The AnnotatedComplete Lost Folk Tales of Pippidufka
By Max Singer
Pu’ud or The Voice of The Gooseberry God Part One
The Complete Lost Folk Tales of Pippidufka*
*also known as the Lost Folk Tales of Pei Pei Du Fu Kwa or the Lost Folk Tales of Siddi Ba’aaka, annotated and collected in a new translation by Max Singer, noted expert in Pippidufkaniana and author of the best-selling Pippidufka for Dummies.
“The tales of Pippidufka are a collection of stories about a small, isolated, backwater village, of unidentifiable geography, and no consequence; inhabited by a mixed and motley group of citizens, of uncertain ethnicity and no importance. It is, literally, a one-horse town: the name of the steed being variously Zwaibak, Schloom or Njuki.1”
An introduction to the tales of Pippidufka from Pippidufka for Dummies
1 It all depends who’s telling the tales
PROLOGUE: a glimmer of hope (FROM The Journals of the Travels of Akbar the Tardy2to the Great Emptiness and Other Lost Places)
(Upon arrival)…for years I had dreamt of finding the fabled Golden Kingdom of Ibn al H’asim al Ibn Hassa’an Shah, that storied mountain hegemony that had as its hallmark the flourishing of all things wise and beautiful, whose attainments in the arts and pursuit of knowledge were matched, nay, surpassed only by its peaceful and profitable relations with its neighbors and whose profound influence was felt as far south as the torrid Bengals and as far east as the frigid Koryons.
Now, at long last, I, pitiful Akbar the T ardy, who has failed at all my ventures save that of deserving my epithet, have found her. But I am standing not amidst palaces of teak and marble, filigreed with gold and ivory, but amidst rubble and ruin. Who the perpetrators of her destruction were and the exact nature of the events that led to her rapid and violent decline, are lost forever in these silent stones…
(A few weeks later)…a ray of hope in the middle of darkness: a local whom I met as he sat perched on a large boulder, a smuggler of artifacts no less, with whom I have been able to establish communication, has sold to me, for a mere pittance, a what appears to be a genuine Official Great Mappe of the Golden Kingdom. One Copper showing in its center, to my utter disbelief and amazement, a desolate territory labeled “The Great Emptiness”.
The Great Emptiness!?
Could fate have been so benevolent at last to have brought me so low, only to show me the way to the legendary village of Pippidufka ?
I start off on the morrow…
2 Also known as Akbar the Inopportune, Akbar the Infelicitous, Akbar the Untimely or simply Ibn Al Quat He who arrives after the (feast) goat is eaten
the apocryphal tales
pu’ud3 | 4
the golden shekel of siddi ba’aaka4 | 9
the tale of zwaibak5 | 16
treasure of pippidufka6 | 21
3 also known as The Voice of the Gooseberry God
4 also known as The Golden Drachma of Pippidufka or The Golden Rupee of Pei Pei du fu Kwa
5 also known as The Rise and Fall of The Festival of The Miracle of the Great Pippidufka Crop Circles
6 Fortune of Pei Pei du fu Kwa or Jewel of Siddi Ba’aaka
pu’ud or the voice of the gooseberry god
One fine summer day, Swig the Moonshiner hired Pu’ud to deliver his latest batch of hooche to one of his regular customers, Dabytt the Peat Cutter who lived by a pond, on the edge of the Slimy Bog, all the way around on the other side of the Great Dark Forest.
And so, on that fine summer day, having borrowed Zwaibak the horseand a wagon from Tüssi the Farmer, Pu’ud loaded the hooche and reluctantly set off.
I say “reluctantly” because Pu’ud had a frightful aversion to the forest. His qualms being a result of the terrifying tales he was told as a child of the forest’s ogres, witches and spells, which harum-scarum still affected him as an adult. So, as a rule, Pu’ud would take the long road around to avoid the forest.
This day was, somehow, different.
Pu’ud felt buoyant:
It was bright and sunny, the sky was clear, the trees were green, and the birds were singing.
There was, also we must add the pleasant anticipation he felt, at the thought of the potato pudding pie, his favorite, that his wife Gnittyl had made for him and which was already cooling upon their windowsill.
So, feeling more or less at peace with the world, Pu’ud took a bold and daring step and turned the wagon onto the rough-hewn road that led straight through the center of the forest.
It was cool inside the woods.
The sun cast a dappled pattern through the leaves and onto the forest floor.
Pu’ud said aloud “Such a pleasant day!” his customary ritual when trying to reassure himself and, as often was the case, any lingering anxieties he might have had were instantly dissipated.
Nonetheless, Pu’ud added thinking of the load he was carrying “Just a sip from one of Zwig’s jugs won’t be missed!”
So, he took just such a sip, a wee sip, a tiny sip, from one of the jugs in the wagon, replaced the cork and drove on.
A while later, Pu’ud said aloud to no one in particular (there being “no one in particular” but the steed Zwaibak, who trudged ahead stoically) “Perhaps another sip from another jug wouldn’t hurt anyone!”
And so he took such a sip from another jug. And then from another…
…and another… …and another…
…and yet another (for good measure!)
Until nary a jug had been left untouched or untasted.
When Pu’ud came to, he was lying on the ground. He looked around and saw no sign of either Zwaibak or the wagon, just a track leading off into the depths of the Dark Forest.
The sun was growing dim.
