The Complete Annotated Lost Folk Tales of Pippidufka | by Max Singer | #5 | Pippidufka for Dummies

The AnnotatedComplete Lost Folk Tales Of Pippidufka

By Max Singer

Addendum

Pippidufka for Dummies

glossary | 2 pippidufka for dummies | 4 the plenary lectures from the groundbreaking symposia of 2003

an introduction to the tales of pippidufka | 5 ur-text or ur-pippidufka | 6 where? the ultimate mystery | 7 madmen, visionaries, poets and spies | 10 the great pippidufka bubble of 1881–1883 | 13 les tableaux de hommes pippidufka | 16 the silesians’ text | 18

the strange and true affair of the pippidufka papers | 24

holmes final words | 26

glossary

named characters

pippidifka siddi ba’aaka pei pei du fu kwa

Beb, shepherd Jawar, goatherd Kwai, swineherd

Boz, strongman Qadid, juggler Fat Kwan, wrestler

Brogglephrogg, poet Muktar, scholar Hi Soo Ka, dandy

Dabytt, peatcutter Nadji, charcoal maker. Wai Yi, firewood gatherer

Dronkyll, farmer Madja bin, camel driver Ohai, drover

Frutz, cobbler Mustafa, cobbler Aiha, cobbler

Gnittyl, seamstress/cook Shahara, seamstress/cook Lady Wu, seamstess/cook

Golleph, apiarist Ibn A’Salaam, apiarist Zu Ling, apiarist

Holgi, milkmaid Zostri, milkmaid Sze Kui, milkmaid

Lugg, woodcarver Quazi, calligrapher Chen, graver

Milga, fortune–teller Ayda, fortune-teller Eti, fortune-teller

Mutz, publican Baroosh, sweetshop owner Lao, tea house/opium den

Nipk, scribe Ilyman, sheriff Ka, constable

Oog, mason/stonecarver Olmai, swordsmith Luk, mason

Pu’ud, hired hand Ymir, fellah Ming, peasant

Schnip, barber Sa’la’mid, barber Msung, barber

Schtenk, butcher Sidi, butcher Xlong, butcher

Sempil, village drunk T’adda, Kif smoker Ting, Opium addict

Slenk, thief H’amidah, brigand Loti, pickpocket

Treasure, brown bear Jewel, mountain bear Fortune, great black bear

Tussi, wheat farmer Akim, olive grower Z’tu, kumquat grower

Zipmin, woodsman Ouid, woodsman Niji, woodsman

Zwaibak, horse Saloom, donkey N’juki, onager

Zwig, moonshiner Abu, kif farmer Kinka, poppy grower

Winka, hunter Shirdja, hunter Tehi, hunter

place names

PIPPIDUFKA

Also known as:

Pebbetova, Piddadovika, Fiddipifka, Bibbikodva, Diddipufka, Pyppydyffchk.

SIDDI BA’AAKA

Also known as:

Sidi Bakkah, Sidi D’fakah, Siidi D’faqah, Sidi d’ Faqa, Cid i’ dfaqa, Cid eid Faqah, Siddi D’affakah, S’deid al Faqa.

PEI PEI DU FU KWA

Also known as:

Pe Pi Fu Qua, Fu Pei Du Pei Qua, Da Pau Pu Qwah Fu, Pe Pe Du Fqwa, Qa Qa Pei Fwa, Ka Kwa Pu Wa, Mai Mai Fu Fwei, Pei Pei Dau Qwa.

unnamed characters

Bailiff (Sheriff, Constable)

Bishop (Cleric, Monk, Imam, Mendicant)

Cossack (Bashibazook, Ronin)

Crusader (Mercenary, Samurai)

Emissary (Vizier, Plenipotentiary, Diplomat, Internuncio)

Moglore (King, Emperor, Khaleef, Khan, Monarch)

Lord (Sheikh, Kwazoku. Chieftain, Sultan, Raja)

Lady (Oda, Geisha)

Seneschal (Steward, Major-domo)

Tax Collector (Assessor, Governor)

Warlord (Brigand, Bandit)

pippidufka for dummies

The Plenary Lectures from the Groundbreaking Symposia of 2003

an introduction to the tales of pippidufka

If you, your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, spouse, in-laws, friends, boss or classmates are from the old country, the Mutterland, the Vaterland, the Oulde Sod, then you are already familiar with The Tales of Pippidufka . For those few others of you, a brief introduction is in order:

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

1 It all depends who’s telling the tales

ur-text or ur-pippidufka

The tales themselves, to our mind, contain strong evidence of the existence of a historic Pippidufkan diaspora as well as clues to the mystery of the disappearance of Pippidufka from the maps and histories of the known world.

Oswald et alii, “Problems in Pippidufkan Scholarship. An Overview.” Journal of Pippidufkan Studies . Winter 2002

The Tales of Pippidufka are found in most cultures of the Old World, from Central and Eastern Europe; through the Caucasus and the Balkans; across the Russian Steppes to Mongolia and the border provinces of old China; back through the Near and Middle East, and across North Africa, as far west as Morocco.

Beyond their “normal” geographic distribution as described above their appearance in places such as Sicily and the Scottish Highlands may be readily explained as being the result of internal migration, displacement, war and enslavement.

Their appearance in New World cultures, such as the Mitibaxyi of the high Andes and certain Pueblos of the American Southwest, as well as in Australasia, such as the Yaatu people of the New Guinea Highlands, presents a different set of problems for ethnographers and philologists trying to explain the origins of these tales.

