The Valkyries

Baruch is a friend of the Valkyries but theirs is no ordinary friendship, the kind of friendship between people who meet up from time to time and go to the cinema together or have an ice cream in a local cafe that’s not too crowded to talk about this and that and gossip about a common acquaintance. No, their friendship has something a bit wild about it. Baruch has a small property at the foot of the valley on a green slope which descends to a stream. There are some fruit trees growing on the property, otherwise it is mainly an area of woodland. It is here where the watch-maker and the Valkyries meet up. The latter always arrive on horseback with such a deafening roar that it makes the whole valley shake. Armour-clad and with unkempt hair they are rather old but still rather agile and rowdy like young girls. The watchmaker waits for them in the middle of the field and the Valkyries straddle beside him brandishing their spears in the manner of the Indians of the New World yelling like lunatics “Ho hai! Ho ho hai!. Hi Baruch! Hoio tohoio ho ho hai!” They are very fond of him, they’ve known him since he was a child.

It’s not as though the Valkyries have a lot to do, nowadays, except visiting their friends. There are seven of them, all spinsters and they only eat bread, even stale bread. So when Baruch hears them coming, he gets out his shopping bag of old bread and takes it along with him. While the Valkyries are making a commotion around him with their white hair fluttering in the wind, he breaks the bread and flings it a few metres as though they were hens and they then gather up the bread with the point of their spears. The Valkyries satisfy their primal hunger in the way most becoming to their almost godly nature.