He learned, too, from a master mason how to carve wood and stone, when the man came to make, in the choir of Notre Dame, a stall so constructed that when it was necessary the aged dean could sit down on it while still seeming to remain standing.
It was Ulenspiegel who carved the first handle for the knife used by the Zealand folk. This handle he made in the shape of a cage. Within there was a loose death's head; above it a dog in a lying posture. These emblems taken together signify "Blade faithful to the death."
And in this wise Ulenspiegel began to fulfil the prediction of Katheline, showing himself painter, sculptor, clown, noble, all at once and together, for from father to son the Claes bore for arms three quart pots argent on a field of bruinbier.
But Ulenspiegel was constant to no trade, and Claes told him if this game went on, he would turn him away from the cottage.
The Emperor being returned from war, asked why his son Philip had not come to greet him.
The Infante's archbishop-governor replied that he had not desired to do so, for, so he said, he cared for nothing but books and solitude.
The Emperor enquired where he was at that moment.
The governor answered that they must seek him in every place where it was dark. They did so.
Having gone through a goodly number of chambers, they came at last to a kind of closet, unpaven, and lit by a skylight. There they saw stuck in the earth a post to which was fastened by the waist a pretty little tiny monkey, that had been sent to His Highness from the Indies to delight him with its youthful antics. At the foot of this stake faggots still red were smoking, and in the closet there was a foul stench of burnt hair.
The little beast had suffered so much dying in this fire that its little body seemed to be not an animal that ever had life, but a fragment of some wrinkled twisted root, and in its mouth, open as though to cry out on death, bloody foam was visible, and the water of its tears made its face wet.
The governor did not dare to reply, and both men remained silent, sad, and wrathful.
Suddenly in this silence there was heard a low little sound of a cough that came from a corner in the shadow behind them. His Majesty, turning about, received the Infante Philip, all clad in black and sucking a lemon.