Which Was the Biggest?

“As the wise man says, so will we do,” they said, and they set off with the bull for the wise man’s village. The eldest brother walked by the bull’s head, the middle brother by the bull’s side, and the youngest brother came behind the bull and drove him on with a stick.

At dawn they were overtaken by a man on horseback who greeted the youngest brother and asked him where he was driving the bull. The youngest brother told him all about everything.

“We are taking the bull to a wise man who is going to settle the matter once and for all,” he said.

And he added, as he bade the horseman goodbye:

“You will soon overtake my middle brother. He is walking by the bull’s side. Give him my regards and tell him to urge on the bull. We want to get to the wise man’s village before nightfall.”

“Very well,” said the horseman, and, putting his horse into a trot, he rode away.

At noon he caught up with the middle brother who was walking by the bull’s side.

“Your younger brother sends you his best regards and asks you to urge on the bull if you want to get to where you are going before dark,” said he..

The middle brother thanked the horseman.

“When you ride up to the bull’s head,” he said, “give my regards to my elder brother and ask him to urge on the bull. We want to reach the wise man’s village as soon as we can.”

The horseman rode on, and it was evening by the time he reached the bull’s head and passed on to the eldest brother what his middle brother had said.

“There is nothing I can do,” said the eldest brother. “It is already dusk. We’ll have to stop and spend the night by the wayside.”

And he slowed his steps.

But the horseman did not stop and rode on.

The brothers spent the night in the steppe, and on the following morning started out again with the bull. All of a sudden the most terrible thing happened. A huge eagle swooped down from the sky, seized the bull in its claws, lifted him up to the clouds and flew away.

The brothers grieved and sorrowed for a time, and then went back home, empty-handed.

The eagle flew on with the bull in its claws. Soon it spied below a flock of goats and among them one which had the longest of long horns. The eagle dropped down, perched on the goat’s horns and began pecking and tearing the bull and strewing his bones all around.

All of a sudden it began to rain, and the goatherd and his flock of goats took shelter underneath the selfsame goat’s beard.

Suddenly the goatherd felt a sharp pain in his left eye.

“A mote must have got into my eye,” he thought.

Towards evening, as he drove his flock to the village, the pain grew worse.

“Call forty doctors, good folk!” he cried. “Let them sail in my eye in forty boats and find the mote. Not a moment of peace does it give me.”

And the villagers went and found forty doctors.

“Get into your boats and sail in the eye of our goatherd, doctors,” said they. “Find the mote and put an end to his pain. Only see that you don’t injure the eye.”

The forty doctors set sail in the goatherd’s eye in their forty boats, and they found the mote which was not a mote at all but the bull’s bladebone which had got into the goatherd’s eye while he was sheltering from the rain under the goat’s beard.

After that the goatherd’s eye stopped hurting him, the doctors all went home, and the bull’s bladebone was taken far beyond the village and thrown away.

Now, soon after this, some nomads happened to be passing the place where the bladebone lay. Night was approaching, and they spoke among themselves and decided to stop and build a fire there.

“This salt marsh is the best and safest place we can find to spend the night,” said they.

But when they were all settled and about to go to sleep, the ground beneath their feet began trembling and quaking. The nomads were frightened, and, piling their belongings on to their carts, moved off in haste.

Only when morning came did they recover from their fright and set up camp. And they sent forty horsemen back to the place where the earthquake had been to find out what it was that had caused it.

The forty horsemen were soon there, and they saw that what they had taken for a salt marsh was really a huge bone—the bladebone of a bull—at which a fox was gnawing even as they watched.

“So that is what made the earth tremble!” the horsemen cried. And taking aim, they let fly their arrows and killed the fox.

After that they set to work and began skinning it. But they only succeeded in skinning one side of it, for, hard as they tried, they could not turn the fox over.

They returned to their camp and told the elders all about it, and the elders began thinking what to do.

Just then a young woman came up to them.

“Do please give me the piece of foxskin your horsemen have brought, for I want to make a cap for my newborn baby,” she said.

The elders gave it to her, and the woman measured her baby’s head and began cutting a cap for him out of the foxskin. But she soon saw that there was only enough fur to make half a cap. So she went to the elders again and asked them to give her the second half of the foxskin.

The elders called the forty horsemen, and the forty horsemen confessed that they had not been able to turn the fox wer and skin its other side.

“If one half of the foxskin is too small for you to make your baby a cap out of it,” said they to the woman, “then you had better go and skin the fox’s other side yourself.”

The woman took her baby and went to where they had left the fox. She turned the fox over easily, skinned its other side and made her baby a cap from the two halves of the skin.

Now, here is a question for you. Which, do you think, was the biggest—

Was it the bull?

Don’t forget it took a man on horseback a whole day to ride from its tail to its head.

Was it the eagle?

Don’t forget that it carried the bull with it to the sky.

Was it the goat?

Don’t forget that it was on its horns that the eagle perched and pecked at the bull.

Was it the goatherd?

Don’t forget that forty doctors sailed in his eye in forty boats.

Was it the fox?

Don’t forget that it started an earthquake by gnawing at the bull’s bladebone.

Was it the baby?

Don’t forget that it was as much as its mother could do to make it a cap from the whole of the fox’s skin.

Or was it the woman who had such a giant of a baby?

Think hard now, and perhaps you will know the answer.

Running and expanding this site requires resources: from maintaining our digital platform to sourcing and curating new content. With your help, we can grow our collection, improve accessibility, and bring these incredible narratives to an even wider audience. Your sponsorship enables us to keep the world’s stories alive and thriving. ♦ Visit our Support page