As Related by Francis Toye

from

FOR WHAT WE HAVE RECEIVED

Alfred A. Knopf, 1988

(pages 124-125)

Of all the extraordinary people I met at Miss Otter's [Gwendolen Otter], undoubtedly the most extraordinary was Aleister Crowley. Crowley, like the author of Hadrian VII, whom in many ways he much resembled, was a genius gone wrong, with a remarkable talent for a Browningesque verse, a soaring imagination, and a sense of humor altogether exceptional. Indeed, in retrospect, his sense of humor stands out as his most striking attribute. Who but Crowley would have entitled a book of what are certainly some of the most indecent poems in the English language: Snowdrops from a Curate's Garden? Who but Crowley would have chosen the Caxton Hall for his revival of The Rites of Eleusis, with himself as high priest and a woman fiddler from the Hippodrome as the Mother of Heaven? The long and short of the matter is that Crowley and cousin Gerald Kelly, whose sister [Rose Kelly] misguidedly married him for a time, tells some delicious stories of his affluent and comparatively innocuous days.

Crowley had bought a small estate [Boleskine] in Scotland, where to protect himself from intruders, he concocted a variety of notices such as: "Beware of the Ichthyosaurus!" and "The Dinotheriums are out today!" So he may claim that his estate was not far from Loch Ness, which, many many years later, acquired international fame in connection with the apparition of just such a "monster." It was from here that he is said to have invited a certain Swiss gentleman "to come and hunt the haggis," one of his most elaborate practical jokes. One summer evening, just as they were about to sit down to dinner, a servant, primed of course beforehand, ran into the room and, dropping on one knee, exclaimed: "My lord, my lord! The haggis is on the hill!" Crowley and the unsuspecting Swiss snatched their guns and rushed out. It was beginning to get dark, but there was still light enough to distinguish not far away an animal with a pair of horns. (It was in fact an elderly ram procured for the occasion.) The Swiss fired both his barrels; there were yells of delight from the "retainers," and the proud visitor was about to run forward to claim his victim when Crowley stopped him with a warning that according to local tradition the haggis must never be approached by him who has killed it; presently the carcass would be brought in state to the hall. So the two returned to their dinner, and, sure enough, later there entered a small procession, led by a piper, carrying the now skinned animal. Then after several perambulations, the horns were ceremoniously presented to the Swiss, who, they say, took them back to Switzerland and affixed them, duly labeled and dated, to the walls of his villa. This story, true or untrue, in itself covers, I think, a multitude of sins.