The Vain Stag

A stag came to a pool to drink water. The water was still and clear. When he was drinking water, he saw his reflection in the water of the pool. He thought, “How beautiful...my horns are? They are long and beautiful."


Then he looked at his legs. He said, “They are thin and weak. I am ashamed of them. If they are strong and fine like the horns…I will challenge all my enemies."


Just then he heard the sounds of hounds and hunters.


He ran for his life. The hounds and the hunters followed him. The feet carried the stag away from the hunters.


But his horns were caught in the branches of a tree. He tried to take it out. But he could not.


The hounds saw the stag and pulled him on the ground. When the stag was dying, it thought, “What a fool I am…I despised my legs. But they carried me fast. The horns that I adorned made me die. What I thought about my horns and about my legs am wrong."