As far as Lagro te Kabona, innkeeper, could remember the events of that day, they seemed to happen like this:

It was the time of the Thing with the Bulls. And the mad women just say there, drinking absinthe as if it was water! He tried to get them to come indoors, but the old one, the skinny one, just shouted at him. So he let them bide, but left the door open - people soon got the message when the bulls came down the street with the young men of the village after them. Whoever snatched the big red rosette from between the horns of the biggest bull got the seat of honour at that night's feast plus - Lagro smiled a smile of forty years' remembrance - a certain informal but highly enjoyable relationship with the young woman of the town for quite some time after...

And the mad women just sat there.

The leader bull had been a bit uncertain about this. Its normal course of action would be to roar and paw the ground a bit to get the targets running in an interesting way and its mind wasn't able to cope with this lack of attention, but that hadn't been its major problem, because its major problem had been twenty other bulls right behind it.

And even that ceased to be its major problem, because the terrible old woman, the one all in black, had soot up, muttered something at it and smacked it between the eyes. Then the horrible dumpy one whose stomach had the resilience and capacity of a galvanized water tank fell backwards off her chair, laughing, and the young one - that is, the one who was younger than the other two - started flapping at the bulls as if they were ducks.

And then the street was full of angry, bewildered bulls, and a lot of shouting, terrified young men. It's one thing to chase a lot of panicking bulls, and quite another to find that they're suddenly trying to run the other way.

The innkeeper, from the safety of his bedroom window, could hear the horrible women shouting things to one another. The dumpy one kept laughing and shouting some sort of battle cry - 'TrytheHorsemanswordEsme!' and then the younger one, who was pushing her way through the animals as if being gored to death was something that only happened to other people, found the lead bull and took the rosette off it, with the same air of concern as an old woman may take a torn out of her cat's paw. She held it as if she didn't know what it was or what she should do with it...

The sudden silence affected even the bulls. Their tiny little bloodshot brains sensed something wrong. The bulls were embarrassed.

Fortunately, the horrible women left on a riverboat that afternoon, after one of them rescued her cat which had cornered twenty-five stone of confused bull and was trying to toss it in the air and play with it.

That evening Lagro te Kabona made a point of being very, very kind to his old mother.
And the village held a flower festival next year, and no-one ever talked about the Thing with the Bulls ever, ever again.

At least, not in front of the men.