The queen’s servants fooled the talking parrot into thinking there was a storm all night long. When the parrot told the king about the storm, the king considered him a liar and had him killed.
THE TALES OF THE HUSBAND & THE PARROT & THE OGRESS
“Please begin,” said Dinarzad. Scheherazade complied.
he fisherman cleared his throat, so he could continue his tale about King Yunan and Sage Duban.
KING YUNAN, FACED WITH THIS ENVIOUS VIZIER WHO WANTED HIM to kill Sage Duban, told the tale of the husband and the parrot.
A jealous man had a beautiful wife. He bought her a talking parrot. Then he left on a journey. When he returned, he asked the parrot what his wife had done in his absence. The parrot told of the wife’s escapades with another man. The jealous man exploded in anger and left, vowing not to return for a day.
The wife asked which servant had told on her. The servants pointed to the parrot. So the wife enlisted three maidservants that night. The first maid ground the grinding stone under the parrot’s cage. The second sprinkled water over his cage. The third walked past the cage shaking a shining metal plate. They did this all night.
The next day when the husband returned, he asked the parrot what his wife had done the night before. The parrot said, “I couldn’t see or hear anything because of the thunder, rain, and lightning.” But there had been no storm the night before.
So the husband thought the parrot was a liar—about the storm and about his wife. He killed it.
Only later did he learn from neighbors that the parrot had been loyal. Remorse shrouded him.
KING YUNAN SHOOK HIS HEAD AT HIS VIZIER. “YOU WOULD HAVE ME kill the loyal Sage Duban and be shrouded in remorse, as well.”
“No,” said the vizier. “I would save you. In fact, if I am wrong, I would want to die, just as in the tale of the disloyal vizier.”
“I don’t know this tale,” said King Yunan. “Tell me.”
And so the vizier told this tale.
A PRINCE WENT HUNTING WITH HIS VIZIER. A STRANGE BEAST CROSSED his path and the vizier urged him to chase it. The prince was soon helplessly lost in the forest.
A girl appeared, weeping. “I am princess of a land beyond the Indus River. I fell asleep on my horse and ended on the ground, alone in a strange land.”
The prince invited her to ride behind him on his horse. When they came to a crumbling home, the princess said she must answer a call of nature. She disappeared in the ruins.
She was gone too long for her own safety. So the prince followed. He overheard her talking to children. “I’ve brought you a fat boy to eat,” she sang, “a juicy boy, a blubber boy, a yummy boy.” The children drooled, bloodthirsty. She was a ferocious ogress!
The prince ran back to his horse. The ogress followed him. “What’s the matter?”
“I fear for my life,” he said.
“Pray to the Almighty. That’s the answer for the pure of heart.”
The prince prayed and the ogress left him. He went home and told his father that the vizier had urged him to follow an ogress. The king put the vizier to death.
“YOU SEE,” SAID KING YUNAN’S VIZIER, “ONE MUST NOT FOLLOW THE advice of the treacherous. Sage Duban is treacherous. Look how he cured you simply by having you play polo with that mallet. Think how easily he could kill you. Anything might be fatal—a whiff from a hidden vial. Anything! You are at his mercy. And who knows if he has any? You must kill him first.”
King Yunan was stunned. And convinced. No one could count on the mercy of others.
He sent for Sage Duban.
Talking Birds
Talking birds, usually mynahs and parrots, come up in Indian, Persian, Arab, and other tales. Pet birds have been trained to vocalize human speech sounds so well that strangers can understand them. Alex, a famous gray parrot, was studied for over 20 years. He sometimes said things that made sense in a given context. Still, no birds appear to carry on true conversations with humans. What birds communicate to one another through birdsong and other behaviors, however, has yet to be fully understood.
Scheherazade stopped with the morning sun. Her sister and husband agreed this tale must continue. Oh, how they wondered what the coming night’s tale would bring. Alas, so did Scheherazade. Her fingertips played on her lips. Would that they were magic fingers and could fashion stories from grit, like pearls in oysters. 
