The Tortoise and the Eagle

Every day a tortoise looked up at the sky, watched the birds and sighed. "Ah, if only I could fly! If I could touch the clouds, if I could pass over the mountains!"

One day an eagle landed beside him. The tortoise begged him: "Brother Eagle, take me up into the sky. Teach me to fly. I'll give you whatever you want."

The eagle laughed. "You have no wings. Tortoises don't fly, they walk. Your home is the earth; mine is the sky." But the tortoise insisted, pleaded and followed him for days.

At last the eagle gave in. "All right," he said, "but I warned you." He gently took the tortoise in his talons and rose into the air. Up and up they went. The tortoise looked down: the meadows were a green carpet, the rivers a silver thread. "I'm flying!" he shouted. "Let me go now, let me fly by myself!"

"I won't let go," said the eagle, "you'll fall."

"I said let go! I can fly as well as you!"

The eagle shook his head and came down very low, until he was only a few feet above the ground. Then he set the tortoise on a patch of soft grass. The tortoise flapped his legs and flapped them, but he could not rise an inch. He stayed there on the grass like a leaf swaying in the wind.

The eagle landed beside him. "You see, my friend? Everyone has a place. You walk slowly, but inside your shell you are at home anywhere. I fly, but when I grow tired one day I will have no shell to hide in. Let's not envy each other."

From that day on the tortoise still looked up at the sky, but not to sigh; only because it was beautiful.