What small measure of political and social authority that arrived in that shuttle established itself in a feudal form in the town of "Edge", on the cliffs bounding the highlands and the fens.

The ruler of Edge was known as the "Despot of Edge". Death was the only and common form of change of leadership.

The Edge remained the political center of the region, until the actions related in the legends of the Plains diaspora and Fenman's revenge.

Apart from protein and mutual defense, the Hippigs are used as natural dredgers. A herd of Hippigs can chomp their way through most vegetation and then resuspend the sediment to clear or even create a new channel.

Initially they were used to clear channels to aid navigation around the village. However, it rapidly became obvious that such simple uses were hazardous in extreme. A clear channel through the heart of the village was to invite the Firehose to lay its next bed in your own!

Over the centuries the Hippigs herds have been used with increasing sophistication to...

• Subtly steer flow around and away from the village.
• Break up the power of the Firehose into smaller and smaller channels.
• Steer sewage effluents from upstream villages away from downstream villages and through mazy purifying reed beds.

To day, the Herd Head Hip Hop is a hydraulic engineer and pig keeper of great subtlety and learning, crafting pathways for flow for purposes and in manners that lesser minds can barely comprehend.

The origin of cooperative civilization in the Fens lies entirely in the constant contact maintained by the Head Hip Hops as they weave the water to mutual benefit.

The Hip Hop wars are still the subject of intense scholarly study as they the starting point of so many aspects of our society. In exceedingly brief summary, the clans of Shifty and Troublesome entered into feud over some forgotten cause. The respective Hip Hop Heads waged subtle war by diverting the Firehose at the opposing village. The resulting floods destroyed both villages and a hundred beside.

The exact causes of the feud are lost with clans, although theories abound. Some say the particular insulting naming names born by the two feuders were "gifted" to each other. The naming names stuck, and a grudge bloomed between them from then on.

The villages of Troublesome and Shifty were about level, and both operated small Tanning works. Small fluctuations in the Firehose would divert polluted waters from the Tanning works from one village to another.

Instead of working together to divert the pollution away from both villages, the feuding Hop Heads took to manipulating the flows on the upwards side.

The manipulations grew more subtle, and were performed further and further upwards, and had more far reaching effects as the Hop Heads grew older and more skilled. Both Heads were very vain and boastful and kept detailed maps and logs of their actions. It is these logs that form the basis of scholarly studies of these wars and indeed form the basic "how not to" study material for all aspirant Hip Hop Heads.

It wasn't even at peak floodtime when the activities of the feuding herds reach one of the primary splits in the Firehose succeeded in diverting the Firehose through the two villages, and unfortunately a hundred other villages.

The herders were near the primary split when the diversion started to occur and hence had adequate (barely) warning to retreat from flood. The Head Hip Hops were sufficiently arrogant that they did not destroy their records but kept them until found by irate flood refugees.

For their crimes, all the herders were fed, whilst still alive, hand span by hand span, starting at the feet, to baby Crocks.

It is a curious mark of Fenland society that the defence, "I was just obeying orders" has never held any weight what so ever.

A Hippig is a very large, 20 ton, armoured aquatic herbivorous famile.

Prior to man's arrival, they seemed to be one of the Planet's weirder experiments doomed to extinction by predation from the Crocks.

The story of Feckless and the Hopeless Hippigs is told to every Fen child and is probably substantively correct. What is certain, somewhen around year 15, Hippigs entered into a relationship with humanity that undoubtably saved the bacon of both sides.