How the Donkey Swallowed the Moon

To the north of the Montastruc church, there is a large pond. Here, shepherds water their livestock, and women wash their laundry.

One evening, around six o'clock—it was during the dead of winter—the moon rose and was reflected in the pond's water, as if in a large mirror. At that moment, a man approached the pond to water his donkey. While the donkey was drinking, the wind suddenly shifted, and clouds covered the sky, plunging everything into darkness.

The donkey's owner was frightened and ran away from the pond, shouting:

"Lord have mercy! Lord have mercy! My donkey drank the water and swallowed the moon! My donkey swallowed the moon!"

At his cries, all the residents of Montastruc came running.

"Why are you shouting like that?"

"My donkey swallowed the moon! My donkey swallowed the moon!"

The people of Montastruc looked up at the sky, then at the pond, and began to weep and wail:

"His donkey swallowed the moon! His donkey swallowed the moon!" Immediately, all the local authorities gathered in front of the church to hold a council.

"Bring the donkey that swallowed the moon." They brought the donkey.

"Donkey! Did you swallow the moon?" The donkey lifted its tail and brayed.

"See, you admit it yourself—you swallowed the moon! What are we to do now? How will we walk at night? It's too dark to see anything."

The donkey lifted its tail again and brayed.

"Aha! So that's how you behave in court! Very well! We sentence you to death. You will be hanged."

Ten minutes later, the donkey was hanged from a tree. But then one of the judges had a realization.

"Friends," he said, "we have overstepped our authority. We are allowed to sentence someone to death, but we do not have the right to carry out the execution. That right belongs solely to the chief judge in Lectoure. If I were in his place, I would be very displeased with what just happened here! You know what? To appease him, let's send him a whole cartload of various poultry. We'll also send the dead donkey. The chief judge will call for a skilled surgeon to extract the moon from the donkey's belly. Besides, in Lectoure, there are plenty of tall ladders. If we place one on the bell tower of the Lectoure cathedral, I think a clever and brave locksmith will find a way to nail the moon back into its place in the sky."

No sooner said than done. Twelve young men from Montastruc immediately set off, loaded with gifts for the chief judge—chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks. Another twelve carried a long oak pole on their shoulders, from which the dead donkey was suspended by its four legs.

Everything went well until they passed Flérens. But beyond Flérens, wolves from the Ramier forest caught the scent of the dead donkey and came rushing in packs, howling like madmen. The people of Montastruc, terrified, dropped the poultry and the donkey and galloped back to Montastruc. In an instant, the wolves devoured all the birds and stripped the donkey's bones clean.

The next evening, the moon rose and shone in the sky as usual.

The judges of Montastruc sighed with relief.

"The wolves of Ramier have done us a great service," they said. "The donkey has been eaten, and the chief judge in Lectoure will never know that we hanged the beast ourselves. As for the moon that the donkey swallowed—well, as you can see, it was cleverer than the wolves. It slipped away from them and returned to its place in the sky on its own."

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How the Donkey Swallowed the Moon

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