“Her gait is majestic and her manner affable.  She is magnificent in her expenses, but she is not always able to rule desire by reason.

“One day, having noticed in the palace stables, a young groom of great beauty, she immediately fell violently in love with him, and entrusted to him the command of her armies.  What one must praise unreservedly in this great queen is the abundance of gifts that she makes to the churches, monasteries, and chapels in her kingdom, and especially to the holy house of Beargarden, where, by the grace of the Lord, I made my profession in my fourteenth year.  She has founded masses for the repose of her soul in such great numbers that every priest in the Penguin Church is, so to speak, transformed into a taper lighted in the sight of heaven to draw down the divine mercy upon the august Crucha.”

From these lines and from some others with which have enriched my text the reader can judge of the historical and literary value of the “Gesta Penguinorum.”  Unhappily, that chronicle suddenly comes suddenly to an end at third year of Draco the Simple, the successor of Gun the Weak.  Having reached that point of my history, I deplore the loss of an agreeable and trustworthy guide.

During the two centuries that followed, the Penguins remained plunged in blood-stained disorder.  All the arts perished.  In the midst of the general ignorance, the monks in the shadow of their cloister devoted themselves to study, and copied the Holy Scriptures with indefatigable zeal.  As parchment was scarce, they scraped the writing off old manuscripts in order to transcribe upon them the divine word.  Thus throughout the breadth of Penguinia Bibles blossomed forth like roses on a bush.

A monk of the order of St. Benedict, Ermold the Penguin, had himself alone defaced four thousand Greek and Latin manuscripts so as to copy out the Gospel of St. John four thousand times.  Thus the masterpieces of ancient poetry and eloquence were destroyed in great numbers.  Historians are unanimous in recognising that the Penguin convents were the refuge of learning during the Middle Ages.

Unending wars between the Penguins and the Porpoises filled the close of this period.  It is extremely difficult to know the truth concerning these wars, not because accounts are wanting, but because there are so many of them.  The Porpoise Chronicles contradict the Penguin Chronicles at every point.  And, moreover, the Penguins contradict each other as well as the Porpoises.  I have discovered two chronicles that are in agreement, but one has copied from the other.  A single fact is certain, namely, that massacres, rapes, conflagrations, and plunder succeeded one another without interruption.