Читать книгу Tales of Laughter - Группа авторов - Страница 14

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Once upon a time there was a dove who built her nest in a high tree. Every year, about the time when her young ones were beginning to get feathers, Reynard Sly-Boots would come along and say to the dove:

“Give me your young ones to eat; throw them down to me of your own accord, or I will gobble you up, as well as them!”

The dove, frightened at the threat, would throw down the young birds and thus it had happened year after year.

Now one day, as the dove sat most melancholy upon her nest, a great bird flew up and asked why she was so sad and downcast. And the dove answered that it was because Reynard would soon come and eat up her young ones.

Upon this the great bird replied, “Oh, you goose! Why do you throw them down to him? Just bid your good friend to please give himself the trouble to come after them. Then you’ll soon see him sneak away with his tail between his legs, for Reynard cannot climb a tree.”

So when the time came round and Reynard again presented himself, the dove said to him, “If you want meat for dinner, just be so kind as to come up and help yourself.”

When the fox saw that he must go away empty he asked the dove who had counseled her to speak thus, and she answered:

“The great bird that has a nest yonder near the stream.”

Reynard at once betook himself to the stream and remonstrated with the great bird for building his nest in so exposed a place, asking what he did in case of a high wind.

The great bird answered, “When the wind blows from the right I turn to the left; when it blows from the left I turn to the right.”

“But what do you do when it blows from all sides?” asked the fox.

“Then I stick my head under my wing,” said the great bird, showing how he did it. But quick as a wink, when the great bird stuck his head under his wing, Reynard Sly-Boots sprang upon him and seized him, saying:

“You know how to give counsel to others, but not to advise yourself.”

So he ate him up!