The forest was darkening.
He rose to brush himself off and all at once reeled from a sharp stabbing pain in the back of his head. He felt around and discovered a large and very tender bump.
“Pu’ud, you idiot!” he said. “You must have fallen off the wagon and knocked yourself out.”
The very next thing he noticed was a ferocious growling in his stomach. Immediately he thought of the potato pudding pie cooling on his windowsill and in that instant all he could think about was filling his belly. Which made him even hungrier
Pu’ud began to forage about, hoping to find something to quiet his growling stomach before the forest grew dark.
If he had found a freshly baked potato pudding pie waiting for him under a tree, he could not have been more satisfied with what he found.
For he had discovered a gooseberry 7 patch.
(A gooseberry patch! In the middle of the Dark Forest! At this time of year! Full of ripe juicy fruit!)
Pu’ud was ravenous and gulped down as many handfuls of the overripe sweet fruit that he could grab.
His stomach quieted forthwith.
And with the growling noise gone, Pu’ud’s attention was at last drawn to his current situation.
His first thoughts were these:
“I’m in the Dark Forest.
“The sun is setting.
“I’m lost.”
He looked about, hoping to make out the traces of the wagon tracks. But in the dimming light it all looked the same to him.
A sudden clap of thunder scared him witless.
Roused from his inertia, he ran off blindly into the depths of the forest, startled, desperate to escape.
Of course, all that accomplished was to make him even more disoriented and lost than he was before. And to frighten Pu’ud even further.
And so he ran. And ran. And ran.
The branches of the trees flicked across his face. He stumbled.
Picked himself up.
Ran some more.
7 Pu’ud or The Voice of the Gooseberry God is the earliest reference to the gooseberry in the Tales of Pippikufka. The Gooseberry figures strongly in many of these tales because of the unusual qualities the villagers ascribed to the fruit: an aphrodisiac as well as a medium of communication with the spirit world. The stories that involved the Gooseberry could be either humorous, as in Gnittyl and Her Would-be Wooer, or tragic, as in The Fortune Teller’s Premature Demise.
Pu’ud might have gone truly mad had he not become aware of a pleasant humming in the back of his head, and a strange tingly warmth that began to suffuse his entire body not to mention an odd orange glow that flitted through the woods about him.
It was the voice, though, a strange, but yet strangely familiar voice, that finally stopped him cold in his path.
It said:
“Follow the light, Pu’ud!”
“Who speaks to me?” Pu’ud dared ask.
“It is I, Pu’ud!”
It is I ?
Although Pu’ud had actually never heard the voice before he recognized it at once.
“It is I, Pu’ud!”
Exactly how he had dreamt of it.
Exactly how he imagined “The Voice of the One True God”.
“What do you want of me?” Pu’ud asked.
“Follow the light, Pu’ud. Paradise awaits.”
And the whole forest began to shimmer and glow.
Then Pu’ud was no longer running through a dark forest, being lashed by branches and vines, but swimming through a warm, deep blue ocean, being caressed by schools of tiny golden fish.
When his energy flagged, the voice would return and repeat
“Follow the light, Pu’ud. Paradise awaits” and Pu’ud would be spurred forward and forward.
Soon he began to hear the sound of flutes and tambourines and little bells, the kind of little bells he imagined the women of the Sultan’s hareem must wear on their little painted fingers and little painted toes when they are called upon to entertain their Lord and Master.
Lithe and nimble Nubian maidens from the Desert Tribes. Courtesans from the Islands of the East.
Blond savage girls with blue painted faces from the North.
But there was no Sultan that lived in the Dark Forest. As least, none that Pu’ud knew of.
So, it must be, as he always dreamt it would be. His Hareem waiting to amuse and entertain him.
His reward.
His due.
(Not that he didn’t love Gnityll his wife, mind you, he told himself…
…she was a fine, loyal, strong woman… …as strong as an ox if only she didn’t look like one.)
So Pu’ud swam on.
And the light grew brighter.
And the music grew louder.
Until, suddenly, he was hurled out of the water on the crest of a huge wave which deposited him on the shore of a lush tropical lagoon where, before him, were a group of ravishing half-naked maidens dancing around a fire beneath the palm trees.
Ecstasy!
Paradise!
His reward!
Pu’ud pulled off his filthy water-soaked garments. Rushed forward, arms open, to embrace the maidens.
Just moments before, Dabytt and his friends had emptied the last jug of Zwig’s hooche from the riderless wagon that had, a few hours before, suddenly emerged from the forest.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Dabytt had told them. “Particularly one with three teeth and no testicles!”
And so they drank many a toast to their generous friend Zwig and to the valiant steed Zwaibak, and danced a jig around a small peat fire, all in step to the drunken screeching of Schtenk the Butcher’s fiddle.
Suddenly, with no warning, out of the bog came running a most pitiful and unfortunate looking fellow, scratched and bloodied, tearing off his tattered and mud-soaked garments as he ran at them screaming:
“Follow the light, follow the light.”
And, proceeded to throw himself upon them in a most undignified and unseemly fashion particularly considering his obvious state of physical excitation an excitation of the sort not proper for elucidation in front of gentlewomen, children or holy men.
Surprised by the madman’s assault, they beat him off and threw him back into the pond, where, eventu ally. the icy water brought him to his senses and washed off enough of the blood and mud that covered his body to reveal his identity.
