The Hen’s child returned to its mother, and said to her, “Behold I went to the Cat’s place where thou sentest me, and am come back.”

The Hen said to her child, “What did the Cat say?  Let me hear what word she spoke?”

Her child answered and said to her, “My mother, the word which the Cat spoke is this:  ’Go and tell thy mother to come to me when the cock crows, that we may go; for what should eat her?’”

Its mother, the Hen, said to her child, “My child, lie down in your house, for I have heard what the Cat said.”

The child of the Hen obeyed her mother, went and lay down, and also her mother lay down.  They slept their sleep until the cock crew, which when the Cat heard, she arose, got ready and waited for the Hen, thinking, “May she come that we may go!” The cock crew the second time, and the Cat looked out on the way whence the Hen was to come, thinking, “May she come that we may go!”

The Hen did not get up at home and day came on.  When it became day, the Cat arose in her house, went to the Hen’s home, and said to her, “Hen, thou sentest thy child to me, and asked at what time thou shouldst rise up, and I said to thy child, ’Go and tell thy mother to come when the cock crows, that we may go.’  Did it not tell thee what it was told by me, that thou art still sitting at home although it has become day?”

The Hen said to the Cat, “Sister Cat, if thou wishest to have me for a friend, I must never get up in my house and come out at night.”

The Cat said to the Hen, “What art thou afraid of that thou sayest, ’I will never come out at night’?  What is there in the way?”

The Hen listened to what the Cat said, got herself ready and called her children, saying, “Come and let us accompany the Cat to a neighbouring town!” All the children arose and when they had set out on their way, the Cat went before, and having gone on a little, she seized two of the children of the Hen; and the Hen saw that the cat was seizing two of her children; so she said to the Cat, “Sister Cat, we have scarcely set out on our way and dost thou seize two of my children?”

The Cat replied, “Thy two children which I took have not strength enough to walk; therefore did I take them to my bosom that we may go on.”

The Hen said to the Cat, “If thou actest thus, I and thou must dissolve our friendship.”

The Cat replied, “If thou wilt not have a friend, I shall let thee go home.”  So, as the Hen began to go home, the Cat made a bound, and seized the Hen’s head, whereupon the Hen cried for help.  All the people of the town heard her, arose, ran, and when they were come, the Cat was holding the Hen’s head tight.  When the Cat saw the people of the town, she left the Hen, ran away, and entered the forest.

There the Hen was standing and the people of the town said to her:  “Foolish one, didst thou, a Hen, arise and go to befriend a Cat?  If we had not heard thy screams, and come to thee, she would have killed thee and carried away all thy children into her forest.”