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Gerald's Web Site
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A Dog Named Boye: A Poodle Tale
An excerpts from the book
The Mythology of Dogs
by Gerald and Loretta Hausman
THERE WAS ONCE an English prince named Rupert, who had an amazing and
wonderful white poodle named Boye. Never was there a dog like Boye, and
there probably never will be again.
Now, Rupert and Boye were Cavaliers, which means, among other things, that
they wore long, shoulder-length wigs, as was the royal custom. But this
wasn’t the only hairstyle of the time. There were Roundheads, too, so
called because they wore their hair so short, you could see their bony
heads.
There was a war going on between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, and it
wasn’t about the way to wear one’s hair. The Cavaliers liked the king,
Charles I; the Roundheads didn’t. The cavaliers like Prince Rupert and his
white poodle, Boye; the Roundheads didn’t. Neither party liked spinach, but
that is another story.
Yet why, do you suppose, the Roundheads didn’t like Prince Rupert’s dog,
Boye? What reason could thee possibly be?
Well, how many dogs do you know that can speak Hebrew and High Dutch? Boye
could speak each tolerably well, and he could also speak English and French.
Yet that wasn’t the reason the Roundheads feared Boye. It was the business
about him being able to change his shape and spy on people.
You see, Boye enjoyed sneaking up on Roundheads and reporting what they said
to Prince Rupert, who would then go to the king. Boye, the shape-shifter,
could turn himself into Philip, the Shoemaker, who, being out on the street
a lot, picked up all the latest gossip.
Boye also like to change himself into Tom, the Barber; or Bill, the
Bookbinder. Because Tom trimmed the Roundheads’ heads, he picked up all the
news there was. However, Bill also head lots of gossip. One day, when Boye
turned himself into Bill, he overhead some Roundheads saying they were going
to throw mud at Prince Rupert when he waked to church on Sunday.
So, when Sunday rolled around, Boye, who was white to begin with, turned
into a fleecy cloud and hung himself right over Rupert’s head. Now,
everyone was wondering where the pretty cloud had come from when out came
the Roundheads with their hands full of sticky-gooey mud. And they started
slinging it at Prince Rupert and his fellow Cavaliers. Some of the mud
balls had rocks in them, and they knocked the Cavaliers down. For a while,
it really looked like the Roundheads were getting the better of Prince
Rupert.
“How dare they do this on a Sunday!” the prince cried.
Then did Boye rise up, cover the sun, and fire hail upon the mudslinging
men, scattering them on the spot.
One of the Roundheads shouted, “This dog is no dog.”
Another Roundhead, while shielding his head from hail, said, “This dangerous
Cavalier dog’s got the Devil in him.”
And so it was that the Roundheads began to plot a way to destroy Boye.
First, they fired lead balls at Boye with their pistols, but Boye caught the
bullets in his teeth and saved them for the prince. Then the Roundheads
tried to throw a net over him, but Boye changed himself into a snake and
wriggled away. Finally, at the Battle of Marston Moor, a Roundhead, who
told everyone he was a magician, snuck up behind Boye as he was fighting
alongside the prince and killed him with a silver bullet.
Yet, no sooner did Boye fall upon the field of battle than a white cloud
rose up into the sky. It was broad as a sailing ship and it had a great bow
and fine stern, and it floated cleanly over the sea-blue sky.
“That’s no ship,” Prince Rupert cried. “It’s Boye!” And the huge cloud
drifted over that battlefield, casting fear into many a Roundhead heart.
Some say that Boye died on the battlefield that day, struck down by the
silver bullet. They say the Roundheads found a magician, like Merlin, who
fired the deadly shot. Well, it did happen that the Roundheads won the
Battle of Marston Moor. But there are those who believe that Boye wasn’t
killed – that, once again, he turned into a cloud and disappeared into the
sky. You can see him today, some people say. There, in that fluffy, puffy,
ever scruffy, poodle-headed cloud.
AFTERWORD
The poodle was once considered the dog of all seasons. A dog who was
comfortable in any climate, doing any sort of thing. Today, our image of
the poodle has changed. For instance, Walt Disney Productions (Oliver &
Company, among other animated films) presents the poodle as a fussy female,
a dog of wealth and whimsy. Yet this ultimate retriever, the all-season
poodle, was far from finicky in the days of the classic duck hunt.
The poodle’s French name was originally chien canne, or “duck dog.”
However, the word “poodle” comes from the German pudeln, which means “to
splash about in the water,” something the breed is famous for. This dog’s
fur, in fact, is almost watertight and was grown especially thick at the
joints for extra warmth – not for fashion, as people so often imagine.
Boye is the earliest recorded poodle to be known by name. He was first
described in an English parliamentary broadsheet in 1642 at the time of the
English Civil War. Broadsheets, or broadsides, were single-page,
hand-printed texts of poetry, story, news, or political messages, which were
passed out freely on the streets of London. This real dog was probably of
such virtue to his master, Prince Rupert, that a comical writer decided to
use him for literary purposes. He was thus described as a “metamorphosis
dog,” a “dogge of changes.” In writer’s magic, Boye became a shape-shifter
of sorts. But we know the truth. This true-to-life dog is the plain old
pudeln, whose natural behavior is most supernatural.
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