The Fox and the Crow

There was nothing special about that branch. Morning after morning, a crow with glossy black feathers sat quietly on it among the rustling leaves, and nobody bothered to look up. The birds of the forest had plenty to do. None of them had time to notice an ordinary crow on an ordinary branch.

But this morning was different. Same branch, same crow, and yet at the foot of the tree, a pair of eyes was gazing up, never looking away for a moment.

This is an Aesop fable from ancient Greece, written down long ago and retold ever since. From those old pages, the story steps out as fresh as that morning.

The difference sat right in the crow's beak. It was a piece of cheese, golden yellow and fragrant. The crow had found it somewhere early that morning and carried it straight up to this high branch, to enjoy it alone in peace, with no one to fight over it. The rich smell of the cheese drifted down on every light breeze, all the way to the foot of the tree.

Just then, a reddish-brown fox strolling past stopped short. His nose twitched as he caught the creamy smell floating in the air, and a craving rose in him at once.

The fox looked up and saw the cheese in the crow's beak. He measured the height of the branch with his eyes, then shook his head. The tree was too tall, and the branch was thin and slippery. There was no way to climb it, and even his best leap would catch nothing but empty air. To get that cheese, the fox understood right away, he would have to use his head, not his four legs.

The fox sat right down at the foot of the tree and lifted his face. He spoke very softly and very sweetly, as if he were chatting with an old friend he had not seen for ages. He said it had been a long time since he had seen such beautiful feathers, black and yet shimmering, as if they held the sunlight inside. Each time the crow stirred her wings, the feathers glinted in a new way.

The crow tilted her head a little and kept silent, but she did not fly away either. Her round eyes glanced down at the fox for a moment, then looked off into the distance, as if she did not care. In truth, she was listening closely to every word.

Encouraged, the fox went on, his voice growing warmer and warmer. It was not only the feathers, he said. The way the crow stood on the branch was proud and upright too. She looked every bit as grand as the rare birds he had heard of in faraway forests. To his eyes, the fox said, she was no ordinary crow at all.

The crow stood a little straighter, her chest puffed out slightly. Until now, she had always thought of herself as just a plain black bird, like every other crow in the forest. No one had ever looked at her and said such things.

The fox lowered his voice even more, as if a very important thought had just struck him, one too precious to let slip. If the crow's singing voice was as wonderful as her looks, he said, there would be nothing left to argue about. She would be the finest bird in this whole forest. He added, with a sigh, that he had never been lucky enough to hear her sing, not even once.

Hearing these words, the crow felt a glow of delight. The praise crept deep into her chest, so warm and sweet that she clean forgot the cheese she had been holding tight in her beak all along. She could think of only one thing. She had to prove to the kind fox down below that she deserved every word of his praise.

The crow puffed out her chest as far as it would go and took a deep breath, ready to sing the best song she could. For that instant, the whole forest seemed to fall quiet, with only the wind softly stirring the leaves.

The crow opened her beak.

The very moment her beak opened, the cheese slipped out. It dropped straight down, spinning once in the air before plunging toward the ground.

The fox was already waiting right below, ready for just that. Before the cheese could even touch the ground, he snapped it up neatly and held it fast in his mouth, without losing a single crumb.

The fox looked up at the branch one last time, his eyes bright with glee. In the same gentle voice as before, he called up to her. "Thank you, my friend crow. One song for a piece of cheese as fragrant as this one. All things considered, that is a fair price."

With that, the fox turned and strolled off between the tree trunks, his tail swishing with contentment, the cheese still held fast in his mouth.

Up on the branch, the crow stood alone and still. The song she had just begun faded into the air before it could fully ring out, and her beak was empty. She watched the fox until he vanished behind the bushes, then quietly folded her wings and said nothing.

After a while, the branch went back to being as ordinary as on any other morning. The wind still stirred the leaves, and the birds of the forest were still busy with their own affairs. Nobody noticed a crow on a familiar branch. Only the crow still remembered that this morning had begun with a sweet-smelling piece of cheese, and ended with a song that no one got to hear in full.