The AnnotatedComplete Lost Folk Tales of Pippidufka By Max Singer
Part Three
Lugg and Oog and The Clerics’ Tales
luug & oog1
the cleric’s tales
an introduction to the clerics’ tales
the bishop of pippidufka
the imam of siddi ba’aaka
the mendicant monk of pei pei du fu2
1 also known as The Crowning of King Krone
2 also known as Lady Wu’s Abject Apology
luug & oog or the crowning of king krone
Luug the Woodsmith and Oog the Stonesmith were identical twins who lived in identical shacks on opposite sides of the village of Pippidufka, equidistant from “The Rock”, a large flat boulder that did not mark as much as occupy, the space in front of Mutz’s Shebeen which was unofficially (for nothing in Pippidufka could be said to be official) the village commons.
One fine afternoon, for no particular reason at all, each of the two brothers, unbeknownst to one another, decided at the exact same moment to pay his identical twin a visit; rose from their identical slat-backed chairs at the exact same moment; donned their identical cotton caps and identical wooden tunics which hung on identical wooden pegs by their doors at the exact same moment; and set off at the exact same moment at an identical lumbering gait and pace.
As they approached “The Rock”, both brothers were surprised and pleased to see their doppelganger headed towards them. They were about to greet each other with hearty and identical “Halloo’s” when, at the exact same moment, their attentions were drawn to the sunlight reflecting off a shiny object lying on the ground in front of “The Rock.”
Exactly halfway between them.
They moved towards it step-in-step. Reached the spot, at the exact same moment. Bent over to pick it up, at the exact same moment. And, since they were being propelled along identically opposite trajectories, they inevitably clunked their heads together at the exact same moment.
And, when, at last, at the exact same moment, the r inging in their ears and the spinning in their eyes, subsided, they each realized, at the exact same moment, that they both had a steel grasp, between their thumbs and forefingers, of a coin which, just for an instant, they thought might be the legendary golden drachma of Siddi Ba’aaka [...but that’s another story] but which turned out to be, instead, an old, but none-the-less still shiny, and valuable, Silver Krone.
“I saw it first, Brother,” they both said, in unison.
“No you didn’t, Brother,” they both responded, in unison.
“I touched it first, Brother,” they both asserted, in unison.
“No you didn’t, Brother,” they both countered, in unison.
Flummoxed, they paused.
There then ensued an energetic and determined, tug-o-war between the twins, at the end of which, neither Luug nor Oog had either gained, or lost, a single hairs’ breath of advantage.
At which point, stymied again, there was another pause.
Then followed a sporadic series of re-enactments of their original tug-o-war.
Of increasingly shorter duration.
Interspersed with increasingly lengthier intervals of silent inactivity.
Culminating, finally, in a complete cessation of motion, a total, dumb-founded paralysis, as if struck motionless for all time.
And they might have been standing there to this very day, had not either Dronkyll the Drover or Brogglephrog the Poet or Golleph the Apiarist or any of the other inhabitants of Pippidufka arrived upon the scene. (Exactly whom, is lost in the fog of history and the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. And, as you may have come to suspect, is totally, irrelevant to the telling of this tale.)
Suffice to say (all who tell this tale agree at least upon this point) this newcomer enquired about the cause of the curious situation, upon which, Luug or Oog or Oog or Luug explained to him or her as best they could, from their identical (yet opposite) viewpoints, what exactly had transpired.
And the new arrival listened, and nodded, and nodded, and listened, and then, as these things always go, at the end, offered his or her opinion as to which of the one or the other of the twins had a greater claim to the Silver Krone.
Now, what you are about to read is in no way intended to suggest that his or her opinion in this matter might, just might perhaps have been clouded by such irrelevant considerations as the fact of her or him happening to be a neighbor either of Luug or a neighbor of Oog, or that he or she had once fetched either Luug or Oog or Oog or Luug some medicinal herbs from Gnityll the Seamstress once when either Luug or Oog or Oog or Luug had been ill, and thus, even if unbeknownst to their conscious minds, had been carrying about a sense of some form of Lugg or Oog’s or Oog or Luug’s indebtedness towards him or her and thus, in the present circumstance, had immediately formed an anticipatory expectation of recompense via the sharing of Luug or Oog’s or Oog or Luug’s good fortune, were the weight of his or her opinion in the matter to crucially influence whether Luug or Oog or Oog or Luug were to gain ultimate possession of the object in question.
No. Heaven’s forfend!
To suggest such, that his or her and all the other subsequent newcomers’ motivations in this affair, were either untoward or calculating is, at the least, beyond the scope of this tale, and, at worst, an untoward perjoration of all these innocent village folk.
It would be, as well, an unnecessary explanation for what is, after all is said or left unsaid an otherwise easily explained phenomenon. Which explanation is, namely: Pippidufkans prided themselves on being the sort of people and place for whom and for where one man’s good fortune was freely shared with all, regardless of their opinions or involvem ent.
Suffice it to say, however, that while that notion is a fine sentiment in theory Pippidufkans had never tested it in the case of anything that was actually of value, as valuable, say, as an old, but still shiny, Silver Krone.
