Note 9 — FISHER JOE. Kriza, xvi.

Cf. "Haastelewat Kuuset" (The Talking Pines), S. ja T. ii. p. 73, where the man is about to reveal to his wife, who has been plaguing him to tell her, why he laughed when he heard some birds twittering, and, as this means death, he puts on all his clothes and lays himself out on a bench. Just then the hens are let loose, and as they run about the floor of the chamber where the man is the cock struts about and says, "Cock, cocko, cock, cocko! See, I have fifty wives and govern them all; the master has only one and can't manage her, therefore the fool is going to die." The man heard that, got up and kept his secret. Animals' language must not be revealed. Cf. Benfey, Ein Märchen von der Thiersprachen in Orient und Occident. Naake's Slavonic Tales, Servian story of the Language of Animals, 71-99; and "Woman's Curiosity," p. 301, in the present volume.