2. A beautiful swan was sitting by a lake,
fanning itself elegantly in the sunshine.
Watching in the distance was a crow
perched on a tree. “What a contrast”, the
crow thought in envy, comparing the
Swan’s perfect white feathers to its own jet
black ones. He hated being the color that
he was and wanted nothing more than to
be as white as the Swan.
3. Foolishly it thought that the reason the
Swan got to be so beautifully white was
because it spent all day in the water,
so if he was to become the same as
the swan, he would have start
spending all his days in the water also.
4. So for many days and nights, he spent
all his time soaking in the waters of the
lake. Even when it got cold, he refused
to get out, determined to stay in until
his feathers turned white.
5. One moonlit night, an owl flew by and saw
the crow shivering in the lake. “What are
you doing?” the owl asked. “I want to be as
white as a swan and so I have to sit here
until my colour changes”. As soon as the owl
heard, it burst into hysterical laughter, “You
silly fool! You can sit there till you die you
have got to accept what you are”
6. The crow contemplated for a while on the wise
words of the owl. Looking down at his body, he
could see that what the owl said was absolutely
true. He had been sitting in the water for many
days and yet his colour is just the same as it always
was. Feeling very foolish, the crow realised that if
the owl didn’t fly by tonight, he might still be sitting
in the water and die from either starvation or
hypothermia.
