Sodor & The Man With The Big, Black Book

The people of Sodor lived on the side of an ancient volcano and since the discovery of the yellow liquid and the expulsion of the man with the bowler hat, they had plentiful food, housing and everyone was happy.
One day a ship came into the harbour and out stepped a man carrying a big black book.
He called together all the inhabitants of Sodor and began to tell them that all they had, the land, the sea, the food they eat, the sun and sky were provided to them by an all powerful man named Hod.
The Sodor people had never questioned how they had came to be on the side of the volcano or how the sun and moon got into the sky but the man with the black book explained how Hod had made them and the volcano and they should be thankful to Hod.  
He told them that if the people of Sodor thanked Hod and lived good lives like it said in the big black book then they could go be with Hod one day but if they were not thankful to Hod and lived bad lives, Hod did not want them and they would go to a dark, cold place and Hod would be angry.
'But we don't want to go to go to the dark, cold place' cried the Sodorians, 'how can we live good lives, what must we do?'       
The man opened the book and read out 23 things that the Sodorians must do so that they can be with Hod one day and how if they built a house where they could say thank you, Hod would hear them better.
When the man got back on the boat, he left the big book with the man in the crowd who seemed the most enthusiastic and said that he would be known as the Big Hod and that they would return in one year to see how they were getting on.
The people of Sodor talked about the visit of the man and his big black book and some were scared of going to the dark, cold place so they built a house and went into it every day to tell Hod how much they loved him and to say thank you for the food and the sunshine.
Some of the other people of Sodor said 'I will not say thank you to Hod, we cannot see him or hear him or talk to him so we will just carry on as we were before the man with the big black book came'.     
The people who thanked Hod were worried that Hod would be angry with the people who never said thank you to him everyday and told them that they would not go to Hods House if they did not say thank you but still they refused.
One day the roof fell off the house where the Hoddles, as they called themselves, said Thank you to Hod and the Hoddles tried to work out how the roof had fell down.
They agreed that it must have been pushed down and it must have been done by one of the non-Hoddles as nobody from the Hoddles would do such a thing as they were nice, kind people who said Thank you everyday and the non-Hoddles where not nice as they never said Thank you to the man who made everything for them.
There was a big argument and the Hoddles said that Sodor would be a nice place if everyone said Thank you to Hod and the non-Hoddles said that Sodor would be a nice place if the Hoddles stopped trying to get everybody to say thank you to Hod.
The Hoddles had a meeting and said 'If Hod is angry with the non-Hoddles, then he will destroy our island and everybody on it and that is not fair because we say thank you to Hod every day. We must make the non-Hoddles into Hoddles and say thank you everyday.'
They took the big, black book and went into the non-Hoddles homes and workplaces and told them how Hod had made everything and they must say thank you or Hod will take it away and they will go to the cold, dark place'.
Some were so scared of going to the dark, cold place that they started going to the house to say thank you to Hod everyday but some still refused.
The leader of Sodor was worried that his people were starting to listen to the Big Hoddle more than him and had now got more power than him.
The Big Hoddle knew this also and he tested his Hoddles when the Leader said his non-Hoddle son Aaron would be next in line as leader but the Big Hoddle said he wanted Aavon who was a Hoddle and said all the Hoddles should meet in the town square to tell the leader they wanted Avon instead.
The leader was worried that if Aaron became leader there would be trouble in his peaceful land so he said Avon would be next to be leader.
One year had passed and the man with the big black black book came back to Sodor and were very happy to see so many people thanking Hod but were not happy to see that some people were still not saying thank you.
'We have tried. We have told them that they will go to the dark, cold place but they refuse' explained the Big Hoddle.
'We must make them say thank you to Hod because they will take all the Hoddles and make them into non-Hoddles again and Hod will be very angry' said the man with the big, black book.
The Big Hoddle told the Leader to build a prison and anyone who did not act nice like the big black book said should be put in the prison. Soon the non-Hoddles were being watched by the Hoddles and they would read the big black book to see if they could be put in prison.
Soon the prisons were full of non-Hoddles and the Big Hoddle would tell his fellow Hoddles that the prisons were full of non-Hoddles so they must all be bad and are therefore to blame for everything bad that happens in Sodor and all the non-Hoddles should have a large yellow circle on their backs so the Hoddles knew who to watch more closley.
As the prison got more full of non-Hoddles the Big Hoddle went to the leader and said that it has been proven that all the non-Hoddles were all bad and 'the symbol of all evil on Sodor assumes the living shape of the non-Hoddle' and that he had an idea of how to clear Sodor of such bad people.
The Leader was very sad that his once peaceful land now had prisons and his people were arguing and some wore big yellow circles on their backs and he wished that the man had never arrived that day with the big black book.