In any case, as you might, once again, have begun to suspect at this point in this tall-tale-telling— it is ultimately irrelevant for the outcome of our story whichever side that first arrival had come down upon, either the Cain or the Abel, the Jacob or the Esau, the Romulus or the Remus, or the Twixt or Tween of this tale, for, almost immediately, along came another other villager perhaps it was Holgi the Milkmaid or Frutz the Cobbler or Beb the Shepherd who then, having made similar enquiries, and to whom similar explanations were given, and, similarly, having listened and nodded, and nodded and listened, in the end, placed the weight of his or her opinion on the other side of the one of the one or the other of the two brothers with whom the first arrival had sided.
(Again, this is not to suggest that the opinion of the second arrival had been influenced by etc because etc having done etc etc etc.)
And, on it went, etc.
Until… like night follows day, and day follows night, yet inexorably in the end, no matter how great the passage of time, there
will never be more nor less “day than night” nor “night than day” finally, nearly the entire village stood by “The Rock”, having similarly enquired, and having been similarly advised.
The result being: one half of the village favoring the one of the “one or the other” of the two, arguing with the other one half of the village favoring the other of “the one or the other” of the two (all the while with nary a movement of either Luug’s or Oog’s thumbs and forefingers upon the Silver Krone despite the obvious cramps with which both the “one and the other” were suffering).
To sum up: at this precise point in our tale, nearly the entire village was at an impasse and at a standstill, i.e. the entire villa ge, less one!
Here seems an appropriate occasion to pause and bring onto the stage of our tale precisely that individual whose prior absence from the scene required us by the grammatical and syntactical norms of the language not to mention honest narration to use the modifying nearly as in the phrase: “nearly the entire village was at a standstill”.
Thus entereth Nipk: As this drama was unfolding, this new character his name, as you may have guessed, is Nipk En Eye Pee Kay the villages’ unofficial, unpaid, combination judge, bailiff, mediator, archivist cum scrivener, was asleep, taking his regular midday nap, his “restorative.”
“Keeps the mind sharp and all that,” was his usual reply to his friends’ taunts about this particular habit of his.
This day, Nipk’s usually restorative “restorative” was nothing of the sort, for, into a sleep filled with an otherwise pastoral and insectfree dream, there suddenly came an ominous buzzing of bees, which
buzzing grew louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, until Nipk awoke with a start, swatting away the pests with both hands.
Nipk quickly deduced that he was in bed and had been dreaming although it must be said that the buzzing sound did linger afforded a moment of concern and self-doubt.
Which was soon erased when it became quite apparent, that the sound was coming neither from his head, nor his room, but from just outside his window. Nipk awake now, roused from his repose, and curious reluctantly rose, shuffled to his window, pulled back the makeshift curtain, and pushed open the wooden shutters.
Looking down upon “The Rock” from the spare room in the second-floor attic of Mutz’s Shebeen his “official residence” what Nipk saw was the oddest, silliest, most ridiculous, scene he had ever beheld: what seemed to be the entire village was gathered below him, engaged in what he could only imagine to be a motionless tug-o-war, with exactly one half the villagers behind Luug, on one side of “The Rock” and the other exactly one half behind Oog, on the other side of “The Rock.”
All of this accompanied by a maelstrom of incoherent honking voices and flapping arms; as if two flocks of geese in V -formation had flown directly at one another, claiming the same mid -air point, the two alpha ganders, meeting nose to nose, and coming to a standstill, neither of them willing to give way.
What was curious about the scene to Nipk was the absence of the customary length of rope that accompanied such rustic competitions; instead, all he could see was something small and shiny grasped between the thumbs and forefingers of Luug and Oog.
Nipk rubbed his eyes in the way that characters do in these tales when they wish to signify that they are unwilling to believe what they see before them; and his eyes, being well-rubbed, the sight and sounds nonetheless remaining, Nipk sighed, pulled on his boots, tunic, and the tin whistle (which he wore around his neck as a
symbol of his unofficial position in the village) and went down the stairs and outside, to see what mischief the twins had gotten themselves into this time.
Nipk tried to ask what the hoo-dee-haw was all about. But everyone just continued their honking a nd flapping. Even louder and harder.
So Nipk climbed up on “The Rock”, blew long flat shrill notes on his whistle, until the crowd quieted down and he could ask what the fuss was all about.
And then, everyone just resumed their honking and flapping, louder and harder, as if they making their case anew for the benefit of this latest, last, undecided, and uncommitted arrival.
It took a few more blasts before Nipk could understand that what the ruckus was all about was which of the twins had “rightful possession” of the Silver Krone that they both held tightly in their grip.
Nipk climbed down from “The Rock” to get a close look at the object in question.
And a closer look.
And an even closer look.
And an even closer closer look.
But, no matter how closely he looked, so far as he could determine, both Luug or Oog had neither more nor less of the Krone between their thumbs and forefingers than the other.
It seemed, they each held, exactly, one half.
Obviously, Nipk thought to himself, his first task was to resolve this current impasse, to restore a modicum of normalcy, to get all of the villagers back to whatever it was they had been doing and to wherever it was they had been going.
And so, climbing back up on “The Rock,” Nipk blew his whistle again and loudly proclaimed,:
“This is a serious matter and must be dealt with as such!”