“Pu’ud?” They asked. “Is that you?”
“It is I. Pu’ud.” He responded.
Of course this incident was the cause of much laughter amongst the friends. But, eventually, out of respect for poor Pu’ud, they ceased their mockery and the incident was never mentioned again.
At least not in public.
For his part, Pu’ud resolved never, ever again, to enter the Dark Forest or eat overripe gooseberries.
Resolutions which Pu’ud held to devoutly for the remainder of his days. Except, for one occasion.
But that’s another story.
the golden shekel of siddi ba’aaka
ALSO KNOWN AS The Golden Drachma of Pippidufka or The Golden Rupee of Pei Pei du fu Kwa
In the waning of the light, a black phaeton dark curtains drawn tight; huge iron-rimmed wheels; pulled by four ebony stallions sped through The Great Emptiness upon a road that passed by a village so inconsequential that it was nowhere to be found in The Official Greate Mappes of the Realme One Copper.
Many a traveler on foot, even in the light of the day, might pass by the ramshackle overgrown ruins by the roadside with no awareness that they were the outbuildings of a living village.
So too must the imp ortant personage (or personages) inside the carriage traveling from-who-knows-where-to-god-knows-where (towards a rendezvous or on a secret mission, on the run from injustice or from justice) have been oblivious to the passing landscape (rapt as they must have been in melancholic musing, agreeable anticipation, troublesome sleep, violent fornication, devious plotting, and, or, simply drunk) and thus unobserved, unnoticed, the village of Siddi Ba’aaka loomed closer, drew near and then was gone.
The phaeton flew past a large, flat-topped boulder or “The Rock”8 , the name by which it was simply known to the villagers.
8 Which served, from no excess of foresight or town planning on the part of the rustics, as the generally-agreed-upon-de-facto-village-commons.
Upon “The Rock”, Ha’amidah the Kif Smoker was sitting, or rather more accurately perching, earning his epithet by finishing off a gourd of Abu the Kif Farmer’s finest blend.
At that exact moment, one of the phaeton’s iron -rimmed wheels rolled over a small pebble, producing nothing more noticeable to the carriage’s occupants than a slight bump, a querulous tremor, a jog, a jiggle, a quiver. The effect of which, however oddly or, as some nitpicking pedant might say, conveniently fortuitous to the unfolding of this tale, was sufficient to dislodge from within the phaeton’s depths, from some unseen crevice, a single Golden Shekel which had been lost there some years ago on a similar journey and eject it into the air, on an arc that would cause it to land on the ground below the rocky perch of pipe-smitten Ha’amidah.
At first Ha’amidah was aware only of a slight gust of wind
But the last rays of the sun happened to glint off the coin and catch his eye and his eyes followed its trajectory as it arched slowly through the air and landed on the ground below his aerie.
“A Golden Shekel?” he asked out loud and bent over to pick it up.
In doing so, nature’s eternal laws took effect, and he fell off “The Rock”, landing quite unceremoniously “ prostrate on his pendiment”, or as the villagers would say flat on ’is fud.
Ha’amidah gathered his senses, dusted himself off, and rose.
He tried to fix the object firm ly in his gaze, as firmly as was possible given his state of inebriation.
It was a Golden Shekel!
He bent over to pick up the precious coin only to find himself once again flat on ’is fud.
Subsequent attempts were equally fruitless.
It seemed to Ha’amidah that each time he tried to snare his prey, some mischievous genie would bring the coin to life and it would scurry away, just out of his reach, taunting him
And he would fall on his face.
Finally, too exhausted to rise, but nonetheless steadfas t in his determination, Ha’amidah circled “The Rock” quietly and stealthily on hands and knees, reemerging on the other side a small distance from the coin, whereupon he pounced on it like a cat on a mouse.
Golden Shekel firmly in hand, Ha’amidah leaned back against “The Rock”.
Turning the coin over and over again.
Examining it from all angles.
Contemplating his good fortune.
He closed his eyes and imagined himself a wealthy man with a fine fur hat and embroidered slippers, sipping Turkish coffee and puffing upon a pipe in a café in the city.
Ha’amidah could not have dozed off for more than a few seconds. But when he awoke the Golden Shekel was gone from his hand. He panicked and looked about frantically, but the coin was nowhere to be seen.
And, thinking it the usual deflating denouement of such a kifinduced delusion, he sighed a sigh of resignation and cast his eyes downward.
Only to see the Golden Shekel, lying there.
All the while, between his legs.
“Safe!” he thought.
And then thought, “Safe? I fell asleep. Let this fortune slip from my hands. For all to see! Safe? What if Ta’aada the Brigand had been passing by?
“Or even poor Qazi the Calligrapher?
“Or Sa’la’mid the Barber?
“Or even Mustafa the Atheist? An Atheist! What would stop a godless atheist like Mustafa from stooping to thievery?”
One thing was for certain.
He was in no condition to trust himself to safeguard this boon the gods had granted him.
“Damn demon kif,” he cursed.
“Damn the day it became my master.”
“What to do, Ha’amidah, what to do? ”
It was good distance from “The Rock” through the trees to the safety of his hut.
If he tried to walk there he would most likely trip over a branch and drop the coin.
His pockets were of no use: having a habit of devouring whatever was placed in them.
And, if he met someone on the way home?
Well, what was there to stop his loose tongue from blurting out the good news and then being taken advantage of?
