Ghyll:Stindersgrough

Stindersgrough, pronounced stin'-derz-gruff but often known as Stingy (stin-jee) to its inhabitants, is a large hamlet or small town in the south of Ghyll, currently sixteen leles from Iganefta and five leles from Glossfordshire.

Stindersgrough presents itself as a hip upcoming new town embracing all the latest trends, with a Gyrotic Dancing Club amongst other things, but in fact tends towards rusticality and fuddy duddyism. Indeed, the town's most important export is and always has been wickerware, not that there's anything particularly wrong with that.

The Moving Town

Stindersgrough was once a suburb of Iganefta, but due to a large quarrel in -240 EC, the nature of which was soon forgotten and still unknown, it was decided to slowly ejaculate the suburb out into the countryside. Since roughly -218 EC, the plan has been to eventually merge with Glossfordshire, and indeed the town is working its way towards Glossfordshire in a semi-circular arc around the Hills of Munro.

The rate of movement since -240 EC is one lele per fifteen years, so it is expected that the town will merge with Glossfordshire in around 70 EC (75 technically, but there is bound to be bubble-motion). The town mayors have, traditionally over the decades, been unable to come to a conclusion as to whether the merged town will be called Glossfordgrough or Stindershire, but both towns are on extraordinarily good terms with one another and so the merge will no doubt be greatly celebrated.

The lack of communication with Iganefta explains why the road from Stingy towards the city fades gradually until around five leles out it disappears altogether.

Famous Rezzydents

The most famous person to be born in Stindersgrough is likely Doc Rockett but, when he was three years old, his family dastardly emigrated the ten leles back to Iganefta to seek their fortune. Doc Rockett never returned to Stindersgrough.

The town's most famous contemporary resident is jolly old Cudgie Bunkhargler, a former mayoress who was retired early when she was revealed to be the famous Stindersgrough Underpants Snatcher in -15 EC. When I interviewed her for this article, she said "how else was I to fuel the economy? Wickerware doesn't bring in all that much you know dearie. Would you like another buttered scone?" Sadly, I was unable to get her fabled recipe for transmuting the five-o'-clock tea plant into umlaut tea.

The Barnum Stones

No doubt the most famous event in the history of Stindersgrough, if one occluded in mystery, was the moving of the Barnum Stones from the battlefield to the town by Stindersgrough resident Corvin Axehand in -158 EC, when the town was already a full five leles from Iganefta. This is known to have been perhaps the only public Raking, so we shan't bother discussing the event any further lest Burgengute get this article with a half-complete final sentence.

The stones themselves, however, are an obvious local landmark in Stindersgrough. Due to their general weight--they're small, but dense--they don't move at the same rate as the town, generally lagging anywhere up to three leles behind. They're currently situated just over two leles from the town, and will likely be moved again before 15 EC or so.

Environment

Since the town is always on the move, the environment obviously changes to some extent every year. In fact, the countryside grows much nicer outside of Iganefta until one reaches the feet of the Hills of Munro, and then carries on much at the same level of quaintness all the way on to Glossfordshire.

The most difficult element of the town to move is the duckpond. It can only be accomplished by painstakingly digging out the onwards side of the pond and using the material to fill in the offwards side. Thankfully, the town moves slowly enough that this doesn't upset the ducks and other pondlife too much.

Citations: Doc Rockett, Five-o-clock tea plant, Umlaut Tea.

--Sean B. Palmer 12:24, 12 Feb 2005 (EST)

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The author's horse, Big Brown Riding Hoof, is originally from Stindersgrough, and prefers "Glossfordgrough".