Nasrudin used to breed chickens and sell them to the local 
butcher.
   One day he was half-absorbed in the problems of his chicken-
run when he noticed a man passing, dressed in mourning.
   ‘Tell me,’ said the Mulla, rushing to the fence, ‘why are you
wearing those clothes?’
   ‘Because my parents are dead: this is how I mourn them.’
   The next day passers-by saw each one of Nasrudin’s chickens
with a black ribbon around its neck.
   ‘Mulla,’ they cried, ‘why are those chickens wearing black
ribbons?’
   ‘Their parents, as you may well imagine,’ said the Mulla, ‘are
dead. Why shouldn’t they mourn?’