Chapter One

Inbetween two foreign countries, right between their borders, there lived a herd of enchanted cows. That is, they really were people, and they were enchanted so that they would look like cows. How did this come about? You may ask. Well, it is a long story – but if you have the patience to listen, I will tell it all.

There once were two kingdoms that got along really well with each other – or, better to say, since kingdoms can’t get along well with each other really – it was the people who lived in those two kingdoms who were friendly with each other. Not like in some countries where anybody who is a stranger and doesn’t speak the language very well, will be treated with suspicion, if not with open hostility. Such is the stupidity of some people, that they think someone who does not speak their language very well, or who does look a bit different, cannot be right in his head, or even worse, he must be a criminal. Of course they never think about the fact that if they went to the other person’s country, it would be them who would look different - and who wouldn’t be able to speak the other people’s language at all!

However that may be, between those kingdoms – or the people in them – relations were very friendly indeed. Lots of people spoke the language of both kingdoms fairly well, and then people didn’t look that different from each other anyway – except for the gypsies of course. So, except for the gypsies, it was often hard to tell who was from the one kingdom, and who was from the other.

Now this went on for a long time. But then some day, in the Great Empire to the East, people decided they wanted to get rid of their ruler. So they slayed him and all his family. They said it was for the best of the people – that the ruler had been unjust and had had only his own interests on his mind, that he had lived a life of luxury and ease, while in his poor country the poor peasants had to slave away all day, and still never had enough to eat, that they starved, and died of every stupid little illness, just because they didn’t have money for the doctor. And that the children could not go to school to learn to read and write, because they had to help with the hard work in the fields, and in the mines, and in the factories, from when they were very little. Now what do you think – if you had the choice, wouldn’t you rather go to school than have to work in a factory day and night, or in a coal mine where you could barely breathe from all the dust, or in a field where the hard work would prevent your bones from growing up straight the way they should?