The Fabulous Ineffable Beast

 Does fabulous mean fabled?  No matter!

Once, in a land not right around the corner, which might have been Russia, there was a teeny tiny village.  There were maybe twenty houses, if you could call them houses, in all.  

The people were very poor, subsisting mostly on pickled cabbages, beet soup, and an awful lot of bread.  Sometimes they didn't even have that.

One day, out of the blue as it were, the visitations began.  A mysterious beast of no particular species began appearing before dawn carrying what might be described as saddle bags filled with all the necessaries of a Russian village life of ease.  Tea, sugar, sausages, cakes and candies, and even some tobacco!  Always there were small gifts of toys for any child in the hut visited that day.  These gifts included a strange pink candy amenable to blowing bubbles.

The people began to argue among themselves about the nature of the beast.  Some said it must be a huge wolf....others said it was a horse or a mule.  The school teacher thought it was some sort of flying lizard thing.  But she always had to tell the best stories.

Cool heads in the group decided they had better devise a method of thanking the mysterious beast and decided to vote on what type of animal it was.  13 votes decided the matter.  It was most likely a giant wolf.  They set to writing a declaration of thanks beginning "Oh Wolf...."

As you can probably guess, that was the last of the Ineffable Beast, for it is not wise to mess with the Ineffable or the too delicate to define.  I don't know if he was a wolf, a horse, a mule or a very large chicken.  Its quite beyond me.