On permanent display in an old glass cabinet, in the snug of a Northern hostelry, sits a big old boot, twenty inches by sixteen, which once belonged to one Edgar Mount, local mole-catcher, who had the misfortune of suffering a tremendous swelling of the foot, commonly known in medical circles as elephantiasis.

Edgar Mount was in his early thirties when the swelling started. Prior to that he would peg out each day’s harvest of moles on the barbed wire fence by their pink little snouts and go door-to-door, quite fleet of foot, hawking moles’ forepaws as a guaranteed cure for tooth-ache and all kind of cramp and rheumatic discomfort, and carry in his waistcoat pocket a small phial of moleblood, a dab of which would stump a wart before it could get a proper hold.

As far as Edgar Mount was concerned the mole was a veritable medicine chest, but he could not heal himself. He rubbed and bathed his foot with every oil and unguent but the blasted thing just kept swelling-up. Until finally no conventional boot could accommodate it, and the local cobbler was commissioned to devise some leathery construction to keep the weather out.

The neighbours would secretly observe Edgar’s tortured progress – a swift little step with one foot followed by a great heaving-around of that boulder of flesh, often with both hands clamped around the thigh, for extra leverage. And the children would think, ‘He kills the moles because he envies them their tiny paws.’

Then Edgar began to notice how the rows of moles failed to stretch as far along the fence as they ought to. And it slowly dawned on him that when his colossal foot came down it sent out an almighty reverberation and, forewarned, the moles packed their bags and departed before he got within two hundred yards of them.

In desperation, Edgar instructed the cobbler to stitch him up a giant slipper, and provided him with several dozen mole-pelts, which are renowned for their velvetiness. And before each trapping session he would change out of his boot and into his soft grey slipper. But the sheer weight of his huge foot still caused such a subterranean commotion that only the dimmest mole failed to take heed. And, little by little, the gravity of the situation settled on Edgar Mount.

One cold, grey day in November Edgar went missing. Soon after, a pile of clothes was discovered on the riverbank with his big old boot on top. And the locals could only imagine Edgar’s last moments as that gargantuan foot dragged him down, down, down.

Edgar’s boot was carried back to the village and, not long after, placed in its own glass cabinet – where it still sits, like some sacred relic. Every now and again the locals take it out and marvel at its dimensions. Until they remember Edgar’s desperation. And how the moles now run amok. Then they put the boot back in its glass cabinet and do their best to turn their minds to other things.