The crowd murmured tentatively.
“This affair,” he went on, “must be adjudicated fairly and firmly.” The crowd grunted, not certain whether they approved of where, or even knew where, Nipk was leading them.
“So,” he went on, “Since, it seems, thanks to my ‘Restorative’, which all of you have taunted me about in the past” he could not resist that aside “I am the only Pippidufkan without a personal stake in the outcome of this matter, other, of course, than maintaining quiet during my nap” he could not resist that aside either “I shall therefore take upon myself the difficult and thankless task of deciding this complex case. And, to ensure that, I, Nipk, acting in the capacity of Unofficial Official Acting Bailiff, may hear all sides fairly and equally, and without coercion, do hereby place this Silver Krone under my protective custody.
“The Krone, Please,” he indicated to Luug and Oog, holding out one hand and pointing to its palm with the other.
The twins did not move.
“Luug! Oog! The Krone, please!” he pleaded Receiving no response, he jumped down from “The Rock”, grabbed for the Silver Krone and managed somehow, to get a grip on a small corner of it, and, finally, after a brief struggle Luug and Oog relinquished their grasps.
“Good! That’s good!” Nipk said, holding the Krone aloft for everyone to see to a collective gasp of relief and a flurry of hoorahs.
“I hereby place this Krone under my personal protection, and go hence, to place it in the Official Village Depository in my chambers. Tomorrow we shall reconvene here. I will hear what you all have to say. And I will make my judgment.”
And, with that, and a toot on his whistle, hand still held high, Krone firmly grasped between thumb and forefinger, with Luug, Oog, and the entire village following, Nipk turned and marched into Mutz’s and upstairs to his room, where, with great ceremony ( the
entire village as witness) placed the Silver Krone in an old tin box, which, in the lore of the village, was thus instantly transformed into the Unofficial Official Depository of Village Valuables which valuables consisted of, at that moment, if one mu st be honest, and, I suppose one must, well, frankly: the Silver Krone.
And then he locked it.
Nipk spent a restless and fitful night pondering his dilemma. At one point he suddenly awoke from a dream about The Golden Drachma of Siddi Ba’aaka, a cautionary tale he had often heard as a child, and wondered what the bumbling hero and his tale of his misfortunes with Lady Luck, was trying to tell him. And then he fell sound asleep.
By midmorning, when Nipk finally rose, a crowd had already gathered below.
Mutz was doing a brisk business.
Gnittyl was vending her famous boiled potatoes.
Zwig was busy working the periphery of the crowd selling jugs of his hooche.
At noon, the traditional time for such matters, Nipk left the Shebeen, climbed up on the rock, and took a seat at a wooden table and chair placed there for these proceedings.
The crowd grew still.
And then, with a great thump-thump-thump of an almost-petrified -hard-as-a-rock raw potato, Nipk gaveled the hearings to order.
It was not until late afternoon that everyone who wished to tell their version of the tale and it seemed as if everyone did had finished.
None of the villagers had anything different or substantial to add to what they had already said.
Some just wanted to hear themselves say it again.
Others merely relished the opportunity to speak their mind in public:
Brooglephrog complained about the poor attendance at his monthly poetry readings.
Frütz, the Cobbler, gave an eloquent overview of his philosophy of Pan-atheism.
Slenk, the Thief, vehemently protested his innocence until, being informed he was not under suspicion of anything, responded:
“Wa’al, jerst so ye know. Jerst so ye know!”
After all had had their say, Nipk closed the proceedings ‘protemps’ as he said with a toot on the whistle and another thump-thump-thump of the potato and returned to his room to deliberate.
Meanwhile, torches were lit. A festive, albeit pensive, atmosphere reigned. And the crowd, expectant of a judgment, made no haste to depart.
Upstairs in his room, Nipk sat down and tried to unweave this ridiculous web of innocent circumstance, which threatened to upset the delicate balance of village life in Pippidufka.
Once, in his previous life the solution would have been obvious to him:
Exchange the Krone for smaller currency and divvy it up!
The biggest drawback to that approach, though, was simply the lack of any smaller currency in the village, in fact, the lack of any currency at all in the village. (Unless of course you wanted to count an assortment of dog-eared, faded, ratty scrip, that had been handed out to one villager or another in payment for commandeered goods and services, by whichever invading army had been ravaging the countryside that particular season. Which scrip was then passed down, from father to son, in the knowledge that the time would come that the one army, or the other army, who had issued the scrip originally would return again, in the hope that the paper would then
be worth something at last. Which scrip, of course, by-the-bee, was still as worthless at the time of this tale as well as this telling as it was when issued. As worthless, say, as the I-owe-you’s passed from hand-to-hand, from game-to-game, from year-to-year, among the devotees of Klegga Zitza “O Hell. I’m Cooked” the village’s only game of chance, Pippidufka being, also, the only place this game was played.)
Likewise, the Solomonic option, that of rending the Krone in twain with a chisel or an axe, and to give one-half to Luug, and onehalf to Oog, was rendered null by one of the villagers’ odder but nonetheless strongly held superstitions, namely:
“A Riven Krone is a Worthless Krone”
And, ultimately, even if there were currency to exchange, or if the Krone could be split, even halves into quarters, quarters into eighths, eighths into sixteenths, sixteenths into thirty-seconds, and so forth, by the time the largesse had been spread around, those who received a share would still be as poor as they were before. And wouldn’t that have defeated the whole point of having a Silver Krone to begin with, which, of course, was to be rich?
