair scale for size comparison. I tried to keep in the same position and distances for photographs, but it wasn’t always possible. Details and decals on white chocolate is also a huge imbuggerance to try to take photographs of, the surface being highly reflective when using flash and highly blurred when not. 

It is only wafer thin

The problem with reviewing chocolate is that you have to purchase and eat the chocolate. I’m lucky on two fronts there, family will still buy me candy if I look pathetic enough and athough I don’t have a social circle, I do have a brother that I can share my candy with to prevent me from exploding. Quite a lot of the additional items, for example the small Creme Eggs from the multi-bag, were passed over after I’d had my test victim.

The few eggs I’ve had were quite enough.

History and Myths

To me, things from my childhood amuse and interest me as much these days as back then. I still dislike scarecrows, love the concept of Halloween and think as highly of the notion of cosplay as I did of play-acting in my back garden. As such, I wanted to share them and hopefully amuse others in the process, and one of the things I’ve learnt is that you can always find something from childhood to talk about that either someone else will recognise themselves or will appreciate the thought.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to cover the mythology that my mind had crafted for the Easter Bunny over the years. Stories of the bunnies sacrifice had gotten me told off in school and received stern looks or rolled eyes from the parents of my friends during my youth. I’d always tried to place how Easter Bunnies grew up, could be small rabbits or giant Furries, and how different types of Easter Eggs came about, and later in my life had begun to appreciate bunnygirls and cosplayers.

This all harks back to thematic linking, I wanted to establish that I wasn’t just blogging about chocolate, but about Easter chocolate. This is why I tried to ensure a reference to the Easter Bunny in entries and kept the ears.

A bridge too far

Of course, in addition to the standard mythology, somewhere along the way I lost the plot.. To be more accurate, I found a different, seedier plot. Although it had been my intention to infer that breeding causing the egg flavouring, I had no intention from the outset to write such indepth tales of bunny love, and I didn’t expect them to be as easy to write as they were.

I don’t usually talk freely about that sort of thing, unless directly to someone I trust and value highly. Although I tend to be a terrible flirt and have twisted humour, I’m actually fairly bashful about the subject. I do believe though that there are three me’s, and one of them is a hyperactive monkey with poorly controlled lust issues, that Guise tends to write things that I then feel extremely embarrassed and guilty about. Luckily, I don’t think I offended anyone too badly, and I’m quite happy that I reached the compromise of protecting entries rather than running an edit of them. 

Communication

One of the most valuable things that I’ve had over this period, which I think anyone who writes should cherish, is communication. People who have chatted here have been major sources of inspiration and motivation, and had it not been for that support I probably would have lost the will to continue writing these things up. Ideas can often spring up from comments and you can learn a lot from others. The key here, appreciate those around you, engage with them and you’ll find yourself rewarded and stimulated.

The entry you didn’t see

Yes, there was a deleted scene. I hoped to do a Cooking with Guise episode again, which if you’ve seen the archives you’ll know is usually me attempting to cook and the majority of the time succeeding to some extent.

I had intended to make Baked Eggs for Easter Sunday, unfortunately what I created was solid milky egg with a burnt top, burnt sides and burnt bottom. Only the yolk was really edible, and photographs just showed blackness.

As I couldn’t really describe it for a review or recommend the recipe, I decided to skip the entry entirely.

Hope you all had a great Easter and thank you for your support!

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

Throughout their life an Easter Bunny faces many changes to their size and appearance, going through a form of metamorphisis from tiny chocolate figure to anthromorphic representation of the Great Bunny. During all the stages, they remain a treat to taste and a glory to behold. In the name of SCIENCE and better understanding, and through the glory of internet searching, I have been able to produce an illustrated guide to the stages of Easter Bunny life.

The stages are not based overly on age, more a level of maturity and desire to develop, some bunnies prefer to remain in certain stages for lengthened periods by choice.

It should be noted that both genders of Easter Bunny are able to produce and lay eggs, the method is a prized secret and not often discussed outside of bunnidom.

