Post by yewtree on Oct 15, 2005 14:47:11 GMT
Chapter 1
In the old days when the land of Germany was divided up into kingdoms, bishoprics, and principalities, there was a magical cat called Teg. He was a large tabby cat with silver swirls on black fur. He liked to sit under the hazel tree in the garden. He lived in a house with two ugly sisters, an embittered stepmother, and an old merchant. He used to go to the kitchen for a plate of milk or chicken livers, which Aschenpüttel would give him. Recently, however, Aschenpüttel had married the prince and gone to live at the palace, and Teg was left behind. The ugly sisters kicked him and swore at him, and only the merchant was kind to him, when the others weren’t looking. It was a strange life that the cat was living when the one human that he loved had gone from the house. It was as if the sun and the moon had departed from him.
One day Teg went to the palace to look for Aschenpüttel, but the palace cats chased him away. They were snooty creatures with a low opinion of moggies like Teg, and they prowled around the palace gardens looking superior. He did not like the look of those cats, they were haughty and proud.
A month after Aschenpüttel had gone from the kitchen hearth, a royal carriage drew up outside the merchant’s house, and two footmen knocked at the door. After a while they came out into the garden with Aschenpüttel’s stepmother. “There’s the mangy stray – er, I mean, delightful animal,” said the lady. “I am sure dear Aschenpüttel has missed him.” The footmen, however, had heard the story of how the stepmother had made her daughters cut off their toes to fit into Aschenpüttel’s dancing shoes so that they could marry the prince instead of her. They were not impressed by her unctuous tone, and they were in a hurry to be off.
At the sight of the stepmother, Teg climbed straight up the hazel tree, so that all its leaves shook, and some fluttered to the ground. But the little bird that had always spoken to Aschenpüttel whispered to him, and he allowed himself to be coaxed out of the tree by the two footmen, who had ready a gilded basket lined with soft cushions. He climbed into that basket as if he were born to it, with never a look at the stepmother.
In this basket, Teg was carried out of the house and into the carriage. The motion of the wheels made him feel a bit queasy, so he was sick under the seat. He hoped the prince would not discover this and be cross with Aschenpüttel.
When they arrived at the palace, the footmen carried Teg’s basket up the steps, and through a maze of corridors, until he was quite lost and confused as to where he was. By the time they arrived in Aschenpüttel’s chamber, he was completely disoriented.
Aschenpüttel was sitting at a window embroidering a tapestry of damsels and unicorns. Teg could hardly recognise the little girl who had sat in the ashes of the merchant’s house, sweeping the kitchen floor and singing ballads of hopeless love. This was a great lady in a silk dress sewn with seed pearls who stood before him. He hesitated at the door, unsure of himself.
“Don’t you recognise me, Teg?” she said. Her voice sounded the same, at any rate. He approached cautiously. She scratched him behind the ears and gave him a gold dish full of chicken livers. “Your favourite,” she said hesitantly. He purred and rubbed round her ankles, and started to eat.
At that moment, the prince came in. “Good morning, Cinderelle, my love,” he said. (He always insisted on using the French version of her name, as the German aristocracy of the time considered German a vulgar and common language fit only for the peasants.)
Then he noticed Teg. “Goodness me, what have we here?” he asked. “Surely, ma chérie, you are not intending to keep that scruffy animal?”
“But he’s my cat from home,” protested Aschenpüttel.
“Well make sure he doesn’t give any diseases to the palace cats,” said the prince.
“Charming,” thought Teg to himself, unimpressed by Aschenpüttel’s choice of husband. He was altogether ready to give the prince a scratch when he got the chance.
The prince left the room, as he had to look over the palace accounts. He was always doing with the accounts, and never could make them balance.
Aschenpüttel said nothing, but got out a little soft brush from her reticule, and brushed Teg’s fur gently, whistling an English air called Greensleeves that she had heard on her honeymoon. She was ever renowned as a good singer among the townsfolk, though she was as shy as the mountain chamois.
For a while, Teg’s life at the palace was very pleasant, though he missed the hazel tree in the garden and the singing of the birds. He made friends with a visiting Scots minstrel called Thomas of Erceldoune, who sang of the Queen of Elfhame, and made such sounds come from his harp as Teg had never heard before. It was said that Thomas had spent seven years in the kingdom of Faërie, and he could tell stories never heard by mortals. He sang of the river of blood that he crossed with the Queen, and how the silver bells of her horse’s harness were the only sound to be heard above the rushing of that river.