The Traditionalist School argues that these anomalies are a contamination of recent historical origin, that is, the tales were spread by explorers, conquistadors, missionaries, traders and the like.

The Deconstructionist School (see Levi-Strauss, A Psycholinguistic approach to The Tales of Pippidufka) argues that these stories derive from deeper common archetypal Jungian constructs.

where? the ultimate mystery

If the ubiquitous nature of The Pippidufka Tales their broad cultural, geographic and historical range were merely a coincidence, one might expect to find a great deal of divergence in the content of the tales across and within ages, regions and cultures. However, while the titles of the tales, the names of the characters, even the names of the village itself may vary, nonetheless The Bishop’s Tale is most certainly the same tale as The Mendacious Mendicant or The Iman’s Downfall; King Krone is most certainly Rajah Rupee or Drachma Khan.

Zwig the Moonshiner is the doppelganger of Abu the Kif Grower and Kin Ka the Poppy Farmer; Oog, Olmai and Luk are one and the same Stonemason, as are, as well, Schtenk, Sidi and Xiong, the Butchers, and Zipmin, Ouid, and Niji, the Woodsmen.

As to the name of the village itself: in Central and Eastern Europe it is usually called Pippidufka, but is also known as Pebbetova, Piddadovika, Fiddipifka, Bibbikodva or Diddipufka; in Wales, they tell tales about Pyppydyffchk; in the Fertile Crescent, everyone has heard of The Tales of Siddi Ba’aaka; in China, The Tales of Pei Pei du fu Kwa.

And what is one to make of classical Greek references to Paepydovikos?

Or Ancient Latin inscriptions alluding to Pimpeidevicus?

Is there any reason to doubt that these are all one and the same?

On the other hand, the Pippidufkans are presented in some tales as inbred, lazy, demented, debased and ignorant and in others as forebearing, patient, generous, sturdy, stoic and resourceful.

Then there are the expressions with which we are all familiar.

A Pippidufkan promise! To fight like a Pippidufkan! Drink like a Pippidufkan! And the like.

When we say someone has given us “a Pippidufkan Promise,” we are speaking of a worthless oath or IOU.

Yet, amongst certain hill tribes of the Caucasus, “a Pippidufkan Promise” is a blood oath.

When we say someone “fights like a Pippidufkan” we mean they are cowardly.

But amongst nomads of the Steppes, to “fight like a Pippidufkan” means to battle overwhelming force with stealth and cunning.

When we say he “drinks like a Pippidufkan”, we mean that person is constantly inebriated

But amongst marsh dwellers bordering the Indian Ocean, to “drink like a Pippidufkan” is to be able to drain the Shebeen dry and still be able to steal your wife and your horse from under your nose.

So, who are these Pippidufkans?

How does one parse this ambivalence within the Tales?

Are the Traditionalists right?

Are the Deconstructionists correct?

Do the Tales reflect deeper archetypal constructs?

Do these people only exist in books and the fading memories of griots and storytellers or are they, as the Diasporan theorists who rely upon The Silesian’s Text, as well as other more recently

discovered and translated documents contend, a real people, who, beset for centuries by cycles of conquest, subjugation an d reconquest, finally pooled their wits to pull off one of the greatest disappearing acts of all time.

And if the Diasporists are right, then where is Pippidufka?

That, of course, is the ultimate mystery, the ultimate question, which, with not a little tinge of annoyance and suspicion in your voice, you were precocious enough to ask, when, as a child, you lay on the rug in front of the blazing fire in your father’s study, frustrated from fruitless hours spent poring through the atlas that lay spread open before you: “Where exactly is Pippidufka?”

And was told for the first time, simply, that “Pippidufka is too small to be found on a map!”2

2 As a “philosophical” argument, this familiar saying about Pippidufka, being an argument ‘post hoc propter hoc’, is intrinsically false, i.e. it does not necessarily follow that because Pippidufka is granted a very small place, that it must be the reason it is not to be found on a map.

madmen, visionaries, poets and spies

“Pippidufka is too small to find on a map.”

Most people accept this familiar saying as a mere witticism about a fictional place of which there is not one mention in any reliable encyclopedia, history, indices or cartographic compendiums. Nonetheless, there have been for centuries a hardcore of tru e believers, known as Pippidufkanophiles3 charlatans, Blavatsky;

3 Of course, for them, Pippidufka itself is not only the Holy Grail, but also the lost city, the missing link, Atlantis, the 13th tribe, the Fountain of Youth, the Secret Gospel of Jesus and the Maltese Falcon* all rolled up into one. Of course, all this talk by the “Urpies” (shorthand for Ur–Pippidufkans) as they are mockingly known, is still considered, shall we say, “out of the mainstream,” by most influential “mainstream” academics, ethnologists and folklorists. This is to be expected. After all, it was only in the past century that Pippidufkan scholarship has emerged as a legitimate field of study, most noticeably in the ethnic studies departments of many smaller, for–profit institutions, who, in response to demands for relevancy as well as the grant money made available to facilitate compliance with Federal Title V regulations, opted to eschew the established and create a competitive foothold in an academic road less traveled.

* In the files of the Pinkerton Company there exists a folder, which contains a report from an undercover operative working in Montana during a mining strike in the 1920s. This agent talks of spending the night in a jail cell with one of the strike leaders, a Russian anarchist from a city

would-be-gurus Gurdjieff; visionaries Velikovsky; and confidence artists Ponzi; who have formed, financed, and promoted numerous expeditions to seek out a map that would show the way to the location of the real place, a historic ur -Pippidufka.