“What good fortune, Ha’amidah my friend. Come. We must celebrate. Just one pipe at Baroosh’s Sweetshop! Just one!”
“There’s only one thing to do, Ha’amidah,” he told himself. “While you still have your senses about you, you must bury it nearby, somewhere safe. Tomorrow when you’re sober, when no one is paying attention you can return and retrieve it.”
Ha’amidah looked around for the perfect spot to hide his treasure, one that was not too far or too close, too obvious or too obscure, too bare or too wooded, and his eyes lit upon just such a spot.
He took a rusted old shovel that happened to be laying by “The Rock”, dug a hole, buried the coin, tamped the dirt to disguise his work and then, comfortable and secure, staggered home to sleep it off.
Ha’amidah awoke the next morning as he did every morning. With “pinnes in his head and a mouth full of woole” and little recollection of the previous nights’ events.
But this morn there was a difference: a rusted shovel lay by his side. A rusted shovel?
A pulsing, nagging voice in the back of his head, a sudden spasm of urgency in the beating of his heart, told Ha’amidah that there was something very, very, important about this strange object, something connected to the events of the previous night that he needed to remember.
So strong was this sense of urgency that he roused himself with a splash of ice-cold water, made a pot of extra strong black tea and forced himself outside into the cold morning air to work in the perennially neglected “vegetable patch” behind his hut, all the while twisting and turning and squeezing his brain around the question mark that had hung over his morning.
A morning of weed pulling and hoeing was an effort for poor Ha’amidah.
When afternoon came, his back ached and his hands were sore. But, after devouring a meager lunch, his head began to clear.
And jot-by-jot, impression-by-impression, bit-by-bit, the fog began to clear and, everything that had happened the night before came back to Ha’amidah in a rush of absolute clarity.
He jumped out of his chair.
Laughed and did a little jig at his good fortune.
Then just as abruptly, stopped, frowned and cursed himself for the stupid intoxication which had almost lost him that same good fortune. He swore he would never again touch the pipe. Not for his entire life.
Ha’amidah donned his heavy boots, wool hat, and cotton tunic and with the rusted shovel in his hand, sat patiently in the middle of his hut, waiting for the afternoon light to dim and for the villagers to leave plow and forge and head home for the evening meal and the warmth of their fires.
Then, without prying eyes, he could return and retrieve the Golden Shekel.
When at last he felt it was safe, he rose and set off to the commons, maintaining an air of insouciant indifference, as if he were merely on his way back from mending a post or digging a ditch or planting some seeds or something else equally ordinary.
He did not go directly to “The Rock”, but took a roundabout route, to confound anyone who might catch the scent of urgency in his walk.
When he reached the commons and made certain he was not being watched, he went to the spot where he remembered burying the Golden Shekel, and set to digging.
When the hole had gotten down about a foot deep and he still had not unearthed the coin, Ha’amidah did not panic. He convinced himself that his memory had not failed, that it was just a bit fuzzy and indistinct, certainly not unusual given the events of the night before, and so, bravely repressing any nascent doubts about the ultimate success of his venture, gradually began to expand the area of his dig.
A few hours and the evidence of a dozen empty holes later, the thought that something was amiss was inescapable.
Had he imagined the whole affair?
No! That wasn’t possible.
Or was it?
Perhaps it was not the big cedar he had marked off ten paces from?
Perhaps it was the dead oak?
Or the spreading thornbush?
Or the water trough that fed Jawar’s goats?
Or the big log that fell in front of Sha’hara’s house?
He dug more and more frantically.
And soon the commons, once as familiar to him as his own face, took on an ominous air of unfamiliarity he felt as the first explorer to venture upon a dangerous and alien landscape must have felt.
Dawn came.
The villagers began to stir and commence their daily comings and goings, which inevitably took them to and fro, past the commons. They were shocked at what they beheld.
Trees and bushes uprooted.
Piles of dirt.
Hundreds of holes.
And in the midst of this scene: Ha’amidah the Kif Smoker, knee deep in a hole, shovel in hand, digging away.
Digging away.
It took more than a dozen villagers to quiet Ha’amidah down and get him to his hut. There, once seated at his little table, he seemed to calm down and return to what, at least in Ha’amidah’s case, was normal.
When questioned about the madness that had overcome him, he remained stubbornly silent.
Thus, all that remained, it seemed, then, was for the villagers to organize a small delegation to clean up and repair as best they could the damage done to the commons the night before.
And that would be the end of that.
Or so they thought.
For the very next morning when they commenced their daily comings and goings that took them once again past the commons, there they found their previous day’s repairs undone. And Ha’amidah.
Knee-deep in a hole.
Shovel in hand.
Digging away.
Over time, they discovered, by hap and hazard, that short of keeping him permanently in restraints, the best thing to do was simply to keep Ha’amidah away from shovels, and shovels away from Ha’amidah.
So they took the rusted shovel from him, and, whenever Ha’amidah was out and about, kept theirs either locked away, or close at hand and always in sight.
But, eternal vigilance being eternally unattainable, one bright morning some time later, Ymir took his shovel to work in Akim’s olive grove to dig holes to plant new trees, and, forgetting to take such precautions, leaned his shovel against a tree, Almost immediately, he heard a blood-curdling scream and turning his head to determine the source of this unholy sound, he caught a glimpse of some crazed lunatic running at him. Ymir instinctively
defended himself by hitting his attacker over the head with the only implement close at hand: his shovel.
