Chook tales

What stories do these gals (in Helen's collection) have to tell? "Chicken Little", maybe - the story where "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". Here's one version; this is called a "story for teaching courage" but there's more to it than that, as you can read in the explication here (interesting to think of Henny Penny as "a very self-actualised hen").

Chicken Little likes to walk in the woods. She likes to look at the trees. She likes to smell the flowers. She likes to listen to the birds singing.

One day while she is walking an acorn falls from a tree, and hits the top of her little head.

- My, oh, my, the sky is falling. I must run and tell the lion about it, - says Chicken Little and begins to run.

She runs and runs. By and by she meets the hen, who is busy scratching for worms.

- Where are you going? - asks the hen.

- Oh, Henny Penny, the sky is falling and I am going to the lion to tell him about it.

- How do you know it? - asks Henny Penny.

- It hit me on the head, so I know it must be so, - says Chicken Little.

- Let me go with you! - says Henny Penny. - Run, run.

So the two run and run until they meet Ducky Lucky.

- The sky is falling, - says Henny Penny. - We are going to the lion to tell him about it.

- How do you know that? - asks Ducky Lucky.

- It hit Chicken Little on the head, - says Henny Penny.

- May I come with you? - asks Ducky Lucky [or Cocky Locky, or Turkey Lurkey, or Goosey Poosey, or Ducky Daddles].

- Come, - says Henny Penny.

So all three of them run on and on until they meet Foxey Loxey.

- Where are you going? - asks Foxey Loxey.

- The sky is falling and we are going to the lion to tell him about it, - says Ducky Lucky.

- Do you know where he lives? - asks the fox.

- I don't, - says Chicken Little.

- I don't, - says Henny Penny.

- I don't, - says Ducky Lucky.

- I do, - says Foxey Loxey. - Come with me and I can show you the way.

He walks on and on until he comes to his den.

- Come right in, - says Foxey Loxey.

They all go in, but they never, never come out again.

This version is even better - there are 1920s illustrations, and the ditzy animals outwit that rascal Foxy Loxy. The story has been around since at least 1865.
Another chook tale is the story of The Little Red Hen, who got no help with baking her bread - so she ate it all herself! Read the classic version, and a cynical update, here. Here it is with a (sad) new twist, and here are Andy Warhol's illustratons for the story.
And who can forget Rosie's Walk? In Pat Hutchins' story, the blithe hen simply carries on across the farmyard, unaware of the fox behind her, waiting to pounce - a classic children's book.
To finish, Louis Jordan's "Ain't nobody here but us chickens" - lyrics here, and listen here.