‘I hear no news,’ answered the tanner,
‘but that cow-hides be dear.’
15
‘Cow-hides? cow-hides?’ then said our king,
‘I marvell what they be;’
‘Why, art thou a fool?’ quoth the tanner,
‘look, I have one under me.’
16
‘Yet one thing now I would thee pray,
so that thou wouldst not be strange;