New Born Bunnies

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Once bunnies hatch from the Easter eggs they are very susceptible to predators, most dangerous of which is the Human child. At this stage the bunnies are barely aware of their surroundings or their heritage, and will hop freely around without a care. Bunnies at this stage of development bear similarities to normal rabbits, only they are made of chocolate and much smaller.New born bunnies are not capable of laying eggs and do not have the desire to procreate.

Four-Footed Stage

Click for full size imageThe four footed stage takes place after hatching and while the Easter Bunny remains in traditional rabbit form, their size can greatly increase to exceed those of even a giant pet rabbit, and several anthromorphic traits (such as smiles, eye shape and fashion sense) may develop. It is not unusual for Easter Bunnies in the four footed stage to lay eggs, however these will mostly be miniscule in size and consist almost entirely of plain chocolate.

The Two Footed Stage

Bunnies in the two-footed stage have begun to take a more anthromorphic state, often hopping or prancing about on their hindlegs whilst using their front paws to perform manual dexterous tasks, such as carry baskets or tying ribbons. Bunnies in this stage will begin to care more for their appearance, adopting Human-like apparrel. Two-footed bunnies often act child-like, seeming to be of a cute playful character. Eggs laid during this stage tend to be slightly larger, and because of their increasing closeness to the Great Bunny, will sometimes be brightly decorated.

From this stage, all Easter Bunnies are expected to help in the scattering of Easter Eggs throughout the world.

The Developing Bunny

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Sometimes known as the Bunnygirl or Bunnyboy, the developing bunny is slowly going through stages of metamorphisis to take a more human-like appearance. They will typically go through stages of development akin to the growth cycle of a human, but at varying rates and with the ability to control pausing of development - though not reversal. As the bunny develops, it is not uncommon for the main body fur to decrease or disappear, leaving only the cottontail and ears, and at the same time facial features will appear more human-like and paws may develop in to hands and feet.The developing bunny is the most aware of their appearance and sensuality, they will often try to emulate desirable fashions and looks held by Humans. As they become more self-aware, they also begin increased sexual experimentation and egg-laying. An Easter Bunny may have several dozen partners in a given season and lay multiple hundred eggs, these eggs gain flavour and extras through the mixing of partners and new eggs are created inside the bunny for every passionate encounter - even self-passion.

A recent advent to bunnidom has been the creation of devices to assist in experimentation without procreation. Although this is generally frowned on by the more senior Easter Bunnies, advocates for the method say that it allows for the better mixing of flavours without unwanted examples. A common side effect is that eggs that are created by the encounter, although remaining miniature, can often be flavoured and recieve scaled extras similar to the standard eggs.

Virginal Easter Bunnies will continue to lay miniature eggs or larger, hollow eggs. Eggs bought about by means of self-passion with devices can often contain small plastic toys or playful statuettes. The developing bunny is able to lay eggs that will hatch in to a future generation of Easter Bunny.

The Avatar Bunny

Click for full size imageAs an Easter Bunny reaches the end of their life cycle they tend to regress in appearance, remaining a humanoid size and shape but returning to the features of a rabbit. Their body fur will generally grow back over their body, but usually in a snowy white coat.

During this stage, the Easter Bunny will often not procreate outside of Bunnidum. Put bluntly, encounters with non-Bunnies will often end with an external moneyshot. As a result the Avatar Bunny’s eggs are usually hollow and accompanied with a seperate gift of a lover. The Avatar Bunny is mainly responsible for laying eggs which will hatch future Easter Bunnies and to teach younger bunnies about their faith, cultural and interpersonal relations.

On a final note, for Easter I got a Maltesers Easter Egg (large egg with bag of Maltesers), a 5 pack of Fun Galore, a bag of Galaxy Eggs, a bag of Lindt Lindor Eggs, a pack of two small Lindt bunnies with two Lindt mini eggs, and a Large Lindt Golden Bunny.

