“THE MOUSE, WHEN HE SAW THE CAT EATING WITH THE NUNS, REJOICED GREATLY.”
THE MADMAN IN THE BATH.
NOW it chanced that a good man kept some baths, and a neighbour, a madman, was the first to come daily to this bath; afterwards awaiting the arrival of the people to bathe, he commenced, as soon as he saw them, to beat them with sticks or throw stones at them, so that the proprietor of the baths soon lost all his customers. The good man, seeing this, determined to rise very early one day, undressed himself, and went into the bath before the madman arrived, having at hand a pail full of very hot water and a wooden club. When the madman came to the bath, determined, as usual, to attack all who came in his way, the good man, seeing him enter, allowed him to approach, when he suddenly upset the pail of hot water over his head, attacking him at the same time with the club. The madman now gave himself up for dead; nevertheless, he managed to escape, and, running away, he told every one he met to be careful, for there was a madman in the bath.
Don Juan Manuel (d. 1347). Trans. James York.
“SUDDENLY UPSET THE PAIL OF HOT WATER.”
THE NAKED KING.
THREE impostors came to a king and told him they were cloth-weavers, and could fabricate a cloth of so peculiar a nature that a legitimate son of his father could see the cloth; but if he were illegitimate, though believed to be legitimate, he could not see it.
Now the King was much pleased at this, thinking that by this means he would be able to distinguish the men in his kingdom who were legitimate sons of their supposed father’s from those who were not, and so be enabled to increase his treasures, for among the Moors only legitimate children inherit their father’s property; and for this end he ordered a palace to be appropriated to the manufacture of this cloth. And these men, in order to convince him that they had no intention of deceiving him, agreed to be shut up in this palace until the cloth was manufactured, which satisfied the King.