FABLE AND FOLKLORE 259 



portance, exclaimed : 'Solomon is a conceited fool ! Why 

 should he be so vain of this pile of buildings he has 

 raised? I, if I wished, could kick them all over in a 

 few minutes/ 



"The king, greatly enraged by this pompous speech, 

 summoned the offender into his presence and demanded 

 what he meant by such an outrageous boast. 'Your 

 majesty,' replied the bird, 'will, I am sure, forgive my 

 audacity, when I explain that I was in the company 

 of a female; since your majesty doubtless knows from 

 experience that in such circumstances the temptation to 

 boast is almost irresistible.' The monarch, forgetting 

 his anger in his amusement, said with a smile: 'Go your 

 way this time, but see that you do not repeat the offence,' 

 and the bird, after a profound obeisance, flew away to 

 rejoin his mate. 



"He had hardly alighted before the female, unable to 

 repress her curiosity, eagerly inquired why he had been 

 summoned to the palace. 'Oh,' said the impudent 

 boaster, 'the king heard me tell you that if I chose I 

 could kick down all his buildings in no time, and he 

 sent for me to beg me not to do it." 



"Solomon, who, of course, heard this remark also, was 

 so indignant at the incorrigible vanity of its author that 

 he at once turned both birds into stone. They remain 

 to this day as a reminder of the saying: 'The peace of 

 mankind consists in guarding the tongue.' ' 



But the stories of Solomon and his bird-friends are 

 many. He was evidently a jolly old soul, and tradition 

 says that when he travelled across the desert clouds of 

 birds formed a canopy to protect him from the sun. 

 The hoopoe, a high-crested bird that figures largely in 

 other fanciful tales of the East, tells wise Solomonic 