Another visitor to the court was the minstrel Tannhäuser, who was great friends with Thomas. He had spent seven years under the Venusberg, where the ancient Pagan goddess kept perpetual merriment, and her beauty was so dazzling that few mortal men might look on it and stay sane. Tannhäuser had sought forgiveness from the Pope for that sojourn, but it had not been granted by the Holy Father, who said that his staff would blossom before such sin could be forgiven. When his staff blossomed, it was too late, Tannhäuser had departed in sorrow. It was widely believed he had gone back to the Venusberg, but he had wandered further, never ceasing his wandering on the roads of Europe. Sometimes the two minstrels would sit by the fire telling stories, with Teg curled up on the hearth, and Aschenpüttel in her great chair spinning, and all of them would fall silent, dreaming of the realm of Faërie.
After a while, the prince, heavy with the cares of state, would come down into the great hall. Aschenpüttel took great care that he should not see her with a drinking horn brimful of ale in her hand, as he had certain views about what it was fitting for a lady to drink. She was even more careful that he should never see her smoking Tannhäuser’s meerschaum pipe, as he would have been absolutely scandalised. Also, she had a habit of putting her feet up on the fender of the fireplace, which usually exposed a couple of inches of ankle to the view of the men. She thought that as they had met the goddess Venus and the Queen of Elfhame, they would not be interested in her ankles.
The prince was not at all sure that it was suitable for Aschenpüttel to be listening to stories of the Venusberg, as he thought that women should be demure and have their eyes cast down in modesty. He did not want her to get ideas about dancing in the moonlight with witches and other creatures of the night. Accordingly, when he arrived in the great hall, the conversation turned to the affairs of state. Teg, feeling the prince’s disapproval of his presence, would creep upstairs and hide under Aschenpüttel’s bed. After a seemly interval, Thomas and Tannhäuser would suddenly and inexplicably be overcome with a desire for sleep, and they too would retire to their chambers. This left Aschenpüttel alone with the prince, and she would sing softly to him in an attempt to take his mind off the kingdom’s accounts, which he was finding it difficult to balance, despite the taxes on windows, tobacco, alcohol, and furs. He never could balance those figures.
This state of affairs continued pleasantly enough through the winter, when no-one wanted to go outside in the snow, and the roads were impassable in any case. But when the icicles began to drip and the first snowdrops pushed through the cold earth, the two minstrels began to feel restless. By the time the primroses opened in the palace gardens, they were itching to be gone, prowling the roads of Europe and singing for their suppers in smoky taverns, collecting stories from the gypsy folk and the peasants, and sleeping under the stars at night. Although they loved Aschenpüttel dearly, and frequently composed paeans to her beauty, they secretly pitied her trammelled existence in the palace, where most of the servants whispered that she was no better than they, and plotted and schemed her downfall. They also disliked the prince intensely, as he clearly had no imagination.
By this time, Teg had learnt his way around the palace, though he found the main corridors with their marble floors rather slippery, and preferred the backstairs, where there was plenty of good hunting. The mice of the palace were sleek and fat, and he did not want to lose his hunting skills and become like the pampered palace cats, the haughty creatures. He had also found a way out onto the street, through a forgotten part of the garden.
When the roads were passable again, the prince decided to tour his kingdom. “One must show oneself to the common people,” he opined languidly, “and while we’re at it we can collect some taxes from the citizens.” He ordered that his gilded carriage be made ready. Unfortunately he arrived to inspect it just as the footmen discovered where Teg had been sick under the seat. The prince was furious, and ordered that Teg be thrown into the river. Luckily the footman who was instructed to carry out the task had known Aschenpüttel when she was a little girl. He put Teg in a boat with a supply of chicken livers stolen from the palace kitchens, and sent a note to Aschenpüttel to tell her what had happened.
When she got the note, Aschenpüttel was absolutely furious, and refused to speak to the prince for a year. She shut herself in her chamber, and refused to come out.
This made the prince very angry, and he sent Thomas of Erceldoune and Tannhäuser away, as he was convinced that they had brought about Aschenpüttel’s rebellious attitude.
The two minstrels decided that they would go in search of Teg.
“I’m richt weel fond o’ that animal,” said Thomas. “I was aye convinced that he could understand every word you were saying.”