Or at least the richest person in the village.
And, even if that difficulty were to be overcome, frankly, what was the point of being the richest person in the village when there really wasn’t anything in the village to spend a Silver Krone on.
One might of course argue that you could always go to the city to spend a Silver Krone.
But, as everyone in Pippidufka knew:
“A Silver Krone in the City is Smaller than a Silver Krone in the Country.”
Nipk’s head began to throb.
He had always somewhat egotistically, perhaps considered himself a particularly shrewd and sagacious chap.
But this time he was stumped.
“If only,” he thought to himself “I could work miracles.
“I’d wave my hands and make Silver Krone to go around.
“That way, everyone could be as rich as everyone else in the village and things could remain as oddly perfect as they are in this oddly perfect little village.”
“Or would they?” he thought.
The solution hit him like a flash of warm lightning. “Could it be that simple?” He said aloud. He turned the idea around in his head.
Up side down.
Down side up.
In side out.
Out side in.
And the only objection he could find, was just the oddness of the solution itself.
“But, then,” he told himself, “Pippidufka is as odd as it gets.”
Nipk emerged from Mutz’s a few hours later with the Official Depository under his arms.
The crowd quieted immediately.
He climbed up on the rock, blew a shrill toot on his whistle to call the village to order though as you have just read, that was a mere formality and began:
“Whomever is awarded the Silver Krone, whether Luug or whether Oog, will become the richest person in the village in fact, the only rich person in the village (the crowd laughed) and (he went on) that will be fine for him and whomever he chooses to share his fortune with (a smathering of enthusiastic “ayes”) if, of course he chooses to share it with anyone (a number of disconcerted ‘what?’s at the introduction of the notion that sharing the fortune need not be a forgone conclusion) the rest of us (he continued) though no poorer than before, will feel poorer, and will begin to resent the others who have more, as they, in their turn, w ill begin to resent the others who have less. In the end, we will no longer be simple village folk living
in a simple village. In other words, this will no longer be Pippidufka and we, no longer Pippidufkans. Is that what you want?”
The crowd roared back a unanimous “No! No!”
“Then this is my solution which you shall obey Under Payne of Sortes of Nastie Thynges!”
The crowd laughed at this reference to the tale of The Besotted Vizier one of their favorite stories and laughed even harder when Nipk danced a little jig and sang a few verses from Nastie Thynges, complete with all the traditional pantomime from the tale.
And, after Nipk had stopped his performance, and, finally, caught his breath, he ceremoniously placed the tin box on the table, opene d it, and slowly, inch-by-inch, pulled out a length of leather string whose end was looped through a small hole in the Silver Krone.
“I award the Silver Krone to (the crowd held its breath) everyone!””
The villagers looked at one another.
Confused.
Questioning.
“I declare that Everyone in the village (Nipk explained) will get to possess the Silver Krone for one week. During that week they will reign as King Krone or Queen Krone, the richest person in the village, toasted nightly at Mutz’s ‘Ere’s to King Krone, Sar!’ or ‘Ere’s to Queen Krone M am!’ and, on the last night of their reign granted the royal privilege of sleeping on Gnittyl’s great featherbed let’s ‘ere it for Gnittyl and then, the next week, we’ll draw straws and pick a new King or Queen, un til everyone has had their turn at the throne.”
“And then?” Someone shouted.
“And then we’ll start all over again!”
There was a moment of tentative silence, while Nipk waited anxiously for their response.
Finally everyone burst out with huzzahs and hoorahs, hoo-hahs, guffaws, whoops, gasps, laughter and, then, a long round of applause, during which Nipk took a little bow or two.
“But who will be first?” someone shouted.
“Friends,” Nipk answered, “I give you the first dual monarchy of the village of Pippidufka. Kings Krone Luug and Oog the First! … Or, is it Kings Krone Oog and Luug?”
The crowd cheered, as both Luug and Oog, wide-grinned, sheepishly climbed up on the rock at the exact same moment, and, at the exact same moment, each took hold of exactly one-half of the Silver Krone and held it up for all to see.
And for the next week, Luug and Oog (or Oog and Luug it all depends who’s telling the tale) were inseparable.
the cleric’s tales an introduction
The central theme of all The Clerics’ Tales remains the same: someone, usually a general, political ally or son of a wealthy family, is granted by the Monarch an appointment to a religious post. That individual then sets to travel to his new domain, with dreams of wealth and power only to discover, once ensconced, that his flock is a disorganized, apathetic, faithless and unhygienic lot, prone to an easy gullibility, and, a susceptibility to all things superstitious in nature.3 Even worse of course, in the cleric’s eyes, is their state of utter poverty.4 How the cleric then attempts to reform and squeeze the yokels, and how the yokels defeat all his attempts well, those are the tales.
3 Those beliefs to which they did profess allegiance, seemed to be an amalgam of bits & pieces, stitched together, patchwork style, from hundreds of discredited faiths, which could be appended to, or subtracted from. at their whim.
