There lived a hawk in a pine forest - light eyebrows, yellow eyes, a speckled gray breast.
And, believe it or not, the hawk had a pearl necklace, and on its head, on the very top of its head, there was a scarlet comb.
And the hawk was also very kind. Very kind and sociable. And so he kept flying to the village to visit the rooster and chicken, staying with them for whole days.
Sometimes he would peck barley and wheat from the feeding trough with them, and he would say gratefully to the hen:
- What a delicious treat! Come on, little hen - hazel grouse, I’ll teach you to fly for this...
But the chicken wants to fly, but she looks not so much at the hawk, but at his necklace, at the snow-white pearls on a thin string:
- Oh, wow, I wish I could have such a charm!
And after the hawk, she will flap her short wings, fly a little over the lawn, and stare at the hawk’s necklace, forget to flap her wings and tumble... She’ll take off, stare and tumble... So her flight training didn’t go any further than that.
Meanwhile, the rooster kept looking at the hawk's comb. At that time, he himself had only smooth feathers growing on the top of his head, and the rooster, too, like a hen, thought:
“If only I could have a wonderful decoration like our guest’s on my head...”
And at first the rooster decided to grow his own scarlet comb himself.
At the scarlet dawn he will awaken, crow, and stand under a wide burdock covered in dew. He stands there, waiting for a drop of dew, pink from the dawn, to drip onto his head. And then the dewdrop - splash! - and the rooster shudders and rushes to the chicken coop:
-Look! Is there something growing on the top of my head? The chicken looks and says:
- No...
And then the rooster waits for rain and a rainbow. And when the rain fills the puddles, and a rainbow is reflected in them, the rooster tries to scoop up the rainbow with his paw and splash himself with seven-colored water.
Then he asks the chicken again:
- Well, what now?
“And now,” the chicken answers, “there’s nothing again.” Even the sharp-eyed baby chickens say:
-You still have the same feathers. They are just wet.
And so the rooster grieved and grieved, and out of grief he decided to do something uncommendable. I found a couple of seeds of the intoxicating sleep grass behind the owner's hut, behind my chicken coop, and in the thistles outside the yard. And when the hawk came to visit, the rooster slipped the seeds into the trough, into the barley.
- Peck, dear hawk, here... From this region the treat is sweeter.
- Well! - the hawk rejoices. - If it’s sweeter, then we’ll bite it!
And - he pecked. And when he took the bait, sleepy circles appeared in his eyes. And he yawned, staggered, and fell right next to the trough. He lies with his head under his wing, even snoring; the chicken gasps:
- Ah! For some reason he fell asleep!
“Don’t gasp,” the rooster hurries, “but take the necklace.” You really wanted this.
Yes, he took the necklace off the hawk himself and threw it on the chicken; He also pulled the comb cap from the hawk’s head and put it on the top of his own head.
“Now,” he says, “we’re running to hide... Only the rooster really rushed off, and the hen can’t even take a step.” She tilted her head to the side, looked at the necklace on herself, and rolled her eyes with happiness:
- Oh-oh! Kwok-kwok!
But then the sleepy seeds stopped working - the hawk woke up. He feels that his head is cold, that there is no comb, he saw his pearls on the chicken: all kindness is away from the hawk.
- Oh, you! How shameful of you! She also learned to fly from me!
“It’s not me...” the chicken retreats, embarrassed. - It was all arranged by the rooster...
Yes, the hawk is no longer listening. The hawk pulled the necklace towards itself with its crooked talons, the thin thread stretched. It stretched, burst - the pearls scattered in small hail across the grass, fell into the dense foliage, into the tall daisies.
And then, in response to the noise, the owner jumped out of the hut, stomped on the porch, and angrily waved his hand:
- What kind of uninvited guest is in my yard? Shoo! The hawk has nothing to do. The hawk now has to save himself. He flew without pearls, without a comb, to his distant forest. All he had time to do was threaten the chicken:
“As you and the rooster did to me, so now I will be with you... You stole the most precious thing from me, and someday I will take away the best from you!”
That's right. The hen took the chicks for a walk, walked with them, admired them.
The rooster also rejoices at the children, proudly shaking his scarlet comb:
-That's what our guys are like! Fluffy, dark-eyed.
Suddenly a quick shadow fell across the yard. The rooster sees - the hawk! Yes, it’s not just that he, the hawk, is now flying, but he’s aiming at the rooster and the chickens with his claws.
- Guard! - the rooster was alarmed. “Now our chickens will be in trouble, and I myself will be left without a comb!”
Chickens, a rooster, and a hen dived under the low porch. They scream and call the owner for help again. And the hawk rustled its wings just above the porch and threatened more menacingly than before:
- Hide, don’t hide - now it will always be like this!
The rooster became depressed:
- Ohohonyushki... We'll have to, little hen, we'll have to fix this matter somehow! It’s a pity to return the comb, but the pearls should be returned... Let’s go look for them after all.
But the precious beads have already been rolled out into their underground storerooms by little mice and moles. And the rooster and hen found nothing but earthworms the first time, or even the second and third time...
They are still looking for pearls. They search with the chickens. And when they see a hawk, the whole herd runs under the porch. And, one wonders, why? Yes, all just because the rooster and hen only once, but still envied the beauty of someone else.
They envied someone else's beauty, but forgot about their own. After all, if at the very beginning they had asked their own chickens: "Who is more beautiful? The hawk with a comb and a necklace, or we, your parents, without a comb and without a necklace?" - then the chickens would answer instantly: “Of course, you!”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru