There was once a king named Solomon, who lived in the city of Jerusalem. And then there was another king, named Hiram, and this one lived in Tyrus. And these two kings were the best of friends and visited each other often.
And one time, Hiram was at Solomon's place in Jerusalem, and the old guys were playing cards and drinking coffee and had nothing but a few miserable oil lamps for light, and Hiram said to Solomon:
'You know, you've got shitty lights here,' he said.
'Aw,' said Solomon, ''ve got some better ones.'
So he went out and asked the kitchen girl for a pair of candles, and they were so big and thick, he couldn't fit them into any of the candle holders.
'What are you going to do now?' asked Hiram.
'You'll soon see,' said Solomon..
Then he opened the door and hollered at the top of his lungs:
'Stussbass! Stussbass!'
And in came a cat of unholy enormous size, jumped up on the table, sat on its hind legs and grabbed one of the lights in each of its paws. And there he stayed, still as a golden idol, not even moving the whites of his eyes.
'Well, that certainly is a very special cat you've got there, Solomon,' said Hiram.
'You can say that again,' said Solomon.
'Bet I can trick him into letting go of those candles,' said Hiram.
'The hell you can,' said Solomon.
'You want to wager a pot of brandy?" said Hiram.
'Well, all right,' said Solomon.
So they made their bet. And as they were playing and chatting about this and that, Hiram slipped a hand into his pants pocket, and hauled out a little mouse, and let it go, right under the cat's nose. But that disgraceful cat – just imagine! – he didn't go for the mouse at all, just nudged it a little to one side and went on sitting there on the table, motionless as before. And Solomon laughed so hard his belly shook, and said, 'That's right, Stussbass, don't give in!'
And so they went on playing, and after awhile Hiram stuck his hand in his pocket again and brought out two mice, and set them right under the cat's nose. And this time the cat began to twitch and was just about to drop the lights, but he shut his eyes, disgraceful animal, so he wouldn't do anything wrong. And that made Hiram furious, and he grabbed in his pockets with both hands and pulled out a whole mess of mice and threw them down right in front of the cat. Well, now the cat couldn't control himself any longer. With one quick movement he slung the candlesticks away and took off after the mice.
And so Hiram won the brandy – and drank it up, too. And you would have done the same!
I translated this story, called Salomos Katze in German, from Schwedische Volksmärchen
a volume in the series Die Märchen der Welt,
© Eugen Diederichs Verlag, München, 1998, ISBN 3-8289-0041-0BACK TO:
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