The Stag and His Reflection

One day, a stag was drinking from a crystal clear spring.
He saw himself clearly reflected in the still water.
He admired his magnificent antlers, the way they arched and curved. He loved how powerful they made him look.
But then he looked at his legs. He hated how thin and spindly they looked. He despised the way they looked like stilts with knobbly bits.
“How is it”, he sighed, “that I have such a glorious par of antlers, but am cursed with such ugly, useless legs?”
Just then, he heard a pack of wolves howling nearby.
They had picked up his scent and were closing in.
He raced off, with his legs taking him further and further out of reach of the wolves.
But just as he thought he had escaped into the safety of the forest, his broad antlers caught in the branches of a tree.
Pretty soon, he was surrounded by the wolves, unable to escape.
It was at that point that the stag realised the legs of which he was so ashamed, were in fact his greatest asset. They would have saved him if it weren’t for the useless ornaments on his head.
Moral: We often think too highly of the ornamental and despise the useful
posted in Deer | No Suggested Morals Yet