Fixed to the roof of the farmhouse was one of those metal cocks which show which way the wind is blowing. This weathercock, so high above the other farmyard animals, was in a very good position to crow. Instead, he never made a sound.
The farmyard cockerel, on the other hand, was very proud of his red crest and his loud ‘cock-a-doodle-doos’. In fact, he liked boasting so much to the hens and the little chickens that he sometimes told very big lies.
‘Cockerel can lay eggs as well, you know,’ he said one day to the hens.
‘But they only ever lay one egg in their whole lives, Hah, but that one egg contains a dragon which is so terrifying that men die as soon as they set eyes on it. So you see, humans are very scared of us, and the real masters of the world are us cockerels, not men at all.’
Naturally the weathercock heard every word of this. He merely snorted. He had seen so many things and heard so many empty words in his long life that noting surprised him anymore. He knew very well that the cockerel’s boasts were nothing but hot air, but he felt so superior that he did not even bother to contradict him.
And, in the end, whether the cockerel of the weathercock was more important is a difficult question.
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