Click for full size image

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

“Ugh,” thought the young Easter Bunny as he snuck through the untidy flat of a rather cheap blogger, “why can the ones without their own gardens at least put up a flower box outside to make this job easier.”Muttering and twitching his nose, he crept in to the bloggers bedroom and scanned around for a likely spot to hide his treasures, his keen carrot-enhanced eyes zooming from untidy pile of clean t-shirts to crudely stacked boxes of books. In the bed, half revealed by ruckled duvet, the blogger murmured groggily in his sleep about the evils of chocolate and a crippling, dying feeling in his gut.</p>

The bunny hopped over to the blogger’s wardrobe and smirked. He placed the eggs about the area and then bent over to ruffle the sleeping figures hair. He rubbed his nose against the sleeper in an eskimo kiss and hopped off.

Its Easter morning and the Bunny has been, so my friends I intend to the share the wealth with a little game of Easter Egg Hunt. The Bunny left me ten eggs overnight, however, one may have hatched in to a new Easter Bunny, see if you can spot them and you can win a (admitedly lame) prize!

How To Play:
* Download or copy the picture and mark on the picture the location of all nine (9) Easter Eggs and one (1) Easter Bunny.
* Email the marked picture to me at guise@1me.net
* Winners will be emailed back so that they can claim their prize.
* Entrants must be received by 06:00GMT Thursday 27 March 2008.

(Lame) Prize Details:
* For all winners, I will write an entry based on a subject or question you pose to me, although the following rules apply:
- Claims can be made anytime before 1 April 2008, to allow thinking time.
- I will name the person who made the request.
- I reserve the right to answer the request in a “Log In Required” entry depending on nature.
- Subjects needn’t be about Easter as it is nearly over, feel free to think outside the box to any subjects you are interested in.
- Please, for the love of the Bunny, do not get me to eat any more chocolate. I’m seriously on the verge of throwing up now!
- I’d love to have the right not to incriminate myself too badly on highly questionable (il)legal stuff, if you don’t mind. (If you really want an answer to those questions, ask me directly!)
* For the first winner, the same rules as above apply, but they get to submit TWO suggestions or questions.

Ok, so the prize is basically the meme going around about writing outside of your comfort zone, but I like to make things a bit quirky.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

Overnight, all around the globe, the final layings and dispatch of the Easter Bunnies will take place. There will be hopping through hedgerow and flowerbed, garden and garage, as the cottonbummed descendents of the Great Bunny scatter their basketfuls of eggs. Some of these eggs will hatch over night, releasing a new generation of Easter Bunnies who will one day take up the full mantle, other eggs will remain for children and child-like adults to discover and eat (or indeed over-eat) with much glee.

Christmas may be about scoring and giving presents, Valentines about stalking and giving things that people may be allergic to (chocolate, flowers, wasp venom cocktails) and Halloween may be about ghost stories and scoring candy, but it is Easter that is all in your face about chocolates, bunnies, sacrifice and procreation. The Easter Bunny is the party animal that has always ensured that the cycle of seasons remains intact and that the circle of life is more than just a Disney song.

At this time of year, it is the rabbit who rules the animal kingdom, not from Pride Rock or a jungle ruin, but from a clover field. It is therefore only right that the bunny is given his due respect above other animals by the race of man.

For years, Cadbury’s Animal biscuits have been a staple party and ’sometimes food’ for children. Within the ‘Cadbury purple’ reside animal-shaped shortbread biscuits coated with a layer of milk chocolate on one side - notably the flat, featurelss side.

The main players of the zoo and safari industry have commonly been represented in biscuity form, with almost constant appearances from elephant, monkey, lion, tiger, hippo and seal. At Easter time, the lucky footed, heroic hopper doesn’t get included amongst the riff-raff, he gets rewarded with his own box.

Click on thumbnails for full size imagesFrom what I’ve seen throughout the box, there are four basic shapes of bunny, with some more liable to chip than others because of jutting out appendages.

