Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

FABLES. 271
have been satisfied with one, but he was determined to
have the whole lot, — ^father and eighteen sons, —
and all so Hke that he could not tell one from the
other, or the father from the chOdren.
" It is no use to kill one son," he said to himself,
"because the old cock will take warning and fly away
■with the seventeen. I wish I knew which is the old
gentleman."
He set his wits to work to find out, and one day
seeing them all threshing in a barn, he sat down to
watch them ; still he could not be sure.
" Now I have it," he said ; " well done the old
man's stroke ! He hits true," he cried.
" Oh ! " replied the one he suspected of being the
head of the family, " If you had seen my grand-
father's strokes, you might have said that."
The sly fox pounced on the cock, ate him up in a
trice, and then soon caught and disposed of the eigh-
teen sons, all flj'ing in terror about the barn.
C. D.
This is new to me, but there is something like it in the Battle
of the Birds, where the wren is a farmer threshing in a bam.
WTiy the wren should wield the flail does not appear, but I
suppose there was some good reason for it " once upon a time."
J. F. C.
8. From John Dewar, Inveraray, August 27, 1860.
A fox one day met a cock and they began talking.
" How many tricks canst thou do ?" said the fox.
" "VVeU," said the cock, " I could do three; how
many canst thou do thyself?"
" I could do three score and thirteen," said the fox.
" What tricks canst thou do '? " said the cock.
" Well," said the fox, " my grandfather used to
shut one eye and give a great shout."