Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/28



was a king and he was so clever that he even understood what all living creatures said to one another. And hear how he taught himself. A certain old grandmother came to him, brought him a snake in a basket, and says that he is to have it cooked; when he eats it he will understand everything that any creature in the air, on the ground, or in the water says. The idea of knowing something no one else knew pleased the king; he paid the grandmother handsomely, and at once bade his servant prepare this fish for him for dinner. “But mind,” he says, “you don’t even touch it with your tongue; verily, if you do you shall pay for it with your head.”

George, this servant, wondered why the king so strictly forbade it. “Never in my life have I seen such a fish,” he says to himself. “It looks just like a snake; and what sort of a cook must he be not to try what he is cooking?” When it was baked he took a morsel on his tongue and tasted it. At that moment he heard something buzz past his ears: “Us a bit too! Us a bit too!” George looks round to see what it is, but there is nothing but a few flies flying about in the kitchen. Then, again, outside on the street he hears someone exclaim sibilantly: “Whither away? whither away?” and a tiny little voice answer: “To the miller’s barley! to the miller’s barley!“ George peeps out of the window and sees a goose girl with a flock of geese. “Ah!” he says, “that’s the sort of fish it is!” Now he knew what it was. Yet again he stuffed a small piece into his mouth and then took the snake to the king as though nothing had happened.

After dinner the king ordered George to saddle the horses, for he wished to take a ride, and George was to accompany him. The king rode before, and George after him. As they were riding over a green meadow (George’s horse frisked and whinnied. “Ho! ho! ho! brother, I feel so light I should like to jump over the mountains.” “Oh! as for that,” says the other, “I should like to jump about too, but on me sits an old man; were I to jump about, he would fall to the ground like a bladder and break his neck.” “Let him break it! What of that?” said George’s horse; “instead of an old man