August 15, 2025 • 10 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twenty three, Lord Hothead again, and this time a
fuller account of him, his wondrous tales concerning the Coltiquerps,
where they came from, who they were, and how they
managed to live in this world of eternal frost, the
many questions I put to him, and his answers in full.
Lord Bulibrain was never allowed to set foot inside the
(00:20):
Palace of Ice. King Gelidas, backed by the opinion of
his favorites, still indulge the belief that he would be
able in the inn to refrigerate him. True, he had
been many years at the task, so that it had
now become a sort of hobby of his. And almost
daily did his frigid majesty pay a visit to his
hot headed subject and test his temperature by pressing his
(00:40):
small boll of ice against his temples. To King Galidas's mind,
a man of so high a temperature was a continual
menace to the peace and quiet of his kingdom. What
if Lord Hothead, in a dream should wander forth some
night and fall asleep with his back against one of
the walls of the Ice Palace, might he not melt
away enough of it to throw the whole glorious fabric
(01:02):
into a slump and slush of debris. It was terrible
to think of when he did think of it, and
he thought of it quite often. But Bulabrain held no
terrors for me, nor for Bulgar either. In fact, Bulgar
was delighted to be stroked by a warm hand, and
he and Bulabrain and Eye soon became the very best
of friends. But his frigid majesty was so alarmed when
(01:24):
he heard of this friendship that he was seized with
quite a spasm of warmth. For thought he the united
heat of three hot heads might work some terrible harm
to the welfare of his people. So he issued the
coldest kind of decree, carved on a tablet of ice,
that Bulibrain and I should, on no one day pass
more than a half hour together. That we should never
(01:47):
touch palm to palm, sleep in the same room, eat
from the same dish, or sit on the same divan.
These regulations were annoying, but I followed them to the letter.
And when King Gelidoe I saw how careful I was
to yield the strictest obedience to his decree, he conceived
a genuine affection for me and sent several magnificent pelts
(02:08):
to the ice house, which had been assigned to Bulgar
and me, For of course, it would not have been
safe for us to lodge in the palace itself. But
his frigid Majesty held out the flattering prospect that the
very moment Bulgar and I should become properly refrigerated, apartments
in the palace would be assigned to us, and in fact,
that I should be permitted to eat at the royal table.
(02:29):
Who are the Colti Corps? Where did these strange folk
come from? How did they ever find their way down
into this world of eternal frost? And above all, where
did they get their food and clothing from? These were
a few of the questions which I was so impatient
to have answered. That my temperature was raised a whole degree,
and I was obliged to sleep with only one single
(02:50):
pelt between me and my divan of crystal ice. For
a man bred and born in so cold a country
as the land of the Colti Corps, but the brain
had an extremely quick active mind. On account of his
rapid heartbeat and the consequent high temperature of his body,
he was not able to do his writing on slabs
of ice, as other learned Culti corpse had done, for
(03:11):
it would not have been a pleasant thing for him
to see a poem which he had just finished literally
melt away in his hands without so much as leaving
an ink stain behind. So he had been obliged, with
King Galadas's permission, to do his writing on thin tablets
of alabaster. Before he began to talk to me about
the progenitors of the Colti corpse, he showed me a
(03:33):
map of the country in the Upper World once inhabited
by them, and traced for me the course they had
sailed upon abandoning that country, and described the beautiful shores
they had landed upon in their search for a new home.
I saw at a glance that it was green Land
which Boulibrain was thus unconsciously describing, and knowing as I did,
(03:53):
that in past ages Greenland had been a land of
blue skies, warm winds, green meadows, and fertile vas alleys,
before moving mountains of ice came down from the north
and crushed all life out of it. I listened with
breathless interest to his wonderful tales of its beautiful lakes
nestled at the foot of vine clad mountains, all of
which Bulabrain now looked upon in fair visions inherited from
(04:17):
his ancestors. And I also knew that it must have
been the Arctic Ocean which had been traversed by the
ships of the Coultiqorps, who had then landed upon thee
in those days sunny shores of northern Russia. But the
mountains of ice could sail too, and they followed the
fleeing Colti Corps like mighty monsters, dashing themselves with terrible
(04:37):
roar and crash upon the peaceful shores, which they soon
transformed into a wilderness of burgh, of glacier and of floe.