The biscuits in the Cadbury Bunnies box are marginally larger than the standar Animal biscuits, but otherwise they are the same thing. They have the familiar taste of slightly buttery shortbread biscuits and the same Cadburys milk chocolate layer, all of which brings back memories of nibbling on biscuits and sorting out order of eating.

Heck, just opening the box and white inner bag, getting the first sniff of butter and chocolate, is enough to make me harken back to days of minty green school custard, neon bermuda shorts and trying to convince parents that SodaStreams were something worthwhile despite all readily-available and demonstratable evidence to the contrary. To be honest, I’m now actually longing for that custard again, I’ll skip on the whole bermuda shorts deal, I must have looked a complete doof in the whole handed-down ensemble.

The Bunnies have a really nice, brightly coloured box which immediately caught my eye in the shops and made me desperately want a pack. Not only that, but there is a rather nifty ‘Colour In’ picture on the back that also doubles as a ‘Find The Egg’ game.

If you want, you can spend a few minutes colouring it in. Don’t worry, I shalln’t tell anyone!

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

I’ve recently covered toy eggs and miniature eggs, so really the only way is to increase size from there. Now, I’m not going to roll out the large scale Easter Eggs, unless, by some surprise I actually end up with some tomorrow, but I am going to go to the next size up. These are the eggs that are from developing Easter Bunnies, the coming-of-age rabbits who are starting to frolic and come to terms with flavouring and laying eggs.

My choice is slightly limited for simple, fairly small eggs. Easter Eggs tend to go from diddy to fist-sized or bigger, skipping the mid-range to allow Creme Eggs and their ilk to take over, but I’ve got a few and a variant of a loved kids classic to experiment with.

For SCIENCE!

Bon Bon Buddies ‘Eggie’ in Scooby Doo design

Click on thumbnail to view full size imageAh, the inevitable return of the previously disqualified, toyless eggie. The Scooby Doo egg is exactly the same as the Dora egg, the same size, taste and even foil. The only real difference is that the box has Scooby on it and a maze game, which I still hold that Dora should have had. It’s not exactly bang for your buck when you can get a Mars Egg or a toy egg for about the same price.

Taste: 3.5/5
Value: 1/5

Nestle Smarties ‘Shakers’ Egg

Click on thumbnail to view full size imageThe main selling point of the ‘Shakers’ egg is that as well as having an easter egg, you have small treats loose inside that give a nice rattling sound when you shake it. Noise, chocolate and shiny packaging, they know kids.

The egg is very much like the Rolo egg shell, a textured pattern with the Nestle logo, but when you bite through it you only get the taste of solid milk chocolate without mixing with toffee. This was actually a vast improvement and the chocolate was quite tasty.

Inside the egg were several micro-Smarties, only a fraction of the size of Smarties but they were as tasty as the full-size and remarkably different from the Smarties Mini Eggs. This re-established my faith in Nestle to sometimes get things right.

Taste: 3.75/5
Value: 3.5/5

Nestle Milky Bar ‘Shakers’ Egg

Click on thumbnail to view full size imageAfter the Milky Bar Minis I was a bit worried about this one.

The egg shell is the same pattern as the Rolo and Smarties, but is made of solid creamy white chocolate, which tasted just like a real Milky Bar, just thicker. The insides were full of small puffed rice crispies in a white chocolate shell, just like having a rice crispies cake!

This was a far cry from the disaster that was the Milky Bar Minis, I actually fancied another afterwards.

Taste: 3.75/5
Value: 3.5/5

Woolworths Easter Egg Hunt Eggs

Click on thumbnail to view full size imageI suppose it comes to something when you label a product “easter hunt milk chocolate shapes”, as if the idea of refering to them as eggs would be misrepresentation or some form of discriminatory remark. You get ten in a pack, which is quite good, and only one of them was shattered by the time it got home. This one would be my sacrificial taste test, while the others would actually be used.

To be honest, the chocolate isn’t that bad for cheap eggs, it’s very much the taste of Generic Supermarket Brand where everything is made by the numbers. It isn’t especially milky, but at the same rate it isn’t dark or plain, so it balances out. There is a definate taste of chocolate and as the shell is fairly thin it isn’t a lingering taste.