These expeditions all faced a dauntless task.

First and foremost: where to begin?

For in spite of the cultural ubiquity of these tales, no tribe, no people, no nation has ever stepped forward and cl aimed them as their own.

In fact, the opposite holds true.

The Russians, for example, are quick to locate Pippidufka in Germany.

The Germans, in Bulgaria.

The Bulgarians, in Greece.

The Greeks, in Turkey.

The Turks, in Azerbaijan.

The Azeris, in Mongolia.

The Mongols, in China.

And, of course, the Chinese as one might well suspect will suggest that while the original Tales of Pippidufka may have been Chinese, it was stolen from them by the Japanese, who, as usual, got it all wrong in the translation.

None of these expeditions, however, ever returned with such a map, concrete evidence of the existence of such a map, let alone any evidence of the existence of Pippidufka.

bordering on Turkmenistan who “regaled me with fabulous tales concerning a most valuable and legendary artifact, the Maltese Florin of Pippidufka.” The report is signed: D. Hammett.

But Pippidufkanophiles are quick to reply: “What of those expeditions which did not return?”

The argument of these die-hards is that these “lost souls,” as they are called, did not fall victim to illness, natural disaster, mutiny, hostile locals, cannibals, or any of a number of similar fates that have been the occupational hazards of adventurers and explorers since time immemorial; on the contrary, they insist in the absence of any evidence to the contrary these explorers must have found the map, found the fabled village itself, and found it, in fact, so to their liking, that they stayed and made new lives for themselves far from the stresses of civilization

In the end, however, these expeditions failed to convince anyone with any sense that the Pippidufkan Diaspora was anything more than a legend, a folkloric hodgepodge, an olio, a synthesis of bastardized tale and tradition, spun together as the Raison d’Etre for a series of duplicitous scams, con-games, pranks, or hoaxes, whose ultimate purpose, whether benign or malevolent, was known only to their perpetrators.

It could be said, however, that these expeditions were successful in at least one thing: they kept alive interest in The Tales of Pippidufka, provided fodder for all sorts of faux -travelogues, fabricated first-hand accounts, popular entertainments, museums of curiosities, satires, conspiracy theories and the like as can be seen in the story of The Great Pippidufka Bubble of 1881–1883.

the great pippidufka bubble of 1881–1883

One expedition which claimed to not have returned empty -handed, was the controversial French Expedition of 1877, Les Reconnaissance d’Beaux Arts du Pippidufka, which sparked a renewed interest within intellectual circles regarding all manner of Pippidufkianna.

Upon their return to France, the leaders and promoters of this expedition announced to the world their discovery of what came to be known as the Pippidufka Fragments, a collection of artifacts for sale by a dealer in antiquities located in the bazaar of Alexandria.

While the outright purchase of these items was as the expedition organizers claimed beyond the means of their poorly-financed private venture, they did manage to scrape together sufficient funds to convince the proprietor of the shop to allow them access to the objects, so that they might make detailed drawings and descriptions of them, with the aim of using these, upon their return to France, as a means of raising enough money to return to Alexandria at a later date and effect their purchase.

Among the items they were seeking to purchase, as described in their monograph of 1878, entitled Amazing Discoveries in an Alexandrian Flea Market, were:

A large fragment of a bas-relief ceramic map, acquired in 1292 by the Italian Mercato Pillo, from Sultan Ibn Ayasha Ali, depicting an oddly shaped but symmetrical region described only as “The Great Emptiness.”4

A fragment of granite preserved in a silver locket and identified as “A Genuine Peece of the Illustrious Rock of Sempil.”

A cuneiform tablet from the reign of Iskabinipatr III, whose translation reveals it to be an inventory of the goods of a village

4 See The Tale of the Besotted Vizier

called Pittiptarphka, compiled by one of Iskabinipatr’s tax collectors. 5

These descriptions aroused enough interest to enable the Expedition to travel to Egypt the following spring, with bearer-bonds in the am ount of 50,000 Francs raised from wealthy supporters

To their shock and dismay, the shop and the shopkeeper had disappeared.

They then spent the next five years, as well as the 50,000 Francs, traveling throughout the region, posing as wealthy collectors of rare artifacts, in an unsuccessful attempt to track down the missing pieces.

The many, unusual, specific, congruencies between the historical record, as revealed by these items, and the record of the oral tradition, that is, The Tales themselves, led many to accept, for a time, the possibility that the fictional Pippidufka might have a historical counterpart, in the same way that Homer’s fictional Troy does with Von Schliemann’s historical Troy.6

5 The similarities of which, to the items in the oft-told Tax Collector’s Tale are too numerous to be mere coincidence.

6 It is worth noting that these discoveries were stirring interest at about the same time that Von Schliemann who was known to be an early proponent of the existence of a historical Pippidufka was beginning his studies at Wittenberg. There still exist letters from Von Schliemann to a friend and former classmate, now serving on the intelligence staff of the German High Command, assuring his friend that he had lost neither his youthful enthusiasm for nor his commitment to the discovery of the true -to-life site of this legendary village, expressing, indeed, to his friend, that he, Von Schliemann, considered his discovery and excavation of Troy as a “practice run” for the more problematic and expensive Pippidufka Expedition he had planned. Whether coincidence or not, it worthy of note that the Silesian’s Commanding Officer (see The Silesian’s Text) served in the very same command as did Von Schliemann’s classmate.

