Knjigice
Fairy tale · Animal stories
The Tortoise and the Hare
Aesop's fable of the boastful hare and the steady tortoise
Also in: Želva in zajec (Slovenian) · Korytnačka a zajac (Slovak)
In a wide sunny meadow lived a hare with the longest ears and the fastest legs far and wide. Everyone knew it, for the hare talked of nothing else. "I'm quick as lightning!" he boasted. When the tortoise crawled past, he hooted: "You'd barely reach the first daisy by evening!" The tortoise looked at him calmly. "I am slow, it's true. But wherever I set out for, I get there."
1
"You know what," said the tortoise, "let's race. To the old oak at the far end of the meadow." The hare laughed until he rolled in the grass. "You? Against me? That will be the shortest race in the world!" But the news spread faster than the wind. The fox brought a chequered flag. "I shall be the judge," she said. "Tomorrow morning, when the sun wakes up, we begin!"
2
By morning a little crowd had gathered at the start: the hedgehog, two field mice and a crow on a branch. "Ready… steady…" called the fox, and swung her flag. "Go!" The hare shot off like an arrow, leaving a cloud of dust behind him. When the dust settled, the tortoise took her first step. Then another. Step by step.
3
The hare raced across the meadow, leaped the ditch and turned three somersaults on the little hill so everyone could see. "Look at me!" he called. The mice clapped their paws, the hedgehog giggled into his prickles. The hare bowed in every direction like a circus star. The tortoise was nowhere in sight — still far, far behind. But her legs kept going. Step by step.
4
The tortoise came to a little brook chattering over the stones. She didn't stop and she didn't sigh. She found the shallows and crossed, stone by stone, slow and sure. "Keep going!" cawed the crow from a willow. The tortoise smiled, shook a drop off her nose and crawled on. The sun crept across the sky, just as slowly as she did. Step by step.
5
The hare was now so far ahead that he couldn't see the tortoise even as a dot. "The oak is just a hop away," he yawned. "I have all the time in the world." He stretched out in the shade of a leafy tree, folded his paws behind his head and shut his eyes. "Just one little minute…" he murmured. And in a moment he was snoring for the whole meadow to hear.
6
Meanwhile the tortoise crawled past a hollow log and slowly up the slope. She came to the tree where the hare lay snoring, mouth wide open. She didn't wake him. She didn't stop. Quietly, ever so quietly, she went past his long ears and on toward the oak. The afternoon sun drew long shadows. Step by step, always onward.
7
"Caw! Caw!" screeched the crow. The hare opened one eye — the sun was already low! He looked toward the oak and sprang up like a spring: the tortoise was almost at the finish! He ran as he had never run in his life. His ears streamed behind his head, his feet barely touched the ground. "Wait!" he panted. "Waaait!"
8
But it was too late. The tortoise took one last step and touched the old oak with her nose — just as the hare came thundering past the last daisy. The fox swung her flag: "The tortoise has won!" The hedgehog, the mice and the crow cheered till it echoed across the meadow. The hare stood still. His breath was gone, and his long ears drooped like two sad leaves.
9
The hare stared at the ground a long while. Then he walked to the tortoise and offered her his paw. "You won fair and square," he said. "I boasted too much and ran too little." The tortoise smiled: "Slow and steady wins the race." And from then on, whenever they met, they walked a while together — the hare a little slower, the tortoise, as ever, step by step.
10The End
