“But,” he said furthermore, “hearken, and I will tell you, who have seventy-one wives, the story of what befell seventy-one parrots and the wife of another high King to whom one of them was counsellor.”
And all the sculptured figures answered together,—
The Sûta tells Ardschi-Bordschi concerning the Seventy-one Parrots and their Adviser.
Long ages ago the wife of a high King was ill with a dire illness, nor could the art of any physician suffice to cure her till one came who said, “Let there be given her parrots’ brains to eat.”
When, therefore, the high King saw that eating parrots’ brains brought health it seemed good to him to take a tribute of parrots’ brains from his subjects.
He called unto him, therefore, the governor of a tributary province and commanded him, saying, “Let there be delivered to me a tribute of the brains of seventy-one parrots, otherwise thou must die the death.”
That governor went out therefore trembling with fear, and he called unto him immediately a birdcatcher and agreed with him for the price of the brains of seventy-one parrots.
Now the birdcatcher knew a certain tree in which there roosted every night seventy-one parrots, and he said within himself, “If I could spread one net over the whole tree, with one haul the whole affair would be finished.” So he went and bought a great net ready to spread over the whole tree.