In any ease, the publication of Amazing Discoveries in an Alexandrian Flea Market and its subsequent coverage in the European press, particularly the Parisian Feuilletons, led to The Great Pippidufka Bubble of 1881–1883.

During this period, Pippidufka-themed entertainments of all sorts became a craze:

It was a common amusement among the demi-monde to stage elaborate Pippidufkan Masques in which the guests dressed as their favorite characters from the Tales.

Pommes Vapeur et Houche boiled potatoes and hooche became the rage at Rive Gauche bistros. the Academe Français proposed giving the entire village honorary membership.

it became de rigueur for Boulevardiers to wear a silver krone on a cord around their neck.7

At the same time the value of anything even remotely Pippidufkan rose astronomically. And after those few rare objects of recognized provenance had been snapped up, unscrupulous persons began to fill the void with obvious forgeries and cheap imitations.

Eventually, one could purchase on almost any street corner in Paris, Berlin, Kiev, Athens or any other European capital, a genuine The Officiale Greate Mappe of the Realme. One Copper for, in fact, one copper.

Finally, as these things happen, the bubble burst and, at least among the educated classes, little more was said, thought or heard about Pippidufka for a very, very long time.

7 See Lugg and Oog

les tableaux de hommes pippidufka

The lower classes in remote rural areas of France, remained unconvinced by any evidence that Pippidufka was an elaborate hoax and continued to be fascinated by all things Pippidufkan.

This continued interest particularly among swine-herding communities in the southern and Cis-Alpine departments manifested itself in the popularity of theatrical productions known as Les Tableaux de Hommes Pippidufka , part pageant, part morality play, part commedia del’Arte staged by troupes of traveling players.

For the locals the central amusement of the Tableaux consisted of pelting a clumsily made-up and costumed actor, billed as The Last of the Pippidufkans , with rotten-fruit purchased from a troupeowned concession, as he and the troupe marched their way to the performance tent during the Parade and Pageant phase of this entertainment.

Those citizens who actually purchased tickets, would be treated to a series of tableaux depicting scenes from the most popular of the tales, such scenes as The Soldier Discovers Treasure , The Entrance of the Besotted Vizier, and Sempil’s Fall.

The “actors” who were cast as Les Hommes Pippidufka were largely recruited from the pool of amateur thespians which could always be found in any of the larger market towns, enticed in many cases by the lure of possible appearances in the provincial capitals “perhaps even Paris herself… but, of course, negotiations are at a delicate stage and it would be bad luck for us to discuss them right now. But soon. Soon” and were apparently satisfied enough with their share of the profits from the sales of tickets and rotten fruit, to endure the daily taunts and the repeated washing of their costumes.

The meteoric collapse of this theatrical phenomenon was due, ironically, to its very popularity and profitability.

As increasing numbers of troupes entered the circuit, inevitably, three or four Les Hommes Pippidufka would appear in the same village claiming to be The Original Olde…etc, and locals began to realize they were being had. Angered by, or perhaps taking advantage of this realization, the ruffians began to set upon the conmen with riotous and occasionally mortal consequences, their venom particularly directed at the actors who portrayed The Last of the Pippidufkans, who, eventually, considered themselves lucky if they escaped with a mere smearing of pig feces and goose feathers.

Naturally the pool of actors auditioning for the role began to dry up. Some desperate Impresarios made an effort to employ professionals from the larger cities, but, as always, contractual negotiations between the producers and the guilds of thespians proved to be an insurmountable obstacle.

Last ditch attempts, were made unsuccessfully to recruit from the ranks of the ruffians themselves, with promises of bottomless vats of ale and endless chubby country lasses.

Finally, even heathens and convicts could not be pressed into service and the tableaux disappeared from the scene.

After that, continental unrest, European Expansion and other geopolitical concerns took center stage, effectively putting an end to this flowering of interest in things Pippidufkan.

the silesians’ text

It was not until the end of the Great War, that a fortuitous concatenation of events and discoveries including that of a Welsh translation of The Tales led to an invigorated interest in the mystery of Pippidufka.

Prime among these events was the posthumous publication of the ill-fated English poet J.V.S Watson-Smythe’s transcription of The Silesians’ Text the single-most important modern addition to the Pippidufka canon. This document revealed for the first time the existence of the actual text of the Tales within the Tales which tales, previously, had been considered apocryphal.8

The story of this text, how it came to be discovered and published, begins during the Nichtlangen Breakthrough, the German offensive of late October 1915 on the Western front. Watson -Smythe, then serving as adjutant to the controversial head of the AEF’s counterintelligence unit, Major-General Sir Donald Brayndedd, was sent on almost certain suicide mission that took him straight through noman’s land.

The timing could not have been more unfortunate, for almost immediately upon passing the infamous bog known as The Point of No Return, the German artillery barrage, Die Funf Tagen den Dunder also, for some reason, known as Die Zwolfe Hellische Nachte began, trapping Watson-Smythe in a bomb crater along with a wounded Silesian, serving, in a similar capacity as the English-man’s, on the staff of the Kaiser’s Wissenschaft

Gemeinhardt Brigade, the ongoing mission of which, since the time

8 References to, and fragments of older tales that are contained within the tales themselves tales such as The Besotted Vizier with which the inhabitants of Pippidufka were all familiar with and are now known in toto by the rubric of “The Emissaries Tales.”

of Bismarck, was to secure and defend access to ports on the Caspian Sea and Indian Ocean for the German Navy.

