Cheap Gothic Soap Opera, Part 45

Gornibas told a servant to paint a new horse. It only took a few minutes, but the servant was a poor painter and the admittedly deformed horse pulled the wagon lamely.

"Gornibas," Elizabeth asked, "I...uh...don't understand the part about...the painting...the horses"
"Silly girl, how else do you get your wagons a-moving?"
Elizabeth sighed. It made no sense here. Horses were painted, aristocrats had death-cults, and everyone just stared at your ears all the time. She wondered where she was, and why she was there.

Then she realized something!
"Um... Gornibas," she hesitantly inquired
"Yes snoogie?" he responded, almost sounding bored
"h...."
"YES SNOOGIE?" he repeated, sounding rather irritated
"What is the date?" she asked
"The question is, what is your date?" he said cryptically, sounding like a Confucian philosopher.
Suddenly, she realized that Gornibas was not even speaking to her, but to his poodle Snoogie, and he was wearing heavy iron ear muffs, so he hadn't heard a word she said.

She lifted off his ear muffs, and with great difficulty, since they were made of pure iron and rock shards, which served as padding.

"Gornibas, what is the date today?" she asked politely
"Why, it is the twentieth day of the first moon of the second month of the first season (that dreadful season being Wintertyme), of the fourth triakont past the birth of RA of the ninth era of the glorious pagan SUN GOD of the one-hundred-and-seventy-sixth decades of the sixth year, that is
February 20th, 1765!!!"

(OP: Ben, March 13 2007)