The crew and I stumbled home to our hotel in Salisbury tonight after having a great time at a place called the Haunch of Venison. That’s right – the polite English way of saying a deer’s butt.
The place is hundreds of years old. We had our good friend Father Padraig from the Knock Shrine flown in to join us. He knew quite a bit about the history of Salisbury, and shared some rumors about the pub as well. Supposedly, centuries ago the pub was used as a brothel, and a tunnel was dug between it and St. Thomas a Becket church so that the priests could visit privately. We ate quite well and drank a lot of beer and spirits in a place they call the Horse Box, which is a smaller bar in the building. It’s got a pewter bar top! Rumor is that Ike and some of his WW2 masterminds used to meet there.
If you’re ever in Salisbury, you’ve got to check this place out! And if you don’t know much about Salisbury, you should check out the book Sarum, by Edward Rutherfurd. It’s a brilliant read, and even I read the whole thing while on duty here at Stonehenge this last week or so.
Which brings me to why I was there — the team and I just finished a job at Stonehenge. You know, that big circle of rocks north of Salisbury in the UK? We were called out there because some archaeologists have some new ideas about this oval-shaped area they call a Cursus just north of the Stonehenge monuments, and we were brought in to provide undead protection. That’s right – undead protection. We were hired to be like rent-a-cops or movie shoot medics in case the Indiana Jones-type gravediggers discovered something that wasn’t done moving after years of being dead. This isn’t the first time we’ve worked Stonehenge. In fact, in the last couple of years we’ve pulled similar duty on other digs. Just scroll through this blog and you’ll see at least one. The thing about this one that was silly is that although Stonehenge is believed to be a burial site for perhaps thousands of people, they were all supposedly cremated first. Which means that even if they were vampires when they were finally taken out, the cremation process would have finished the job.
I pointed this out when we were called the last time, but no, the Federal Powers That Be required us to go for diplomatic reasons. It makes it look like the US is playing nice with the UK. Because you know how our two countries have had trouble getting along since the War of 1812.
Just thought you’d all like to know how your tax dollars are being spent. Oh, and if you’re ever in Salisbury, make sure you visit the Haunch of Venison — it rocks.