The Goatherd And The Wild Goats

A goatherd, driving his animals from their pasture to sunset, found that some wild goats had mingled with them. He shut up together with his own goats for the night.

In the morning it snowed very hard. He could not take the herd from the fold to their usual feeding-place. He gave his goats just enough food to keep them alive but fed the strangers handsomely, in the hope of enticing them to stay with his flock.

When the thaw set in he led them all out to feed and the wild goats scampered away as fast as they could to the mountains. The goatherd accused them of being very ungrateful for leaving him, when during the blizzard he had taken more care of them than he had of his own goats.

One of the wild goats turned out and called back: ‘That is the very reason why we are leaving you. As you treated us better than the goats you have hand so long, it is clear that if others came after us, you would prefer them to ourselves.’

“It is foolish to give up old friends in the hope of winning new ones.”

The Treasure in The Field

There was a farmer who had three sons.
All of his sons were very lazy. No one helped his father to work in the field.
No one cared to do any work. They only ate and slept.
The farmer was very sad that his sons were lazy.
One day the farmer became very ill. He called his three sons to tell them something.
“I have a treasure for you but it is buried in the field. After I die you may dig it up,” the farmer said then and died.
The three boys went to the field and dug the ground.
They dug all day trying to find the treasure, but did not find anything.
Next day they went to the field again and dug the ground more. But they did not find any treasure.
The boys dug the field for many days. They did not find any treasure.
Finally, the eldest son said, “Let us stop digging. We should grow corn in our field.”
So they brought corn seeds and sowed them in the land they had been digging.
After one month, the field was full of green corn seedlings.
Three months later, the plants bore corn and when the corn was ripe, the whole field became bright yellow.
“This is the treasure that father gave us,” they said happily.

“Nothing can be gained without effort.”

The Monkey and The Dolphin

One day long ago, some sailors set out to sea in their sailing ship. One of them brought his pet monkey along for the long journey.

When they were far out at sea, a terrible storm overturned their ship. Everyone fell into the sea, and the monkey was sure that he would drown. Suddenly a dolphin appeared and picked him up.

They soon reached and island and the monkey came down from the dolphin’s back. The dolphin asked the monkey, ‘Do you know this place?’

The monkey replied, ‘Yes, I do. In fact, the king of the island is my best friend. Do you know that I am actually a prince?’

Knowing that no one lived on the island, the dolphin said, ‘Well, well, so you are a prince! Now you can be a king!’

The monkey asked, ‘How can I be a king?’

As the dolphin started swimming away, he answered, ‘That is easy. As you are the only creature on this island, you will naturally be the king!’.

“Those who lie and boast may end up in trouble.”

The Stag at the River

A Stag, very thirsty because of the heat, came to a river in a forest to drink some water.

He saw his shadow reflected in the water, and greatly admired the size of his horns, but felt ashamed of his weak and thin legs.
“I wish my legs were as beautiful as my horns,” he sobbed.

While he was lost in these thoughts, a Lion appeared at the river.

The Stag fled from the river in an instant, but his horns soon became entangled with the branches and he found himself stuck.

The Lion quickly caught up with him and captured him.

“How wrong I was to despise my legs which could have saved me now, had it not been for my horns which I so admired!” he cried.

“The most valuable things are often disregarded.”

The Birds and The Rhinoceros

Once upon a time, there was a forest where plenty of birds lived and built their nests on the trees. There lived many kinds of birds who always quarrelled with one another.

One day there was a rhinoceros walking into this forest and saw that there were a lot of birds on the trees.

The rhinoceros which was hungry, banged a tree with his horn until a nest of the green bird fell down. Then the rhinoceros ate the nestlings in that nest.

The mother bird was very angry but she could do nothing. After the rhinoceros had ate all the nestlings, he walked away.

All the birds gathered and discussed their opinions. ‘ The rhinoceros will surely come back again,’ said the red bird. ‘We must get together to drive him away.’ ‘No, that rhinoceros is very big and strong,’ said the green bird. ‘I agree with you, we cannot drive him away,’ said a yellow bird.

Because these birds were used to quarrel among themselves, they did not agree to the red bird’s idea. So no one prepared to fight against the rhinoceros.

With nobody agreed to the plan, the red bird and his mate discussed between them, ‘there is no other way but to help ourselves.’ So, they moved their nest to a tree which was on a cliff where the rhinoceros would never reach.

The next day, the rhinoceros came to the forest and again used it’s horn to bang a tree where the yellow bird lived. As a result, the yellow bird’s nest fell down. After that, the rhinoceros banged many other trees. Thus, a lot of nestlings and eggs became his food.
All the bird regrets that they did not prepare to cope with the rhinoceros. On the other hand, the red bird’s family remained safe as they were prepared for the expected danger.

“A careful person will be safe from any danger.”