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N'Heures Souris Rames: The Coucy Castle Manuscript

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I 'discovered' this book after learning of it from
a friend who lost it, and told me feverishly
about it over several drinks. By coincidence,
it is in this setting that Ormonde de Kay, who
claims to have discovered the lost 16th
Century 'Coucy Castle Manuscript,' titled
"N'Heures Souris Rames," claims also to believe
that many of our modern 'English' nursury
rhymes arose: from English overhearing French
emigres in taverns drunkenly mumbling these
'French originals,' and misinterpreting them as
slurred English. Take a listen and read this
outloud:

Roc a bail, bey bis;
On detruit tape.
Ou N. de Windt blouse,
Decret de l'huile roque.

We then receive the French-to-English
'translations' of these poems, and, as if that
weren't enough, a thorough literary
interpretation to unlock their meanings.

This is English literary pranking at its
best, not merely on a par with better known
trolls such as _Flushed With Pride_, the
alleged biography of a Mr. Crapper, inventor of
the flush toilet, and its sequel alleging the
invention of the brassiere by an Otto Titzling
(both of which were widely accepted as
factual, even though clearly farcical); this is
far beyond those clever japes, and incorporates
carefully-researched historical facts,
detailed in the bibliography, itself an unusual
appendage to a book of humour.

The ruse is enhanced further by an alleged
'late 19th century' lithograph of Coucy
Castle, where the manuscript was supposedly found,
and even a plate featuring a sample of the
manuscript itself (which is written in a period
French script, 'batarde').

Among literary pranks, de Kay's 'Rames'/
'Coucy' is a masterpiece, and a credit to one
man's love of a good, well-delivered joke.

As an aside, I want to note that I dropped
this book into the hands of a number of
persons who actually believed it's amazing
premise. This is called a 'troll,' a joke that not
everyone is supposed to 'get'--designed more
for the delight of the jokester and his
friends. Try it.

This is a collection of incomprehensible French ditties which, when read aloud, sound like English nursery rhymes being recited by someone with a French accent and perhaps a speech impediment. If you are fluent in French, you still won't understand the obscure French (my French friends didn't), but you will laugh out loud when you realize which English nursery rhyme it is mimicking. Before I retired from my high school teaching career as a French teacher, I used to put these on transparencies and as a Friday treat, put on up on the overhead for the students to guess. They loved them and found them hilarious. It's hard for me to believe that its companion volume, Mots d'Heures Gousses Rames, was written by an entirely different creative--and very patient--genius.