4 Pippidufka was said to have 100 citizens & 113 gods give or take ten or eleven or twelve depending upon their mood, the time of day, the temperature, how many villagers were drunk, how many drops of pee Zwig the Moonshiner or Abu the Kif Grower had to shake off his thingum in the morning, or whether it was an odd or even numbered day. In short: who knows why! Maybe they were, indeed, a gullible lot, and prone to swallowing their bunkum whole; maybe, they had been conquered, converted, reconquered & reconverted for so many centuries, that, inevitably, some of the hokum just rubbed off on them; maybe they were, in fact, true seekers of enlightenment. Or, maybe they were just cautious and wanted to hedge their bet in The Eternal Life Lottery held on the first full moon of each year in Tüssi the Farmer’s barn. Like I said: Who knows! I’m not here to answer all your silly, philosophical, lit-crit questions. Just simply to introduce you to that genre of folklore known as The Clerics’ Tales.
the bishop of pippidufka5
The new Bishop of Pippidufka urged on his donkey. It was late afternoon.
He had been riding all day, and, if the last set of directions he had received were accurate, his new kingdom lay just over the next rise. Of course he would have preferred to enter in a fine carriage drawn by a brace of Arabian Stallions, but then, if the truth be known, he would have also preferred, to have been appointed personal religious advisor to the All-Powerful-Greatest-Lord-in-theRealm in the Capital City, rather than a lowly minor prelate in a provincial backwater that he’d never heard of, let alone even find on a map.
On the other hand, at that moment, a warm fire, some fine clothes, a butt of roast swine, and a flagon of Malmsey served by a healthy country lass (with strong religious feelings of course) not to
5 The Clerics’ Tales are a group of fragments of a number of tales such as The Tale of the Bishop of Pippidufka, The Tale of the Imam of Siddi Ba’aaka, and The Tale of the Monk of Pei Pei du Fu Kwa the fragments fitting together to form such smooth narratives that scholars believe all these tales must have derived from a single ur-text.
mention a few coins in the alms bowl every Sunday would not only be a welcome respite from his travels, but truth be told, not an unacceptable start for one whose condition had been, prior to his appointment, that of penury. (How he came to receive his commission was still a matter of some mystery to him and thus a tale that remained to be told).
The road went on as straight as an arrow through the vast plain until it entered upon a thick forest. The Bishop rode through the trees for what seemed like hours before the road began to rise, took a downward turn, flattened out, and emerged from the thickest part of the forest.
Then, his heart began to beat (and his stomach growl) in anticipation.
But when he surveyed the scene that lay before him, his heart sank. Obviously he had not yet arrived at his destination, for what lay ahead of him was not a city or town but more a collection of huts, shacks, barns, and various outbuildings, constructed of uncertain materials and styles, arranged in what could only be described as a random and haphazard fashion.
He would once again have to stop and get directions.
The road led past a large boulder in a patch of greenery on one side of the road.
Perched atop the rock was a fellow of somewhat dubious appearance who held tightly to a jug, from whose aroma the Bishop deemed likely to contain, or have contained, a fermented beverage of one sort or another. ( This observation on the Bishop’s part did not so much arouse his moral sensibilities as it did his thirst).
The Bishop halted his donkey by the boulder and addressed the fellow perched on its edge.
“Prithee, my good man, could you point me the way to Pippidufka?”
The fellow snickered briefly before answering him thusly:
“An’ perchance yar the new Bishop of Pippidufka?”
The Bishop was flattered that news of his imminent arrival had traveled as far as this decrepit backwater, he responded:
“I am, indeed! And, prithee, tell, how come ye to that knowledge?”
“Farst, ye been pritheeing and praying thee a lot. Secund, none else come to Pippidufka twas why they sent me t’wait on yer. Sempil they said for Sempil is me name Sempil they said, sit on the rock, and when someone come past, he’ll be the new Bishop, and ye escort him t’were he be staying.”
“An escort! How thoughtful. And appropriate. Well then, saddle ye up and lead the way,” the Bishop went on in an expansive manner.
“Tare ’aint no saddle.”
“No saddle?”
“Tare ’aint no saddle. Tare ’aint no horse.”
“No saddle? No horse? They don’t expect me to give you a ride all the way to Pippidufka?”
The fellow looked at him quizzically.
“Most Holy sar, I fear ye truly be lost.”
“Lost? I don’t understand?”
The fellow stood up, took an ungraceful but deep bow and said:
“Walcom to Pippidufka, yar Holiness!”
When the Bishop came to his senses, his head was spinning. Everything was blurred. Slowly he began to make out faces, hovering over him, strange faces, unfamiliar faces, bizarre faces.
After a few seconds, one of the faces, the idiotic face in the center of his vision, did, in fact, seem somewhat familiar, reminding him of someone, someone he had met, recently, very recently, in fact, just before he passed out.
“What was I doing?” he asked himself. “The last thing I remember was stopping and asking someone directions to…
“Pippidufka!?”
and “Pippidufka!?”
said aloud. He groaned and sat up with a start, remembering all at once what had transpired, at least up to that very moment beyond which he could now remember nothing.
