DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Vampire, whole no. 8, December 1946

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Vampire, whole no. 8, December 1946

Page 7

seemed to prefer nags to hags. At least from all accounts it seems as if they did leave the human ladies alone most of the time. There were a few exceptions, but they definitely were not the general rule. The centaurs didn't have a very high esteem for the race Homo Sapien. They would rather be centaurs any day. They had no religion at all, no schooling, but a lot of sport. They did consort with all the Greek gods, but their favorites were Eros and Bacchus. They might have had the right idea after all. 

But still we have the question that always arises in my mind whenever I think of them: What did they eat? The books on centaurs mention many things, some of which would be nourishing for one part of the creature's body, but possibly fatal for the other. And from the general construction it would appear that the food that they did eat had to pass through the Sapien stomach to reach even the horse alimentary canal. Of course, they are only legend, and it could be explained by an entirely different set of pipes, but let's look at them as if they were actually equipped with a double stomach, two hearts, and all the various other things that make up something's insides. Murray Sheehan in his book, Half-Gods, (E.P. Dutton, New York; 1927) says of Dick, the centaur: "He reached eagerly for the piece of bread and butter." I have yet to see a horse eating bread and butter, even when you can get butter. But in the same book Sheehan says, "Send Jack down to the lower pasture for Dick." That would lead us to think that the centaur is out grazing with the plainer horses. Kinda confusin'!

Half-Gods is the story of a centaur born on a farm in Missouri. But it is more than the story of a centaur; it is one of the grandest satires on the human race ever written. When Dick is born, he is thought of merely as a monstrosity. His farmer-owner never sees in him the great thing that he is. There are master-strokes of writing in this book: the professor who thinks of the centaur as a classic thing, but loses interest when Dick cusses at him; the "intelligent city-man" who uses Dick as a side-show feature; and the Holy Roller preacher who regards the centaur's strange form as "a burden of God."

Dick is not Godlike. He is more human than any of his owners. He starts out as a divine thing, but slowly and surely comes down to the level of his surroundings -- yet all through the book he is thought of merely as a work animal. His is a pitiful story, and I never felt quite so sorry for anything I was reading about as I did for Dick. At the end of the book's 467 pages is something rather unusual: our centaur is still alive, and apparently ready to slip down to still lower levels. Yet you will find that you are happy about it, because he has finally been accepted. As the author puts it in the very last paragraph: "Luxuriously he slipped down, still further, with one shoulder propped against the porch, content above his uttermost desires, one of the fellows at the corner store."

An excellent book, one that should be in every fantasy fan's collection. I can highly recommend it to everyone; it has everything, and reads like something by Steinbeck.

In another books, The Centaur Passes, by Percy White and E.G. Boulenger (Duckworth, London; 1933) there is another reference which

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seemed to prefer nags to hags. At least from all accounts it seems as if they did leave the human ladies alone most of the time. There were a few exceptions, but they definitely were not the general rule. The centaurs didn't have a very high esteem for the race Homo Sapien. They would rather be centaurs any day. They had no religion at all, no schooling, but a lot of sport. They did consort with all the Greek gods, but their favorites were Eros and Bacchus. They might have had the right idea after all. But still we have the question that always arises in my mind whenever I think of them: What did they eat? The books on centaurs mention many things, some of which would be nourishing for one part of the creature's body, but possibly fatal for the other. And from the general construction it would appear that the food that they did eat had to pass through the Sapien stomach to reach even the horse alimentary canal. Of course, they are only legend, and it could be explained by an entirely different set of pipes, but let's look at them as if they were actually equipped with a double stomach, two hearts, and all the various other things that make up something's insides. Murray Sheehan in his book, Half-Gods, (E.P. Dutton, New York; 1927) says of Dick, the centaur: "He reached eagerly for the piece of bread and butter." I have yet to see a horse eating bread and butter, even when you can get butter. But in the same book Sheehan says, "Send Jack down to the lower pasture for Dick." That would lead us to think that the centaur is out grazing with the plainer horses. Kinda confusin'! Half-Gods is the story of a centaur born on a farm in Missouri. But it is more than the story of a centaur; it is one of the grandest satires on the human race ever written. When Dick is born, he is thought of merely as a monstrosity. His farmer-owner never sees in him the great thing that he is. There are master-strokes of writing in this book: the professor who thinks of the centaur as a classic thing, but loses interest when Dick cusses at him; the "intelligent city-man" who uses Dick as a side-show feature; and the Holy Roller preacher who regards the centaur's strange form as "a burden of God." Dick is not Godlike. He is more human than any of his owners. He starts out as a divine thing, but slowly and surely comes down to the level of his surroundings -- yet all through the book he is thought of merely as a work animal. His is a pitiful story, and I never felt quite so sorry for anything I was reading about as I did for Dick. At the end of the book's 467 pages is something rather unusual: our centaur is still alive, and apparently ready to slip down to still lower levels. Yet you will find that you are happy about it, because he has finally been accepted. As the author puts it in the very last paragraph: "Luxuriously he slipped down, still further, with one shoulder propped against the porch, content above his uttermost desires, one of the fellows at the corner store." An excellent book, one that should be in every fantasy fan's collection. I can highly recommend it to everyone; it has everything, and reads like something by Steinbeck. In another books, The Centaur Passes, by Percy White and E.G. Boulenger (Duckworth, London; 1933) there is another reference which