Sometime in the late 15th century, a boy was born in Limerick, Ireland. His parents were Monaghan and Molly Lougheed. They were potato farmers, and named their first-born son “Kenwood”, after the forest in which they harvested potatoes.

You see, this was in the days when potatoes still grew on trees, and before the proud and strong farmers of Europe were turned into cowering dirt-grubbers by the “dirt potato”, as today’s dominant kind of potato was called back then. Oh, such a proud time it was! The British and the Scots were still good Papal Worshipers, and the bothersome Northmen had turned on each other, leaving the Irish maidens alone for a few hundred years, with Dublin and Man — as well as a legion of introverted, drunken and blonde bastards — left as their only heritage. Potato farmers were free, gentle men and women served the people who inhabited their lands, and the church kept itself busy with internal buggery. It was a safe time, when a young boy with cheeks the colour of read apples could walk from Belfast Lough to Dingle Bay, without even once being accosted by clergymen.

And in this era of peace and prosperity, young Kenwood Lougheed grew into adolesence. Or “grew” might be the wrong word. Because, dear reader, after his fourth birthday, squire Lougheed never grew another inch, at least not in the general direction known as “up”. Even though this was somewhat offset by him growing both to left and right, fore and aft — as the Kenwood that’d named him continued to bring forth fine crops of potatoes, making prosperous people out of his parents — the people who loved him observed the developments with despair and dread.

For this, as you surely know, was in the days when stunted little runts were used as miners — a praxis that later would become the basis of the myths of the industrious, subterranean-dwelling Dwarves. A myth, I might add, with no basis in reality. Dwarves are neither nor were they ever industrious. Nor subterranean, for that matter. Most Dwarves lived in utmost poverty in their treetop hovels, swaying in the rocking wind while savouring the lack of hard work awaiting them after they’d had their nap. All empirical evidence speaks in favor of this. As an example, Dwarves are often pictured as obese, and industrious people rarely get obese. Also, the Dwarven fashion of styling one’s hair and beard (or the lack of such, more precisely), has in the following centuries inspired slackers all over the world.

But I digress. Let us return to the fate of poor Kenwood Lougheed…