Michael Smith
2/21/06
Eng 11:8
Reader’s Response
This story is from the Priest in the group. It starts out describing a simple widow who
lived on a farm. IT then goes on to describe a rooster named Chanticleer and a hen named
Partlet. Chanticleer is very good at knowing what time it is bases on the position of the sun. One
day Chanticleer has a dream that a fox comes to the farm, His wife Partlet explains to him that
this bad dream is just a product of overeating and an imbalance of gasses in his body. She also
says there is an abundance of red bile in his system that could be causing this bad dream.
Chanticleer disagrees with her a d states that dreams are important and sometimes can tell the
future. /he gives examples of stories of people through time who dreamt they would be killed if
they went through with their plans, and all turned out to be true. Despite this, Chanticleer listens
to his wife anyway and flies down from the rafters. He soon spots a fox sitting in the brushes.
The fox convinces him to sing and soon pounces on Chanticleer and grabs him by the throat. The
rooster gets free, and the fox tries to trick him again but is unsuccessful. The rooster ends with
Chanticleer and his wife still alive. If this story was supposed to be merry and cheerful as the
host requested, I believe it failed. Most of it is about people having bad dreams and dying the
next day or soon after the dreams. It doesn’t seem that merry to me. The way he used a rooster
instead of a person to tell his story was a good idea to change things.