This monster is known to have been described in print just twice, in each case in an improper riddle. Its sole appearance in this spelling is in the 1785 first edition of Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: “A monster with six eyes, three mouths, four arms, eight legs, five on one side and three on the other, three arses, two tarses, and a *** upon its back”.
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue is fascinating. Gutenberg has a free copy, but there really ought to be a dead-tree version for bathroom reading.
Tarse is almost worthy of its own post. According to World Wide Words, it’s an old Germanic term for the penis.
A free, randomly selected book from my bookshelf to anyone with the answer to the riddle (put your guesses in the comments)! The answer is on the above site, so you’re on the honor system. And if I think you cheated you’re liable to get Turkey Tracks. You’ve been warned.
Tomorrow, we climb out of the gutter with an upcoming deadline for a poetry prize.
Tags: mutant word monster
Quite simply a man and a woman engaged in intercourse upon a stallion.
Though I suppose intercourse isn’t necessary to meet the terms of the riddle, but is certainly more monstrous.
Bah! Intercourse is always necessary!
Tell Geoff what’s he’s won, me…
Geoff has won an autographed* copy of The Cossacks and The Raid by Leo “Gormagettin’ while the gettin’s good” Tolstoy, a paperback containing two novellas about the timeless conflict between Russians and Chechens.
* By me.
Sweetness!