Filastrocca di bugie


The Ditmarsch tale of wonders


Voglio raccontarvi una storia. Ho visto due polli arrosto volare, volavano svelti con le pance rivolte al cielo e le schiene all'inferno; e un'incudine e una macina passavano a nuoto il Reno, piano piano, senza fretta; e una rana, a Pentecoste, se ne stava sul ghiaccio a mangiare un vomere. E c'erano tre tizi che inseguivano una lepre e andavano con le grucce e le stampelle; e il primo era sordo, il secondo cieco, e il terzo muto, e il quarto aveva i piedi rattrappiti. Volete sapere come andò? Il cieco vide per primo la lepre trottare per il campo, il muto chiamò lo storpio, e lo storpio l'acchiappò. Quei tali che volevano navigare per terra, spiegarono le vele al vento e navigarono sui campi spaziosi; poi navigarono su di un alto monte e dovettero affogare miseramente. Un gambero rincorreva una lepre, e in cima al tetto c'era una mucca che si era arrampicata fin lassù. E in quel paese le mosche sono grandi come le nostre capre.
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.