Only a handful of the Colti Corps survived, and these,
in their dumb despair, taking refuge in the clefts and
caverns of the North Urals, could, from their hiding places
look upon one of the strangest sights that had ever
(04:58):
greeted human eyes. So rapid had been the advance of
these mighty masses of ice, crashing against the mountain sides
and rending the very rocks in their fury, that the
air gave up its warmth, and the sun was powerless
to give it back again. The animals of the wild
wood and the beasts of the field, overtaken in their flight,
perished as they ran and stood there, stark and stiff,
(05:21):
with heads up, tossed and mussels knotted. Then, by the
thousands and ten times thousands, the crushed crystals of the
pursuing floods caught up like moss and leaves in a
mountain torrent, and packed in every cave and cavern on
the way, tearing broader and loftier portals into these subterranean
chambers so that they might do their work the better.
(05:42):
And these, then, o Bleibrain, are your meat quarries, I exclaimed,
whence ye dry your daily food? Even so, little Barren,
replied the hot headed Coltiquorp. And not only our food,
but the skins which serve us so admirably for clothing
in this cold underground world, and the oil too, which
(06:02):
burns in our beautiful alabaster lamps, besides a hundred other things,
such as bone for hues and handles, horn for needles
and buttons and eating utensils, wool for the weaving of
our under garments, and magnificent pelts of bear and seal
and walrus, which laid upon our benches, and divans of
(06:23):
crystal ice transform them into beds and couches which even
an inhabitant of thy world might envy. But o Bulibrain
I cried out, have ye not almost exhausted? These supplies
will not death from starvation? Soon? Stare ye all in
the face in these deep and icy caverns of the underworld,
visited by the sun's light, yet unwarmed by it. Nay,
(06:46):
little Barren, answered Bulebraine, with a smile almost as warm
as one of my own. Let not that thought give
thee a moment's alarm, for we have as yet barely
raised the lid of this ice box of nature's packing.
We are not large eaters anyway, continued Lord hotthead For
while it is true that we are not indolent people,
(07:07):
for His frigid Majesty's palace and our dwellings need constant repair,
and new hatchets and axes must be chipp'd out in
the flint quarries, and new lamps carved, and new garments woven,
Yet is also true that we take life rather easy.
We have no enemies to slay, no quarrels to settle
no gold to fight over, no land to drive our
(07:28):
fellow creatures from, and fence in. Nor can we be
ill if we were willing to be, for in this pure, cold,
crisp air, disease would try in vain to sow her
poisoned germs, Hence needing no doctors, we have none, as
we have no lawyers either or merchants to sell us
what belongs to us already. His frigid majesty is an
(07:51):
excellent king. I never read of a better one. I
doubt that his like exists in the upper world. Always
cool headed, all thought of conquest, no dreams of power,
no long means for empty pomp and show ever enter
his mind. Since the day his father died and we
set the great Colti corp crown of crystal ice upon
(08:13):
his cool brow, his temperature has never risen but half
a degree, and that was only for a brief hour
or so, and was occasioned by a mad proposal of
one of his counselors, who claimed that he had discovered
an explosive compound, something like the gunpowder of thy world.
I fancy by which he could shatter the glorious window
of rock crystal set in the mountain dome of our underworld,
(08:35):
and let in the warm sunshine. Did his frigid majesty
Gelidus put this daring colti corp to death? I asked, oh, dear, No,
replied Belibraine. He merely ordered him to be refrigerated for
so many hours a day, until all his feverish projects
had been chilled to death. For no doubt, little Baron,
(08:57):
a man of thy deep learning, knows full well that
all the ills which thy world suffers from are the
children of fevered brains, of mines made restless and visionary
by the high temperature of the blood which gallops through
the approaches to the dome of thought, stirring up wild
dreams and visions as thy son lifts the poisonous vapor
(09:19):
from the stagnant pool. The more I listened to Bulbrain,
the more I liked him. The fact of the matter is,
I preferred to sit in his narrow cell, with its
plain walls of ice, lighted up by a single alabaster lamp,
and converse with him to loitering in the splendid throne
room of his frigid majesty King Gelidus. But Bulgar had
(09:39):
discovered that the pelts of Princess Schnebula's divan were much thicker, softer,
and warmer than the single one allowed Lord Hothead, and
therefore he preferred spending his time with her. But fearing
lest he might get into mischief, I didn't dare to
leave him alone with the Princess for too long at
a time. End of Chapter twenty three
Chapter twenty three, Lord Hothead again, and this time a
fuller account of him, his wondrous tales concerning the Coltiquerps,
where they came from, who they were, and how they
managed to live in this world of eternal frost, the
many questions I put to him, and his answers in full.
