Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

20 The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth

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Then Beelzebub began:

“A long, long time before that period to which my present tale relates, namely, long before that second great catastrophe to that ill-fated planet, while the continent Atlantis was still existing and at the height of its splendor, one of the ordinary three-centered beings of that continent ‘invented’—as my latest detailed investigations and researches cleared up—that the powdered horn of a being of that particular exterior form then called a ‘Pirmaral’ was very effective against what they call ‘diseases’ of every kind. His ‘invention’ was afterwards widely spread by various ‘freaks’ on your planet, and also there was gradually crystallized in the Reason of the ordinary beings there an illusory directing factor, from which, by the way, there is formed in the whole of the presence of each of your favorites, especially of the contemporary ones, the Reason of what is called their ‘waking-existence,’ which factor is the chief cause of the frequent change in convictions accumulated in them.

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“Owing to just this factor, crystallized in the presences of the three-brained beings of your planet of that period, it became the rule that anyone, as they say, who ‘fell ill’ of some disease or other invariably had to be given this powdered horn to swallow.

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“It is not without interest to remark that Pirmarals breed there at the present time also; but, since contemporary beings take them merely for one of the species of being they collectively call ‘deer,’ they have no special name for them.

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“So, my boy, as the beings of the continent Atlantis destroyed very many beings of that form for the sake of these horns, they very soon became extinct.

“Then a number of beings of that continent, who had by this time already made a profession of hunting these beings, went hunting for them on other continents and islands.

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“This hunting was very difficult, because for the capture of these Pirmarals a great many of these hunter-beings were required; so these professional hunters always took their whole families with them for assistance.

“Once several of these hunter families joined together and set off to hunt the Pirmarals on a very remote continent then called ‘Iranan,’ which later, after having been changed owing to the second catastrophe, was called ‘the continent Ashhark.’

“This was the same continent your contemporary favorites now call Asia.’

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“For my further tales concerning these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, it will be very useful for you, I think, if I emphasize here that on account of various disturbances during the second terrestrial catastrophe, several parts of the continent Iranan entered within the planet, and other terra firmas emerged in their place and attached themselves to this continent, which in consequence became considerably changed and became in size almost what the continent Atlantis had been for the planet Earth before the catastrophe.

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“Well, then, my boy, while this said group of hunters were once with their families pursuing a herd of these Pirmarals, they reached the shores of the water-space which was later called the Sea of Beneficence.

“Both the sea itself and its rich and fertile shores so greatly pleased this group of hunters that they did not wish to return to the continent Atlantis, and from that time on they remained to exist there, on those shores.

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“That country was at that time indeed so excellent and so ‘Sooptaninalnian’ for ordinary being-existence that no being who could think at all could help liking it.

“On that ‘terra firma’ part of the surface of your planet, not only did there exist at that period multitudes of two-brained beings of the said exterior form, namely, Pirmarals, but around this water-space were also multitudes of various kinds of ‘fruit trees,’ whose fruit then still served for your favorites as the principal product for their ‘first being-food.’

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“It seems that at the time when the said hunters from the continent Atlantis reached the Sea of Beneficence and decided to settle there, there was already existing on the shores of the same sea a being from the continent Atlantis who was at that time very important and who belonged to the sect of ‘Astrosovors’ and who was a member of a learned society, the like of which has never since appeared on that planet Earth and probably never will.

21 The First Visit of Beelzebub to India

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“The history of the arising of this third group of Asiatic beings begins only a little later than that period when the families of hunters for Pirmarals first came to the shores of the Sea of Beneficence from the continent Atlantis and, having settled there, founded the second group of Asiatic beings.

“It was just in those, for your contemporary favorites, infinitely remote days, that is, not long before the second Transapalnian perturbation occurred to this ill-fated planet, that there had already begun to be crystallized in the presences of the three-centered beings then of the continent Atlantis certain consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, on account of which the need—among other needs unbecoming to three-brained beings—began to arise in them to wear, as I have already told you, various trinkets as it were for their adornment, and also a kind of famous what is called ‘Talisman’ which they had invented.