The Silesian, it turned out, was not only an academically-trained Egyptologist and self-taught student of other ancient tongues but, was, also, naturally possessed of a most remarkable facility: a photographic memory of astonishing accuracy which, with the aid of two decks of playing cards retrieved from the bodies of two of their more moribund crater-mates, he managed to demonstrate to Watson-Smythe.

A bond thus developed between the two erstwhile enemies, and the Silesian during pauses in the bombardment conveyed to the Englishman, through a mixture of sign language, Kreole, pidgin English, and snippets and fragments of various other languages, a most amazing tale of his exploits in the Balkans and certain Central Asia capitals where the Silesian had been posted to investigate rumblings of secret deals, negotiations and back-channel discussions between a particular high-ranking individual in the decaying Ottoman Empire and the tribal leaders of some rebellious mountain people of the Caucasus.

His tale a welcome distraction from the horrors of the bombardment peaked the Englishman’s professional curiosity as well as his personal fascination with the “secret world” of spies, clandestine operations and the Great Game.

For the Silesian, as it soon became c lear, all this was merely a preamble to establish his bona fides for a larger purpose.

Which was, sensing that his wounds were mortal, and that he would not survive the bombardment, as he finally conveyed: it was most urgent that while his delerium was still at bay, he reveal to Watson-Smythe the contents of a collection of documents he had come across during a sojourn with a caravan of artifact smugglers.

It was as this caravan was crossing the Gobi desert, that they were joined by a secretive older gentleman with whom the smugglers obviously had previous dealings. This gentleman, it turned out, was

a Persian of Farsi descent, who had spent most of his professional life as an emissary in the service of various courts and kingdoms of the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia.

The Farsi took to the Silesian, and relished the opportunity to practice his Czech and his German, both of which, due to disuse, had become rather rusty, and subsequently, in the course of their conversations, mentioned to him, how, in order to pass the time during his missions, he had made it his amusement to collect the personal papers of historically notable Emissaries who had plied the same paths as he. The Farsi had amassed quite a collection of such documents, spanning hundreds of years, and, as he became more and more familiar with the contents of these papers, he discovered that his fellow diplomats were obsessed with the mythical villages of Pippidufka, Siddi Ba’aaka, Pei Pei du fu Kwa or whatever it was known to them in their tim e and place.

Further, their reading of these documents led them to the conclusion that this village was not a myth but an actual place. The unifying theme of his collection of documents which the Farsi called “The Emissaries’ Tales” was that they all purported to be not just literal first-person transcriptions of the earliest bardic recitations of the Tales but also actual records and histories pertaining to the events that led to the disappearance of the village from the historical record.

As was the Silesian’s professional habit, he feigned a vague disinterest, but, in truth, he was captivated. Over the time of his and the Farsi’s journey together, he managed to get surreptitious access to the documents and commit them to his prodigious photographic memory.

And now, each evening in the crater, in the lulls between mortar attacks, the Silesian recited to Watson-Smythe what he could recall of the Farsi’s papers, and, while the flares issued their ghostly light,

the Englishman, similarly enthralled, wrote down what he heard, using the only materials available to him:

The substrate: precious sheets of Watson-Smythe’s Gauloises cigarette papers.

The stylus: a sewing needle from his His Royal Majesty’s Official Issue Survival Kit.

And the medium: his own blood.

Later, after the offensive, when it became practical for Watson –Smythe’s body to be recovered, those fragile but invaluable pieces of paper were among those objects the Englishman had protected to the very end with his own body.

Also retrieved was an old Silver Krone, on a length of rawhide, on whose obverse was crudely incised a hand -drawn map depicting an area labeled The Great Unspeakable Emptiness and of course, the manuscript of Watson-Smythe’s slim volume of poetry, the long-forgotten and out of print Trench Ballads. 9

The fragmentary nature, as well as poor condition of the Gauloises papers, later led to controversy and speculation as to whether the Englishman had run out of them before the unfortunate Silesian could complete his stories, or, as a number of WatsonSmythe’s former comrades-in-arms contended but which was

9 Ode to Mutz or T’wen ee whaent t’waar from Trench Ballads by J.V.S Watson-Smythe

T’wen ee whaent t’waar, ee wair maerly e laed, B ’t’wen ee cam bake, ee wair maerly daed. O pur mae e glais, frem t’ joog, frem t’joog!

O pur mae e glais, frem t’joog, frem t’joog! O pur mae e glais, frem t’joog, frem t’joog! En ile drenk’t doon,W’ta gloog, gloog, gloog, gloog

TRANSLATION: Went he went to war, he was merely a lad. But when he came back, he was merely dead. O, pour me a glass from the jug, from the jug. And I’ll drink it down with a glug, glug, glug, glug.

hotly denied by the estate and family of Watson -Smythe his notorious addiction to tobacco finally won out over his loyalty to history and his crater mate, reluctantly sendin g parts of those irreplaceably precious stories up in smoke.

The publication of what has become known as The Silesian’s Text had to wait until the mid-1930s: at first they were classified as Top Secret by Watson-Smythe’s masters in British Intelligence unt il they could be translated and studied, to determine if they were, indeed, what they were purported to be, or, in fact as The Service suspected coded messages concerning certain secret agreements between the Russian Tsar and Emperor of Japan.