If you were after just something to give kids so that they had a plentiful supply this would most likely be it.

Taste: 3.1/5
Value: 3.5/5 (You can pick up a bag of ten (125g pack) for the price of two Eggies (20g each))

Cadburys Easter Tea Cake - ok, it isn’t an egg…

Click on thumbnail to view full size imageNot to be confused with the teacake bun or, in the US, cookie served alongside tea; this is a variant of the tea cake (note the space). A normal tea cake is a small round shortbread biscuit covered, sometimes with a splodge of jam on top, with a dome of either whipped egg white or marshmallow (depending on producer) and thenencased in a very fine layer of chocolate.

This Easter Tea Cake contains a splodge of orange jam on the biscuit (a biscuit that has been made with chocolate in the mix), a dome of marshmallow and a fine layer of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. Obviously, that’s supposed to be an egg, I guess.

You get ten in a pack and they are exceptionally scrummy.

Taste: 3.5/5
Value: 3.5/5

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

Today is Good Friday. Now, I’ve never really understood where the idea of nailing some pretty cheerful, kind-hearted person on a cross was ever considered ‘Good’, I reckon if you asked the person being staked they’d probably call it “A Bit of A Pisser”, and we’d be observing “A Bit Of A Pisser Friday”. Shops would be closed and people would probably get more in the spirit of mourning.

“Hey, you’re nailed to a cross, but cheer up, they’ve decided to call it ‘Good Friday” for you!”
“Have they, how feckin’ spiffy…get me down you bastards!”

But, Good Friday really marks the first of the proper days of Easter and is the scene of the fateful day that kick-started celebrations and, more importantly for this post, the traditions of Friday food.

It works like this, on “Bit of a Pisser Friday” the mortal form of the Great Bunny was visited by some right gits who dragged from his warren, took him up to the top of a hill and then staked him to a cross. This was addressed before, here.

This part of the story is where the first of the traditional food items comes in: the hot cross bun.

Click on thumbnails to view full size imageThe hot cross bun is a sweet, spiced roll filled with currants and topped with a cross-shape, made from dough, icing or various other methods. The bun itself represents the hill that the bunny was forced to hop up carrying his load, the cross represents the structure his ears were nailed to, and the currants represent that he was quite scared.

In eating these symbolic buns we are freeing the bunny from his torment, removing his bondage, his solitude and the remnants of his fears. Hot Cross Buns can also be eaten with butter to represent the bunny’s sweetness, and the currants can sometimes be found to have been replaced by chocolate chips.

After the bunny was nailed to the cross, the builders, his friends and his followers waited with him; though admittedly the builders stayed because they were being paid by the hour and only had to hammer in two nails. After a while they all pretty much ran out of things to say - the bunny himself wasn’t really in to the spirit of talking about what everyone thought that hot little hare was going to wear to Spring Dance - and it was getting late, they’d all missed their dinners and it was getting close to supper anyway.

This is where the second vital feasting tradition takes place: fish and chips from the takeaway.

Click on thumbnails to view full size imageThe congragation on the hill decided to head back down to the local chippy, where the majority ordered fish and chips - a few moaned that fish didn’t really agree with them and they instead opted for the jumbo battered sausage or fried chicken. Up on the hill, a few solitary squirrels heard the bunny mutter “Fish and chips? Fish and chips? I’d bloody love some damn fish and chips tonight, you gits!”

When the squirrels would tell, after the bunny’s fate was decided, that his last request of a meal was a portion of fish and chips, it became a staple food of his following and pilgrimages would take place ever Bit of a Pisser Friday to buy a portion to consume on his behalf; sacrificing the food through themselves to his immortal spirit.

Now, it wasn’t until later years that the first pickled egg came about from later generations of Easter Bunnies, and has since been emulated by the race of man.

