APPENDIX 8
HAROLD FACES THE SLOTHOG
ALONE BEFORE THE GATES OF CLEMENTINE
ALONE BEFORE THE GATES OF CLEMENTINE
This is the engraving found in the pamphlet
Rossamünd reads after his beating from Gosling; the one he stares
at for a moment when he is talking to Fransitart. You can just make
out the cylinders and satchels - so famously empty - hanging about
Harold’s waist, while the “beast-handlers” struggle to keep the
Slothog under control. The picture is a romantic view of the event.
In truth Harold was one of over a hundred who tackled the Slothog,
though he was certainly the only teratologist among them. Still
propagandists tell of him as standing alone, and that is how
popular history chooses to remember him.