The urgency of their translation having been rendered moot by the Russian Revolution, the documents languished until they were discovered, in 1931, stuck in the back of a drawer of a desk donated by the government to a Church charity auction and, subsequently, sold to a Sunday Tabloid for 500 pounds sterling by the purchaser of the desk. They were an immediate sensation, first among the general public, and, finally, in the academic community, a sensation which had not been seen since The Pippidufka Bubble of 1881 –1883.

Since then The Silesian’s Text has been analyzed and studied by scholars of every ilk, most recently, subjected to philological and linguistic analysis by the Cray Supercomputer at UCLA, whose tentative conclusion, awaiting forthcoming publication in “The Journal of Pippidufkan Philology”, will, it is rumored, confirm the theory that this text is in fact the philological “Mother DNA” of all The Tales of Pippidufka .

the strange and true affair of the pippidufka papers

by john watson-smythe, md

Editor’s Note: For what we, the editor’s, hoped to be the definite edition of The Tales of Pippidufka based on The Silesian’s Text, our original intent was to eschew all previous translations and transcriptions, relying instead on our own close readings and reexamination of the original document, in an attempt, once and for all, to fill in the multitude of elisions, ellipsi, illegibles and [sic]s that pepper the canon, and, thus, often confuse and certainly annoy both reader and performer, coming as they o ften due at critical points in the narrative.

To this end, we had, early on. placed enquiries in the usual publications (NYTBR, NYRB and TLS, etc.), but after a length of time, having received no response, we decided to proceed as best we could.

It was not until we were reading the galley proofs of this work, that we received, par avion, a letter from a Grenville WatsonSmythe, who purported to be the great-grandson of “the author” [sic] of The Silesian’s Text, stating that “in response to your advert…etc” and “in the interests of correcting the historical record…etc” if we wished to appear at such-and-such a place, at such-and-such a time, upon such-and-such a date, we would be graciously allowed “to examine” and “peruse other such materials” as were in his possession.

Something about the wording of his letter struck us as odd, for instance, his referral to his great-grandfather as “the author” of the manuscript.

Thus it was, that one grey September Day, with heightened curiosity and urgency, we found ourselves ringing, or rather banging, a large antique brass door knocker on a building in an old street in the East End of London.

An elderly, if not ageless, housekeeper admitted us, ushered us up a flight of dimly gas-lit stairs to a second floor parlour, where a middle-aged gentleman rose to greet us.

The entire scene, was impressed upon us in a most unusual fashion, resembling as it did something from early in the previous century the anachronistic lighting, the large and overstuffed furniture, even the garb and beard of our host, all could have been lifted straight from a movie set or museum. Yet we knew, somehow, that all of this was strictly authentic.

After a brief introduction, Mr. Grenville Doyle, for that, indeed, is whom he introduced himself as, left the room briefly and returned with a frayed Buster Brown shoe box marked on its side GREATGRANDA’S STUFF. Doyle indicated to us that we would be left alone with the box and to take as much time as needed.

With great anticipation we opened the container that lay before us, hoping to find that fabled packet of Gauloises papers that had been torn, burnt, stained, shot at, gassed, mortared.

We found instead a ragged grey manila folder covering the bottom of the box.

Our first thought was that we had been had.

We were about to chide Doyle for his costly and time-wasting practical joke, when, from curiosity, or cruel fate, we opened the folder and withdrew from it a manuscript of some 60 odd pages in length, typed single-space on an ancient typewriter on brittle onionskin. What follows is an accurate transcription of what we read:

These were Holmes’ last words to me in this world:

“This is either the cleverest of ruses, Watson-Smythe, and I am on my way to a final confrontation with my arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty, or, I shall soon set foot in the legendary lost village of Pippidufka.”

And with that, he flung open the door of our sitting room, and, taking the stairs two at a time, carpetbag in hand, ever-present deerstalker upon his head, Cavendish tails flapping behind him, flew down and out until all that was left was a faint trail of smoke left by his eternally lit, infernally odiferous calabash.

As I stood there watching him leave, I could not help thinking of the events of earlier that evening.

Holmes and I had been enjoying a Post-prandial snifter of an exuberant Malmsey, when our housekeeper knocked, entered, and passed to Holmes a note and a small wooden Box.

Holmes read the note, then opened the box and removed its contents which appeared to include the following: an old packet of Gauloise’s cigarette papers which were some-what the worse for wear and tear, a silver coin of some sort on a length of rawhide, and a rolled up document on aged parchment, which, when unfurled by

Holmes revealed itself to be an antique map with an oddly-shaped symmetrical blank space in its center.

Holmes reaction was immediate and dramatic.

He rushed to his bookshelves, and, after a brief search, drew out one of those large and frayed volumes of arcane lore of which Holmes was notoriously fond bound in vellum and calfskin and edged in faded gilting.

Holmes flipped through the pages until he seemed to find what he had been searching for. He stood there, transfixed for a moment, and then slammed the book closed.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” he barked to the housekeeper, “Bring our guest up immediately!”

The housekeeper left and returned a few minutes later with a rather nondescript young man who stood eye-to-eye with Holmes.

“Do you know what this is?” Holmes demanded, holding the map up to his guest’s face.

“If I am not mistaken,” he responded with an air of nonchalant authority that belied his youthful appearance, “That, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, purports to be an authentic original The Officale Greate Mappe of the Realme. One Copper, one of the lost artifacts of Pippidufka as described in the monograph of 1878 ‘Amazing Discoveries in an Alexandrian Flea Market’? If, that is, I am not mistaken.”