It was only after the villain lay unconscious on the ground did Ymir see that it was only poor Ha’amidah.
After that, Ha’amidah was a changed man.
During the day, he would always be found hard at work in his garden, humming away to himself.
At night, he no longer took his seat by the hookah at Baroosh’s Sweetshop, but would sit perched upon “The Rock,” babbling to himself about a Golden Shekel and looking up and down and up and down the road, waiting for something unseen -and-unheard, as if at any moment he expected to see a black phaeton, dark curtains drawn, huge iron-rimmed wheels, pulled by ebony stallions come flashing by.
The Tale of Zwaibak or the rise and fall of the festival of the miracle of the great pippidufka crop circles
THE RISE
Pippidufka is a one-horse Village.
The steed, whose name was Zwaibak, was absent a number of teeth as well as both testes, which loss, out of respect for his feelings, the villagers chose to attribute to his participation in one military engagement or another.
One might suppose that the absence of such essential body parts might prove troublesome to a proud stallion. But as you may guess from his name, he was never a proud stallion: the sad but true fact is that Zwaibak’s forced celibacy did not seem to affect his behavior one jot, for Zwaibak, absent or plus the aforementioned parts, would have been an unremarkable horse in any condition: neither especially this, nor especially that.
Which suited the Villagers just fine, since, being the Villagers’ only horse, indeed only beast of burden , his duties were, precisely, neither especially this nor especially that: to plow farmer Tüssi’s fields, which was a sporadic affair at best; to pull the wagon for hayrides, courtships, funeral processions; and take small children on their traditional birthday ride; along with certain other mainly ceremonial duties.
So, for the most part the fife of Zwaibak was quite mundane, ordinary and predictable.
But his situation changed quite dramatically and suddenly, as the result of a chance meeting between himself and a hornet’s nest, which meeting culminated in a sting which caused the loss of vision in his left eye.
From that day on, no matter what the farmer Tüssi tried , Zwaibak would only plow in a circle.
A perfect clock-wise circle, in fact.
Now everyone agreed, of course, that a field plowed in perfect circles was a perfectly fine thing, indeed, without a doubt. But, beyond the curiosity value of a perfectly plowed circle, the villagers, being a practical folk if not successfully practical could not quite see of what use such a thing would be.
(There was little concern about the effect of this phenomenon on the productivity of Tüssi’s fields, for, in truth, Tüssi’s fields were never very productive, and Tüssi himself, we must say, was never a terribly productive farmer.)
But, beyond an initially, a slight, but palpable, stirring of anxiety amongst the villagers, they eventually began to feel that they had been adequately recompensed by other, unforeseen, effects of the alteration in Zwaibak’s behavior for example, when Zwaibak took their children on a ride, parents could always retrieve their precious offspring at exactly the same point on the circle at which they had deposited them.
a visitor
Then one day a stranger showed up in Pippidufka. Stranger than a stranger: a visitor.
A visitor to Pippidufka! Unheard of?
Well, not entirely.
Of course, people did pass through Pippidufka they were not totally isolated not many, true, but an occasional coach, heading from who-knows-where-to-god-knows-where, would, from time to time (though no one could actually remember when) stop to rest, to water their horses, or the like.
But not a Visitor: someone who stayed after his business was done. Whose very business, in fact, was being there.
This person, this Visitor (his being there was such an anomaly, no one remembers anything else about him or her) had come for the
express purpose of seeing for himself the “mysterious crop circles” which he had heard about from one passing drover or another.
He was given directions to Tüssi’s farm from Sempil, who, as usual, was perched on the flat boulder usually referred to as “The Rock” in front of Mutz’s Shebeen. And then the fellow headed off in that direction.
An hour or so later he returned to “The Rock”, wandered about (with the entire village following, bye-the-bye) to determine if there were anything else worth seeing, and, after five or ten minutes, having answered the question in the negative, returned to Mutz’s, bought a glass of Zwig’s hooche and one of Gnittyl’s boiled potatoes which he paid for with a shiny new copper coin. And then went on his way.
For the rest of the day, Mutz passed the copper coin around from villager to villager, who, each in their turn, would turn it over and over and stare at it in amazement. Then, the incident was forgotten.
Until, not more than a fortnight later, another Visitor showed up, asking directions to the Mysterious Crop Circles, what the “hours of service” were at the One-stooled Shebeen of Mutz the Publican, and whether the Famous Boiled Potatoes of Gnittyl the Seamstress were as good as he had heard.
Upon hearing of this, Schnip the barber, whom the villagers had always considered a dreamer, whose output of lunatic ideas was matched only by the emptiness of his purse, came up with the mad idea of The Festival of the Miracle of the Great Pippidufka
Crop Circles.
But, this time, for some reason perhaps the copper this idea was greeted enthusiastically by his fellow citizens, and, that very night, the villagers gathered at Mutz’s and, willy-nilly, planned that great endeavor, which would, forever, change their lives.
THE FALL
Summer had passed and autumn was beginning to make itself comfortable. The grasses had grown tall and thick and the village of Pippidufka once again roused itself from its lethargy to prepare for
the annual Festival of the Miracle of the Great Pippidufka Crop
Circles, which miracle, thanks be to the One True God, whose miraculous intervention had caused them to appear, for five years in a row now, exactly on the second night after the onset of the first harvest moon. (Yet another miracle?)
