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Updated: June 5, 2025
King Solomon looked kindly upon the King of the Hoopoes and said, "Behold, did I not warn you of your folly in desiring to have crowns of gold? Vanity and pride have been your ruin. But now, that there may be a memorial of the service which once you did me, your crowns of gold shall be changed into crowns of feathers, and with them you may walk unharmed upon the earth."
Then the kindly Hoopoes assembled, and flew in close mass above his head, thus forming a shade under which he proceeded on his journey in ease and comfort. At sundown the monarch sent for the King of the Hoopoes, and desired him to name a reward for the service which he and his followers had rendered.
Then the King of the Hoopoes answered that nothing could be more glorious than the golden crown of King Solomon; and so Solomon decreed that the Hoopoes should thenceforward wear golden crowns as a mark of his favour.
And the Queen of the Hoopoes became very airy, and refused to speak to her own cousin and to the other birds who had once been her friends. There was a certain fowler who used to set traps for birds. He put a piece of broken mirror into his trap, and a Hoopoe spying it went in to admire herself, and was caught. The fowler looked at the shining crown upon her head and said, "What have we here!
So the King of the Hoopoes left King Solomon with a beautiful golden crown upon his head. And soon all the Hoopoes were wearing golden crowns. Thereupon they grew very proud and haughty. They went down by the lakes and pools and strutted there that they might admire themselves in the water mirrors.
But be sure to tell no other man of the matter." After this the fowler caught many Hoopoes in the same way, and sold their crowns to Issachar. But one day as he was on his way to the metalworker's shop he met a jeweler, and to him he showed one of the Hoopoes' crowns. "What is this, and where did you find it?" exclaimed the jeweler. "It is pure gold.
One day when Solomon was journeying across the desert, he was sorely distressed by the heat of the sun, until he came near to fainting. Just then he spied a flock of his friends the Hoopoes flying past, and calling to them feebly he begged them to shelter him from the burning rays.
Grateful for this welcome attention, Solomon Ben David at eventide sent for the king of the Hoopoes to ask him what reward he would like to receive for this service, and the answer was promptly made that a crown of pure gold on the head would be acceptable.
Above them two crested hoopoes were fluttering and calling amid the ruins of the pylon. "Isn't it a sacrilege?" said the Oxford man at last. "Well, now, I'm glad you feel that about it, because it's how it always strikes me," Headingly answered with feeling.
Above the sturdy brakes of the sugar-cane the crested hoopoes flew, and the larks sang, fluttering their little wings as if in an almost hysterical ecstasy. Although the time was winter, and the Christians' Christmas was not far off, the soft airs seemed to be whispering all the sweet messages of the ardent spring that smiles over Eastern lands.
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