The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
Punch’s Propaganda
Political cartoon from the Punch magazine, London, during World War I (published on-line by the Gutenberg Project).
Imperial Dachshund: “Here I’ve been sitting up and doing tricks for the best part of seven weeks, and you take no more notice of me than if—”
Uncle Sam: “Cut it out!”
Ggrrwooof!
Awoof! Archie
Posted 09 Nov 08
SuperDog’s Doghouse of Solitude
SuperWoof to SuperDog!
Awooof! Archie
Posted 14 Jul 08
Dachshunds in a Detective Novel
According to Tootsie the dachshund, Jordy Mills was a saint. In fact, Tootsie’s been practically suicidal since the man’s demise.
No doubt about it, Jordy Mills was a good guy, and was in fact scheduled to donate a kidney to his brother, Cornell, but was murdered the day before the transplant.
Posted 07 Jul 08
William Robert Spencer: Llewellyn and His Dog
This poem by William Robert Spencer tells the tragic tale of a Welshman’s noble hound. The tale is much the same as the story of Saint Guinefort, a sainted French greyhound – previously reported on by yours truly in my ’sainted dogs’ phase.
Spencer’s poem was published as part of a children’s literature compilition entitled ‘Childhood’s Favorites and Fairy Stories, originally published as a series in the 1920s — now published on-line by the Gutenberg Project.
The spearmen heard the bugle sound,
And cheer’ly smiled the morn;
And many a brach, and many a hound,
Attend Llewellyn’s horn.
And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer;
“Come, Gelert! why art thou the last
Llewellyn’s horn to hear?
“Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam,
The flower of all his race?
So true, so brave—a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase.”
Read on…
Posted 11 Jun 08
The Art of the Chase
The 14th century French nobleman Gaston Phoebus declared that he “delighted all my days in three things. The one is arms, the next is love, and the other is hunting.” True to his humble houndish heart he added modestly that “There have been far better masters of the two former than I am.”
An expert hunter, Phoebus wrote the detailed manuscript “Le Livre de la Chasse.” Dedicated to his fellow sportsman Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, and later owned by King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, it became popular throughout Continental Europe and England and was widely translated under the title “Master of the Game.”
Read on…
Posted 12 May 08
The Tale of Sun-Ka the Wise Dog
One day Old John the Indian came down the trail to the farmhouse. He was on his way to town to sell some baskets. As Uncle Mark was going to town with the team, he invited him to ride.
Since the town was several miles away, the old Indian gladly accepted the invitation, leaving Ke-ha-ga his old hound at the farmhouse.
In the afternoon little Luke was sitting on the fence when old Ke-ha-ga came over to him. Putting his front paws on top of the fence, he licked the little boy’s hand.
The story of Little Luke and his friends has been published on-line by the Gutenberg Project
“Hello, Ke-ha-ga,” said little Luke, “so you have come out to see me, have you? Can’t you tell me a story?” he added as he gently patted the old hound’s head.
“What kind of a story do you want?” asked the old dog.
“Oh, most any kind will do,” said the boy. “Tell me a story about some dog of the olden, days,—the days before the white men came to this country.”
Read on…
Posted 28 Apr 08
Samuel Beckett’s Houndishness
Samuel Beckett was born near Dublin in 1906. He wrote narrative prose, poetry, drama and criticism in both English and French.
As a young man in Foxrock, Beckett kept a Kerry bitch, and he mentions her at some length at least three times in his writings.
Beckett would go on long walks, up to 10 miles, with his Kerry to find peace and inspiration. This picture shows Beckett with one of his mother’s Kerry Blues — though not the one remembered in Krapp’s Last Tape, whose death he grieved so much.
Read on…
Posted 16 Apr 08
Dog Tales Kentucky Style
Leigh Anne Florence, a former teacher, held Woody, the star in her children’s books about a dog in Kentucky, while she addressed Millcreek Elementary students yesterday. Needless to say Woody’s a noble dachshund. Woof!
While visiting the class Leigh Anne Florence imparted tips of writing and espoused the view that determination and respect for attitude is the winning attitude of successful individuals. But the real stars of the visit are Woody and Chloe, the author’s companion dachshunds and literary muses.
To each dog, their own style. Woody made students laugh out loud when he gnashed his teeth on a stuffed lion, and Chloe amused students by dozing in the back of the classroom. Despite sceptics who may question what a pair of dachshunds could teach a group of two-legged students, that’s exactly what they do when the visit classrooms.
Read on…
Posted 04 Apr 08
The Story of the Faithful Dog (1836)
The story you’ll read below is from a collection of stories written for young readers in the 1800s. It’s a bit long, so, let me recommend to you that you get yourselves a bowl of clear fresh water — rainwater if you can manage it! — and a crunchy carrot stick or piece of broccoli to gnaw on… Get yourself all curled up comfy in a nice calm spot somewhere in your den… And enjoy!
Peter Parley’s Juvenile Tales, by Samuel Goodrich (1836; rev 1855) is published on-line by the Gutenberg Project.
… I will now tell you of Henry and his faithful dog. There was once a young man, whose name was Henry; and he had a dog, whose name was Trusty. Henry was very fond of rambling in the woods, and climbing over the rocks and hills.
He always took his dog Trusty with him, for Trusty kept running and jumping about, barking at the quails and partridges, and hunting after squirrels and rabbits.
It was delightful to see the dog, all life and activity, now dive into the bushes, and now scamper across an open field; now plash into a brook, and now climb up the rocks almost as swiftly as a bird! Then he would come bounding to his young master, lick his hand, jump up in his face, and away he would run again, seeming as gay and happy as possible.
Posted 10 Mar 08
Milan Kundera On Dogs
“Dogs are our link to paradise.
They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent.