“What happened? Was I set upon? How many were there? Where am I am? Who are all these people?” He directed his questions to the owner of the familiar face Sempil who he now recognized as the fellow he had met at the rock.
“Ye warsn’t set upon.” Sempil answered, “Yar fainted. From all the travellin,’ I ‘spect. And yar in the house of Gnityll, the Seamstress war yull be stayin. And these be yar flock. This is Tüssi, the farmer, Schnip the Barber, Holgi the Milkmaid…”
And, as Sempil put a name to each of the faces, the faces leaned forward and pressed their faces nearer to his until he could feel and smell their breath, see every wart on their faces, every wrinkle, every bit of food in their beards, every lost tooth and said to him something very much like “Walcum ‘oly sar” or “Pleased t’meet cher” or “Bless me, yar ‘ollyness,” or some other, similar, guttural attempt at communication just barely on the intelligible side of coughing and wheezing.
He lay back and croaked, “Please leave me be!”
“A’curse, sar,” replied Sempil. “Yar rest yourself. Lady Gnityll fixed yar a nice bed and a warm fire. Yar clothes were all mussed, an darty, so we barnt them and fixed yar with fine new ones tuh be wearing. En thar’s a pretty morsel t’eat, I dar say, en” he winked “a bit of Zwig’s finest t’quench yar thirst!”
Sempil turned to the others. “Come now, come now. Let’s leave his holy sar to his rest”.
And with that he ushered them and himself from the room.
It was all too much for the Bishop to digest so he turned over and went to sleep.
He thought
he
At some point during the night, he awoke. He dimly sensed that he was in a small antechamber separated from a larger room by a make-shift curtain. Through the gauzy material he could just make out larger room, a parlour of some sort, if such a refinement wa s possible for folks like these, he thought.
The next thing he noticed was that his back itched.
And his backside.
He sat up and felt around and beneath him.
He seemed to be lying upon a mattress that was little more than a bag of straw.
And the clothes he was dressed in, not the fine silk he was expecting, but simple homespun cotton. He thought to change into his old clothes, but then recalled that the idiot told him they had been burnt.
In the larger room, through the gauzy curtain, he saw a small misshapen wooden table, upon which, under a cloth, sat what he assumed most certainly to be a plate of food.
His stomach growled, so the Bishop got up, entered the parlour, went over to the table, sat down and removed the cloth. What he found there was a tin plate containing a boiled potato, a chunk of dark bread, a square of goat cheese and a handful of berries.
He ate sullenly.
The crudeness of his m eal disgusted him, nonetheless he devoured it ravenously.
In a tin cup was some water.
As he gulped it down to take the taste of the meal out of his mouth, a pillar of fire surged down his throat and gullet straight to his stomach.
“A bit of Zwig’s best to quench your thirst!” That’s what the damn fool had meant as he winked at him.
This fellow Zwig was a moonshiner. Hooche! Vile Hooche, to boot.
The Bishop shivered.
He realized he was cold.
He looked around for the warm fire they said they had made for him. In the corner he saw a small ceramic oven in which burned a rather pitifully small chunk of peat.
“This will not do,” the Bishop vowed to himself.
First thing tomorrow, he would do something about these conditions, which to his mind were not only uncomfortable, intolerable, and insulting, but also disrespectful of his position as a man of God.
the imam of siddi ba’aaka
The next morning, after the new Imam of Siddi Ba’aaka had dressed and eaten and prayed, he went outside and began to ring his hand-bell up and down like a madman until a sizeable crowd of villagers had gathered to see what the fuss was all about.
When the villagers quieted down, the Imam spoke: “It is obvious to me that you have not been taught properly or have forgotten the proper way to treat someone of my station!”
The crowd looked at one another. Silently.
Ilyman, who seemed to speak for the others asked: “I don’t understand, most holy sir?”
“You don’t understand?
“My clothes, my bed, my food, my fire? I am a man of a certain position in the world. I am a holy man. Those are not suitable for me!”
“We did not mean to insult you, most holy sir,” Ilyman, responded.
“Well, today I will spend my time introducing myself to the villagers and praying to God for guidance. When I am done and return, I expect all this to be remedied.”
“Your wishes shall be carried out, most Holy Sir,” Ilyman bowed deeply.
“It had better,” the Imam answered and went off, leaving the villagers alone to engage in a lengthy and heated discussion about the Imam’s demands and, as was their practice, they sought guidance in the stock of old tales that was part of their patrimony. The one they settled on, as being most pertinent to their current quandary was The Abject Obeisance of Shahara .
It turned out to be a tedious, tiresome, and disappointing day for the Imam. Not only did he find his new flock to be an apathetic, faithless and gullible group of misfits, even worse, the village was an impoverished backwater with nothing of value: they were all as poor as field mice.
The Imam was not one to be put off, however, and he determined to squeeze them dry, if needs be, so that he might at least be comfortable until he can find his way back to civilization.
It was dark when he returned to his hut that is was what he considered it to be, a hut which was dimly lit by one small candle.
But the Imam was too famished to search for other illumination, instead, he went directly to the dining table, expecting to find there his evening meal, much improved over his previous day’s ration.
He hungrily pulled back the cloth covering his repast. But, all he found was a piece of moldy old bread and a tin cup of dirty water.
