The Fox and the Crow

It was early morning, and a crow was flying over a farmhouse when she saw something wonderful.

On the kitchen windowsill, cooling in the breeze, sat a round yellow cheese. And next to it, all by itself, was one small piece that someone had cut off and forgotten.

The crow swooped down, snatched the piece of cheese in her beak and flapped away as fast as her wings would carry her.

High in the tree

She flew to a tall tree at the edge of the wood and settled on a high branch. It was the perfect place for breakfast. Nobody could reach her up here.

She held the cheese tightly in her beak. It smelled rich and creamy and delicious.

I shall eat it slowly, she thought, one little nibble at a time.

Just then, a fox came trotting along the path below.

He had been out hunting all night and had caught nothing. His tummy was empty. And as he passed the tree, his nose began to twitch.

Sniff, sniff. Cheese!

He looked up, and there was the crow, with the cheese in her beak.

Sweet words

The fox sat down at the bottom of the tree. He could not climb. He could not fly. But he could talk, and he was very good at it.

"Good morning, dear Crow!" he called up, in his politest voice.

The crow said nothing. She held on to her cheese.

"My, my," said the fox. "How lovely you look today! I don't think I have ever seen such beautiful feathers. They're so black and glossy. They shine like a pool of ink in the moonlight."

The crow sat up a little straighter. Nobody had ever told her that before.

"And your eyes!" said the fox. "So bright and clever. And the way you hold your head, so proud, like a queen."

The crow fluffed up her feathers. She turned her head this way and that, so the fox could see how glossy she was.

Just one song

"I'm sure," said the fox, with a sigh, "that a bird as beautiful as you must have the most beautiful voice in the whole wood. If only I could hear it, just once, I would know that you are the queen of all the birds."

The crow had never been told her voice was beautiful. In fact, most of the other birds asked her to be quiet.

The queen of all the birds, she thought. Well! I shall show him.

She lifted her head. She opened her beak as wide as it would go. And she sang her very best song.

"CAW! CAW! CAW!"

Down fell the cheese. It tumbled through the leaves, bounced off a branch and landed right at the fox's feet.

Snap! The fox caught it, and gobbled it up in one bite.

Some advice

The fox licked his lips and looked up at the crow.

"Thank you," he said. "That was delicious. You certainly have a voice, my dear Crow. What you need now is a little more sense."

And off he trotted down the path, swishing his tail.

The crow sat on her branch with her empty beak and felt very foolish indeed.

But she was not a silly crow, not really. She had simply been fooled. And from that day on, whenever anyone said something very sweet to her, she always stopped to wonder: What do they want? And she always kept her beak firmly shut until she had finished her breakfast.

About this story

This fable is credited to Aesop, the storyteller of ancient Greece, and has been told for more than two thousand years. It warns us about flattery: praise that is not really meant, but is used to get something. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.