El cuento de las mentiras


The Ditmarsch tale of wonders


Voy a contaros una cosa. He visto volar a dos pollos asados; volaban rápidos, con el vientre hacia el cielo y la espalda hacia el infierno; y un yunque y una piedra de molino nadaban en el Rin, despacio y suavemente, mientras una rana devoraba una reja de arado, sentada sobre el hielo, el día de Pentecostés. Tres individuos, con muletas y patas de palo, perseguían a una liebre; uno era sordo; el otro, ciego; el tercero, mudo; Y el cuarto no podía mover una pierna. ¿Queréis saber qué ocurrió? Pues el ciego fue el primero en ver correr la liebre por el campo; el mudo llamó al tullido, y el tullido la agarró por el cuello. Unos, que querían navegar por tierra, izaron la vela y avanzaron a través de grandes campos, y al cruzar una alta montaña naufragaron y se ahogaron. Un cangrejo perseguía una liebre, y a lo alto de un tejado se había encaramado una vaca. En aquel país, las moscas son tan grandes como aquí las cabras. Abre la ventana para que puedan salir volando las mentiras.
I will tell you something. I saw two roasted fowls flying; they flew quickly and had their breasts turned to heaven and their backs to hell, and an anvil and a mill-stone swam across the Rhine prettily, slowly, and gently, and a frog sat on the ice at Whitsuntide and ate a ploughshare. Three fellows who wanted to catch a hare, went on crutches and stilts; one of them was deaf, the second blind, the third dumb, and the fourth could not stir a step. Do you want to know how it was done? First, the blind man saw the hare running across the field, the dumb one called to the lame one, and the lame one seized it by the neck.
There were certain men who wished to sail on dry land, and they set their sails in the wind, and sailed away over great fields. Then they sailed over a high mountain, and there they were miserably drowned. A crab was chasing a hare which was running away at full speed, and high up on the roof lay a cow which had climbed up there. In that country the flies are as big as the goats are here. Open the window, that the lies may fly out.