Wolfsdung

Introduction

WOLFSDUNG. Part of a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. January 1928. The letter starts like this:

Salaam:

Listen, you crumb, I think you already owe me a letter but I’ll go on and write this one. Harold Preece wants you to write him so you forthwith sit you down and dash him off something worthy of your facile pen, see?

The letter contains the funny story WOLFSDUNG, sort of a parody of Howard’s own story WOLFSHEAD. Featuring some of the same names in the more serious story. Here is an extract from chapter 3:

Chepter the third alretty yettal
The man de Montour came in to see me. He looked like a man who had been through the honky-tonks. “Monsieur,” said he, “I have a confession! I attacked the girl last night!” “Then it was you —” I stopped. “Yes, I tore out the seat of the German’s trousers,” and he hid his face and swiped a cigar. “This is the way it was,” said he. “In the forest of Vill-he-for-eight? I had a battle with a witch and pursued her some distance through that cookoo haunted woodland, kicking her valiantly in the rear. She then cursed me and forever after I have been doomed to roaming about the world, tearing out the seats of trousers and bloomers. It is the curse!”

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