Apothecary and purveyor of occult fishing equipment to the alchymists, trawlerman and big-game anglers of Mevagissey, Farouk Ibn-Ignelh was a notorious seafront character of old Cthornwall in the first quarter of the 1900’s. Farouk’s ancestry in the county could be traced right back to the 1st century AD, when his illustrious forebear first landed on these shores as helmsman to Aramis of Josephathea, the noted Syrian perfumier and spice trader.
Originally apprenticed as a stockman and squid wrangler to Lord St Leviathan’s oceanic farm in Mound’s Bay, Farouk acquired much preternatural piscine learning and arcane mollusc law. Expert in the art of eldritch angling and sea husbandry at an early age, Farouk’s keen nose for business soon had him trading his skills independently to fishing communities the length and breadth of the Cthornish coast, eventually setting up his famed emporium in Mevagissey in 1924.
As well as selling equipment for the capture and netting of the vast range of monstrous and other-dimensional aquatic life in the county’s waters, he also became a noted specialist in the breeding of such creatures for alchymical rites and processes, as well as their preparation for medicinal and recreational purposes.
A seasoned and proficient angler in his own right he was often to be seen skilfully casting rod and line at the farthest reach of the Mevagissey harbour wall where, as an equally noted raconteur, he happily told strange and hair shrivelling tales of the deep to the village youngsters. It is believed that it was in this capacity that he was ‘rediscovered’ by the unsettling Dr Fostux, who it is likely he first encountered during their shared youthful employ in the service to Lord St Leviathan on St Michael’s Mound in the period 1907-13.
As a small historical footnote it was Farouk Ibn-Ignelh, through selective genetic crossbreeding, who first developed the notorious mind warming sea-tobacco which local fisherman came to refer to as ‘the Meva ciggy’.
No comments:
Post a Comment