Four Lives: A Celebration of Raymond Smullyan by Jason Rosenhouse & Raymond M. Smullyan

Author:Jason Rosenhouse & Raymond M. Smullyan [Rosenhouse, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2014-02-19T23:00:00+00:00

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"Zounds!" said Merlin. "That foils all our hopes. We’ll never be able to find him again!"

Poor Arthur! After all that trouble in finding the five wizards and then finding the one who was Klug—alias Gunter, alias Turquine—after all that trouble, just when the plan was about to succeed, Arthur spoiled it by tactlessly hurting Klug’s feelings.

Well, what can Arthur do now? Nothing, he decided. Sadly, he left the throne room, went upstairs to his private chamber, threw himself on the bed, and wept. He had so loved that dog!

As he was weeping, he heard a whining sound and his dog came out from under the bed, where evidently he had been hiding all the while.

I shall not go into the joyful details of the reunion. I leave it to your imagination to realize how happy King Arthur was to find his dog again. I might only add that the dog was equally happy.

Why was the dog hiding under the bed all this time? This is one mystery that no historian has yet successfully unraveled. One theory is that dogs sometimes get into a strangely temperamental mood for several days at a time, and, in this condition, hide from everybody. (Incidentally, I can personally testify that one of my dogs has had two such spells in her life.)

Another theory is that the dog was not hiding under the bed at all, but had really escaped the palace grounds, and that it was really Klug who had brought him back. According to this theory, Klug, despite his impertinence and gruff exterior, was really very kind at heart and could not remain angry with anyone for very long. So right after Klug disappeared, he started feeling sorry for King Arthur, and knowing that Arthur had lost his beloved dog, Klug used instantaneous magic, put the dog into a deep sleep, and transported him to the spot under King Arthur’s bed where Arthur would happily find him after he retired.

Those historians who favor the second theory offer two facts in its support. For one thing, several days after the dog was found, Arthur did claim that his dog appeared unusually sleepy when he emerged from under the bed. Therefore, it is well possible that the dog had been in a deep sleep. The second fact is that several months after the entire incident, there were rumors that Klug had been discussing the matter with some fellow wizards and told them that he considered Merlin’s plan for recovering the dog to be unnecessarily roundabout. As Klug was reported to have said: "It was not necessary to first turn the dog into a wolf and then have Merlin bring him back; I’m perfectly capable of doing the job myself!"

Now, these alleged facts—particularly the second—must be taken with a grain of salt, because, for one thing, the rumors are open to question. And even if the rumor about Klug is correct, Klug was known to be quite competitive towards Merlin, and may simply have been boasting.

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