Click on thumbnails to view full size imagePickled Eggs were unique among Easter Bunnies, as they were always laid after Easter. The eggs after Easter were usually, having exhausted all the sweetness and joy in the true Easter Eggs, and they were all pretty shagged out to be fair to the little guys.

In order to unwind, several bunnies started to host post-Easter parties, where the bunnies that survived the Easter could get together to enjoy copious amounts of alcohol, play pool, sing at karaoke, eat coleslaw and engage in hunny-bunny relations if they felt up to it. The eggs over the following days would come about as if they’d been swimming in the alcohol the bunnies consumed, the end result was hard boiled eggs that tasted slightly vinegary - though in extreme cases of bunny lushes, sometimes a soft boiled egg would be cracked open to find a cognac yolk swimming in high proof Vodka.

Nowadays, humanised versions are created when someone just leaves hard boiled eggs in a jar vinegar for too long.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog

Mini Eggs are like the quail eggs of the candy egg world, small and flavoursome, but only as filling in vast quantities.

What most people don’t know is that the mini egg is actually a pre-maturely laid Easter Egg, one that has not had the necessary interpersonal interaction to make it full of sweet flavour. Mini Eggs tend to be laid by the very young and virginal Easter Bunnies, the shy or the seriously ugly bunny.

Because of the voracious breeding of Easter Bunnies, there are a lot of young bunnies born each year who do not make it all the way through the following few generations, but they are still capable of laying eggs - this is why mini eggs can be found in such great quantities.Due to the advent of proper protection for casual egg making in the bunny kingdom, some eggs may still get a hint of additional sweetness and taste through interaction, without actually fully developing, as such the range of eggs has steadily increased over the years.

For science, I shall raid the basket and sample from this range! (Though, not in vast quantities, this isn’t mad science!)

Cadbury Mini Eggs
(Available in Tube or Bag)
Click on thumbnail to see full size imageThese are the mini eggs that most people tend to think about. The shell pattern with pastel colours and brown spots is reminiscent of a quails egg and they are quite recognisable against imitation, from colour, texture and taste.Mini Eggs have a crisp sugar coating around a solid milk chocolate filling. This gives them a slight crunchy and then the melting creaminess within.

Taste: 4/5
Value: 4/5

Cadbury Creme Egg Minis

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageNo, I’m not talking about the decreasingly small stature of Creme Eggs in the US as compared to the UK version, but the actual real mini egg versions. At least, I thought I was, I can’t be sure!You see, I was very surprised when I opened the fairly small bag of eggs, I had expected individually wrapped tiny eggs, with just a tiny squirt - at most a squit of fondant inside. Instead I find five eggs, that are each about a third of the size of a Creme Egg. The shell bares the normal circles of a creme egg and features a smaller star and the Cadbury logo.

The fondant is quite a bit sharper than usual, and seems to be a think orange colour throughout.

Also available: Cadbury Caramel Mini Eggs. Yus.

Taste: 4.25/5
Value: 4/5

Terry’s Chocolate Orange Mini Eggs

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageTerry’s Chocolate Orange is usually considered a Christmas treat, but usually is not the same as always.The Chocolate Orange eggs are about twice or thrice the size of a Mini Egg, but smaller than a Creme Egg Mini. They are each individually wrapped with very shiny orange foil. The egg itself is a solid chocolate shell, with a textured pattern resembling the surface of an orange segment, with an inner layer of solid milk chocolate with orange flavouring.

The orange flavouring itself is not too strong, but still comparable with the full size chocolate oranges.

Taste: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5

Nestle Milky Bar Mini Eggs
(Available in Tube or Bag)

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageMilky Bar is a white chocolate bar, usually bought by parents for small children as it is much smaller than other chocolate bars and has a creamier taste. Most UK kids of my generation (which, I’m constantly reminded is actually old) grew up on Milky Bars and will always remember the Milky Bar Kid as the blond haired, bespectacled do-gooder who called out “The Milky Bars are on me!”.The Milky Bar eggs are directly comparable to Carburys Mini Eggs, the size of egg is about equal but the tube is a bit longer allowing to fit more inside. The shell is solid candy coating in plain white around a solid white chocolate inside. Truth be told, this actually detracted from the taste and texture of the egg, as Milky Bar is meant to be creamy and soft, so a candy coating got in the way. A better version would have simply been solid chocolate egg.

