A fable from The Book of Yelps and Growls, translated by the Count Florian von Banier, probably around 1789, though we cannot be sure given that this translation was either never finished, or lost in its complete form.
Judy's Horses
Judy, a beautiful young maiden with golden hair soft down her porcelain back, came to the center of Prussia with her father from the provincial town of Buchenwald. Her father, the former King Kaiser Kahn was exiled from his land on account of a certain frustration which led to his slaughter of many of the land's equine inhbitants. They came to Prussia in the night and Judy was taken fastly to sleep. When they awoke they found themselves in a glorious stable with high vaulted ceilings, diamond chandeliers, golden hay, cold marble walls, and warm floors of cedarboard. (In the corner two stablehands sat quietly playing a royal game of chess, paying no mind to Judy and the Kaiser. The player of the Black pieces was having a hard time of it, his position was cramped due to an inaccuracy in his handling of the Winawer Variation of the classic French Defence.)
All around them were the most beautiful horses. Massive steeds of glorious complexion and super-equine strength. Beautiful draft horses were eating bails and bails of hay. A young colt beside the drafts was bucking around while his mother slowly enjoyed her oats and nuts. Two black stallions in the corner nuzzled each other affectionately. Judy begged of her father if she could ride the smller of the two, a black stallion she named "Weiss". He begrudgingly agreed, deciding that perhaps he was best to reduce his loathsome attitude towards human-equestrian interaction.
As Judy raised herself onto Weiss, the stablemaster entered with the lord of the manor, an old white-bearded man with a nasty tooth named Deutschlands Bedeutung. Herr Bedeutung was taken aback when he spied Judy riding one of his horses. He felt like he was in a dream. Who could have snuck into his stables? He asked the stabelmaster, Sinnlos, "Who is this girl?", "What is this dream with horses that she perpetrates upon me?"1, "Does she not know that acting out her fantasies with another man's horses is tantamount to thievery?" The two men of the manor rushed over to the Kaiser and seized him violently. His arms shook, and he aged tremendously. A white beard grew over his mouth so that when he talked all the Kaiser's words were muffled by coarse hair. Judy trembled with fear. Herr Bedeutung eased his grip, though Sinnlos just gripped him even harder.
... {Note that at this point the translation is unfinished and for two paragraphs the text continues in a fragmentary fashion. I have reprinted the fragments below as they are found in the 1934 German-language edition of The Book of Yelps and Growls. I have, of course, translated them into English as best as possible.2} ...
At this, Herr Bedeutung and Sinnlos repented their accusations, though not so much out of fear as out of humility before so great an act. They give as a gift to Judy four of the best horses, and to her father they offered the entire manor, but he settled only for a room in the stable, daily meals for himself and his daughter, and a fine chessboard of marble with equally fine pieces. (He sat down to a game that night and beautifully handled the black pieces in the French Defence handily beating his opponent, a Spanish priest who went by the name of Ruy Lopez.)
Years later, the Kaiser died having amassed a great fortune in his soul, with warm love for his daughter. Herr Bedeutung became a world-renowned breeder of horses. The angel that hed helped them came to visit the manor every Christmas Eve. On her final visit, ten years after Judy and her father came to Prussia, and four years before the Kaiser's death, the angel told a story of a heavenly battle between good and evil. She ended the story saying: "So it was shown to me by the inner light of my own heart that thou must not but trust whoever thou meets in this world, for to not trust is to not love, and speech without love is like breath without air."
1Belle and Sebstian (
Glasgow indiepop band) frontman
Stuart Murdoch once claimed that the initial inspiration for his song
Judy and the Dream of Horses came from this particular fable. "One of my childhood favorites."
2{The incomplete text of the two paragraphs is as follows}:
Just then ... ------ ... glorious and beautiful ---- ugly head with gigantic no--. At this was it said ---- God ".... not only, but also...."---- ------- --- ----- --.
--- ---. ----. Of ... natural--. ---- --------------- ------ -------------------- ----. ... too heavy, from old age, from years past, from history through slippery forest strems, where silver fish remember my dreams, remember my weak and trembling gossamer heart, remember the names that I have loved, though who I have not spoken with since the death of Saint Paul, the mausoleum of dead speech, that ghost land. The ... ---- ----- ---- ---- , "Yet why should I not speak, for my heart has plenty to say?". "Speak not when the reason is this," and the ----- revealed to the group the ... though to call it that is only a profanation of the renowned glory and superhuman... . Even the horses, ... .