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back
in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring– it was peace.”
Milan Kundera
Read on…
Posted 05 Feb 08
The Bootblack’s Dog
Once upon a time there lived, in Paris, a bootblack. He was not a boy, but a man, and he had a family to support. The profits of his business would have been sufficient for his humble wants and those of his family had it not been for one circumstance, which made trade very dull with him. And that disastrous circumstance was this: nearly every one who passed his stand had their boots and shoes already blackened!
Now this was hard upon our friend. There was nothing to astonish him in the fact of so many persons passing with polished boots, for his stand was in the middle of a block, and there were bootblacks at each corner. But all he could do was to bear his fate as patiently as possible, and black the few boots which came to him, and talk to his dog, his only companion, as he sat all day on the sidewalk by his box.
Read on…
Posted 05 Oct 07
The Tale of How the Dog’s Tongue Became Long
It was hot. Little Luke sat on the doorstep in the shade. Over in the pasture Old Boze the Hound gave tongue. He was at his favourite sport of trailing rabbits all by himself. He really didn’t have any spite against the rabbits, but when he struck a fresh trail, he felt that he just must follow it. And when he had puzzled out a balk or break in the trait, he couldn’t for the life of him keep still.
This tales is published on-line by the Gutenberg Project.
But it was really too hot for trailing. The old hound would have stuck to it longer if Sam the hired man had been around somewhere, hiding behind the bushes with his thundering fire-stick. Old Boze wasn’t afraid of the fire-stick. He liked to hear it roar, and see the poor rabbits fall before its deadly breath.
Read on…
Posted 28 Sep 07
Dance, Doggie, Dance!
DANCE, DOGGIE, DANCE.
Now, Fido, I have dressed you up
In cap, and coat, and cape;
No, no, indeed my little friend,
You cannot yet escape!
Papa has seen a foreign dog
Dressed up like you in France,
And says that little poodle pup
Was quickly taught to dance.
Read on…
Posted 19 Sep 07
Another Nobel Prize Winning Dog Tale
Wislawa Szymborska was born in Kornik in Western Poland on 2 July 1923.
Since 1931 she has been living in Krakow, where during 1945-1948 she studied Polish Literature and Sociology at the Jagiellonian University.
She made her début in March 1945 with a poem “Szukam slowa” (I am Looking for a Word) in the daily “Dziennik Polski”.
During 1953-1981 she worked as poetry editor and columnist in the Kraków literary weekly “Zycie Literackie,” where her work was published.
Szymborska has published 16 collections of poetry, and has also translated French poetry.
She has been described as the ‘Mozart of poetry’, but there is, as one reviewer puts it, “something of the fury of Beethoven in her creative work” as well. Ggrrwooof!
Posted 25 Jul 07
Shakespeare’s Dog: Midsummer Night’s Dream
As big feet said, ‘Crooked knees — what hounds are these?’
Seems Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream features a scene that describes hounds — and wouldn’t you know it? They sound a lot like dachshunds. Even though it’s thought that dachshunds weren’t really around in the 1600s… Awoooo!
My vanity pushes me to think that the description refers to the noble badger hound. The line ‘Each under each,’ seems to me to point the dachshund-way. As does the description of these fine hounds as being ‘dew-lapped’ — being, as the dachshund is, so close to the ground, it’s belly in morning is always ‘dew-lapped’.
Awoof! What’s this?! Don’t believe me? Well, to all nay-sayers, and believers alike — I give you the passage (from Act IV Scene 1) in full, for you to make up your own mind.
Read on…
Posted 16 Jul 07
Gabriel García Márquez: Eyes of a Blue Dog (1950)
The most famous work by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez is his 1967 novel Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude). His book is one of Latin America’s finest examples of magic realism, a literary style that incorporates fantastical or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction.
After the international success of this novel, García Márquez went on to publish a prodigious amount of writing. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982. His broad innovations on the rules of fiction have inspired countless writers to incorporate epic, myth, and fantasy into their works, challenging the ways it is possible to perceive a story.
Some of García Márquez’s most interesting, exciting, and daring work, however, was written in the years before he became internationally famous, when his unique style was still developing and he was one among many writers of a Latin American literary renaissance.
In 1950, for example, he wrote an intriguing story entitled ‘‘Eyes of a Blue Dog,’’ which takes place entirely within its narrator’s dream, using the logic of the unconscious and the unique contradictions of the dream world to portray a frustrated relationship between a man and a woman.
Read on…
Posted 02 Jul 07
Barkis: On Barking
Barkis (1956). The book is a compilation of “Barkis & Family,” a short-lived comic strip that deserved a much longer life.
Barkis barks and Johnson provides thought-bubbles that tell what these barks mean.
Crockett Johnson was the pen name of cartoonist and children’s book illustrator David Johnson Leisk (1906—1975). He collaborated on four children’s books with his wife, Ruth Krauss.
Read on…
Posted 18 Jun 07
Edward Topsell’s Dogs
Perhaps more so than today, in the seventeenth century the nature, size and breed of a dog were very important. In those days dogs earned their bones, and some were used by their two-leggeds for hunting, some for war and defence, some for boar, bull or bear, some for the hare, or hedgehog. Smaller dogs were called hounds — beagles and such like…
Also arguably more important then than now was the book, and Edward Topsell, an Englishman, wrote a definitive book on all things Doggish. Awoof!
In those days – before the dreaded arrival of that species of two-legged called the ‘psychologist’ – Topsell was well aware that dogs had thinking abilities. Topsell tells us that dogs have reason and use logic in their hunting and working lives. And in this, no doubt, he was right — just as today the psychologists are decidedly wrong.
(A copy of Topsell’s illustrated book is held at Reading University in the United Kingdom.)
Read on…
Posted 02 May 07
©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™