Taste: 3/5
Value: 3/5 (Bigger tube, but of bland candy)

Nestle Smarties Mini Eggs
(Available in Tube or Bag)

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageNot to be mistaken for the US Ce De Candy fruit-flavoured candy; Smarties in the UK are disc-like candy coated chocolate, more similar to M&Ms though of a larger design.Smaries eggs are another Mini Egg that is directly comparable to Cadburys, more so than the Milky Bar eggs, because these are coloured shells around milk chocolate. The taste is similar to the tast of normal Smarties, a crunch of sugar and milk chocolate, but the flaw is that nestle have never really made milky brown chocolate that tastes quite like one would hope. The chocolate isn’t plain or dark, it’s just rather bland and tastes too much of shell.

It’s still better than the Milky Bar Eggs though.

Taste: 3.25/5
Value: 3/5

Mars Mini Eggs

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageSo, I reviewed the full size Mars Egg the other day and decreed it to kick ass in a very big way, whatever could I expect from a mini Mars?Holy sweet Bunny on a Cross! The mini egg truly is a scaled down version of the Mars Egg, right down to having a fluffy nougat half and a caramel half. The shell is thick enough to be solid and chocolatey, and the indide fluffy and creamy. To take the LOLcat expression, “nums!”. You get over a dozen in a bag, all individually wrapped and even the wrapper and bag kicks ass in looking sophistimacated and smexy.

Taste: 4.5/5
Value: 4.5/5

Galaxy Mini Eggs

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageGalaxy is the true smexy of chocolate, it has a silky smooth texture and creamy taste. Galaxy chocolate, as I have shared to young Dio, is the closest you can get to a bar of chocolate having a very moist orgasm in your mouth, without actually slathering someone in chocolate and roleplaying as Wonka. It is just the glorious.Last year, not only did I have my first Galaxy Mini Egg, but I went so far as to post someone several packs so that they could enjoy the mouthfuck (Gasp, apologies for language). To say I was looking forward to their return is an understatement. Individually wrapped, solid, thick, creamy, silky Galaxy.

That’s it, nothing fancy, just bite size Galaxy in a wrapper. By the Cottonbum of the Great One, NUMS!

Taste: 4.75/5
Value: 4.5/5

Mars and Friends Mini Eggs

Click on thumbnail to see full size imageAre you ready? The Mars Corporation has decided it doesn’t just want to mouthfuck you but offer you a reach-around.Take the nums of a Mars mini, the mouthfuck of the Galaxy Mini and then add in the crisp honeycomb pieces of Maltesers Teasers (not proper maltesers!) and the soft tenderness of the Milky Way (similar to 3 Muskateers, apparently).

Ok, so really they’ve just taken their Celebration pack and made a few of them egg shaped, and to be honest the Teasers and Milky Way are let downs. The Maltesers are more crunchy than crispy, as the honey comb pieces are biscuity, and the Milky Way nougat is very sweet compared to the other eggs. But you do get the Mars and Galaxy together!

Taste: 4/5 (The two additionals bought the score down)
Value: 4.5/5 (If you want a range of tastes and textures, this is your bag)

Kinder Bites and Kinder Bueno Bites

Unfortunately, I can’t actually provide a review for these, as they were so exceptionally expensive, that I just couldn’t afford them. Despite being mostly aimed towards children, the price puts them on the luxury side of the market.

What I can tell you is that no toys come inside these eggs. The Kinder eggs are chocolate eggs with a smooth, nougat-like milk and hazelnut filling, where the Kinder Bueno eggs are similar but include a thin, wafer inner wall to seperate chocolate and nougat.

Cross-posted from The Ramblings of Guise Dugal at http://www.rogues.1me.net/blog