The next chapter of ‘Tabula Avatar’ is progressing well and should be ready soon. I’m off work for two weeks and there should be new chapters of ‘Dojo Hard’ and ‘Life, Resumed’ also; but in the meantime here is yet another in my series of Where did Olaf the Troll go? ficlets, started in answer to a challenge at ‘Twisting The Hellmouth’. This time it is a 300-word piece in which Olaf is sent to a classic British TV show that ran for 30 years and was successful in the USA too. PG-13.

Merry Chase

The world to which the witch’s spell had sent Olaf was strange indeed. Only two other men lived there, one old and bald and the other younger and plump, but there were many maidens of surpassing beauty.

Food there was in abundance. Much of it was strange to him, although tasty, but oft times his eating would be interrupted by an accident in which it spilled upon the clothing of one of the fair maidens. Or an accident would result in the outer raiment of a maiden being torn from her leaving her clad only in scanty undergarments that well displayed her shapely form.

Then music would spring up, from a source unknown, and a chase would begin. He would pursue the maiden, or she would pursue him, and the other men would likewise join the chase. The other maidens would get caught up in it, and a long line would form, and the pursuit would continue until the music ended. Then he would catch a maiden, or one would catch him, and they would engage in a vigorous and delightful bout of merry sport.

If the other men met with similar success at the end of the chase he knew not, for their conversation was strange, and though he asked them what world this was their answers made no sense.

Sometimes Olaf wondered if the witch had slain him and this was an afterlife. It was not Valhalla, for there was no battle eternal, but it was an acceptable substitute. A true paradise, even without crops to burn and dwellings to pillage, for the daughters with whom he made merry sport were indeed most attractive. He was satisfied and well content even if his questions remain unanswered save by the plump man’s cryptic words ‘It’s the Benny Hill Show’.