Now That's a Big Hole!

The nunnery of the order of Saint Seefora of the Immaculate Combustion actually is something of a famous building in Mittelheim. Seefora is patron saint of Mittelheim artillerymen and midwives, both having a professional interest in encouraging the rapid and accurate unloading of their respective charges. Seefora herself was a 14th century noblewoman and wife of an influential and important Teutonic Knight. Seefora's journey to sainthood, began, they say, in one of the Teutonic campaigns against the pagan Lithuanians. Frau Seefora found herself trapped in one of the Order's border forts after the unexpected arrival of a Lithuanian raiding party. Legend has it that the Lithuanians called upon her to surrender the fort and to renounce her catholicism. According to the tale favoured by the Catholic Church, her reply was 'Surrender? Renounce? Nay, nay - rather, I would die than cast aside the true faith!'; and with that she was said to have set alight a store of gunpowder, pitch, lamp oil, hay, and baking powder. The resulting conflagration killed everyone, although the baking powder did result in pleasantly fluffy smoke. Lithuanian stories tend to recount a rather different version of events. According to their version, Seefora instead cried out 'Surrender? Renounce? Verily, verily - that is absolutely no problem! Also, mine husband, who is a bit of a tit, can be found hiding in the privy'.

Whatever the true events, Seefora was made a saint, and an order of nuns was established in her name in the town of Pippin, now Fort Pippin, in Grand Fenwick.

(Above) The nunnery itself is something of a local land mark. For a long time, it was unusual for a nunnery in that it functioned exactly like a tavern. This was due to the fact that the first Mother Superior had come to the conclusion that the best way to prevent the Devil from tempting women of the order with such sins as drink, revelry, profanity, and late night whist was to get in there first. In theory, novitiates were supposed to spend so long engaged in these sorts of activities in their nunnery that they would soon tire of them and see the benefits of a more routine nun lifestyle - abstinence; prayer; rough undercothes. As it turned out, the nuns of the order had a rather higher tolerance for having a good time than had been anticipated, and the order quickly become so popular that it had to start a reserve list for membership. In the end, this early regime had to be ended, since happy, single, and empowered women seemed to the Church to be dangerously uncatholic. This decision was finally enforced on the combative nuns only by the use of two witchfinders, six bishops, and the whole of the local militia. Since that time, the nunnery has been a place of quiet contemplation, disturbed only by prayer and now the unexpected detonation of a large enemy mine directly below the building.

(Above) 'That', says Colonel Dougal Entendre, 'is a big hole'.
'Aye, sir', replies Major Gordon Sanitaire. 'Yed have to go far to find a crevice of this capacity'.
Governor Schroedinger-Skatt surveys the devastation glumly. 'And what of the nuns?'
Entendre shrugs. 'It's hard to tell, my lord. It must have been breakfast, because we've found a lot of porridge. But it was a very large explosion: it's difficult to tell where the porridge stops and the nuns begin'.
Suddenly, there is a commotion nearby. The three men turn, just in time to face a barrage of fruity language ...