nusson's _Legends of Iceland_, Second Series.

[8] An imitation of Boccaccio, _Decameron_, Day vii., nov. 8, who
perhaps borrowed the story from Guerin's _fabliau_ "De la Dame qui
fit accroire a son Mari qu'il avait reve; _alias_, Les Cheveux
Coupes" (Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781, tome ii., 280).

[9] A slightly different version occurs in the _Tale of Beryn_,
which is found in a unique MS. of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, and
which forms the first part of the old French romance of the _Chevalier
Berinus_. In the English poem Beryn, lamenting his misfortunes, and
that he had disinherited himself, says:

"But I fare like the man, that for to swale his vlyes [i.e. flies]
He stert in-to the bern, and aftir stre he hies,
And goith a-bout with a brennyng wase,
Tyll it was atte last that the leam and blase
Entryd in-to the chynys, wher the whete was,
And kissid so the evese, that brent was al the plase."

It is certain that the author of the French original of the _Tale of
Beryn_ did not get this story out of our jests of the men of Gotham.

[10] There is an analogous Indian story of a youth who went to a tank to
drink, and observing the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was
sitting on a tree, he thought it was gold in the water, and entered the
tank to take it up, but he could not lay hold of it as it appeared and
disappeared in the water. But as often as he ascended the bank he again
saw it in the water, and again he entered the tank to lay hold of it,
and still he got nothing. At length his father saw and questioned him,
then drove away the bird, and explaining the matter to him, took the
foolish fellow home.

We have already seen that the men of Abdera (p. 5) flogged an ass before
its fellows for upsetting a jar of olive oil, but what is that compared
with the story of the ass that drank up the moon? According to Ludovicus
Vives, a learned Spanish writer, certain townspeople imprisoned an ass
for drinking up the moon, whose reflection, appearing in the water, was
covered with a cloud while the ass was drinking. Next day the poor beast
was brought to the bar to be sentenced according to his deserts. After
the grave burghers had discussed the affair for some time, one at length
rose up and declared that it was not fit the town should lose its moon,
but rather that the ass should be cut open and the moon he had swallowed
taken out of him, which, being cordially approved by the others, was
done ac