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Overview
Two co-wives quarrel over a rooster and divide it. One half is cooked, while the surviving half walks on one leg and has one wing. It speaks to its mistress, requests provisions and sets off on pilgrimage. Along the road it steals a hair from a jackal and a lion, keeping them beneath its wing. A wild boar later voluntarily gives it a hair after Half-Cock claims that the other important animals have already done so. The printed opening repeats the designation of the foolish wife where the later contrast differentiates the two mistresses; the survival of the half-bird itself is explicit.
At a king’s house Half-Cock repeatedly announces the king’s impending death and its own intention to take his wife. The king orders it thrown among sheep and goats to be trampled. It burns the jackal’s hair, bringing the jackal, who summons his brethren. They kill the animals and free it, motivated by his wish to stop the burning hair. A second confinement among oxen is defeated through the lion’s hair: the lion and his brethren kill the oxen. Finally the king locks Half-Cock in the treasury, intending to kill it personally the next day. The boar comes when its hair burns, makes the earth shake and breaks half the wall to free it.
The boar advises Half-Cock to take money. It rolls in gold, carries what adheres and swallows more until full, then returns to its mistress. It asks her to strike it beneath a mat; when she stops and lifts the covering, the ground shines with gold. The other wife sends a dog to imitate the journey, but the dog returns with only a yellow stone and is beaten to death. The tale closes on this contrasting failure, rather than on a fulfilled marriage to the king’s wife.
Origins & earliest records
René Basset, Contes populaires berbères (1887), no. 42, Moitié de Coq, complete printed pp. 83–89. Note 90 on p. 187 identifies Moh’ammed ’Abdi as the contributor at Cherchel in 1885. Basset is the French translator and editor; the contributor and recording place are separately credited.
Records & interpretation
Complete French narrative read against original DjVu pages 121–127, printed pp. 83–89, including all three rescues, gold return and the final dog episode. Original note 90, DjVu page 225, verifies the named contributor, place and year. It cites an earlier text and transcription in Basset’s Recueil de textes et de documents relatifs à la philologie berbère, Bulletin de Correspondance africaine (1885), pp. 317–326; that earlier publication is a bibliographic lead, not an independently inspected witness here.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
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Contes populaires berbères
No. 42, complete pp. 83–89; contributor note 90, p. 187; preface xiv.
Family & connections
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References
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- Primary collected narrative; original facsimile inspectedOriginal edition, complete narrative 42Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
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