When I was growing up, my mother taught me the language of the
birds; and when I got married, I used to be listening to their
conversation; and I would be laughing; and my wife would be asking
me what was the reason of my laughing, but I did not like to tell
her, as women are always asking questions. We went out walking
one fine morning, and the birds were arguing with one another. One
of them said to another:
"Why should you be comparing yourself with me, when there is not a
king nor knight that does not come to look at my tree?"
"What advantage has your tree over mine, on which there are three
rods of magic mastery growing?"
When I heard them arguing, and knew that the rods were there, I
began to laugh.
"Oh," asked my wife, "why are you always laughing? I believe it is
at myself you are jesting, and I'll walk with you no more."
"Oh, it is not about you I am laughing. It is because I understand
the language of the birds."
Then I had to tell her what the birds were saying to one another;
and she was greatly delighted, and she asked me to go home, and
she gave orders to the cook to have breakfast ready at six o'clock
in the morning. I did not know why she was going out early, and
breakfast was ready in the morning at the hour she appointed. She
asked me to go out walking. I went with her. She went to the tree,
and asked me to cut a rod for her.
"Oh, I will not cut it. Are we not better without it?"
"I will not leave this until I get the rod, to see if there is any
good in it."
I cut the rod and gave it to her. She turned from me and struck a
blow on a stone, and changed it; and she struck a second blow on
me, and made of me a black raven, and she went home and left me
after her. I thought she would come back; she did not come, and I
had to go into a tree till morning. In the morning, at six
o'clock, there was a bellman out, proclaiming that every one who
killed a raven would get a fourpenny-bit. At last you could not
find man or boy without a gun, nor, if you were to walk three
miles, a raven that was not killed. I had to make a nest in the
top of the parlour chimney, and hide myself all day till night
came, and go out to pick up a bit to support me, till I spent a
month. Here she is herself to say if it is a lie I am telling.
[Illustration]
"It is not," said she.
Then I saw her out walking. I went up to her, and I thought she
would turn me back to my own shape, and she struck me with the rod
and made of me an old white horse, and she ordered me to be put to
a cart with a man, to draw stones from morning till night. I was
worse off then. She spread abroad a report that I had died
suddenly in my bed, and prepared a coffin, and waked and buried
me. Then she had no trouble. But when I got tired I began to kill
every one who came near me, and I used to go into the haggard
every night and destroy the stacks of corn; and when a man came
near me in the morning I would follow him till I broke his bones.
Every one got afraid of me. When she saw I was doing mischief she
came to meet me, and I thought she would change me. And she did
change me, and made a fox of me. When I saw she was doing me every
sort of damage I went away from her. I knew there was a badger's
hole in the garden, and I went there till night came, and I made
great slaughter among the geese and ducks. There she is herself to
say if I am telling a lie.
"Oh! you are telling nothing but the truth, only less than the
truth."
When she had enough of my killing the fowl she came out into the
garden, for she knew I was in the badger's hole. She came to me
and made me a wolf. I had to be off, and go to an island, where no
one at all would see me, and now and then I used to be killing
sheep, for there were not many of them, and I was afraid of being
seen and hunted; and so I passed a year, till a shepherd saw me
among the sheep and a pursuit was made after me. And when the dogs
came near me there was no place for me to escape to from them; but
I recognised the sign of the king among the men, and I made for
him, and the king cried out to stop the hounds. I took a leap upon
the front of the king's saddle, and the woman behind cried out,
"My king and my lord, kill him, or he will kill you!"
"Oh! he will not kill me. He knew me; he must be pardoned."
The king took me home with him, and gave orders I should be well
cared for. I was so wise, when I got food, I would not eat one
morsel until I got a knife and fork. The man told the king, and
the king came to see if it was true, and I got a knife and fork,
and I took the knife in one paw and the fork in the other, and I
bowed to the king. The king gave orders to bring him drink, and it
came; and the king filled a glass of wine and gave it to me.