A knight invited his father-confessor to dinner. The holy father arrived while the knight was still at church, and being hungry went to the kitchen where all kinds of meat were roasting. He said to the cook: “The roasts are now at their best; give me a leg from this crane and then I’ll wait for dinner.” But the cook replied: “I cannot do that; my master would send me away if I brought the bird, mutilated like that, to the table. Take it yourself, then he cannot blame me.”
The confessor took a knife and cut the leg off, had the cook give him bread and wine, and sat down to enjoy it. At dinner the crane was served lying on his wounded side. The knight asked at once in an angry tone: “Where is the other leg?” His confessor, who sat next to him, whispered to him to keep quiet before his guests, that after dinner he would prove to him that the bird had only had one leg.
As soon as dinner was over, the knight asked his confessor to take a walk with him. They went outside the town. On the way the knight said: “You insisted that the bird had only one leg; how is that?” “I will show you,” returned the confessor, and took him to a meadow where between thirty and forty cranes were standing, all, as usual, on one leg. Pointing to them he said: “Look, all those birds have only one leg.” The knight clapped his hands and chased them. The cranes grew frightened, stretched their necks, put down their feet, and ran. Said the knight to the confessor: “How now? You see that they have two legs?” Says the confessor: “Dear sir, if you had clapped your hands like this at the table, the other leg would have put in an appearance too.”
Justice Obscured by a Pig
There was a poor widow, who had a case at court. She brought to the judge a little pot of sour cream; he was to protect her cause. He bade her hope for the best and said that she had a good case, and need not worry. She was glad.
Then came the opponent. He was rich, and brought the judge a young pig. When the case came up, the woman lost her suit. She went to the judge and said: “Sir, where is my little pot of cream?” He answered: “The little pig knocked it over.”
CHAPTER II
Humor of the Seventeenth Century
The Farmer’s Belief
A farmer went to confession and the priest asked him if he knew anything about the Trinity. The good man knew nothing about it. The priest did his best to explain it to him and at last said: “My good friend, to make it still plainer to you, imagine yourself God the Father, respect your son as if he were the Son of God, and take your wife to be the Holy Ghost. Now remember, you three are as one. You are one household and live together; that makes a trinity.” With this the good man went home.