“He always used to purr more loudly at the sound of the harp,” said Tannhäuser. “A very musical animal.”
Meanwhile Teg’s boat was floating down the river, and several superstitious peasants had crossed themselves and run away at the sight of a cat sitting in the prow of a boat. Never had they seen such a thing before.
As night fell, Teg’s boat drifted in under a gateway, into the moat of a silent castle surrounded by a hedge of thorns. Teg was very frightened by the eerie stillness of the place. Everything in it seemed to be asleep. Even the spiders whose webs festooned the briar hedge were asleep. Teg could feel the heavy atmosphere of enchantment, and was afraid that he too would be overpowered by sleep if he stayed another moment. The walls of that castle were sheer and black, and the waters of the moat dark and deep, lapping mournfully on the shore. He leapt out of the boat and swam as fast as he could out into the river. Straight away he was taken up by the current and swept downstream. He struggled to get to the bank and out of the cold water. Eventually he crept exhausted onto the shore, and to his relief saw a fire surrounded by people. They were singing in a strange language he had not heard before. They were dressed in brightly coloured ragged clothing, and smoking long curved pipes. A fiddler played a lament. He was accompanied by a woman with a tabor. Teg guessed that they must be gypsies, and was glad, as they were more likely than the country folk would be to give shelter to a bedraggled cat. Sure enough, they welcomed him to the fireside. Before long Teg found himself in the company of an old woman. He could see she was the leader of the people, as she was treated with great respect and addressed as phuri dui.
“Well, cat,” said the phuri dui thoughtfully. “Where have you come from, and how did you get so wet, I wonder?”
Teg miaowed. It had been a very trying day, and he thought he had probably lost one of his nine lives in the river, or perhaps at the enchanted castle. What he really wanted now was to be fed and to curl up by the fire. He liked the gypsy folk, as they were not pretentious like the prince, and they were musical like Thomas, Tannhäuser, and Aschenpüttel. Fortunately the phuri dui was a very wise person, and wrapped him up in a blanket. Then she brought him a bowl of rabbit stew, and left him curled up by the fire.
That night he dreamt of strange river cats, singing and caterwauling to lure him into the river. Pale river women trying to entice him with morsels of fish, which he could never quite reach, accompanied them. Some of them were playing harps strung with moonbeams.
In the old days when the land of Germany was divided up into kingdoms, bishoprics, and principalities, there was a magical cat called Teg. He was a large tabby cat with silver swirls on black fur. He liked to sit under the hazel tree in the garden. He lived in a house with two ugly sisters, an embittered stepmother, and an old merchant. He used to go to the kitchen for a plate of milk or chicken livers, which Aschenpüttel would give him. Recently, however, Aschenpüttel had married the prince and gone to live at the palace, and Teg was left behind. The ugly sisters kicked him and swore at him, and only the merchant was kind to him, when the others weren’t looking. It was a strange life that the cat was living when the one human that he loved had gone from the house. It was as if the sun and the moon had departed from him.
One day Teg went to the palace to look for Aschenpüttel, but the palace cats chased him away. They were snooty creatures with a low opinion of moggies like Teg, and they prowled around the palace gardens looking superior. He did not like the look of those cats, they were haughty and proud.
A month after Aschenpüttel had gone from the kitchen hearth, a royal carriage drew up outside the merchant’s house, and two footmen knocked at the door. After a while they came out into the garden with Aschenpüttel’s stepmother. “There’s the mangy stray – er, I mean, delightful animal,” said the lady. “I am sure dear Aschenpüttel has missed him.” The footmen, however, had heard the story of how the stepmother had made her daughters cut off their toes to fit into Aschenpüttel’s dancing shoes so that they could marry the prince instead of her. They were not impressed by her unctuous tone, and they were in a hurry to be off.
At the sight of the stepmother, Teg climbed straight up the hazel tree, so that all its leaves shook, and some fluttered to the ground. But the little bird that had always spoken to Aschenpüttel whispered to him, and he allowed himself to be coaxed out of the tree by the two footmen, who had ready a gilded basket lined with soft cushions. He climbed into that basket as if he were born to it, with never a look at the stepmother.
In this basket, Teg was carried out of the house and into the carriage. The motion of the wheels made him feel a bit queasy, so he was sick under the seat. He hoped the prince would not discover this and be cross with Aschenpüttel.
