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The Eagle and The Vixen

An eagle and a vixen, who had become friends, decided to live next to each other, and this decision strengthened their friendship even more.

But one day, when the vixen had gone to search food for her cubs, the eagle, whose offspring needed food badly, perched near the hole and seized the fox cubs, which she fed to her own young.

The Eagle made her nest on top of a tall tree and brooded her eggs there until they hatched out; and the vixen dug her hole at the roots of her tree, in which she reared her cubs. When the vixen finally returned and found out what had happened, her grief was immense. But she was even more saddened by her incapacity to take revenge for her cubs, because, having no wings, she wasn't able to chase flying animals. That's why she cursed her enemy, who stood on top of the tree, unreachable, and who left her behind with her impotence and weakness.

But fate wanted that the eagle soon had to pay for her mindless crime against their friendship: one day a number of people were offering a goat^* in the countryside. When the eagle noticed that, she dove past the altar, grabbed a smouldering piece of the goat`s entrails and flew away with it. After she had brought it back to the nest, a sudden, strong gust of wind caused the old, dry straws of the nest to be set on fire by the smouldering meat into an enourmous blaze. All the young of the eagle were burnt in it (for their wings weren`t fully grown yet) and fell to the ground. And when the vixen, who came running to see what happened, spotted the corpses of the young she ate them all.

This fable states that when somebody violates a friendship, he'll probably escape from the retaliation of the victims due to their impotence, but he won't escape from the punishment from the gods!

^*: The ancient Greek people believed that the gods would become angry when they didn't receive offers, which were usually animals and wine, from them. The bigger the animal offered the better the minds of the gods came at rest, but usually goats were offered, because that was the main farm animal in Ancient Greece. The offering ritual consisted of pouring wine on the ground, slaughtering an animal, burning certain parts of it (the entrails for example) and eating the rest of the animal and drinking the rest of the wine while holding a nice "offering party" (well, actually that isn't part of the ritual, but it would be a crime to waste good wine and meat).

Translation © Lazyfox, 1998

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