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The eighth story tells of how Eulenspiegel made the stingy farmer's hens fight over bait
When the householder went out the next day he chanced upon Eulenspiegel and asked him: "My dear Eulenspiegel, when will you come to me for wake bread again?" Eulenspiegel replied: "When your chickens fight over the bait, four a a time for a piece of bread." So the man said: "Oh, so it will be a long time before you come?" And Eulenspiegel: "But what if I came sooner, in time for good meat soup?" and went his way.
Eulenspiegel waited until it was time for the man's chickens to come out into the street looking for food. The he took twenty threads, or maybe more, and tied them together at the middle in pairs. Then he tied a piece of bread to each end. He placed the threads on the ground and hid them so that only the bread chunks would show. The chickens picked at them and tried to swallow the bits of bread tied to the strings but couldn't because there was another chicken tugging at the other end. None of them could swallow it or spit it out since the pieces were too big. So he had two hundred chickens stood in the street choking and tugging at the bait.
English translation created for E2 from the original by Hermann Bote at the German project Gutenberg.