The Dancing Bird

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

There was a hunter who went out one day and caught a fine young calf. He brought it home, and because he had plenty children, he could not give it to just one of them without the others taking offence. So he let them all have it, to play with and look after. The calf did not die; the children cared for it until it grew used to them.

Now, not far from the hunter’s house, there lived a poor boy with his mother. They had no one to help them, no land of their own, and nothing much besides each other. The hunter’s children would not let the poor boy play with the calf, and the hunter himself would not allow it either. But whenever the hunter and his children went off to their farm, the poor boy would take the calf and play with it all day, then put it back before they came home. He did this again and again.

Then one day, when the boy took the calf as usual, it died in his hands. The boy panicked. He left it there and ran home.

When the hunter and his children returned and opened the place where the calf was kept, they found it dead. They demanded to know who had killed it. At first the boy refused to answer, but they hit him until, at last, he said that he had done it.

The hunter told him, “You will have to replace that calf with another.”

The boy begged and begged, but the hunter would not relent. So the boy took his cutlass and went to set traps. Every day he tried, and every day he caught nothing. And every day he came home empty-handed, the hunter beat him for the calf.

The boy’s mother pleaded too, properly and humbly, but the hunter would not let the matter drop. He insisted the child must repay him. At last the mother said, “All right. Take my child at once, and do whatever you mean to do, but do it in front of me so I can see.”

The next morning the boy went out to set traps again. All day he caught nothing. He came home at evening, crying, saying, “They’re going to beat me again.” Sometimes he hid under his mother’s bed, but it never stopped the beating. Day after day it went on.

Then, one day, in the rain, the boy went out again, crying as he went, and he caught a calf. He was overjoyed, so glad it was almost painful. He brought it home and handed it to the hard-hearted hunter.

Not long after, the boy went walking and came to a great stretch of water. Out there he saw birds, so many of them, dancing and singing above the water as if the whole place were a festival. One bird in particular caught his eye, bright and lively, like a canary, though it was not a canary. He wanted to catch it and bring it home to sing for him.

But there was an alligator in that water.

Still, the boy tried to cross. He slipped and fell in, and the alligator came rushing towards him. The boy swam for his life, fought his way across, and somehow, by luck or stubbornness, he managed to catch one of those dancing birds. Then he crossed back again and ran home with it.

At his house he set the bird down on the floor, and at once it began to sing and dance. People came to see it, drawn by the sound and the excitement. And soon it became a sort of living wonder. Anyone who wanted to watch it brought a small gift, a piece of cloth, a little something, until the poor mother began to have a bit of comfort at last. Even important people came, chiefs and rich folk, bringing presents just to see the bird dance. The boy kept it safe in a basket.

One day the boy went to the farm with his mother, and while they were gone the hunter came sneaking in. He took the boy’s bird out, put it on the floor, and watched it sing and dance. When he saw the boy returning, he hurried to put the bird back. The boy came in and said, “Who took my bird out?” The hunter said nothing. The boy did not argue, but he remembered.

Later, more visitors came with gifts to see the bird. The boy took it out and it danced and sang again. Then he put it away and went off to the farm with his mother.

And again, the hunter took it.

This time, when the hunter set the bird down, it danced a little, then spoke. It said, “If you want me to dance properly, carry me out into the yard. The dance I’ll do out there will be finer than any you’ve seen.”

The hunter believed it. He carried the bird into the yard and put it down.

The bird flew away.

The hunter had been made a fool.

When the boy came home and looked for his bird, it was gone. He asked his mother; she said she did not know. He asked the hunter; the hunter claimed he did not know either. But an old woman told the boy the truth: the hunter had taken the bird out into the yard, and it had flown off.

The boy went straight to the hunter and said, “I want my bird back. Now. Today.”

The hunter tried to talk his way out of it, but the boy said, “Do not try to sweet-talk me. I will burn your house down, right now.”

From that moment, the hunter could not settle. He did not sleep properly, he did not sit still, he wandered the riverbank all day setting traps, trying to catch another dancing bird to replace the one he had stolen. At last he found the same stretch of water where the boy had caught the bird. And there again were the birds, singing and dancing above the water.

The hunter tried to reach them. He slipped, fell in, and the alligator caught him and ate him.

And that, the storyteller said, was what happens when you do wrong to a small child. If you do a little cruel thing, trouble will catch you, and it will be worse than anything you meant to cause.