_II.--The Marvellous Deeds of Friar John_


The war began in this way: At the time of the vintage, the shepherds of
Grangousier's country were set to guard the vines and hinder the
starlings from eating the grapes. Seeing some cake-bakers of Lerné
passing down the highway with ten or twelve loads of cakes, the
shepherds courteously asked them to sell some of their wares at the
market price. The cake-bakers, however, were in no way inclinable to the
request of the shepherds; and, what is worse, they insulted them hugely,
calling them babblers, broken-mouths, carrot-pates, tunbellies,
fly-catchers, sneakbies, joltheads, slabberdegullion druggels, and other
defamatory epithets. And when one honest shepherd came forward with the
money to buy some of the cakes, a rude cake-baker struck him a rude lash
with a whip. Thereupon some farmers and their men, who were watching
their walnuts close by, ran up with their great poles and long staves,
and thrashed the cake-bakers as if they had been green rye.

When they were returned to Lerné, the cake-makers complained to their
king, Picrochole, saying that all the mischief was done by the shepherds
of Grangousier. Picrochole incontinently grew angry and furious, and
without making any further question, he had it cried throughout his
country that every man, under pain of hanging, should assemble in arms
at noon before his castle. Thereupon, without order or measure, his men
took the field, ravaging and wasting everything wherever they passed
through. All that they said to any man that cried them mercy, was: "We
will teach you to eat cakes!"