neighed, he understood why it neighed, rose up, brought the horse
grass, and then returned and sat down. It happened one day that
birds had their talk as they were flying by above and the servant
of God understood what they talked. This caused him to laugh,
whereupon his wife said to him 'What dost thou hear that thou
laughest?' He replied to his wife 'I shall not tell thee what I
hear, and why I laugh'. The woman said to her husband 'I know why
thou laughest; thou laughest at me because I am one-eyed'. The man
then said to his wife 'I saw that thou wast one-eyed before I loved
thee, and before we married and sat down in our house'. When the
woman heard her husband's word she was quiet.

But once at night, as they were lying on their bed, and it was past
midnight, it happened that a rat played with his wife on the top of
the house and that both fell to the ground. Then the wife of the
rat said to her husband 'Thy sport is bad; thou saidst to me that
thou wouldst play, but when we came together we fell to the ground,
so that I broke my back'.

When the servant of God heard the talk of the rat's wife, as he was
lying on his bed, he laughed. Now, as soon as he laughed his wife
arose, seized him, and said to him as she held him fast: 'Now this
time I will not let thee go out of this house except thou tell me
what thou hearest and why thou laughest'. The man begged the woman,
saying 'Let me go'; but the woman would not listen to her husband's
entreaty.

The husband then tells his wife that he knows the language of beasts
and birds, and she is content; but when he wakes in the morning he
finds he has lost his wonderful gift; and the moral of the tale is