Among these was Raspe, who years afterwards, when he was starving in London, bethought himself of the incomparable baron.

He half remembered some of his sporting stories, and supplemented these by gleanings from his own commonplace book.

The result is a curious medley, which testifies clearly to learning and wit, and also to the turning over of musty old books of _facetiae_ written in execrable Latin.
The story of the Baron's horse being cut in two by the descending portcullis of a besieged town, and the horseman's innocence of the fact until, upon reaching a fountain in the midst of the city, the insatiate thirst of the animal betrayed his deficiency in hind quarters, was probably derived by Raspe from the _Facetiae Bebelianae_ of Heinrich Bebel, first published at Strassburgh in 1508.
There it is given as follows: "De Insigni Mendacio.

Faber clavicularius quem superius fabrum mendaciorum dixi, narravit se tempore belli, credens suos se subsecuturos equitando ad cujusdam oppidi portas penetrasse: et cum ad portas venisset cataractam turre demissam, equum suum post ephippium discidisse, dimidiatumque reliquisse, atque se media parte equi ad forum usque oppidi equitasse, et caedem non modicam peregisse.

Sed cum retrocedere vellet multitudine hostium obrutus, tum demum equum cecidisse seque captum fuisse." The drinking at the fountain was probably an embellishment of Raspe's own.