Friday night – Der Werwolf

I had two reasons to be at UVM this afternoon. The first was an IEEE Student Chapter meeting in Waterman. THere’s was a good crowd of folsk there wo listened to my friend Lars talk about the maker movement in Burlington and the Generator makerspace. It was a good talk.. It was great seeing all my IEEE friends.

I had to duck out for a call.. and while I was out in the hall.. I came across an old silly gemeran grammar poem I’d been lookign for for years ! I learned it while an exchange student in Austriea. It’s kind of hard to explain .. it’s makign fun of the declinations of nouns in German for differnt .. (wie sacht Man falls … ? … cases ? tenses ?) .. Auf jeden fall…(I crack myself up !!!) .. it’s about a Werwolf who goes and visits an old teacher in his grave to ask about his name.. it then gets really goofy about the way you conjugate stuff… hard to explain… but I love it.

here’ a literal translationcompliments of google translate..

THE WEREWOLF
A werewolf escaped one night
Of woman and child, and came
At a village school teacher’s grave
And asked him, “Please, bow me!”

The village schoolmaster rose
On his tin plate brass knob
And said unto the wolf, that his paws
Patiently crossed before the dead:

“The werewolf,” said the good man,
“Of the Weswolf, Genitive then,
The Wemwolf, dative, as man calls it,
The Wenwolf, -there is an end. ”

The werewolf flattered the cases,
He rolled his eyeballs.
“Meanwhile,” he begged, “join
To the singular also the majority still! ”

But the village schoolmaster had to
That he knew nothing of her.
Although wolves were in large numbers,
But “who” gäbs only in singular.

The wolf rose tearless–
He had a wife and a child!
But since he was not a scholar,
So he thanked and surrendered.

i found a more impressionistic transation .. not literal.. but it keeps the fun nonsense

A Werewolf, troubled by his name,
Left wife and brood one night and came
To a hidden graveyard to enlist
The aid of a long-dead philologist.

“Oh sage, wake up, please don’t berate me,”
He howled sadly, “Just conjugate me.”
The seer arose a bit unsteady
Yawned twice, wheezed once, and then was ready.

“Well, `Werewolf’ is your plural past,
While `Waswolf’ is singularly cast:
There’s `Amwolf’ too, the present tense,
And `Iswolf,’ `Arewolf’ in this same sense.”

“I know that–I’m no mental cripple–
The future form and participle
Are what I crave,” the beast replied.
The scholar paused–again he tried:

“A `Will-be-wolf?’ It’s just too long:
`Shall-be-wolf?’ `Has-been-wolf?’ Utterly wrong!
Such words are wounds beyond all suture–
I’m sorry, but you have no future.”

The Werewolf knew better–his sons still slept
At home, and homewards now he crept,
Happy, humble, without apology
For such folly of philology.

I ducked back in to the IEEE meeting and watched the rest of Lars’s very good talk. Afterwards I got to talk to soem of theistudents. This guy is named Atreyu (yes… he’s named after the Neverendign Story). He told me that we met at the Governers Institute 6 years ago when I was doign a show.. and that helped him decide to be an engineer. It made me feel so good to hear that.. what a gift !!!