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A little white sheep was happily looking at itself in the water of the stream. The wolf crept up to her and spoke to her:
- Does this little mirror of water look nice?! Well, if you could see yourself in the reeds, in the great mirror of the lake into which this tiny little stream runs! Yes, yes, that big lake in the reeds, that would show you your beauty in all its glory! Come, I will lead you there!
The little white sheep started off with the wolf towards the reeds. When he reached the edge of the reeds, he had hardly taken a step or two before the little white sheep stopped:
- It's awfully muddy here, my feet are sinking into the mud!
- 'Oh, we can easily help you with that,' said the wolf, 'I'll take you up and bring you to the big lake. But even if your neck is ticklish, don't cry out, for the others might hear you, and what would they say of you if they knew that you were walking alone with me in the reeds, and that I, a wolf, was quite enchanted by your beauty!!
The little white sheep smiled at this, and was happy when the wolf caught him and carried him into the rustling reeds, from whence no white sheep has ever come back..
The teacher's daughter received a parrot as a present from her fiancé. The strange bird, brought from the city, soon got used to its new home, and all day long it screeched as loud as it could.
- Oh, how divinely beautifully she sings - quacked the ducks listening under the open window - indeed, we have never heard such beautiful singing before!
- "Nono," interposed a little terce, "our nightingale sings better here in the bushes!
- "Go to hell with your nightingale," the ducks cried, "for this grey bird, who lives here in our garden and sings hidden in some shady bush, cannot even be mentioned on the same day as the one who came straight from the city in a reddish green dress and sings in a cute cage!!
Once, at a meeting of the animals, the donkey came forward and said something very clever. The animals burst out laughing.
'Well,' thought the lion to himself, 'now he's going to make the laughers laugh, and he's deliberately said something terribly stupid about the very thing the donkey had just said so cleverly. The animals cheered the lion so loudly that the whole neighbourhood roared.
- "You are fools!" the lion roared at them, "well, when someone speaks, you never pay attention to what he says, but always look at who is speaking?
Although it was summer, the dreary, sultry days were followed by long, dark, gloomy nights, as if the stars wanted to hide from this earthly world forever. The plough-diggers, full of anxiety, read from this the coming of terrible hard times. The little fireflies, to give hope and comfort to discouraged souls, gathered in the evenings, and, flying in troops as far as they could, they shone in the pitch darkness.
When the owl saw them, he said to them:
- Oh, you octogenarians, you seem to be a bunch of poetic bugbears! For, if you were a thousand times more luminous than you are luminous, your efforts would be of no avail in such a dark night!
The fox, seeing the flying lights, muttered to himself:
- How the devil would take these beetles! I don't know why, but I'm almost ashamed of them, so that while they're shining for free, I'll be doing something funny...
And the wolf was muttering:
- I don't even dare to go towards the herd anymore because of them! I don't like having so many witnesses to where I'm going!
The ox did not let the matter pass without a word:
- They're flying left and right in front of my nose, so much so that I can't even chew in peace!
And the plough-sowers, when they saw the glowing swarms of the lovely little fireflies, said with the joy of resurrected hope and confidence:
- Thank God! Lots of fireflies: the weather is changing for the better!
And indeed, the happy summer days that followed were followed by moonlit, starry nights. And on those bright nights the owl, the fox, the wolf, and the ox often remembered how much trouble the little army of fireflies had caused them on those gloomy nights.
But it never occurred to the plough sowers that there were some poetry fireflies in the world!
Once upon a time, a coachman[1] he doubled up on a wild goose, but he only shot the tail feather, and the wild goose only had two tail feathers left. The poor wild goose, thinking that the others would laugh at him at home with these two feathers, did not dare to go home, but went into hiding.
How could he not, while in hiding, he went to the lower end of the reed bed, where wild geese also lived. Here, our wild goose was seen by a bunch of wild goose ladies from the area. They looked at him with great amazement, and saw that this foreign wild goose was wearing only two tail feathers!
- "Interesting phenomenon!" said one of the beautifully bred maidens.
- "Surely this is the last fashion!" said the other, who was quite a lady to marry.
- 'I find,' said the third, who had been a goose for a long time, 'that this fashion is very advantageous and makes small feet!
And the next day, the unmarried wild geese on the edge of the reeds were all wearing only two tail feathers. The good wild-goose mothers' hearts were bleeding that they had to pluck their children's feathers for fashion, but so that their daughters might see that for fashion's sake they must also endure physical pain, so on the third day the good wild-goose mothers also plucked their out-of-fashion feathers, and, in the latest fashion, they too appeared on the promenade, plucked and plucked.
[1] gopher: an inexperienced or poorly shooting hunter
A scoter[1] always on the edge of the herd, winking across the ditch, until one day he slipped unnoticed into the forbidden wheat field. After a while the canter noticed that something was moving in the wheat; he jumped up and coaxed the partridge out, and threw his stick at it so that the partridge squealed and made a great squeal, vowing never to set foot in the forbidden place again! The villagers, when the seal ran back among them, all rushed at the seal, who was already slain for his crime, and with great grunts they carried him down to the yellow ground. The next day at dawn, on their way out to the pasture, the Csürhebel began to carp at the piglet again:
- There you are, you famous?!
- Did you dream of forbidden wheat?!
- Don't your eyes pop out that you have disgraced us?!
No one in the pasture wanted to tolerate the repentant piglet who had wandered into the banned area.
Petak, the dog of the groom, looked on for a while, but then, after a walk around the herd, he gave it to the herd:
- Yesterday, the piglet has already received his punishment, so don't keep on pitying the one who promises improvement, because you will drive him wild forever!
An innocent girl[2], who had been the loudest in his abuse of the poor bastard, spoke up:
- You're right, Petak, but I was really outraged by the piglet's action!
- "Oh I know you," said Petak, "I know you, my pretty girl! You're upset now because, since the clumsy piglet's act, the spooner and I are more careful that neither you nor anyone else sneaks into the forbidden wheat!
[1] piglet: a piglet that is under one year old
[2] pig: castrated male pig
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