Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Bear And Its Honey

It was high noon and the bear was returning home carrying a pitcher full of honey. As it passed by a stream, it decided to take a short break and placed the pitcher on a rock and went to the stream to quench its thirst. As the bear went to drink, a fox saw the pitcher of honey unguarded on the rock and moved stealthily, picked up the pitcher and ran to its house and drank all the honey. The bear when it returned from the stream was furious and angry on not finding the pitcher where it had placed. It looked around the rock and found the foot prints and began to follow the footprints.As the foot prints led to the fox's house the bear stopped and decided to teach the fox an apt lesson for stealing its honey.

The next day the bear went around the forest telling other animals that it had lost a pitcher of honey and warned that any one consuming it will be cursed and duly punished. The bear made sure that the fox too got to hear about this.

The fox on hearing about the curse became very cautious and stayed inside the house and rarely went out. Three days passed and nothing happened. The fox thought the curse regarding the honey was not true and began to feel happy. The next day morning the fox found a few drops of honey near its house. It looked around and found more honey in other places too. As it looked further it felt that someone had spilled the honey and when curiousity got the better of it, it followed the honey trail. It finally reached a tree and on one of its branches it found a pitcher of honey. A few branches higher there were two bee hives.

Even as the fox was trying to make sense of this, the bear which was hiding behind the bushes threw two stones on each of the bee hive. When the honey bees which were going about doing their job quietly got angry at being disturbed, they only found the fox looking at it and no one else in sight. A few secounds was all that the bees needed and an army of honey bees came down and attacked the fox. The bees were in large number and where ever the fox ran to escape them, the bees followed and stung the fox left right and center. Unable to bear the pain and no way to escape, the fox shouted for help and this attracted the attention of other animals in the forest which came and watched the fox being stung from a safe distance.

The bear which was safe and securely hiding behind the bushes found this an ideal opportunity. It cleared its throat and shouted at the fox. " was it you who stole my honey the other day." It was then that the fox realised about the curse and cried back in pain and admitted of its guilt infront of other animals. The bear which was satisfied with the answer asked the fox to run and jump into the stream as it was the only way to escape from the bees. The fox ran as fast as it could and jumped into the stream and stayed inside water for as long as it could. On not finding the fox for some time the bees then returned to its hive. A few moments later the poor fox came out of the stream in deep pain and apologised to the bear for having stolen its honey.

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