“Are there more living or more dead?” “There are more dead since the poor are like dead.” “Are there more women or more men?” “There are more women, since the men who are ruled by their wives are like women.”

One day when Solomon was traveling on horseback in the desert, the sun was so hot that he felt faint. It so happened that the King of the Hoopoes came flying past. He saw the king fainting on his horse and in danger of falling off.

He at once called all the hoopoes together and ordered them to fly over the king’s head in close formation so that His Majesty would be in the shade. They did so, and the king soon recovered from his sunstroke. Grateful, Solomon offered the hoopoes the fulfillment of a wish, any wish.

The hoopoes conferred and after long deliberation returned with the following wish:“Sire, we should like to have real golden crowns on our heads, every one of us.” King Solomon foresaw in his wisdom that so much gold would bring great trouble and suffering upon the hoopoes’ heads, but he could not go back on his word. So he gave every single one of the hoopoes a golden crown on its little head.

Away they flew, proud of their royal appearance. They looked at themselves in every looking glass they could find and were often seen near the water’s edge, admiring themselves in the still reflection of lakes and ponds.

A bird catcher, perceiving this, constructed a bird trap with a complete mirror inside it. No sooner had he set up his trap, than a hoopoe entered it to have a good look at its golden crown. From his hiding place, the bird catcher quickly pulled the string and caught the hoopoe.

He went to the city and offered the bird with the golden crown to a metal dealer named Jacob Ben Isaac, who said that the crown was not made of gold. “It is nothing but ordinary brass, but I will buy it from you all the same. ” The bird-catcher went back to the woods where he caught more hoopoes, until one day he met a goldsmith who, after inspecting the crown of one of the hoopoes exclaimed, “My dear hunter, that is pure gold! I should know, I have worked with it all my life! You have been deceived! I will pay you honest money for this. ”