Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales/The Farm-yard Cock and the Weather-Cock
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THE FARM-YARD COCK, AND THE WEATHER-COCK.
There were once two cocks, one of them stood on a dunghill, the other on the roof. Both were conceited, but the question is, which of the two was the most useful? A wooden partition divided the poultry-yard from another yard in which lay a heap of manure sheltering a cucumber bed. In this bed grew a large cucumber, which was fully conscious of being a plant that required to be reared in a hotbed. “It is the privilege of birth,” said the cucumber to herself; “all cannot be born cucumbers, there must be other kinds as well. The fowls, the ducks, and the cattle in the next yard are all different creatures, and there is the yard-cock, I can look up to him when he is on the wooden partition. He is certainly of much greater importance than the weather-cock, who is so highly placed, and who can’t even creak, much less crow; and besides, he has neither hens nor chickens, and thinks only of himself, and perspires verdigris. But the yard-cock is something like a cock. His gait is like a dance, and his crowing is music, and wherever he goes it is known instantly. What a trumpeter he is! If he would only come in here, even if he were to eat me up, stalk and all, it would be a pleasant death:” so said the cucumber.
During the night the weather became very bad; hens, chickens, and even the cock himself sought shelter. The wind blew down the partition between the two yards with a crash; the tiles came tumbling from the roof, but the weather-cock stood firm. He did not even turn round; in fact he could not, although he was fresh and newly cast. He had been born fullgrown, and did not at all resemble the birds that fly beneath the vault of heaven, such as the sparrows and swallows. He despised them, and looked upon them as little twittering birds of small size, who were only made to sing. The pigeons he owned were large, and shone in the sun like mother-of-pearl . They had some resemblance to weather-cocks, but then they were fat and stupid, and all they thought of was to stuff themselves with food, “Besides,” said the weather-cock, “they are very tiresome things to converse with.”
The birds of passage often paid a visit to the weather-cock, and told him tales of foreign lands, of large companies passing through the air, and exciting stories of encounters with robbers and birds of prey. These were very interesting when heard for the first time, but the weather-cock knew they always repeated themselves, which made it tedious to listen. “They are tedious, and so is every one else; there is no one fit to associate with. One and all of them are wearisome and stupid. The whole world is worth nothing—it is made up of stupidity.”
The weather-cock was what is called “stuck up,” and that quality alone would have made him interesting in the eyes of the cucumber had she known it, but she had only eyes for the yard-cock, who had actually made his appearance in her own yard; for the violence of the storm had passed, but the wind had blown down the wooden palings.
“What do you think of that for crowing?” asked the yard-cock of his hens and chickens. It was rather rough, and wanted elegance, but they did not say so, as they stepped upon the dung-hill, while the cock strutted about amongst them as if he had been a knight. “Garden plant,” he cried to the cucumber, and she heard the words with deep feeling: they showed that he understood who she was, and she forgot that he was pecking at her, and eating her up—a happy death! Then the hens came running up, and the chickens followed, for where one runs the rest run also; and they clucked and chirped, and looked at the cock, and were proud that they belonged to him. “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” crowed he; “the chickens in the poultry-yard will grow large fowls if I make my voice heard in the world.” And the hens and chickens clucked and chirped, and the cock told them a great piece of news. “A cock can lay an egg,” he said; “and what do you think is in that egg? In that egg lies a basilisk. No one can endure the sight of a basilisk. Men know my power, and now you know what I am capable of also, and what a renowned bird I am.” And with this the yard-cock flapped his wings, and erected his comb, and crowed again, till they all trembled, even the hens and chickens; but they were proud that one of their race should be of such renown in the world. They clucked and they chirped so that the weather-cock heard it: he had heard it all, but never stirred. “It’s all stupid stuff,” said a voice within the weather-cock, “the yard-cock does not lay eggs any more than I do, and I am too lazy. I could lay a wind egg if I liked, but the world is not worth a wind egg. And now I don’t intend to sit here any longer.” And with that the weather-cock broke off and fell into the yard. He did not kill the yard-cock, although the hens said he intended to do so. And what does the moral say, “Better to crow than to be ‘stuck up’ and break down at last.”