A "story" as recorded in Chayei Mohran which is the journal of Rav Natan of Nemirov, Rebbe Nachman's secretary and companion and keeper of his writings, in which he rel;ates the happenings, travels and sayings of Rebbe Nachman.
"The year 5567, Breslov, Parashat Vayechi [December 26, 1806]:
After I had recited the Kiddush Levanah [sanctification of the new moon] by myself, he said to me: “If you had been happy, it would have been a great benefit to the world.” Afterward he told [me] what he had seen in a dream:
There were many, very many, soldiers marching along, and after them there were flying very many birds, a numerous multitude. And I asked him, the one who was with me, why were the birds flying after them, and he told me that they were going to help those soldiers.
I asked him how they would help them, and he replied that these birds release from themselves a phlegm substabnce, and through this moisture those who were before them are destroyed. In this way they help those soldiers.
This was difficult for me. Surely, in the very place where they release this mucus, those soldiers are also present, and it would harm them as well.
Meanwhile, I saw that the birds began to lower themselves until they all stood on the ground, and they walked after the soldiers. They were picking something up from the ground with their beaks. The thing they picked up was something round, and it was not something edible.
And it was difficult for me: how could these birds come along and follow the soldiers? For when a person walks, he goes faster than birds, and what was this thing that they were picking up?
They told me that what they were picking up became the aforementioned mucus, which kills those who are opposite them, as stated above. And wherever they deposited the moisture, those who were opposite them were thereby driven away and died in the place where they [were].
[It was difficult for me concerning this in several respects, but I do not remember them.]
I entered a secluded place and saw that there was a very low entrance. I entered there and lay down there myself. There were no windows at all in that room, and it was dark.
I entered there because I wanted to hide, and I hid there.
Meanwhile, all the birds began to enter there. I wanted to drive them away, and I was waving them away with my hand. And a cat stood in front of them, and it is the nature of birds to flee from a cat. Because of this, they all entered into the room.
And however much I waved them away with my hand, it was of no avail because of the cat.
I asked why they were coming here, and they told me that they were coming here to have the pox.
I asked why this was so, and they told me that the moisture of the pox was the aforementioned mucus that kills those who are before them.
I asked: Surely people can also die from the pox? And they told me that this is indeed so, and from those corpses that die from it, this is harmful to the place where they die there.
And I was greatly distressed, because I feared that, Heaven forbid, I might perish from the stench of the corpses, for there were very many birds there. And I prayed to God, blessed be He, concerning this.
Meanwhile, the pox left them, and they returned to their normal state. And a bird flew away from there with joy, and so they all flew after it.
And there was a cry throughout the world:
“Mazal tov! Mazal tov!”
And I, too, cried out:
“Mazal tov!”
^
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