built a strong iron cage called a new creed, and put all his birds in it.

Then the people came about dancing and singing.

"Oh, happy hunter!" they cried. "Oh, wonderful man! Oh, delightful birds!
Oh, lovely songs!"

No one asked where the birds had come from, nor how they had been caught;
but they danced and sang before them. And the hunter too was glad, for he
said:

"Surely Truth is among them. In time she will moult her feathers, and I
shall see her snow-white form."

But the time passed, and the people sang and danced; but the hunter's heart
grew heavy. He crept alone, as of old, to weep; the terrible desire had
awakened again in his breast. One day, as he sat alone weeping, it chanced
that Wisdom met him. He told the old man what he had done.

And Wisdom smiled sadly.

"Many men," he said, "have spread that net for Truth; but they have never
found her. On the grains of credulity she will not feed; in the net of
wishes her feet cannot be held; in the air of these valleys she will not
breathe. The birds you have caught are of the brood of Lies. Lovely and
beautiful, but still lies; Truth knows them not."

And the hunter cried out in bitterness--

"And must I then sit still, to be devoured of this great burning?"