Lord Bulibrain was never allowed to set foot inside the
(00:20):
Palace of Ice. King Gelidas, backed by the opinion of
his favorites, still indulge the belief that he would be
able in the inn to refrigerate him. True, he had
been many years at the task, so that it had
now become a sort of hobby of his. And almost
daily did his frigid majesty pay a visit to his
hot headed subject and test his temperature by pressing his
(00:40):
small boll of ice against his temples. To King Galidas's mind,
a man of so high a temperature was a continual
menace to the peace and quiet of his kingdom. What
if Lord Hothead, in a dream should wander forth some
night and fall asleep with his back against one of
the walls of the Ice Palace, might he not melt
away enough of it to throw the whole glorious fabric
(01:02):
into a slump and slush of debris. It was terrible
to think of when he did think of it, and
he thought of it quite often. But Bulabrain held no
terrors for me, nor for Bulgar either. In fact, Bulgar
was delighted to be stroked by a warm hand, and
he and Bulabrain and Eye soon became the very best
of friends. But his frigid majesty was so alarmed when
(01:24):
he heard of this friendship that he was seized with
quite a spasm of warmth. For thought he the united
heat of three hot heads might work some terrible harm
to the welfare of his people. So he issued the
coldest kind of decree, carved on a tablet of ice,
that Bulibrain and I should, on no one day pass
more than a half hour together. That we should never
(01:47):
touch palm to palm, sleep in the same room, eat
from the same dish, or sit on the same divan.
These regulations were annoying, but I followed them to the letter.
And when King Gelidoe I saw how careful I was
to yield the strictest obedience to his decree, he conceived
a genuine affection for me and sent several magnificent pelts
(02:08):
to the ice house, which had been assigned to Bulgar
and me, For of course, it would not have been
safe for us to lodge in the palace itself. But
his frigid Majesty held out the flattering prospect that the
very moment Bulgar and I should become properly refrigerated, apartments
in the palace would be assigned to us, and in fact,
that I should be permitted to eat at the royal table.
(02:29):
Who are the Colti Corps? Where did these strange folk
come from? How did they ever find their way down
into this world of eternal frost? And above all, where
did they get their food and clothing from? These were
a few of the questions which I was so impatient
to have answered. That my temperature was raised a whole degree,
and I was obliged to sleep with only one single
(02:50):
pelt between me and my divan of crystal ice. For
a man bred and born in so cold a country
as the land of the Colti Corps, but the brain
had an extremely quick active mind. On account of his
rapid heartbeat and the consequent high temperature of his body,
he was not able to do his writing on slabs
of ice, as other learned Culti corpse had done, for
(03:11):
it would not have been a pleasant thing for him
to see a poem which he had just finished literally
melt away in his hands without so much as leaving
an ink stain behind. So he had been obliged, with
King Galadas's permission, to do his writing on thin tablets
of alabaster. Before he began to talk to me about
the progenitors of the Colti corpse, he showed me a
(03:33):
map of the country in the Upper World once inhabited
by them, and traced for me the course they had
sailed upon abandoning that country, and described the beautiful shores
they had landed upon in their search for a new home.
I saw at a glance that it was green Land
which Boulibrain was thus unconsciously describing, and knowing as I did,
(03:53):
that in past ages Greenland had been a land of
blue skies, warm winds, green meadows, and fertile vas alleys,
before moving mountains of ice came down from the north
and crushed all life out of it. I listened with
breathless interest to his wonderful tales of its beautiful lakes
nestled at the foot of vine clad mountains, all of
which Bulabrain now looked upon in fair visions inherited from
(04:17):
his ancestors. And I also knew that it must have
been the Arctic Ocean which had been traversed by the
ships of the Coultiqorps, who had then landed upon thee
in those days sunny shores of northern Russia. But the
mountains of ice could sail too, and they followed the
fleeing Colti Corps like mighty monsters, dashing themselves with terrible
(04:37):
roar and crash upon the peaceful shores, which they soon
transformed into a wilderness of burgh, of glacier and of floe.
