The story of Taffimai Metallumai carved on an old tusk, an illustration for Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories

The story of Taffimai Metallumai carved on an old tusk

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

1926

4x 3 3/8 inches

Rudyard Kipling's "How the First Letter was Written"

Just So Stories, p. 125.

Scanned image and text by George P. Landow

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Kipling's Commentary

THIS is the story of Taffimai Metallumai carved on an old tusk a very long time ago by the Ancient Peoples. If you read my story, or have it read to you, you can see how it is all told out on the tusk. The tusk was part of an old tribal trumpet that belonged to the Tribe of Tegumai. The pictures were scratched on it with a nail or something, and then the scratches were filled up with black wax, but all the dividing lines and the five little rounds at the bottom were filled with red wax. When it was new there was a sort of network of beads and shells and precious stones at one end of it; but now that has been broken and lost — all except the little bit that you see. The letters round the tusk are magic — Runic magic, — and if you can read them you will find out something rather new. The tusk is of ivory — very yellow and scratched. It is two feet long and two feet round, and weighs eleven pounds nine ounces. [p. 124]

Bibliography

Kipling, Rudyard. Just So Stories for Little Children. Illustrated by the Author. London: Macmillan, 1926.

Last modified 21 February 2005