Darden Continued!!!

Part II-Darden Begins Warrior Training

Darden’s dreams about being a warrior involved butting things with his horns, kicking other goats and running fast and far. You can imagine his disappointment when his first day in warrior school was taken up with, of all things, prayer. Goats, again very much like the Chinese, don’t see much of a difference between moving gracefully and praying. For lack of a better idea, you might think of a goat’s style of prayer as a kind of Tai Chi. When goats bend down on their front knees to eat grass, (I hope you have had the chance to see this!), they look at this act firstly as prayer and only secondly as a way of getting earthly nourishment. This might give you some idea of the mentality that gave birth to the highly ritualized movements that Darden was having to learn from his teacher Sensei Rolf. Every kick, head butt and punch had a meaning, and had to be done in a certain style. Unfortunately for Darden, Sensei Rolf was very strict. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that Darden had to learn the Falling Leaf style of goat martial arts, and he was not doing very well. Consequently Sensei Rolf was always asking him to go meditate in the corner of the field until he had “found his center”. After a few weeks Darden grew quite fond of this kind of prayer. But, for most of his first day he just kind of wondered what a center was and tried not to get caught nibbling the daisies.

When class wasn’t in session, there was a tremendous amount of homework to be done. Now, goats obviously don’t know how to read or write so you might wonder what goat homework is like. Well, at that time the goats in Crenshaw forest still knew how to talk, so their homework was to memorize stories that had been handed down from goat to goat since the time of Noah. As you may have been able to guess, it was Popsy’s job to tell his son the stories. You might be wondering how Popsy was able to do this and still work a nine to five job. That’s the best part: goats don’t have jobs! What about Sensei Rolf you might ask: doesn’t he have a job, the job of teacher? Yes and no. You see, for something to be a job, the person doing it has to be doing it for some reason besides love. Now, the prophets may have loved grumbling about not getting enough of a grass offering , but don’t think for a minute they would have stopped teaching even if no one gave them a single blade. They loved to teach, and the best of them knew they loved it. So, I guess you could say Popsy’s job was to remember stories and tell them to Darden.

Darden’s favorite story of all was the story of The Golden Princess. You’ll forgive me later for telling you this story now. It will give you a good idea of what Darden was like if you know that this was the story he loved most. You’ll have to forgive the translation. Goats sing more than they speak, so their language draws some meaning from melody and rhythm that I won’t be able to capture.

The Golden Princess
In the time before hooves, in the time before grass, in the time before horns, there was a princess with golden fur who got lost in Crenshaw forest. She spent her days crying and her nights shaking. Her dress became tattered, her fur became tangled, and her great beauty faded away.

[I am going to have to break in here and explain something. Goats do not actually know what a princess looks like. They know what a woman looks like, but they wouldn’t dare think that a princess would look anything like a modern human woman (no offense ladies). It is only by imagining a kind of goat without hoofs, horns or hunger that goats can express the kind of super-human beauty and strength that a princess seems to them to possess. Please do not be disconcerted if every now and again I have to say that the princess had fur or that she loved to whinny. There is a mixing of the human and the goatish here that cannot honestly be ignored]

The princess loved to whinny. Every night she whinnied to the moon, she winnied to the trees, she whinnied to the wind. One night she whinnied so loud that she woke the lake dragon. He had been sleeping on his treasure for many years, and he was very hungry. He flew from his cave by the lake in a terrible huff. The princess saw the dragon’s shadow against the moon, and hid behind a rock. She crept through the shadows for many miles until she came to the entrance of the dragon’s cave.

She looked in and saw the treasure. Her heart told her to gallop away, but she wanted to see the beautiful jewelry. As she trotted slowly into the cave her eyes fell on a magic mirror. She looked at her reflection in the glowing silver light. For a moment all the years of crying and wandering were washed away. She looked like the beautiful princess of her early days. The vision faded and she became even sadder than before. She decided she would rather be eaten by the dragon than be so ugly. She laid down and waited to die.

The dragon came back to his cave at daybreak, more hungry than ever. He saw the princess lying there, and was about to eat her whole, when she woke up. She looked at him, closed her eyes, hung her head, and waited patiently to be eaten. When the dragon saw this, his dragon heart burst, and one large tear fell down his scaly face. He died from love for the princess. The princess, seeing this, fell on her face crying. She still wanted to die, but she knew it was wrong to want such a thing. She laid for many days in the cave, not knowing what to do with herself.

When the dragon died the mirror’s spirit had nowhere to go. The spirit left the mirror and floated out over the lake. The wind died in the middle and the spirit of the mirror settled on the water. At night, the princess saw the moon reflected in the lake and wondered what it was. She walked out of the cave and looked down at her reflection in the water. She saw her young self looking back at her. Crying a terrible cry, she dove into the water. She swam furiously to the other shore. When she emerged onto the shore on the other side, she began to run all night, and did not stop until she was dry. She felt young again. And, in fact, she was.

She ran till day, till day, all the way back to her father’s castle.

[The last line is sung in a mournful key.]