How the Schildburgers Had Breakfast with the Emperor and What Riddle He Gave Them

The emperor, seeing such affection from the Schildburgers, invited them to breakfast. The town mayor and his councilors graciously accepted the invitation, and soon everyone gathered around the enormous imperial table. The mayor himself sat next to His Majesty, while the other town fathers sat below, one after the other. Many clever speeches were made, but recounting them all would take until the day after tomorrow, so I will omit them.

First, a large tureen of boiled carp was brought to the table, followed by another dish of carp prepared differently. After the fish, porridge was served. The mayor noticed that some of the councilors hadn’t finished the previous dish and scolded them:

"Hey, lads! Dig in and hurry up! And you, Your Majesty, don’t wait for them! As the saying goes: seven fools won’t wait for one."

And so, with jokes and quips, the Schildburgers managed to devour all the rich dishes prepared for them in the imperial kitchen. The emperor listened, occasionally laughing, but he couldn’t wrap his head around it: the Schildburgers were once renowned throughout the world for their wisdom and prudence, but now all he heard from them was foolishness and jokes. To finally determine whether the Schildburgers were truly foolish or just pretending, the emperor decided to pose them a riddle.

"I was on my way to your town of Schilda," he said, "and I saw a dead wolf lying by the road. I started asking why the wolf had died right there by the roadside, but no one could give me an answer. Could you help me figure out why the wolf died?"

The Schildburgers replied:

"This is no simple matter. We must hold a council." And so they went to their town hall, where they locked themselves in the Sweating Chamber. After sweating there for an hour or two, they moved to the Pondering Chamber. There they pondered for a good while and finally gathered in the Jester’s Chamber, where they began to share what they had come up with—if not from sweating, then from pondering.

The first Schildburger said that, most likely, the wolf had been running barefoot in the snow during the frost, caught a cold, fell ill, and died.

Another Schildburger offered a different theory. The wolf, he said, doesn’t ride horses but runs on his own legs. Surely, someone had chased him, and he tried to escape, but the pursuers were on horses. Seeing the chase closing in, the wolf made a desperate dash—and that was the end of him.

A third Schildburger suggested a new reason:

"The wolf must have had a great sorrow, and he became so despondent that he no longer wished to live and simply died."

Then the town mayor stood up and said:

"Dear friends and councilors! Can’t we see from our own livestock why the wolf died? How many calves, sheep, and other creatures has he slaughtered in Schilda? And he ate all that meat raw. No one ever stewed, boiled, or roasted it for him. He’s not a priest to keep a cook for himself. Some days he’d kill an old cow—imagine trying to digest such tough meat! And let’s not forget, the wolf sometimes didn’t shy away from carrion—you’d need a cast-iron stomach for that! And one more thing. My cousin’s calf died of some disease last week. He threw it outside the village, and no one has seen it since. I reckon the wolf, out of hunger, devoured it right there in the cold. He probably even ran to the icy stream to wash it down. Why are we surprised and guessing? Anyone could die from such food. And look at his teeth—they’re all white. Everyone knows that hot food turns teeth black."

As the mayor said, so the Schildburgers reported to their distinguished guest.

Then the emperor understood that not a trace of the Schildburgers’ former wisdom remained.

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How the Schildburgers Had Breakfast with the Emperor and What Riddle He Gave Them

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