If things went as they had been going, Mutz predicted that this year, the village could expect at least a score of visitors to the festival, almost double that of the year before.
Gnittyl the Seamstress, whose Famous Boiled Potatoes were one of the high spots of the event, was busy cleaning out the rotten spuds from the root cellar and making room for fresh ones which Pu’ud was out in the fields collecting for her.
Zwig the Moonshiner was working around the clock well, at least he was working producing his finest hooche for the “traditional” drink at the one-stooled Shebeen of Mutz the Publican. This year, there were to be some innovations.
Brooglephrog was putting the finishing touches on his epic poem in elegiac couplets, The Pippidufkead , which he was planning to present in a marathon six-hour public reading.
Frütz the Cobbler was committing to memory a list of interesting “facts” which he would relate in a Guided Walking Tour of the Village of Pippidufka and Environs.
And, lastly, Lugg had begun work carving the inscription for a wooden placard, that, the village had agreed, would replace the handpainted sign that had to be redone each year. Lugg was more than half-way through his work, the sharply carved words on the oak plank proudly reading:
The Festival of the Miracle of the Great Pippidufka C
All that was really left to do, was to wait for the night of the harvest moon, so that Tüssi the Farmer could hitch up Zwaibak and let the horse do his magic.
An accident at his farm that had a few weeks earlier suddenly overcome Tüssi had been a source of som e concern to the villagers, for Tüssi was the only person who could get Zwaibak to move from
his stall. (They had all tried their hand at one time or another, but the bond between the farmer and the horse was unusual and unbreakable.)
Tüssi assured the villagers that he was on the mend and would be ready at the harvest moon. So all seemed well in hand.
But while Tüssi was, indeed, well on the mend he had regained his strength what he had not mentioned to his friends, however, was an unfortunate result of his accident, namely, the loss of sight in his right eye. However, since everything else seemed to be in place, and, since, after all, Zwaibak did all the work, the first night after the harvest moon Tüssi hooked the horse up to the wagon and set out f or their night’s work.
Unforeseen, however, were the consequences of their asymmetrical loss of vision: Zwaibak’s left eye and Tüssi’s right. (Such consequences soon to become apparent, dear reader , as you shall soon discover.)
The night passed uneventfully until Zwaibak came to a sudden halt whose jolt threw Tüssi off the wagon and woke him up.
He rose and brushed himself off. But, standing, he was aware of something unusual.
At first, he could not quite put his finger on it.
But he soon realized that what he was feeling, in fact, was an absence, the absence of the dizziness he normally felt as a consequence of going around in circles all night.
He also became aware, as the light grew brighter, bright enough for him to make out the shape of things, that he was not standing in the familiar arc of a perfect plowed circle, but in the center of an immensely long, perfectly-straight furrow, which, behind him, stretched to the horizon, and before him, ended at the very tip of Zwaibak’s nose where it touched the bark of the trunk of a very large oak tree which blocked their path.
Tüssi desperately tried everything.
But, of course, no matter what he did, he could not make Zwaibak budge an inch.
The farmer decided to set out on foot, back to Pippidufka, to get some help.
Later that day, the villagers, concerned by Tüssi’s absence, sent out a party to snoop about.
When they arrived at the farm, Tüssi and Zwaibak were nowhere to be found.
The only clue to their whereabouts was an immensely long, perfectly straight furrow, beginning at the door to the barn and stretching ahead to the horizon.
They set out upon this path.
And, finally, as the late afternoon sun began sinking in the sky, they came upon Zwaibak, nose to the oak tree that blocked his path, happily munching grass.
And, not far away, they found Tüssi.
Where, it seemed, he had been wandering in a circle for the last two days.
Lugg was in his workshop, just about to strike his chisel and begin carving the letter “R” to begin finishing the word “Crop” when Mutz came running towards him, shouting “Stop, Lugg! Stop!”
Huffing and puffing, Mutz saw that he had gotten there just in time.
He sighed and said “Blessed Be the One True God. There’s been a slight change of plans.”
And that is why, that year of the Festival of the Miracle of the Great Pippidufka Crop Circles, when the first visitors appeared on the second night after the harvest moon, the first thing they came upon was a brand-new hand-carved wooden sign on a post by “The Rock” which read:
The Festival of the Miracle of the Great Pippdufkan CRoad to Nowhere
treasure of pippidufka
Once upon a time, while passing through the high mountains, a tumbrel cart carrying a great black bear, chosen to be put on display in the Emperor’s Menagerie, overturned while traversing a narrow pass. The animal escaped and made his way to the secluded village of Pei Pei du fu Kwa FROM Fortune of Pei Pei du fu Kwa
Once upon a time, a proud mountain bear captured and trained to guard the Sultan’s hareem, escaped during a violent sandstorm while crossing the desert. The beast found his way to the isolated village of Siddi Ba’aaka. FROM Jewel of Siddi Ba’aaka
Once-upon-a-time (as-these-tales-are-told) a big brown bear escaped from a traveling circus and found his way to Pippidufka where, due to the villagers’ tradition of hospitality as well as their feeling of kinship with the plight of the large but gentle beast, they hid him until the circus had given up its’ search and moved on. Treasure, as they named the bear no one remembered why soon became a fixture of daily life in the village. Dressed in sim ple workman’s clothes baggy coat, tunic, pants and a small cap he was a familiar sight, particularly in the vicinity of Mutz’s Shebeen where he could often be found participating in the Pippidufkans’ favorite “pass-the-time”: sitting upon “The Rock” (the flat boulder that marked the village commons), drinking hooche, sharing a pipe, and philosophizing about things so far from either their grasp or their ken, that they all felt able to speak their minds freely, quite secure in the knowledge that their opinions and arguments would carry no weight at all in the world at large.