When they arrived at the palace, the footmen carried Teg’s basket up the steps, and through a maze of corridors, until he was quite lost and confused as to where he was. By the time they arrived in Aschenpüttel’s chamber, he was completely disoriented.
Aschenpüttel was sitting at a window embroidering a tapestry of damsels and unicorns. Teg could hardly recognise the little girl who had sat in the ashes of the merchant’s house, sweeping the kitchen floor and singing ballads of hopeless love. This was a great lady in a silk dress sewn with seed pearls who stood before him. He hesitated at the door, unsure of himself.
“Don’t you recognise me, Teg?” she said. Her voice sounded the same, at any rate. He approached cautiously. She scratched him behind the ears and gave him a gold dish full of chicken livers. “Your favourite,” she said hesitantly. He purred and rubbed round her ankles, and started to eat.
At that moment, the prince came in. “Good morning, Cinderelle, my love,” he said. (He always insisted on using the French version of her name, as the German aristocracy of the time considered German a vulgar and common language fit only for the peasants.)
Then he noticed Teg. “Goodness me, what have we here?” he asked. “Surely, ma chérie, you are not intending to keep that scruffy animal?”
“But he’s my cat from home,” protested Aschenpüttel.
“Well make sure he doesn’t give any diseases to the palace cats,” said the prince.
“Charming,” thought Teg to himself, unimpressed by Aschenpüttel’s choice of husband. He was altogether ready to give the prince a scratch when he got the chance.
The prince left the room, as he had to look over the palace accounts. He was always doing with the accounts, and never could make them balance.
Aschenpüttel said nothing, but got out a little soft brush from her reticule, and brushed Teg’s fur gently, whistling an English air called Greensleeves that she had heard on her honeymoon. She was ever renowned as a good singer among the townsfolk, though she was as shy as the mountain chamois.
For a while, Teg’s life at the palace was very pleasant, though he missed the hazel tree in the garden and the singing of the birds. He made friends with a visiting Scots minstrel called Thomas of Erceldoune, who sang of the Queen of Elfhame, and made such sounds come from his harp as Teg had never heard before. It was said that Thomas had spent seven years in the kingdom of Faërie, and he could tell stories never heard by mortals. He sang of the river of blood that he crossed with the Queen, and how the silver bells of her horse’s harness were the only sound to be heard above the rushing of that river.
Another visitor to the court was the minstrel Tannhäuser, who was great friends with Thomas. He had spent seven years under the Venusberg, where the ancient Pagan goddess kept perpetual merriment, and her beauty was so dazzling that few mortal men might look on it and stay sane. Tannhäuser had sought forgiveness from the Pope for that sojourn, but it had not been granted by the Holy Father, who said that his staff would blossom before such sin could be forgiven. When his staff blossomed, it was too late, Tannhäuser had departed in sorrow. It was widely believed he had gone back to the Venusberg, but he had wandered further, never ceasing his wandering on the roads of Europe. Sometimes the two minstrels would sit by the fire telling stories, with Teg curled up on the hearth, and Aschenpüttel in her great chair spinning, and all of them would fall silent, dreaming of the realm of Faërie.
After a while, the prince, heavy with the cares of state, would come down into the great hall. Aschenpüttel took great care that he should not see her with a drinking horn brimful of ale in her hand, as he had certain views about what it was fitting for a lady to drink. She was even more careful that he should never see her smoking Tannhäuser’s meerschaum pipe, as he would have been absolutely scandalised. Also, she had a habit of putting her feet up on the fender of the fireplace, which usually exposed a couple of inches of ankle to the view of the men. She thought that as they had met the goddess Venus and the Queen of Elfhame, they would not be interested in her ankles.
The prince was not at all sure that it was suitable for Aschenpüttel to be listening to stories of the Venusberg, as he thought that women should be demure and have their eyes cast down in modesty. He did not want her to get ideas about dancing in the moonlight with witches and other creatures of the night. Accordingly, when he arrived in the great hall, the conversation turned to the affairs of state. Teg, feeling the prince’s disapproval of his presence, would creep upstairs and hide under Aschenpüttel’s bed. After a seemly interval, Thomas and Tannhäuser would suddenly and inexplicably be overcome with a desire for sleep, and they too would retire to their chambers. This left Aschenpüttel alone with the prince, and she would sing softly to him in an attempt to take his mind off the kingdom’s accounts, which he was finding it difficult to balance, despite the taxes on windows, tobacco, alcohol, and furs. He never could balance those figures.