“Pippidufka?” I asked—for at that time I was unfamiliar, let alone obsessed with, that invidious subject, and, in fact, not being even a casual reader of the Weekly Tabloids— the Yellow Sheets as I believe they are referred to amongst the cynical classes —knew nothing about that subject’s infamous history. For all I knew “Pippidufka” could as well have been the name of a brand of Hungarian bath soap. I regret my ignorance to this day, for had I known then, what I now know of that dreadful place, I might have prevented Holmes from rushing off to meet god-knows-what-fate.

In any case, my reverie was interrupted.

“To the task at hand, Watson-Smythe!” I thought. Which task was, simply: Holmes, in his urgency, had entrusted to me a job that would normally have fallen within his purview —namely: the restoration and transcription of an important document, which, in this instance, took the most strange and unusual form, of that very same worn and soiled packet of Gauloises papers, which our strange guest had brought Holmes earlier that evening. Those delicate translucent sheets, at first glance seemed to be stained with in a rusty hue, but which, upon subsequent and closer examination, revealed to be, in fact, completely covered in a dense, minute text hand-printed with an ink of a sanguine nature.

My first challenge would be to separate the delicate papers from their cardboard container, and thence from each other, for, to judge by the artifacts’ appearance, it did not seem at all unlikely that the sheets would all be stuck together.

“What would Holmes do?” I asked myself, as my eyes scanned the chemicals and apparati of Holmes’ considerable criminological laboratory— as if, hoping to conveniently come across a bottle clearly labeled USE TO UNSTICK PAPERS OF UNKNOWN COMPOSITION WITHOUT SMUDGING INK OF UNCERTAIN CHEMISTRY .

But, as I looked at the myriad liquids, powders, glassware and complicated scientific devices no such labeled bottle making an appearance — I became agitated, increasingly so, until, finally, I convinced myself that, due to my own incompetence, this enterprise was doomed to failure.

“After all, John Watson-Smythe,” I told myself, “How could you dare to suppose that you could think like the great Sherlock Holmes?”

Then I remembered what Holmes would often say to me in such moments of self-doubt: “I have my gifts Watson-Smythe. And you have yours!”

I have my gifts and you have yours!

”Of course!” I told myself “You are John Watson-Smythe, skilled surgeon and healer of Harley Street, London, NW. Use those skills, those which you have garnered and honed for the pursuit of the well-being of mankind, and which have served you in good stead in your chosen profession. Use those skills to solve this problem.”

Thus I opened my medical bag and withdrew from a black leather case the sharpest and finest of my German scalpels.

Filled with renewed confidence, I removed my jacket, rolled up my sleeves, placed the “patient” on Holmes’ laboratory table and prepared to “operate.”

My approach was to be both direct and simple.

A few carefully placed lateral incisions along the sh orter sides of the packet — where the cardboard flaps were folded in upon and glued to one another — would enable me to separate and open the “body,” and thus examine its “innards” to determine what my next step should be.

Perhaps it was my excitement, the lateness of the hour, the urgency of the occasion — it no longer matters which — but with my first cut I somehow managed to open a rather nasty wound on the forefinger of my left hand, which caused blood to spurt out upon the “patient.” Having no surgical assistant to sponge the blood nor stem my bleeding, I was forced to deal with both simultaneously, thus engaging in an elaborate digital pas de deux, grabbing with my right hand that which was readily available to limit the damage already done to the “patient,” in this case, my pocket handkerchief, as it were, whilst holding my other, left arm, high, pressing thumb firmly against the wound on its neighboring forefinger until I succeeded in staunching the flow of blood.

The initial crisis over, I turned my attention to the “patient”.

There the prognosis was dismal: I had succeeded in mopping up the excess blood, but enough had already seeped into the precious papers and begun to dry. So it was clear that, unless I acted immediately, the leaves would be irreparably stuck together.

Acting quickly, I poured some water into a flask, turned on the Bunsen burner and lit a match to it, thinking to boil the water and steam the papers apart. In doing so, however, I managed to knock over a small vial of volatile liquid, whose presence I had not previously observed. The spilt fluid flowed rapidly towards “the patient.”

Unfortunately, I attempted to stop its flow with the hand still holding the lit match and watched aghast as the material burst into flame.

I grabbed the papers, which had just begun to catch fire, and thrust them into the flask of boiling water, at first pleased at having saved them from the ravages of the flames only to watch in horror as I saw the writing begin to dissolve and bleed. I thrust my hand again into the now scalding water, retrieved the papers, pulled them apart as best I could and placed them between the pages of a blotting book Holmes kept nearby for use in preserving his more interesting forensic specimens.

I quickly tended to my wounds with some salve or another, cleaned up and sat down to assess the results of my endeavors to this point.

“Unmitigated disaster” was the phrase that immediately came to mind.

As I peeled the burnt, blood-stained, and waterlogged leaves — as best I could — from the pages of the blotting book, at least those portions thereof which did not adhere thereto, I felt the darkest despair and deepest despondency of my entire life.

My mood could not have been bleaker.

What would I tell Holmes?

That in my ineptitude I had involuntarily destroyed the precious item which he had entrusted to me?

Over and over again I said to myself, “There must be a solution. What would Holmes do?”

