Ku-bukh (The Book of Cows)

For many years the Ku-bukh (The Book of Cows), a Yiddish book of fables in rhymed prose, remained shrouded in mystery. Mentioned by Shabbetai Bass in his bibliographic work Sifte yeshenim (Lips of the Sleepers) and in the Mayse-bukh (Book of Stories), it seemed that no copies of this once popular collection had survived. However, a single copy of the Ku-bukh was found in 1983. Printed in Verona in 1595 (although in Hebrew characters the date is recorded as 1555, and an earlier edition may have been printed in that year), it contains thirty-five fables (most about animals) illustrated with eighty-three woodcuts, an extraordinary number of illustrations. Each fable is divided into two parts: the narrative and a passage explicitly underscoring its moral. The fables are drawn from medieval Hebrew works such as the late twelfth-century Berekhiah ha-Nakdan’s Mishle shu‘alim (Fox Fables) and Meshal ha-kadmoni (Parable of the Ancient One; 1281) by Isaac Ibn Sahula; in most cases the Yiddish text is longer than the original. The fables include fascinating insights into contemporaneous Jewish life and traditions as well as social criticism. Indeed, in many the animals are depicted as Jews and keep Jewish customs (such as making kreplach or reciting blessings). This was originally written in rhymed prose, but the translator has chosen to format it as a poem.