“Is this their idea of a Joke?” he fumed, threw the food on the floor. He threw off his clothes expecting to change into the fine new pajamas he assumed to be there.
But, he found neither silk nor homespun but a hodgepodge of rags that was less a garment than a bunch of holes haphazardly sewn together. Then he realized he was cold. A glance at the ceramic fireplace showed no fire at all. Just one glowing ember of coal.
Shaking with fury, he swore he would make them pay for this insult, and threw himself down on his straw mattress.
But there was no mattress: the Imam landed flat on his back with a thump on a bare wooden plank. That was enough! He rose, halfnaked, and went to the door of the hut where he furiously rang and rang his hand-bell.
One by one, lights went on in the village, and soon a crowd had gathered.
“What is the meaning of these insults?” the Imam demanded.
“What is the matter, most holy sir?” asked Ilyman, the spokesman, abjectly.
“The matter? What is the matter? Did I not ask you to provide me with that which is suitable to a man of my position? I’ll teach you a lesson, you infidel dog!”
And with that he lifted his walking stick and made to beat Ilyman.
But Ilyman did not cower and take his blows like a beaten dog. Instead, he stood tall, and stopped the blow with an iron grasp on the Imam’s stick.
The Imam felt a force surge through his staff and stir his very soul. He tried to release his grip on the stick, but could not.
And, when Ilyman spoke, he spoke in a deep and authoritative voice, calm but full of venom: “We did exactly what you asked, most holy sir. Of course at first, many villagers complained, thinking you wished to be treated like a Sultan or Caliph. They demanded that we beat you, strip you of all your clothes but a loincloth, and cast you into the wilderness to beg for food from the animals like an eremite. But I assured them that the most holy sar did not mean that at all. That the most holy sar was truly a student of the holy book and merely wished to be treated like the prophets of old: with no more nor less than the lowest of his flock. And so, obeying your wishes, we gladly gave your portion of food to Jawar the Goatherd, who has not had meat in three moons, just dirty water and moldy bread; we gave your fine homespun to Ymir the Fellah, whose clothes were full of holes, your peat to warm the fire of Z ostri
the Milkmaid, who has a new mouth to feed and was reduced to a single ember of coal; and your soft straw mattress to old Shirdja, the Hunter, whose back is bent from sleeping on a bare wooden plank.
“Is that not what you wished, most holy, sar?”
Furious, the Imam tried to respond, but the words would not come, and all he could do was sputter, and stammer, and spit, and growl.
So he sputtered, and stammered, and spit, and growled, until he sputtered, and stammered, and spat, and growled himself into a fit of a apoplexy.
And, then, he shook and shook until he shook himself into a swirling whirlwind, and then whirled, and whirled, and whirled, and whirled, until he whirled, and whirled, and whirled, and whirled himself into a tight ball of thorns, then into a tumbleweed, and finally into a dust devil which blew away.
the mendicant monk of pei pei du fu kwa6 or lady wu’s abject apology
The Mendicant Monk, recently assigned to Pei Pei du fu Kwa by the Grand Abbot of the Grand Monastery, was having a fitful night’s sleep.
He tossed and turned and tossed and turned, grew angrier and angrier.
Then he tossed and turned some more.
And grew angrier still.
Thus, having worked himself into a froth, he rose, went into the antechamber where Lady Wu slept, roused her from her slumber, and after berating her for the shoddy and disrespectful manner in which he was being treated the parsimony of his meals, the crudeness of his garments, the roughness of his mattress and linens, the lack of adequate heat in his chamber beat her with his staff.
Soundly.
Just to make it clear that he would not tolerate being treated with such insolent disregard.
He was, after all, a Holy man.
The next morning, as the Monk left for the village to collect his alms from those not hiding behind closed doors until he passed by Lady Wu bowed as low as she could and in the most abject voice she could muster said, “When you return, Master Monk, everything will be worthy of a man of your position”.
“It had better!” he replied.
Briefly infused with an uncharacteristic moment of warmth towards the woman, he thought, “Perhaps she will turn out to be an adequate servant after all.”
That day, Lady Wu’s tiny feet scurried back and forth from task to task.
First, she chose the largest and finest pair of sewing shears she owned and sharpened them, until they were sharp enough to cut a piece of metal as if it were tissue paper.
Then, she herded her entire flock of geese there must have been 100 of them into the little pen in the back of her hut.
After that, she went out into the fields and picked 1000 of the smoothest, roundest, ripest stones she could find.
Then she chopped down 10 of the tallest, thickest trees in the forest, cut them up into firewood, and started a blazing fire.
Finally, she took the biggest pot she owned, put it on the fire, and dropped the stones into it so that they might cook.
When the Cuckoo-bird in the garden sang its noontime song, announcing to Lady Wu that it was time for tea, she brewed herself a small pot, and sat quietly in the corner savoring the beverage’s soothing warmth and planning the rest of her day.
When it was time to go back to work, Lady Wu checked the pot on the fire and saw that the stones were reducing nicely into a thick soup, but, just to be on the safe side, she added the marrowbones from 50 cows for extra thickness.
While the stones were cooking, Lady Wu dug a hole. She dug. And dug. And dug. And dug.
Until she reached a rich vein of gold, which she collected, and hauled up.
