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Good Morning, Rusty!
A beautiful day here! Bright blue sky with sunshine!
I thoroughly enjoyed this morning's walk!
Only -2C though!
Yes, I am all organised! Beds made up and everywhere hoovered!
And, thank you, I shall remember to ask about my Hudl.......
Now, I have never heard the expression "HEN's teeth"!
But I have consulted "Brewers" and it tells me that it is used to describe something rare ...."as scarce as hen's teeth" (no, nothing to do with a long time!)
I have, however, heard of "HELL's teeth" ( cf Hell's bells) which is used as an exclamation of any strong emotion or reaction.
What a lot of 'research' I am doing!
Time for a quick look at the crossword and a cup of coffee.....

Morning, Pigale and Malone!
Your posts appeared whilst I was replying to Rusty! I wasn't ignoring you!

I cannot do that clue , either, Pigale, not as yet anyway.
I'm a bit confused with strike and punch meaning the same thing. altho obviously one is used here as a verb and the another as a noun......

You've presumably done it, Malone.......tell me, can "hovering" mean "hang" - past participle "hung" or am I on the wrong track? I'm looking for a word beginning with "un" without giving too much away? but that is as far as I've got!

Elle, yes - the 'was hovering' leads to 'hung' and there are two words relating to 'strike' and 'punch'.

Re 'skedaddle'... my research last night lead to an old word (maybe Middle English?) 'scaddle', which meant to flee in fright, run away. Skedaddle is believed to be a corruption, variation, of this.

Yes, and I read in Merriam-Webster that the origin of Scaddle might be from Scandinavia, akin to the Norse word 'scathi = harm.

Yes, I think I have solved the clue; I won't give the answer so as not to "spoil" things...I'm not happy with the other word for "punch" though?? (can't confirm it anywhere?) - but it has to be that as I'm sure the final answer is correct!

I have 'a' word but not too sure of parsing - one word meaning either punch/strike which don't know if it exists in this sense !

The second (in the answer) word exists in the sense of the clue, Chambers confirms this.

Just checked that out in Chambers, Malone! yes, I have definitely done it correctly!
but I'd been looking in the Thesaurus to check it out and couldn't find it in there.

Back to the drawing board - my second word is not given in this sense by Chambers, or by anyone for this matter.

It would seem that I might have finally solved this clue !