urning House

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

The Baron loved to play chess with his chief advisor Professor Hamblin. They both looked forward to playing the game very much. While chess is like a game of war, it is ironic that Lilliland as a neutral country would have a leader who liked the game of chess. The Baron thought of the game as mental gymnastics and nothing more.

Professor Hamblin used to play chess with the Baron’s father with solid gold chess pieces. The Baron asked the Professor what ever happened to that chess set. The Professor thought that the set was in the castle vault. But later when the Professor looked for it in the vault, it was not there. Then he remembered that the Baron’s father had loaned the set to a friend who had a house in the valley. The friend liked his privacy and his home in the valley was hard to find.

The father’s friend never cam back to play chess and the loaned chess set was missing.

During the spring it had become very warm and much of the snow from the Alpine Mountains melted faster than usual. It melted so quickly that a house once buried under the snow appeared.

It was the house of the friend of the Baron’s father. He had been buried when a sudden heavy snowfall covered the house. When the authorities were able to enter the house, the golden chess set was found inside.

Professor Hamblin knew that the man buried inside the house was a great philosopher and need to be by himself in order to work on some of the philosophical problems that had concerned mankind for hundreds of years.

Out of respect for the Baron’s father and his friend, they had a memorial service at the Lilliland Church and he was buried in the castle cemetery.

The Baron asked the Professor to play one more game of chess on the retrieved gold chess set before it was stored in the castle vault. They had a good game and when it was over they both felt it was good the have the chess set back where it belonged.

In a philosophical mood, the Baron commented to the Professor that perhaps countries that are about to go to war should sit down at the chess table and hold the battle symbolically rather than the senseless killing of all the young men.

Since Lilliland was a neutral country, war was not part of their history and it was hoped that would always be true.