Bag by bag.
She then began to spin all that gold into thread. She spun. And spun. And spun. And spun.
Until her little hut was filled with spools of g olden thread. And, with the spools of golden thread, she began to weave and weave and weave.
Until she was surrounded by bolts of silken golden fabric, which she cut and sewed together to make an exquisite robe.
Lastly, she went up into her attic and brought down two old sails she kept there, sewed three sides together with strong thread, filled it up with the down she had plucked from her flock of geese, and then sewed up the open end.
Her timing could not have been better for, just then, she spied the Monk walking up the path to her door. And he did not look pleased.
When the Monk entered, Lady Wu was waiting for him, holding in her hands a folded garment of the most exquisite golden cloth, shimmering and glittering in the light.
“If Master Monk permits,” Lady Wu spoke, in a most humble and apologetic voice, “I have fashioned this garment for you, of a design and material most suitable for a man of your position. Would you honor me by trying it on?”
The Monk took the garment in his hands.
He had never felt fabric as smooth and as soft as this, whose lightness to the touch belied its weight and heft.
“Yes,” he said aloud, and thought to himself “This is truly a garment worthy of a man of my position.”
He eagerly pulled off his saffron robe and donned the new garment, which fit him like a second skin.
He strutted and preened about the room as if he were the Grand Abbott If not the Grand Lama himself all the while, Lady Wu following him, keeping a respectful few paces behind, “Ooh-ing” and “Aah-ing” and doing her best to flatter him.
“Oh yes, Master Monk, you were made to wear such a garment!”
“You cut such an imposing figure, Master Monk!”
And much the like.
Soon, however, the Monk began to tire.
It was, after all, a rather heavy coat, he thought to himself.
As if reading his mind, Lady Wu appeared with a chair for the Monk to sit in and pulled up a small eating table.
“You have had a long tiring day, Master Monk,” Lady Wu said, “Sit. Let me bring you a special treat I have prepared for you. It will make you feel much better.”
And she scurried off to the kitchen where she seemed to disappear for the longest time.
Finally, she appeared in the doorway carrying a small tray upon which sat a small steaming bowl and large spoon.
Lady Wu seemed to be having a struggle carrying the tray, taking a large number of small agonizing steps before she finally reached him and placed the tray down upon the table with a loud thud.
“Now, this is a very rich, and very heavy, and very hot soup. So sip it slowly and carefully,” Lady Wu urged after catching her breath.
The Monk looked at the soup in the bowl before him. It was hypnotically iridescent and shimmering, soup of a kind which he had never seen before.
“What dish is this?” the Monk asked.
“This is my specialty, Master Monk, it is the famous Emperor Fu’s 1000 Stone Soup.”
“Emperor Fu’s 1000 Stone Soup? What’s in it?” he demanded.
“Why, Master Monk, what a dry wit you have,” Lady Wu giggled.
“It contains 1000 stones, of course.”
The Monk’s stomach growled with hunger. He had worked up quite an appetite trying out his new robe.
So, he forgave Lady Wu’s impertinent humor and tasted the soup. It had an odd metallic flavor to it.
But, since the Emperor Fu was known for having strange tastes, he thought, if it was good enough for Emperor Fu it was ce rtainly good enough for him.
And the Monk attacked the soup heartily.
Soon, the Monk was full. Very, very full. He felt as if he could not move at all.
“Master Monk looks tired,” Lady Wu said. “I have one more surprise for you. I have made you the softest, biggest, deepest featherbed in all the land. Here, let me help you up and into the bedroom.”
Lady Wu struggled to get the Monk up, and managed to get him to his bedroom, where, upon her flinging open the door, there, before his eyes, was indeed the biggest, thickest featherbed he had ever seen, so fat and plump that a stepladder had to be placed beside it so one could climb up to fall into it.
The Monk was suddenly tired to his soul.
Lady Wu walked him to the ladder.
“Shouldn’t I take this robe off first?” he asked her.
“It will be much easier when you are lying down,” she replied, and with great effort helped him slowly up to the top stair of the stepladder where, exhausted by his effort, he teetered for a moment, swaying gently forward and backwards, before, in that most abject voice of hers Lady Wu said “Sweet dreams, Master Monk,” and gave him just the slightest push with her forefinger.
And he fell down into the featherbed.
It was indeed, he thought, the softest and deepest featherbed he had ever felt.
He fell into it like a stone into a still wat er.
But after a moment, when the Monk thought he certainly should have already reached bottom, he was still falling.
In a panic, he desperately tried to pull off the garment that he realized was weighing him down.
But he could find no buckles.
No buttons.
No clasps.
No pins.
No sashes.
And the harder he tried, the faster he fell. And he continued to fall and fall and fall and fall. Until the featherbed covered up over him.
The next morning, when Lady Wu took the featherbed outside to shake it out and hang it up to air, she did not seem at all surprised that nothing fell out of it.
Not a feather.
Not a stone.
Not a bone.
Not a thread of gold.
And as no one in the village sought an explanation as to what had happened to the Monk, she gave none.
And on cold winter nights, Lady Wu, warm and safe in her featherbed, would quietly chuckle to herself, before rolling over and falling into a deep, restful sleep.