Then my eyes happened to light upon a small locked cabinet among the contents of which I knew were certain medicinal substances whose abuse — from my point of view — by Holmes had been the cause of many a heated argument between us, which arguments invariably ended when Holmes would simple say to me “It helps me think, Watson” and then fall into a drug-induced trance.

Well, at that moment it was quite clear to me, indeed, “What Holmes would do!”

“What the bloody hell,” I thought, “If it’s good enough for the great Sherlock Holmes, it’s certainly good enough for poor dear Watson-Smythe!”

At first I felt nothing.

Then, all at once, I became aware of an increased level of energy, a heightened visual acuity, as well as memory, insight and comprehension.

I found, if I closed my eyes I could see in perfect clarity, in my minds-eye, all the words and letters from those fragile leaves, even from those pages I had previously not been consciously aware of seeing.

I felt, in fact, so omniscient and clear-sighted, that I found I could even “recall” the contents of pages which I knew I could not possibly have seen—this latter feat. I achieved through the establishment of a psychic connection with their authors in the spirit world. The last thing I remember was setting to work with a frenzy.

When the housekeeper stirred me from my sleep the next day — with a distinct look of disapproval upon her face — it was already evening and I was collapsed upon the laboratory table. Strewn all about me were stacks of books, closed and open —on the floor, on the tables, on the chairs; books on Mythology, Folklore, Ancient Histories, Religious Tracts. And most notably, Holmes extensive collection of Pippidufkianna, of whose very existence, until that previous evening I had been totally unaware. These included “The

Tales” themselves, in various editions and translations, annals of historical trivia, medieval chronicles, posters and handbills from the Les Tableaux de Hommes Pippidufka, commentaries on the lost Alexandrian Artifacts, and, also, stacked neatly in front of me, typeset upon Holmes clanking new-fangled writing machine, were the 60 or so sheets of onionskin which were later to become known as The Silesian’s Text.

Whether they were the product of drug-induced hallucinations or the result of the opiate’s having released some latent mental powers, I would leave for Holmes to determine when he returned from his wild goose chase.

But of course, Holmes did not return

Instead, a few weeks later, there was a knock on the door of the study and the housekeeper ushered in a gentleman in a dark greatcoat with a bowler drawn down so far over his face that in the shadow of the dimly lit room I did not recognize him until he stepped into the light.

“Sir Charles!” I gasped, and rose, somewhat unsteadily, to greet my guest, Sir Charles Phindledoyne, financier, military historian, and—known only to a select few — Holmes’ contact with His Majesty’s Foreign office.

“Please sit down, Sir Charles. What brings you here at this late hour?”

“You look like bloody hell, Watson-Smythe! What’s gotten into you?” He asked, indicating with a sweep of his hands, the decrepit and chaotic state of the room, which, indeed looked as if we were in the midst of the flotsam and jetsam of some destructive tropical storm. I started to mumble something or another, but Sir Charles raised his hand for me to stop.

“This doesn’t look like a good time for you, Watson-Smythe, but I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for some rather bad news!”

I sank into my chair.

“Holmes?”

A WAVE OF DESPAIR SPREAD OVER ME!

“Dear God! Did it have anything to do with his journey to Pippidufka?”

“Pippidufka?” He asked. “I don’t quite follow you, WatsonSmythe? What Journey? And what does that god-awful figment of Holmes’ Opium dreams that have obsessed him for years have to do with this matter?”

So I proceeded to outline for Sir Charles the sequence of events beginning with our unannounced guest of a fortnight past, Holmes’ state of excitation and heated departure leaving out the most personally embarrassingly details the transcribing of The Silesian’s Text which I then collected and gave Sir Charles to read.

After perusing the document, not without an occasional quizzical squint over the top of his pince-nez, and a raised eyebrow or two, Sir Charles looked me straight in the eye and said:

“I always thought you to be a steady and reliable chap, a most sensible sort. But now? Are you becoming unhinged?” He indicated the manuscript. “My God, Man! Holmes, Holmes could be excused these eccentricities, but you? I beg you Watson-Smythe, you’ve done His Majesty some service in the past, and now there must be no mention of Holmes and that place in the same breath or we will have every lunatic philosophist and Blavatsyite crackpot lining up at Whitehall to read the King’s tealeaves. Do we understand each other, Watson-Smythe?”

“Of course, Sir Charles,” I sputtered. “For King and Country. But, pray tell me the circumstances of Holmes’ passing.”

Upon which Sir Charles laid out for me the lie which I was later to promulgate in the tale entitled “The Final Conflict,” a most idiotic, cock-and-bull story about Holmes, Moriarty and the Katzenbach Falls.

As for The Silesians’ Text, it appeared that so long as no mention of Holmes was made, the Government had no objections if I

“I’m afraid so, Watson-Smythe.”

circulated it amongst antiquarians and collectors of arcane lore, which I proceeded to do.

How the document came to the attention of a certain individual who facilitated its sale, for quite a decent price, to one of the weekly tabloids, which, with much publicity, presented it in serialized and illustrated form which caused quite a stir at the time enabling me to purchase the Baker Street establishment, provide myself with an adequate income, as well as pass on a small inheritance to my heirs.

Rather shamelessly, I must add, it also enabled me to indulge in that self-same habit which, heretofore, had been the cause of much concern of mine as regards my departed companion, and, I must also add, in my defense as well as that of Holmes, it is in those moments of heightened awareness, and only then, that I am quite certain that the Silesian’s text is the absolute truth.