Chicken Little

The Book: Chicken Little. Absolute nonfiction!

Translated rom Katle Kanye's Blog, with permission.

From the children's story, Chicken Little, which is a great source of yires shemeyim, we learn the extent that a small chicken has a fear of heavens. The Chicken had heard from m'kiblem that the world is coming to an end, so she rushed to tell whoever wanted to hear about it, that we have to run into the batei m'drushim immediately to say all of tehillim and form shmiras halashon seminars, in order to saved from the chevlei moshiach, or maybe not to discourage moshiach's arrival god forbid!

So the chicken told the hen while they were both waiting to put their children onto the school bus. The hen pulled her punzello zipper up, pulled the turban down over her eyes and said to the chick "Luz es far mir", which called for an evening of hissarirus. Later, waiting to pay at the grocery store, the hen told the froe duck, who, expecting in her eighth month, held one hand behind her back and the other in her pocket and exclaimed "What? And you havunt told anyone about this?! My husbund knows a very good mekibul. He has his cell."

The duck repeated it all to the goose at the doctor's waiting room. The goose gasped "I don't bulieve ut! We're going to Europe next week, for my sister's einike'ls chasunah. When is this happuning?!" And while having her wig combed the rooster found out and told the sheitle-macher that it's all happening because some young girls are not shaving. "You yourself told me so" the rooster said, to which the sheitle-macher replied "keep your head steady!"

If a chicken, a hen, a duck, a goose and a rooster go out for yiddishkeit's sake, who better to find than Reb Fox? "Avadah, veibelech" the fox said in his throaty voice "come in. The Rebbetzin is just not home right now, but sit down and keep the door open a bit. You should leave behind a few dollars for Hachnasas Kallah – that'd be very, very valuable to the ribonosheloilem – in the zechus of the nashim tsidkonias… yeah, yeah… of course… it isn't even a question!" And he warmly led the ladies out.

On the way out the rebbetzin came in, and learning of what had just happened she turned to the chicken and said "Your synthetic wig is scratching at your ears so it occurs to you that something is falling on your head. You fell on your head! Go put on a shpitzel!"

And they all lived happily ever after…

[NOTE: Aside from his great pen and humor, Katle Kanye has a keen understanding of the chicken society, which makes his writings all the more extraordinary. Since he writes in Yiddish I thought it would be helpful to make his work available to a wider audience. Here is a straw of the haystack, to feed the literary hunger.]

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