One day the Cogia roasted a goose, and set out in order to carry it to the Emperor. On the way, feeling very hungry, he cut off one leg and ate it. Coming into the presence of the Emperor, he placed the goose before him. On seeing it, Tamerlank said to himself, “The Cogia is making game of me,” and was very angry, and demanded, “How happens it that this goose has but one foot?” Said the Cogia, “In our country all the geese have only one foot. If you disbelieve me, look at the geese by the side of that fountain.” Now at that time there was a flock of geese by the rim of the fountain, all of whom were standing on one leg. Timour instantly ordered that all the drummers should at once play up; the drummers began to strike with their sticks, and forthwith all the geese stood on both legs. On Timour saying, “Don’t you see that they have two legs?” the Cogia replied, “If you keep up that drumming you yourself will presently have four.”
One day the Cogia’s wife, having washed the Cogia’s kaftan, hung it upon a tree to dry; the Cogia going out saw, as he supposed, a man standing in the tree with his arms stretched out. Says the Cogia to his wife, “O wife, go and fetch me my bow and arrow.” His wife fetched and brought them to him; the Cogia taking an arrow, shot it and pierced the kaftan and stretched it on the ground; then returning, he made fast his door and lay down to sleep. Going out in the morning he saw that what he had shot was his own kaftan; thereupon, sitting down, he cried aloud, “O God, be thanked; if I had been in it I should have certainly been killed.”
One day as the Cogia was going to his house, he met a number of students, and said to them, “Gentlemen, pray this night come to our house and taste a sup of the old father’s broth.” “Very good,” said the students, and following the Cogia, came to the house. “Pray enter,” said he, and brought them into the house, then going up to where his wife was, “O wife,” said he, “I have brought some travellers that we may give them a cup of broth.” “O master,” said his wife, “is there oil in the house or rice, or have you brought any that you wish to have broth?” “Bless me,” said the Cogia, “give me the broth pan,” and snatching it up, he forthwith ran to where the students were, and exclaimed, “Pray, pardon me gentlemen, but had there been oil or rice in our house, this is the pan in which I would have served the broth up to you.”
One day the Cogia going into a person’s garden climbed up into an apricot tree and began to eat the apricots. The master coming said, “Cogia, what are you doing here?” “Dear me,” said the Cogia, “don’t you see that I am a nightingale sitting in the apricot tree?” Said the gardener, “Let me hear you sing.” The Cogia began to warble. Whereupon the other fell to laughing, and said: “Do you call that singing?” “I am a Persian nightingale,” said the Cogia, “and Persian nightingales sing in this manner.”
From The Book of Laughable Stories, collected by Gregory Bar Hebræus in the thirteenth century. The collection includes some seven hundred stories taken from the literary products of all the Oriental countries available at that time.