Emily's proposed artwork for the story.

The reason that Emily Chesley's 1923 story, "The Nose Lord of Niflheim" remains unpublished to this day is a mystery. Though (even by today's standards) it is a bit raw and difficult to digest, the piece is not without its artistic merits; it does contain many of the hallmarks of Chesleyan literature, including, but not limited to:

a) sexual promiscuity
b) totalitarian regimes
c) the cooking of babies.

It is most likely the last detail that keeps the story from finding its way into print. This may be for the best, because "The Nose Lord of Nilfheim" is not for the faint-at-heart.

As always, Emily's writing is steeped in Norwegian mythology. The story is set on the planet "Nilfheim", which is clearly based on Niflheim, the "house of mists", and one of the coldest and nastiest parts of the Norse version hell. Niflheim shares its level of hell with Nastrond (The Shore of Corpses), where the serpent Nidhogg eats the dead and gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil. After Ragnarok, there will be a hall in Niflheim for the punishment of murderers, oath breakers, and philanderers.

And Emily's story is set in the city of Nastrond, the capital of the planet. Yet instead of some dark Norwegian shore, awash in corpses, we find that Emily's Nastrond is awash in the depravity of the hugely obese, yet at the same time efete Nose Lord. Compared with the Nose Lord the serpent Nidhogg seems sympathetic. Instead of consuming corpses, the Nose Lord is fond of "enfant sauté" and "exploding toddler surprise", served to him by phalanxes of half-naked eunuchs and three-quarter-naked nautch-girls. After these horrific repasts, the Nose Lord was known to enjoy not only his nautch-girls but the eunuchs as well. (1)

Emily's heroine is the captain of the United Cosmos Craft Truculence, Ermila Chunt. Her assignment is to make first contact – always a dangerous task – but doubly so with such a debauched and terrible planet. Except for the human Chunt, the UCC Truculence is crewed by a race known as the Tibbohs. The Tibbohs stand about 2 foot high, have extremely hirsute faces, and have completely hairless feet.(2) Their diminutive stature does not make for an impressive first contact; they do, however, become an impressive first course at the feast thrown in Chunt's honor.

Chunt is horrified to discover that her crew has been cooked and served to her, and declines the invitation to join in the post-banquet orgy. (Though normally she is all for a good orgy, she later comments in her ship's log.) Without a crew, the Truculence is marooned on Nilfheim.

The remainder of the story follows Chunt after she decides to revenge herself on the Nose Lord; she plans an elaborate scheme to get him alone, where she gives him a "dentally administered, thorough de-nosing," in a final scene that is nothing short of traumatic for the reader. (3a & b)

--Scholarship by The Squire

Notes:

1) Some Chesleyan biographers have suggested that the Nose Lord is based on an amalgamation of Quentin Farkmee and Lord Reginald "Mimsy" Gorcharp. [back]

2) Scholars have suggested that an impressionable JRR Tolkein may have read a copy of this story and modeled Bilbo, Frodo, et. al, after the Tibbohs, simply reversing their letters and hairy parts. [back]

3) a) Some researchers have remarked that this final scene is eerily similar to her description of that fateful night in Kneelingdowne-by-the-Sea, when she gave Lord "Mimsy" Gorcharp his "pencilectomy". In a similar vein, her description of the Tibbohs is reminiscent of her affectionate accounts of Tiny Tina, the World's Scantiest Woman, and the Mana Maniacs from Captain Pugwhit's Flying Freakshow.

b) Legend has it that the ending of the story caused Walter Junk, the editor of Abysmal Stories (Peoria) a cataclysmic brain hemorrhage, though his wife claimed it was his fondness for loose meat sandwiches. [back]