The German city of Homburg is perhaps best known today for its
contributions to haberdashery. Homburg, like it's similarly named
cousin, was the birthplace of a casing-less ground-meat product, a
revolutionary idea in Germany. Unlike the other ground-meat
product, the Homburg patty was not, in general, favorably received.
A common remark by the citizens of Homburg was, "Better on the head
than in the mouth." Fashion at the time being at least somewhat
subject to practicality, the Homburg patty was modified over time
both to sit more reliably on the head and to be made of a material
that failed to begin smelling rank after only a few days of wear.
Back in the Eleventh Century, however, Homburg was a major center of
dyed wax production. It was noted particularly for a variety of
purple wax. The color was derived from the extract of a local herb,
Salvia puniceus; the mixing of this dye into parafin by the
standard techniques (that is, melt the parafin, add the dye, and
allow the parafin to set) resulted in an extremely uneven
distribution of the dye.
As a consequence, the city's monopoly on Homburg purple
wax™ (or it would have been, had the concept of trademark
existed at the time) owed at least as much to the proprietary nature
of the blending technique for the dye as to the geographic
uniqueness its source. So lucrative was the purple wax business,
and hence so secretive the dye-blending technique, that it was
protected both by Act of the city magistracy and a committee of
municipal witch-hunters. In the year 1031 alone, over 20 witches
were burned at the stake for attempting to learn the method of
making Homburg purple wax to use in the furtherance of the Devil's
unholy purposes.
Particularly popular were Homburg's purple wax drawing-sticks. (The
word "crayon" would not appear for almost two more centuries, when
they were popularized throughout Europe by the Duc de Rayon, who was
later commemorated by the DuPont Corporation for his pioneering
contributions to chemical engineering.) Children in every
south-German hamlet or burg could be seen playfully defacing their
homes' walls with colorful drawings of horses and inedible meat
products.
Homburg purple wax fell out of favor in the year 1036. A travelling
Greek organ grinder named Stavros arrived in town in early May,
after having been chased out of Saarbrücken by the
torch-wielding citizenry for reasons that have been lost to history.
His monkey, named Gunther (after the organ grinder's grandmother),
escaped one day while the organ grinder slept after a particularly
valiant lunchtime attempt to consume the local cuisine. Gunther
slipped into the home of the Chief Magistrate through an open
window, where he came upon a few unattended purple drawing-sticks
belonging the the Magistrate's 9-year-old daughter, Helga. Being a
monkey, and hence not especially adept at discerning the edible from
the inedible, Gunther ate the drawing-sticks.
Upon being discovered by the Chief Magistrate, the startled Gunther
emitted a simian shriek, reported to sound like "Mwa! Ha ha! Ha!"
In shrieking, Gunther displayed his bare teeth, which had been
colored purple by the wax. So amusing was this sight, that the
Magistrate related it regularly at cocktail parties to anyone who
would remain in his vicinity long enough to hear. Soon, the story
of Herr Purpurroteraffe (as the Chief Magistrate came to be
known behind his back) spread throughout West-Central Europe.
News of the Purple-Mawed Monkey of Homburg eventually reached the
court of Conrad II, the Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperor, being of
royal blood, took this story to indicate that a monkey in Homburg
was attempting to usurp his throne. A military expedition was
launched at once, with over one thousand troops assembled to march
on Homburg. The military contingent marched to the gates of city,
which they were about to sack when the magistracy requested a
parley. The situation was explained to the Emperor with the
assistance of some cleverly improvised hand-puppets, and the attack
was called off. However, a condition for sparing the city was that
they were to cease production of purple wax immediately and
indefinitely. The citizens of Homburg eagerly agreed, secretly
being grateful for the attendant decline in time spent scrubbing wax
off of their walls.
The prohibition on purple wax continued for many centuries as a
tradition among wax-workers, until 1908 when the Crayola Company
introduced a purple crayon with its new "Condemned Colors" box of
eight. Purple is now a widely accepted constituent of crayon
assortments everywhere, only slightly diminishing the popularity of
perennial favorites red and blue.