Treasure mostly listened. He was a bear of few words, known for his taciturn wit and a gentleness of spirit that endeared him to all, particularly the village children, whose number beyond the proscenium of these pages was more than sufficient to cause the usual mixture of mischief and merriment.
Summer passed pleasantly, and, as the season stretched into Fall, Treasure felt the inevitable call of his kind, and began to spend more and more of his time roaming the woods looking for a suitable place to use for his winter’s nap.
When his time finally came, having thus found such a spot, Treasure called all of his new friends together and explained that the exigencies of his nature would require his absence for a period of a few months.
“However,” as he conveyed to them, “I have drawn a map for you so that if some dire event befalls the village and you need to seek my help, you may find me. But, my friends, if you do have the need to seek me out, you must be very careful when you first awaken me.
“Keep your distance.
“For, when I am disturbed from such a sleep as I sleep, I may be a very unpleasant chap, indeed.”
Nodding their understanding his friends gave him a bag of honeyed candy and smoked fish, bade him “Pleasant dreams!”
And saw him off.
enter the soldier
November and December passed without incident. The snows fell, and January was upon them.
Shortly after the New Year festivities, a lone soldier rode into the village. From his haunted mien and disheveled condition hair unkempt, clothing torn and tattered as well as the state of his steed skin and bones, sway-backed and having suffered the loss of both testicles in some military engagement or another they were certain he was running from something or someone.
At first meeting it was not possible for the villagers to determine whether he was an outlaw warrior whose allegiance did not change as fast as the rebellion that had overthrown his old master…
…
or one of the Sultan’s swordsmen who had looked too closely into the eyes of one of the lovelier Odas of the Hareem…
…a disillusioned crusader who had lost his faith but not his taste for battle…
…or, even, a tribal horseman whose lust for blood had exceeded even that of his companions-at-arms.
Whichever he was, the Pippidufkans knew that only time would reveal whether this haunted and desperate man was searching for a safe haven or a place of easy prey.
In the meanwhile, they would follow the lessons learned through their own experience of such situations, which experience was, in the long history of the village, you may be or may not be surprised to learn, was by no means limited.
And the first of these lessons was: “Give a stranger the benefit of the doubt.”
That is: treat him with whatever generosity and hospitality you can muster given your own relative impoverishment and when the time comes you will either wish him “well-away” or…
Or?
Well, another lesson they learned was: “Save your “ors” for fording the river.”
So they fed and housed the stranger, invited him to join them to sit at Mutz’s Shebeen, share a drink, a pipe, and chat endlessly on.
But, after a time, the soldier made no move to leave, nor to show any intention to recompense Mutz the Publican for his drink, or Dronkyll the Stableman for grooming and feeding his horse whom the villagers had nicknamed Zwaibak or Gnityll the Seamstress for his food and lodging. More ominously, he took up the habit of sharpening his sword as he sat by the fire in Mutz’s.
For whatever reason (perhaps he had misread the villagers’ hospitality for craven docility) his ‘requests’ began to escalate, and in the blink of an eye “I thirsty, please drink?” turned to “Get me drink!” and then to “Drink!” and finally just a loud slam of his glass upon the table.
“Drink! Food! Drink! Food!” That was now his battle cry.
Soon everyone in Pippidufka was engaged to one degree or another in either satisfying the soldier’s demands or placating his many moods.
One night, for example, he announced, to no one in particular which means to everyone that his greatest desire was to rejoin his brothers-in-arms upon the battlefield. If only…
IF ONLY?
If only it weren’t for his saddle.
No proud soldier, he explained again to no one in particular would dare be seen riding a horse with such a worn and shabby saddle.
He would be ridiculed and humiliated riding back into camp upon such a laughable saddle.
Made the butt of jokes and barracks humor.
But…but if he had a fine new leather saddle with carved and painted designs and a shiny copper pommel and stirrups, well, that a soldier would be proud to ride into camp upon.
Encouraged by this slim ray of hope that they might soon be rid of the soldier, the Cobbler and the Smith were conspicuously absent from the next few evening round-a-bouts at Mutz’s, subsequently appearing some days later outside the Shebeen with Zwaibak in tow, sporting a handsome, new, carved, and painted saddle with copper pommel parading the steed proudly for the soldier’s approval and asking, almost as an aside, if there were anything special he might desire for the farewell feast they were planning for him.
The soldier merely grunted a few words of acknowledgement and returned to his drinking making no further mention of leaving.
For the rest of that week, the soldier made no further requests of the villagers.
But on that next Sunday evening, any lingering hopes the villagers might have had of an expeditious and painless exit by the soldier, were dashed.
That night, while sitting beside the fire, after a long and tense silence, the soldier suddenly said aloud…
“A hundred pieces gold!”
The villagers made no response, nor any other indication that they had heard this exclamation.
