The Fox and the Crow
One bright morning as Mr. Fox was following his sharp nose through the forest in search of a bite to eat, he spotted a Crow on the limb of a tree overhead. This was by no means the first Crow that Mr. Fox had ever seen. What caught his attention this time and made him stop to take a second look was that the lucky Crow held a bit of cheese in his beak.
No need to search any further, thought clever Mr. Fox, here is a dainty bite for my breakfast.
Up he trotted to the base of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, “Good morning, handsome creature!”
The Crow, his head cocked on one side, watched the Fox suspiciously. But he kept his beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.
“How your feathers shine, like a liquid midnight sky! And what a magnificent black beak you have, like a shard of polished obsidian! Truly if your song could only compare to all the rest of your splendor, I know I would hail you as King of Birds.”
The Crow had always wanted to become King of Birds, but he and his kind had long been despised by farmers and gravediggers, so he listened to the Fox’s pretty words and forgot all his suspicions, along with his breakfast. Then he puffed up his chest feathers, opened his heavy black beak, and uttered his loudest, leaf-shaking “Cawwww!”
Down fell the cheese straight into the Fox’s mouth.
“Thank you,” said Mister Fox sweetly, as he walked off. “Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But where are your wits?”
The Crow shook his head, clapped his beak together, and croaked, “Nevermore!”
The flatterer lives at the expense of those who will listen to him.
