her branch of coral, her female adamant, her placket-racket,
her Cyprian sceptre, her jewel for ladies. And
some of the other women would give it these names,—my
bunguetee, my stopple too, my bush-rusher, my gallant
wimble, my pretty borer, my coney-burrow-ferret, my
little piercer, my augretine, my dangling hangers,
down right to it, stiff and stout, in and to, my pusher,
dresser, pouting stick, my honey pipe, my pretty pillicock,
linky pinky, futilletie, my lusty andouille, and crimson
chitterling, my little couille bredouille, my pretty
rogue, and so forth. It belongs to me, said one.
It is mine, said the other. What, quoth a third,
shall I have no share in it? By my faith, I
will cut it then. Ha, to cut it, said the other,
would hurt him. Madam, do you cut little children’s
things? Were his cut off, he would be then Monsieur
sans queue, the curtailed master. And that he
might play and sport himself after the manner of the
other little children of the country, they made him
a fair weather whirl-jack of the wings of the windmill
of Myrebalais.
Chapter 1.XII.
Of Gargantua’s wooden horses.
Afterwards, that he might be all his lifetime a good
rider, they made to him a fair great horse of wood,
which he did make leap, curvet, jerk out behind, and
skip forward, all at a time: to pace, trot, rack,
gallop, amble, to play the hobby, the hackney-gelding:
go the gait of the camel, and of the wild ass.
He made him also change his colour of hair, as the
monks of Coultibo (according to the variety of their
holidays) use to do their clothes, from bay brown,
to sorrel, dapple-grey, mouse-dun, deer-colour, roan,
cow-colour, gingioline, skewed colour, piebald, and
the colour of the savage elk.
Himself of a huge big post made a hunting nag, and
another for daily service of the beam of a vinepress:
and of a great oak made up a mule, with a footcloth,
for his chamber. Besides this, he had ten or
twelve spare horses, and seven horses for post; and
all these were lodged in his own chamber, close by
his bedside. One day the Lord of Breadinbag
(Painensac.) came to visit his father in great bravery,
and with a gallant train: and, at the same time,
to see him came likewise the Duke of Freemeal (Francrepas.)
and the Earl of Wetgullet (Mouillevent.). The
house truly for so many guests at once was somewhat
narrow, but especially the stables; whereupon the
steward and harbinger of the said Lord Breadinbag,
to know if there were any other empty stable in the
house, came to Gargantua, a little young lad, and
secretly asked him where the stables of the great
horses were, thinking that children would be ready
to tell all. Then he led them up along the stairs
of the castle, passing by the second hall unto a broad
great gallery, by which they entered into a large tower,
and as they were going up at another pair of stairs,
said the harbinger to the steward, This child deceives
