bag with them. I brought them to my children, and when my children were
around me, I threw the Toads before them out of the bag and they ate them, that
their hunger was appeased."
She also thanked her friend, saying: "God bless thee; thou hast taught me an
excellent device."
Thus the Stork and her friend devised a plan, and thus they were able to maintain
their children while the Toads were sitting in their house.
So now, when the Toads are croaking in a brook, and they see any one come,
they are all quite silent, supposing that a Stork is coming.
This fable of the Stork and Toads, which I heard, is now finished.
The Rat and the Toad
The Toad said to the Rat, "I can do more than thou."
The Rat replied to the Toad: "Thou dost not know how to run; having flung
thyself anywhere thou stoppest there. This is all thy run; and wilt thou say that
thou canst do more than I?"
When the Toad had heard the words of the Rat he said to him: "If, according to
thy opinion, I cannot do more than thou, thou shalt see what I will begin to do
to-morrow; and if thou beginnest and doest the same, without anything
happening to thee, thou canst do more than I."
The Rat agreed to the Toad's proposal, and went to see the Toad.
The Toad prepared himself, and when the sun reached about the middle, between
the horizon and the zenith, the great men felt its heat, and went to sit down in the
shade of a tree. The Toad on seeing this, arose, went to where the men were
sitting, and passed through the midst of them. When the men observed him they
said: "If you touch him, your hand will become bitter." So no one touched him,
and the Toad passed through and went home.
Then the Toad said to the Rat, "Didst thou see me? Now if thou canst do what I