1286. Otis with his well fed look and his glossy fur, romping and scampering in the clover covered fields. It is my considered opinion that the wolves experienced a poignant pang of memory: the memory of their own childhood, when they had engaged in the same behavior as children. Back then they bit each other's ears and knocked each other down in happy abandon. Now, as adults, an accidental brush could lead to a deadly confrontation.
1287. So they watched, and at a certain moment Otis was thrown over onto his back, and for a second he could not right himself. All four of his paws were waving around as if each paw was trying frantically to draw some circles in the air. This was too much for the wolf spectators, and they shied away bent on mischief, and Otis' destruction.
1288. The wolf community decided that they had only one option; to exile Otis from the community altogether. This had to be done in a way that would not arouse any dangerous animosity. They had a tradition going back to their ancient Roman origins of a kind of ostracism, the chosen wolf was sent on an important ceremonial journey.
1289. Just as when medieval knights went in search of the Holy Grail, and they were not expected to return till they had found it; so wolves were sent in search of Rome, and were not to return until after they had discovered it. The end result of these journeys in search of Rome was inevitably death by slow starvation or freezing all alone somewhere in the Alps, since no contemporary wolf had any idea where, or even what Rome was.
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