This state of affairs continued pleasantly enough through the winter, when no-one wanted to go outside in the snow, and the roads were impassable in any case. But when the icicles began to drip and the first snowdrops pushed through the cold earth, the two minstrels began to feel restless. By the time the primroses opened in the palace gardens, they were itching to be gone, prowling the roads of Europe and singing for their suppers in smoky taverns, collecting stories from the gypsy folk and the peasants, and sleeping under the stars at night. Although they loved Aschenpüttel dearly, and frequently composed paeans to her beauty, they secretly pitied her trammelled existence in the palace, where most of the servants whispered that she was no better than they, and plotted and schemed her downfall. They also disliked the prince intensely, as he clearly had no imagination.
By this time, Teg had learnt his way around the palace, though he found the main corridors with their marble floors rather slippery, and preferred the backstairs, where there was plenty of good hunting. The mice of the palace were sleek and fat, and he did not want to lose his hunting skills and become like the pampered palace cats, the haughty creatures. He had also found a way out onto the street, through a forgotten part of the garden.
When the roads were passable again, the prince decided to tour his kingdom. “One must show oneself to the common people,” he opined languidly, “and while we’re at it we can collect some taxes from the citizens.” He ordered that his gilded carriage be made ready. Unfortunately he arrived to inspect it just as the footmen discovered where Teg had been sick under the seat. The prince was furious, and ordered that Teg be thrown into the river. Luckily the footman who was instructed to carry out the task had known Aschenpüttel when she was a little girl. He put Teg in a boat with a supply of chicken livers stolen from the palace kitchens, and sent a note to Aschenpüttel to tell her what had happened.
When she got the note, Aschenpüttel was absolutely furious, and refused to speak to the prince for a year. She shut herself in her chamber, and refused to come out.
This made the prince very angry, and he sent Thomas of Erceldoune and Tannhäuser away, as he was convinced that they had brought about Aschenpüttel’s rebellious attitude.
The two minstrels decided that they would go in search of Teg.
“I’m richt weel fond o’ that animal,” said Thomas. “I was aye convinced that he could understand every word you were saying.”
“He always used to purr more loudly at the sound of the harp,” said Tannhäuser. “A very musical animal.”
Meanwhile Teg’s boat was floating down the river, and several superstitious peasants had crossed themselves and run away at the sight of a cat sitting in the prow of a boat. Never had they seen such a thing before.
As night fell, Teg’s boat drifted in under a gateway, into the moat of a silent castle surrounded by a hedge of thorns. Teg was very frightened by the eerie stillness of the place. Everything in it seemed to be asleep. Even the spiders whose webs festooned the briar hedge were asleep. Teg could feel the heavy atmosphere of enchantment, and was afraid that he too would be overpowered by sleep if he stayed another moment. The walls of that castle were sheer and black, and the waters of the moat dark and deep, lapping mournfully on the shore. He leapt out of the boat and swam as fast as he could out into the river. Straight away he was taken up by the current and swept downstream. He struggled to get to the bank and out of the cold water. Eventually he crept exhausted onto the shore, and to his relief saw a fire surrounded by people. They were singing in a strange language he had not heard before. They were dressed in brightly coloured ragged clothing, and smoking long curved pipes. A fiddler played a lament. He was accompanied by a woman with a tabor. Teg guessed that they must be gypsies, and was glad, as they were more likely than the country folk would be to give shelter to a bedraggled cat. Sure enough, they welcomed him to the fireside. Before long Teg found himself in the company of an old woman. He could see she was the leader of the people, as she was treated with great respect and addressed as phuri dui.
“Well, cat,” said the phuri dui thoughtfully. “Where have you come from, and how did you get so wet, I wonder?”
Teg miaowed. It had been a very trying day, and he thought he had probably lost one of his nine lives in the river, or perhaps at the enchanted castle. What he really wanted now was to be fed and to curl up by the fire. He liked the gypsy folk, as they were not pretentious like the prince, and they were musical like Thomas, Tannhäuser, and Aschenpüttel. Fortunately the phuri dui was a very wise person, and wrapped him up in a blanket. Then she brought him a bowl of rabbit stew, and left him curled up by the fire.
That night he dreamt of strange river cats, singing and caterwauling to lure him into the river. Pale river women trying to entice him with morsels of fish, which he could never quite reach, accompanied them. Some of them were playing harps strung with moonbeams.