Perhaps I should have been more careful. Last year I decided that every Christmas I would tell a winter’s tale or two (1). Through a long history of doing stupid things, I’ve accumulated a stock of ripping yarns. But I failed to explain myself. Some people interpreted the tale I told last Christmas as making a political point about Travellers I had no intention of suggesting; a point that is in fact the opposite of what I believe (2). So please read what follows as a story and no more: true to the best of my knowledge and memory but without a polemical purpose.