When MANOWAR line up in height order, they have the power to make wimps and posers leave the hall, and to destroy n00bs and followers of False Metal.

If you cause trouble at a MANOWAR concert, such as the MAGIC CIRCLE FESTIVAL, you are not ejected. Instead, the security take you before the four thrones of MANOWAR, where Joey DeMaio, shedding a single tear of steel asks you, 'Why have you done this thing?'

HAIL TO ENGLAND imbues the listener with so much power of True Metal, that the only thing more effective is seeing them play the whole thing in its entirety.

MANOWAR will one day return to England. Turn to book XXI of your copies of Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory, pp689 line 25: 'Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus.' It is a little known fact that the Immortal Warrior is in fact King Arthur; and in England's hour of need MANOWAR will combine their powers and become the Immortal Warrior and return with the power of True Metal.

MANOWAR are never wrong; if they were to say that the sky was green, it would become green. MANOWAR are the epitome of Truth and thus are incapable of lying, and so any statement they make - however ridiculous - is by definition correct.

If the entire works of MANOWAR were to be collected in one place, the owner will be granted the power of True Metal and can never fail at any endeavour they undertake.

More to follow, but right now it's back to Freud. 

This is a short story I wrote in the Ram a while back. I have proof that it is mine, so steal it at your own risk. If you do, not only will I sue you to high heaven and back, but I will also set Vargrim on you.



  The Ragged Woman
  S. Wright Copyright 2007

     He remembered her most days.

   In the brief moments between turning out the lights and his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness he often thought he could see her lipless face leering at him from a corner in the room. Nonsense, he knew, but it unsettled him. He often found his mind returning to her when he struggled up the hill alone after a night out at the pub. Every cracking noise in the undergrowth widened his eyes and sent twitches of fear through his blood.

                He had no idea how long it had been since he had done it. He tried to remember, and it bothered him that he couldn’t. Clearly it was within the last year. The whole affair hadn’t troubled him at first, but as time passed the memories grew more disturbing. He’d grow out of it, he was sure, the memories would fade into nothingness.

                It was times like this that he remembered her most, times when he spilt his blood; be it through being clumsy when preparing meals or, like now, shaving. The sharp pain above his moustache and the growing bauble of blood made him glance down at the scar on his right palm, from when he had sealed her wherever it was he had sealed her. Whenever he shed a drop of blood he worried. When he had banished her he had sealed it with his blood. Did that mean that spilling blood again would release her? He prayed that it didn’t – he had seen her fury in his dreams and didn’t want to experience it for real.

                The dreams... they were the worst, like horrid visions. He saw her screaming and howling in the mouldy cage he had sent her to, the bars like great barnacles, coated in dried blood. Oh, how she writhed in there, her lank black hair flying around as if underwater, exposing her grotesquely decomposing face. The black dress she had worn was in tatters, the white lace completely shredded. The dreams of her were always the same; he would see her writhing around in there, her soundless screams echoing deafeningly. But then she would realise he could see her, and would turn to him, smiling with malevolence, her sunken eyes shining. She would preen her hair and rip at her dress, exposing her rotting body obscenely.

                ‘Let me out, John,’ she would whisper, and he should oh yes what right had he to keep her there yes, he would open his veins and release her with his blood undo the amateur exorcism he had performed and enter into her embrace yes and they would be –

                                                        -          NO!

And he would wake in another part of the house, covered in sweat with a knife in his hand, poised to slice his palm open again. What kind of exorcism had he performed anyway? Had he really banished her? True, she no longer lingered in the room of that house, silently watching its inhabitants like some bloated, immortal serpent, but often he reckoned that all he had done was send her out of there and into his own mind.

He was no priest and had done no research. He’d been miles away from the house at the time, making it a kind of ‘remote exorcism.’ Was it any wonder it didn’t go according to plan? He remembered kneeling on his bed, topless, with a small wooden set of prayer beads and knife in his left hand, his right hand outstretched to the crucifix before him. He remembered closing his eyes and praying to God for strength. He could feel her boiling rage as he blessed the knife with holy water, her incomprehensible hatred when it kissed his skin. Her howls echoed in his head as had seen her hurtling down, across an infinite divide into what he guessed was probably hell.

And afterwards he had experienced a feeling of relief; he could walk in the house relaxed and no longer worry for its precious inhabitants. But then the uneasiness returned.

Sighing, he washed the cut and stuck a piece of tissue to it. Every time it happened he got worried, every time, but it had never proved to be anything.