minstrel: Stories: On "Arab" Themes

[Mike Baker]

The sharing of tales is a *fine* use of bandwidth, Mikal!

(loosely adapted from the tale I told at the primary bardic circle for this 
year's Steppes Warlord)

Around the caravan fires, it is told that there was once a proud, poor, but 
honest breeder of horses who had fallen on very hard times indeed.  Thieves, 
accidents, and other disasters had plagued him for some time, such that he 
was left with only two brood-mares.  A neighbor of his possessed a fine 
stallion, but in his miserliness the so-called neighbor (may his bones creak 
in his age!) demanded that the poorer man pay a stud fee of one of the two 
mares.

The breeder considered the matter, and the two mares left in his care.  One 
was a truly beautiful animal, with silken mane and down-soft coat, with a 
fine pace and strong hooves, with the true Arabic "dish-face" head, and gray 
hair just short of the moon's silver glow.  The other was a plain, 
non-imposing figure: bay-coated, slightly coarse of mane and tale, with a 
slight jerkiness of stride that made her uncomfortable to ride.  However, as 
is so often the case in the wisdom of Allah, something more distinguished 
between the two.  The beautiful mare had no spirit shining from her eye, 
while the less-lovely bay had eyes that shone with the fire of an 
unquenchable spirit, reflection of the very wind of the desert.

The deal was struck, the pretty mare given over, the breeding took place, 
and in good time a colt was born of the plain mare.  As the breeder raised 
him, taking the greatest of care, the wisdom of his choice was plain to see. 
 Hooves hard as flint graced the end of fine-boned, well-muscled legs.  The 
sun and the moon reflected in rippling copper from the marvelous glowing 
coat, while the black jet could barely compete with the dark mane and tail. 
And the eyes -- the eyes of this stallion shone even brighter than those of 
his dam, not the reflection of the wind but instead the very wind itself 
captured within the power  of animal flesh.

The poor man missed a few meals in the raising of his new colt, but the stud 
fees and racing prizes the horse won for him in later days provided well for 
his old age, and for the dowries of the breeder's own daughters.  At the 
last, when the valiant heart of "Spirit of the Wind" could go no further and 
the stallion died, the breeder gave honor to the gift Allah had placed in 
his hands and raised a heap of stones over the grave of the horse such as 
only a great Shaykh might have been honored by in the times before the 
Prophet.

And so it was that a lowly horse breeder proved, in the flesh of his horses, 
that it is spirit which is finer, stronger, and more important than any 
beauty which is of this world alone.

It is told around the fires along the caravan trail that the wind whistles 
still through those stones, the mound that honors "Spirit of the Wind", the 
stallion that embodied the very wind that blows across the sands.

Kihe Blackeagle (the Dreamsinger Bard)  s.k.a. Amr ibn Majid al-Bakri 
al-Amra
     currently residing in Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mike C. Baker                      mbaker at rapp.com
Any opinions expressed are obviously my own unless explicitly stated 
otherwise! 
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