The Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said

by Padraic Colum

"You all know," said the Cock, "that the earth rocks underneath the place where I crow in the morning."

"We know, O Unvanquishable," said the three Hens.

"The earth never rocked here," said the Cock, "hence I knew that something powerful was under the ground at this place. It was the ring of brass. Now it will be found and brought into the house. And when I stand here and crow in the morning the earth will rock as it does in every other place in the world."

"It will, it will," said the Feather-legged Hen.

"It must, O Top of Valor," said the Blue Hen.

"And you will tell us how the ring of brass came to be there, Hero-son of my heart," said the Little Slate-colored Hen that was the Cock's mother.

"In the course of the evening I may do so," said the Cock condescendingly.

When they were beside the sunny wall, the Hens on the ground scattering dust over their feathers and their lord standing on one leg with his comb hanging over one eye the Cock said "No Cock of our breed ever told this story before. They would not frighten the hens with it. However, since you have persuaded me I will tell you the tale. My grandfather told it to my father who told it to me. It is the story of the Big Man who came to this place and who wore the ring of brass that we uncovered to-day."

He did not put it over his head as you might think from the size of the ring. No. He wore it on his arm. Never was a bigger man seen by anyone living. The whole countryside stood outside their houses to see him come over the hills. When he came to where the stones are he stooped down to take a drink and he drank the well dry. The people came out of the house to meet him, and he spoke to them, and out of what he said to them they drew his story.

As I am to a Bantam, the Big Man was to the other men of the country. And if they were surprised at his bigness, he was astonished at their smallness. For he came from a time when all were as big as he. A hundred and a hundred years before he had hunted with his companions, and he was then called, not Big Man, but Little Fawn.