Once upon a time, in a great barnyard that stretched as far as the eye could see, there lived a proud Rooster.
He was not the largest bird, nor the fiercest, but his voice carried farther than any other. At dawn his cry reached every corner of the yard, and all the animals gathered beneath his perch. “See how strong we are when we rise together,” he would crow, and for a while the farm seemed united by his song.
But unity is fragile, like a rainbow after rain. The Rooster, clever and ambitious, feared the return of the chaos that had once torn the barnyard apart. So he built tall fences and dug deep ditches, and he told the hens, the ducks, and even the smallest chicks that only by keeping together under his cry would they remain safe. “The Fox is always watching,” he warned. And indeed, from the shadows beyond the field, a sly Fox watched carefully.
The Fox was patient. He knew he could not leap the fences nor fight the Rooster outright. Instead, he studied the yard. He noticed the ducks quarreled with the hens over feed. He saw the black-feathered chicks kept apart from the white. He heard the older ***** complain that the Rooster’s crow was too loud, while the young whispered that it was not loud enough.
The Fox thought: Why should I attack when the Rooster himself guards them so tightly? Better to let the birds quarrel until they forget who the true enemy is.
So the Fox crept close and whispered through the cracks in the fence. To the hens he murmured, “The ducks steal your grain.” To the ducks he hissed, “The hens think themselves better than you.” To the chicks he cooed, “The Rooster does not care for your color.” And to the Rooster himself he sighed, “You are the only one who can save them — cry louder, build higher fences, or they will turn on you.”
The Rooster, proud and watchful, answered each whisper with louder cries and stricter rules. The barnyard was filled with noise: hens clucking, ducks quacking, chicks chirping, the Rooster crowing. Every bird spoke, but none listened. The rainbow of feathers that once shone together became only two harsh colors — red and blue — each louder and more certain than the other.
And all the while, the Fox sat in the shade of the fence, grinning. He needed no claws nor teeth. His weapon was patience, his victory assured by the birds’ own divisions.
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Moral
A farmyard that fears the Fox may build fences and crow loudly, but if it forgets that unity is its true defense, it will be undone not by the Fox’s bite, but by his whispers