The Brass Rubbing Pig

Yesterday, because the sun was shining, the skies were blue, the air was crisp and clear and because Andy is on holiday, we went to Leeds Castle for a lengthy walk in the grounds and then a spot of lunch in the castle restaurant.

Dotted around the grounds at various intervals are brass rubbing posts; blocks of wood about the height of a child who might be interested in brass rubbing, and atop each post is a brass picture each depicting a different bird, animal or leaf. (No elephants though, which is rather disappointing).

I always decline the opportunity to brass rub when we go to Leeds Castle because I don't like the smell of wax crayon and the way they always get under your fingernails. But ahead of us, as we strolled the path by the little stream leading up to the start of the moat, were a couple with a little girl, whom I guessed to be around six or seven years old. The little girl approached one of the brass rubbing posts, as curious children are wont to do, and placed her hands on it. The woman with her (whom I guessed to be a grandparent, because if she was the child's mother, she wasn't wearing very well), suddenly screamed:

'DON'T TOUCH THAT, YOU'LL CATCH SWINE FLU!'

Andy looked at me, I looked at Andy.
'Did she say what I thought she said?' said Andy.
'That you can catch swine flu from touching a brass rubbing post?' I said.
'Yes,' said Andy.
'She did,' said I.
'Well, I missed that part of the Government swine flu information campaign,' said Andy, and we continued on our walk, safe in the knowledge that the guardians of the nation's children are so hot on health and hygiene issues, even though they appear to be encouraging them to truant school on a sunny Monday morning.

'So pigs do brass rubbing, then?' I said, as we sat in the castle restaurant enjoying some very nice fish 'n' chips.
'Oh yes,' said Andy, airily. And he should know because he is a vet after all. 'In fact, brass rubbing was invented by a pig.'
'Really?' I said. 'I thought it was invented by a monkey.'
'Oh, you're thinking of the freezing brass monkey balls,' said Andy. 'It's a common mistake to mix the monkey's brass balls with the pig's brass rubbings.'
'How can you tell the difference?' I asked. I was thinking, this could make a good starting point for my NaNoWriMo project.
Andy looked at me. I wasn't sure if I would be able to take his next comment seriously as he had a piece of rocket hanging from the corner of his mouth. 'A monkey has a slightly longer tail,' he said.

Anyway, it transpires that in the Brass Age, which was the little recognised period of historical time just after the 'Bronze Age' and just before the 'Glass Formed into Interesting Shapes Age', that a farmer accidentally invented brass by mixing some bracken with some grass. He was trying to make gracken wine but got his proportions completely wrong (on account of the fact that calibrating scales were yet to be invented.) The resulting mix went hard as rock and the Farmer tipped it onto his compost heap in disgust (which was the name of the small hamlet in which he lived.)

Along came his pig, drawn by the smell of the fermenting organic mass. And we all know how itchy pigs can get. In fact, I would advise that should you ever find yourself in close proximity with a pig, never stand still, as it will use you as a scratching post and probably poop on your wellies with the sheer joy of the experience. The Farmer's pig discovered that although the lump of newly invented solid brass was completely inedible, it was jolly good to scratch against.

The Farmer, on hearing his pig scratching, leaned from the window of his hut and shouted, 'Ear, be starp th'scritch scritch, yo rumpy nose-fert, ' which is Brass Age speak for 'Stop making that awful noise, we're trying to have a nice quiet game of Scrabble in here.'

And the pig turned at the sudden noise, and the Farmer noticed that, imprinted on the side of the pig, was the outline of a perfect bracken leaf and a couple of very nice examples of Brass Age meadow grass.

And thus was brass rubbing invented. The Farmer made a fortune (well, a couple of sacks of grain, a wheel barrow and a goose with three legs) by toting his pig around the local country fayres, covering him in purple wax crayon and getting the local kids scratch the pig with bits of paper. Okay, so the process took a little bit of refining before the Farmer got the brass rubbing process in the correct order, but you get the gist.

'And you're sure there were no monkeys involved,' I said.
'Positive,' said Andy. 'And I should know about these things. I am a vet, after all.'