Every bird praises its own tail
Mateusz Ignacy Kuligowski (? - 1699)
A certain church cantor had a very bad voice
but thought himself a great singer.
Once when he started his abominable noise
Another kneeling parishioner began to cry heartily.
Thinking that she was so moved
by his croaking, he asked her
Why. She cried. "Why, only yesterday my ox drowned,
And while he was drowning he mooed like you," she said.
Sometimes a preacher fancies himself wise on his perch
While in fact driving folks away from the church.
*****The fate of the Swedish apostles in Poland
Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden, sent to Poland
His canons named after the twelve Apostles
And said: "Go to the Polish lands
And teach the Poles what Luther the reformer said."
But his apostles did not quite match their predecessors
and he lost them all, and himself was expelled from Poland.
Kuligowski was a clergyman living in eastern Poland near Wolkowysk (present day Ukraine). In 1688-1699 he was pastor at Wolpince. He wrote mostly humorous poetry.
Return to September 1993 Issue
The Sarmatian Review
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