A short while later, he spoke aloud again…
“A hundred pieces gold!
“I can no possible return to compatriots with empty purse. Yes! A hundred pieces gold! A man could proud rejoin his unit if he had a hundred pieces of gold in purse!”
The next few nights, the soldier sat by the fire and waited for the villagers to cough up their gold.
But as the hours grew late and no mention was made of the “request,” the soldier told himself: “They pretending ignore me. Well, I play at game, too!”
So he drank and stared into his cup as if oblivious to all that was going on about him. In fact, he was paying very close attention to what was going on around him.
And the more attention he paid, the more he sensed, or imagined, that the villagers’ mood and tone had changed.
They were whispering amongst themselves about him.
Those two, over there, the geezer by the door and the foppish fellow sitting next to him.
They’re staring in opposite directions, pretending to ignore each other, but in fact they’re whispering to each other.
The bearded chap there, looking out the window, and the serving girl just passing by him with a tray.
They’re whispering to each other.
Angered though he was, the soldier resolved to bide his time, to discover what it was they were up to.
So, for the rest of that week, he sat by the fire, stared into his cup, and listened.
Each night it was the same all whisperings, no gold. Each night he grew angrier and angrier, but kept his resolve; and each night the words he heard became clearer and clearer.
One night, he made out the word “hidden”.
Another, the word “map.”
It was then, on the Friday, the night to which this tale has now brought us, that the soldier clearly heard the word that was, in a manner of speaking, the last straw for him.
And that word was…
“Treasure.”
The soldier turned the three words over in his mind.
Hidden. Map. Treasure.
Map. Treasure. Hidden.
Map. Hidden. Treasure.
Hidden. Treasure. Map.
“Hidden treasure map!” The soldier cried out, leapt from his seat, drew his sword, grabbed the nearest villager who happened to be poor Schnip the Barber and made ready to slay him: sword held high, ready to strike.
The barber fell on his knees, shielding his face from the forthcoming blows.
Poor Schnip cried and begged.
“I know game,” the soldier shouted to the villagers. “I want map now or slice off ugly head as lie here.” And before anyone could protest, he added “Don’t say ‘What map?’ I hear you clear!”
The trembling villagers looked at one another. There was a rustling movement from the back of the Shebeen, and, shortly, a folded piece of worn parchment was passed to the front of the crowd.
The soldier grabbed it.
His eyes lit up as he read the words printed on the outside in rough scribbled capitals:
WHERE TREASURE HIDE
He opened the paper.
And there on the inside was drawn a simple map.
Showing the road through the vil lage.
A turn into the forest.
Another turn at a fallen log.
A path that follows a brook.
A short climb over a rise marked by a bramble bush.
Then, thirty steps ahead to the entrance of a cave. And inside, an X and the word TREASURE .
“Treasure in cave?” the soldier asked.
They nodded.
“Where in cave treasure?”
“Treasure back of cave,” one of the villagers responded.
“What protect treasure?” the soldier asked.
“Bearskin protect Treasure.”
“Ah!” the soldier muttered and thought to himself, “Very clever! Cover treasure with bearskin to scare off intruders.
“Fetch saddle, fetch horse,” he ordered Dronkyll the Stableman, who rushed out of the Shebeen.
“Bring lantern,” he commanded Oog, who likewise made a hasty exit.
A few minutes later they reappeared outside the Shebeen with lantern and horse in tow. The soldier mounted the steed, grabbed the lantern and galloped off into the night shouting “I deal with lot you later.”
The soldier rode on.
Carefully following the map. The road out of town.
A turn into the forest.
Another turn at a fallen log.
A short climb over a rise marked by a bramble bush. And, indeed, just as the map described, there it was!
Straight ahead!
An entrance to a cave!
He leapt off his horse and with lantern in hand entered.
The cave was very dark.
A spongy sodden darkness.
Rank and fetid.
Even with the lantern, the soldier could barely see his arms before him.
Yet, the thought of his treasure pushed him forward. He inched ahead.
Slowly.
Feeling his way along the cave wall.
At last, as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, there at the very back of the cave, he could make out the Treasure, covered just as the villagers told him, by a huge bearskin.
He could restrain himself no longer.
He ran forward to strip off the bearskin to reveal his treasure.
Treasure, the big brown bear, was, at that precise moment, in the throes of a rather delightful dream, involving, among other things, a beehive, some large salmon in a stream and a comely she–bear named Ursula, whom had been conveniently and effectively concocted from the depths of his ursine passion.
All at once his dream turned into a horrible nightmare with stinging bees, thrashing fish, a frantic she-bear and the appearance of a frightful apparition, a horrible, armored demon, coming at him with claws of steel, coming to tear off his skin.
A few days later, a group of villagers came to retrieve the soldier’s horse, and very, very, quietly, and carefully, to re move what little remained of his clothes and weapons.
Treasure returned to the village that spring. He was slimmer and well-rested and once again donned his simple peasant garb and rejoined his friends in the pleasures of the jug, the pipe and the conversation around the fire. And often, that summer, Treasure would tell the tale of a terrible dream he had during his winter’s sleep, a dream in which he was attacked by a horrible demon and, in order to defend himself, had to devour the creature, skin, bones and all.
And when he had finished his tale, Treasure imagined, just for a moment that his friends were suppressing a tiny laugh.
But just for a moment.