Of Fairy Tales and Fables

If you look to www.dictionary.com and searched for the word "fable," you would get this as the first result. According to dictionary.com, a fable is "a short tale to teach a moral lesson, often with animals or inanimate objects as characters; apologue: the fable of the tortoise and the hare; Aesop's fables."

How many of us would remember who Aesop was? Or what some of his fables were? And no, Fable is not a computer game developed by Lionhead Studios! I remember reading about the fox and his sour grapes when I was young and learning good a moral lesson - never despise what we cannot get. Looking back in my life, I see that this little lesson has played a big part in my life, and how did i learn this lesson? A mere fable. The television shows that kids watch these days, such as Spongebob Squarepants and Cow and Chicken, seem more for entertainment than for teaching kids about morals and values. Can we blame people then when they don't know anything about sportsmanship or honesty? No, not really. However, some cartoons do attempt to espouse good moral values but once again I would say that it is still overshadowed by the need to entertain. We do need to be mindful of what we feed our children's minds, and our own minds. Anyways, That's not really the point of this post.

An interesting fact, did you know that it was not uncommon for a fable to not have a happy ending? Hansen and Gretel were eaten by the witch, for example. However, people like happy endings and now almost every story you hear has a happy ending.

The REAL point of this post for me to tell you a little fable. I call it:

"The Bird and the Boy"

There once was a boy and a bird. The boy lived by himself in a small house and the bird lived in a nest in a tree just outside the boy's house. Now, it was springtime and so all the birds would chirp and sing but this bird was the best of them all. The bird would sing louder than any other bird. The bird would sing all day, in the morning, in the afternoon and again in the evening.

Now the boy had heard the bird singing every day, but he disliked the bird because it disturbed his peace and quiet. He would chase the bird away everytime the bird began to sing. But the bird, as birds do, continued to sing his merry little song.

One day, the boy was got so angry that he came up with a plan. He would throw poisoned food outside of his house and maybe the bird would eat it and become sick. He did this.

The next day, the boy heard the bird singing again, loud as ever. However, he decided to forget about the bird and continue with his daily life.

One week later, the boy noticed that the bird did not sing anymore. There was no more cheerful chirps around his house during that day. "Maybe the bird is just too busy to sing today," the boy thought. The next day, the boy tried to listen for the bird's song, but again there was no song to be heard. The boy started to get worried but as the days passed, the little bird did not appear.

The boy realised that he missed the bird and its songs. He felt lonely now that the house was so quiet. He remembered how the bird would sing and fill the house with song, but now all that was left was the boy and his little home.

*THE END*

Little bird, where are you? Won't you come back and sing another song?