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The Eagle with a White Chest is a folktale to teach about envy and jealousy. Be careful who your friends are.

 

 

The Eagle with a White Chest

In the animal kingdom, there lived two eagles. One eagle was much older and had no decorative chest, while the other eagle was so much younger, and her chest was decorated with white feathers. The younger eagle was more beautiful than the older eagle; It also had eaglets, while the other eagle did not.

These factors put together always made the older eagle complain bitterly to the gods of the land.

“Why?! Why me?! You gave her children and a very decorative chest, but you have given me nothing!” The older eagle would always say, but the gods never answered her.

Every morning before the younger eagle left home to get some food, she would sing sweet songs to her babies. Every morning, the older eagle would stand and watch with so much anger as the younger eagle sang songs to her babies. The older eagle became very angry and jealous. These feelings lead her to think of a very wicked plan.

“What am I going to do to that younger eagle to teach her a lesson? She is always acting so proud and pompous just because she has children. Well, I will show her,” the older eagle kept rambling. It wasn’t long before a plan came to her.

The older eagle’s plan made it compulsory for her to become friends with the younger eagle, so she started visiting her.

“What are you doing here?” The younger eagle asked when she saw the older eagle landing on her tree.

“I have come here to be friends with you. I really feel like I can learn a lot from you.” the older eagle said.

“But you are older than I am. How can I teach you a lot?” The younger eagle was still skeptical.

“Because I admire you a lot. It will be easier to take corrections from you,” the older eagle said, and the younger eagle agreed.

First, the older eagle came with gifts for her new friend’s eaglets. She brought nuts for them to eat. After consistent visiting for three weeks, the younger eagle felt very comfortable with the older eagle’s presence.

One day, the older eagle left to go and visit her newfound ‘friend’. When she got there, she saw the younger eagle preparing to go out.

“Are you going out?” The older eagle asked.

“Yes, I want to get some food for my babies. Do you mind watching them for me while I am away?” The younger eagle asked.

“Of course. Of course, I can,” the older eagle replied with a mischievous smile, but because the younger eagle was in a haste, she didn’t notice. 

When the older eagle was sure she was gone, she looked in the direction of the eaglets and wondered which one she would take.

“Yes, you with the white feathers on your chest. I like you.” And so she took that eaglet and flew away with it. This made the other eaglet cry and scream for their mother. As the younger eagle was flying, she felt a sharp pain in her chest, and she immediately knew that something had happened to one of her babies, so she flew back to find the youngest missing.

“No!” She cried out and flew from tree to tree searching for her baby. The search continued for days, and soon it turned to weeks, but she couldn’t find her baby.

Then one day, she took a different route and saw her baby in a nest far away from town. Immediately, the younger eagle flew close to her baby, the older eagle came out.

“You! What exactly do you want?!” She asked.

“I trusted you, and you stole my baby!” The younger eagle replied.

“I didn’t steal any baby. This baby is mine. I gave birth to her a few days ago,” the older eagle said. The two eagles started fighting about who owned the baby. This attracted other birds to their scene.

“What is going on here?” The other birds asked.

“This is my eaglet, but she is claiming that the eaglet is her’s,” the younger eagle said.

“That’s because it’s my eaglet. I gave birth to her a few days ago,” the older eagle added. 

The birds got tired of their fighting, so they said, “Okay, this is what we are going to do. We will put this leaf on the floor, and then whoever can cry enough tears to wash the leaf away will take the child.”

“What?! No! That is a bad way to solve this problem.”

“Well, that is how we want to solve the problem,” they said.

The older eagle had no other choice than to try and cry. First, she looked at the young eaglet, but no tears came to her eyes. She thought of bad memories, but that didn’t help either. She opened her eyes wide to allow the wind blowing to cause her to cry, but even that didn’t work. Soon, the birds got tired of waiting for the older eagle to cry, and they called on the younger eagle.

Immediately, the younger eagle started singing the same song she used to sing to her babies, and tears flowed from her eyes. She cried so hard that her tears washed away the leaf. The birds then gave the younger eagle her baby back.

“Oh, my God!” The older eagle reacted. “Maybe this is why I don’t have a baby of my own. I am always so busy comparing my babies to other people’s babies that I am not vigilant when they fall sick and die. Now I couldn’t even show love to another eagle’s baby.” The older eagle began to feel so sorry and then decided to love everything around her.

After this decision, it didn’t take long before she hatched her own babies and showered them with so much love.

 

Moral Lesson

Never be jealous of another person’s thing; it may lead to you doing evil things. 

 

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