CXXII.

THE FLYING COW.

A certain man, who had bought a fine cow, dreamt the same night that wings grew out of the animal’s back, and that it had flown away. Regarding this as an omen of some pending misfortune, he led the cow off to market again, and sold it at a ruinous loss. Wrapping up in a cloth the silver he received, he slung it over his back, and was half way home, when he saw a falcon eating part of a hare.[585] Approaching the bird, he found it was quite tame, and accordingly tied it by the leg to one of the corners of the cloth, in which his money was. The falcon fluttered about a good deal, trying to escape; and, by-and-by, the man’s hold being for a moment relaxed, away went the bird, cloth, money, and all. “It was destiny,” said the man every time he told the story; ignorant as he was, first, that no faith should be put in dreams;[586] and, secondly, that people shouldn’t take things they see by the wayside.[587] Quadrupeds don’t usually fly.

FOOTNOTES:

[585] See No. VI., note 51.

[586] The highly educated Confucianist rises above the superstition that darkens the lives of his less fortunate fellow countrymen. Had such a dream as the above received an inauspicious interpretation at the hands of some local soothsayer, the owner of the animal would in nine cases out of ten have taken an early opportunity of getting rid of it.

[587] The Chinese love to refer to the “good old time” of their forefathers, when a man who dropped anything on the highway would have no cause to hurry back for fear of its being carried off by a stranger.