Æsop's Fables

THE BANBURY CROSS SERIES
Prepared for children by Grace Rhys
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES ROBINSON
LONDON PUBLISHED BY IMDENT & C O AT ALDINE HOUSE OVER AGAINST GREAT EASTERN ST EC MDCCCXCV

Enid, this is Æsop's house, And the cover is the door; When the rains of winter pour, Then the Lion and the Mouse, And the Frogs that asked a king, And all the Beasts with curious features, That talk just like us human creatures, Open it, and ask you in!
G. R.
A conceited jackdaw was vain enough to imagine that he wanted nothing but the coloured plumes to make him as beautiful a bird as the Peacock. Puffed up with this wise conceit, he dressed himself with a quantity of their finest feathers, and in this borrowed garb, leaving his old companions, tried to pass for a peacock; but he no sooner attempted to stray with these splendid birds, than an affected strut betrayed the sham. The offended peacocks fell upon him with their beaks, and soon stripped him of his finery. Having turned him again into a mere jackdaw, they drove him back to his brethren.
But they, remembering what airs he had once given himself, would not permit him to flock with them again, and treated him with well-deserved contempt.
A dispute once arose between the Sun and the Wind, which was the stronger of the two, and they agreed to count this as proof, that whichever soonest made a traveller take off his cloak, should be held the most powerful. The wind began, and blew with all his might and main a blast, cold and fierce as a winter storm; but the stronger he blew, the closer the traveller wrapped his cloak about him, and the tighter he grasped it with his hands. Then broke out the sun: with his welcome beams he chased away the vapour and the cold; the traveller felt the pleasant warmth, and as the sun shone brighter and brighter, he sat down, overcome by the heat, and cast aside the cloak that all the blustering rage of the wind could not compel him to lay down. Learn from this, said the sun to the wind, that soft and gentle means will often bring about, what force and fury never can.