Only a handful of the Colti Corps survived, and these,
in their dumb despair, taking refuge in the clefts and
caverns of the North Urals, could, from their hiding places
look upon one of the strangest sights that had ever
(04:58):
greeted human eyes. So rapid had been the advance of
these mighty masses of ice, crashing against the mountain sides
and rending the very rocks in their fury, that the
air gave up its warmth, and the sun was powerless
to give it back again. The animals of the wild
wood and the beasts of the field, overtaken in their flight,
perished as they ran and stood there, stark and stiff,
(05:21):
with heads up, tossed and mussels knotted. Then, by the
thousands and ten times thousands, the crushed crystals of the
pursuing floods caught up like moss and leaves in a
mountain torrent, and packed in every cave and cavern on
the way, tearing broader and loftier portals into these subterranean
chambers so that they might do their work the better.
(05:42):
And these, then, o Bleibrain, are your meat quarries, I exclaimed,
whence ye dry your daily food? Even so, little Barren,
replied the hot headed Coltiquorp. And not only our food,
but the skins which serve us so admirably for clothing
in this cold underground world, and the oil too, which
(06:02):
burns in our beautiful alabaster lamps, besides a hundred other things,
such as bone for hues and handles, horn for needles
and buttons and eating utensils, wool for the weaving of
our under garments, and magnificent pelts of bear and seal
and walrus, which laid upon our benches, and divans of
(06:23):
crystal ice transform them into beds and couches which even
an inhabitant of thy world might envy. But o Bulibrain
I cried out, have ye not almost exhausted? These supplies
will not death from starvation? Soon? Stare ye all in
the face in these deep and icy caverns of the underworld,
visited by the sun's light, yet unwarmed by it. Nay,
(06:46):
little Barren, answered Bulebraine, with a smile almost as warm
as one of my own. Let not that thought give
thee a moment's alarm, for we have as yet barely
raised the lid of this ice box of nature's packing.
We are not large eaters anyway, continued Lord hotthead For
while it is true that we are not indolent people,
(07:07):
for His frigid Majesty's palace and our dwellings need constant repair,
and new hatchets and axes must be chipp'd out in
the flint quarries, and new lamps carved, and new garments woven,
Yet is also true that we take life rather easy.
We have no enemies to slay, no quarrels to settle
no gold to fight over, no land to drive our
(07:28):
fellow creatures from, and fence in. Nor can we be
ill if we were willing to be, for in this pure, cold,
crisp air, disease would try in vain to sow her
poisoned germs, Hence needing no doctors, we have none, as
we have no lawyers either or merchants to sell us
what belongs to us already. His frigid majesty is an
(07:51):
excellent king. I never read of a better one. I
doubt that his like exists in the upper world. Always
cool headed, all thought of conquest, no dreams of power,
no long means for empty pomp and show ever enter
his mind. Since the day his father died and we
set the great Colti corp crown of crystal ice upon
(08:13):
his cool brow, his temperature has never risen but half
a degree, and that was only for a brief hour
or so, and was occasioned by a mad proposal of
one of his counselors, who claimed that he had discovered
an explosive compound, something like the gunpowder of thy world.
I fancy by which he could shatter the glorious window
of rock crystal set in the mountain dome of our underworld,
(08:35):
and let in the warm sunshine. Did his frigid majesty
Gelidus put this daring colti corp to death? I asked, oh, dear, No,
replied Belibraine. He merely ordered him to be refrigerated for
so many hours a day, until all his feverish projects
had been chilled to death. For no doubt, little Baron,
(08:57):
a man of thy deep learning, knows full well that
all the ills which thy world suffers from are the
children of fevered brains, of mines made restless and visionary
by the high temperature of the blood which gallops through
the approaches to the dome of thought, stirring up wild
dreams and visions as thy son lifts the poisonous vapor
(09:19):
from the stagnant pool. The more I listened to Bulbrain,
the more I liked him. The fact of the matter is,
I preferred to sit in his narrow cell, with its
plain walls of ice, lighted up by a single alabaster lamp,
and converse with him to loitering in the splendid throne
room of his frigid majesty King Gelidus. But Bulgar had
(09:39):
discovered that the pelts of Princess Schnebula's divan were much thicker, softer,
and warmer than the single one allowed Lord Hothead, and
therefore he preferred spending his time with her. But fearing
lest he might get into mischief, I didn't dare to
leave him alone with the Princess for too long at
a time. End of Chapter twenty three
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