This particular story is very, very old.

There was this war on, do you see, and the Count was captured. His captors tried and tried to get him to reveal his military secrets, but he staunchly said, “I’ll never tell!” They imprisoned him, and tortured him, and threatened him, but he always said, “I’ll never tell!”

Finally, they said, “Either reveal your secrets or we put you to death!”

“I’ll never tell!”, said the Count. So they put his head on the chopping block, the executioner raised his ax…”I’ll never tell!”, he said. The ax began to fall…

“Wait–I’ll tell you everything!” Ker-Thunk!!!! Too late — the Count’s head rolled into the basket.

Moral: Don’t hatchet your Counts before they chicken!