Skunks and Magic
(Written by Sanuye, Matt's spotted-skunk daemon)In the human world, skunks are so famed for their defense mechanism of spraying odorous fluid at predators that it has probaby never even occurred to humans that there might be some people out there who refuse to believe it is so. Who would actually refuse to believe that skunks spray stuff to defend themselves? I'll tell you who -- skunks!
Skunks are an old animal. We've been around for millions of years, in one form or another. We're pretty bright as animals go (we think), but of course animals -- almost to the degree of humans -- can develop strange and inaccurate models of the universe, and believe in them tenaciously.
Up until very recently, just a few human generations ago, virtually all skunks thought they were magicians. Indeed, we were the greatest magicians in the Animal Kingdom. No one believed this more firmly, and were more convinced of their powers, than the striped skunks. These old wizards (as they thought of themselves) taught that skunks were chosen animals and that it was only through the cultivation of our powerful spells that we survived and warded off danger. Therefore they made little skunk kids study these spells endlessly.
Now some skunks were dubious about these spells. For one thing, they had a way of working even if you said them wrong. Spotted skunk kids -- always the most mischievous ones -- liked to make up complete garbage spells, like, "Apples and nuts make good grass when the eggs grow on the treetops!" And lo, predators would still run away from us!
We didn't know what really caused those animals to run. Nobody did. And that's what you humans may find surprising. Until very recently, skunks had absolutely no idea what made animals run away from them! The best guess they could come up with was that they were magicians, and good ones too.
So that's what skunks thought for a long time. Even spotted skunks believed it, although they were more dubious about our command over our spells.
Today it's a different picture. Skunks have accepted, rather grudgingly, that the real reason animals run away from them is because of a simple chemical fluid that comes out of our rears. Not only is this deeply embarrassing, but it's much less thrilling than the idea that it's the spirits and powers we conjure up with our dances that protect us.
For some skunks it's too much to accept. Those ones -- and they're almost all striped skunks -- still insist that it's our magical powers that do the trick, and the fluid squirting bit is just incidental, if in fact it happens at all.
There's actually been a lot of interest in our old spells again, though. Some of them were cool. The spotted skunks, who have the most sophisticated warding-off dance of all, have been the keenest to resurrect and learn these chants even though they were the least likely to believe in them before. It's not that we think our defensive power really comes from spirits we raise when we sing, "Ari ero oro si si si" -- it's just that we've got kind of bored with our fluid-squirting personas. Long live the skunk magicians!
"Wssiwssshhpzzzwwwishhipristziwizzishtziwishtziwizzizzizziwishiwitchiszzrreeerrzzp--!" And the guy being hit with the electricity is writhing in agony and going, "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
Well, that's what it seems like when skunks hit other animals with their spray. That's what it seems like to both of them. Maybe not quite so cinematic, but pretty similar.