In distant, hoary times there lived neighbors: a rooster and a peacock. The rooster was beautiful and smart. His golden feathers, shining dazzlingly, shimmered under the sun's rays. All the birds were jealous of the rooster. Many of them, sitting in the trees, sang plaintively: why don’t they have such a beautiful outfit as a rooster? The rooster was important and proud. He didn't talk to anyone except the peacock. He walked with an important gait and pecked grains just as important.
The rooster was friends with the peacock. Whether he was condescending to the peacock because his outfit was poor, or because he was friends with him because they were close neighbors - I don’t know, but they lived amicably.
One day a peacock was going to a distant land to visit. The peacock was sad that his outfit was too poor. He looked at the rooster with envy and thought: “How lucky I would be if I had such a beautiful outfit like the rooster’s. What do I have? Apart from pitiful feathers, nothing. How can I appear in a foreign land in such a wretched form! No, I’m ashamed to appear like a stranger in this form. Why not turn to the rooster? I’d better ask him for his outfit. Will he really refuse me?”
And the peacock turned to the rooster with this request, promising to return the next morning.
The rooster thought and said:
“What will I do if you don’t show up by dawn tomorrow?”
Peacock replied:
- If I don’t come by dawn, then you shout, I will definitely come to your call. But if I’m not there in the morning, then shout at noon, and if I don’t appear at noon, then shout in the evening. By evening, of course, I will be there.
The rooster believed the peacock, took off his beautiful outfit and gave it to him, and he himself dressed in peacock feathers. In the beautiful outfit of the rooster, the peacock became the most beautiful bird. Joyful and proud, he went to distant lands.
A day has passed. The night has passed. The rooster is waiting for the peacock. But there is no peacock. The rooster began to worry. The rooster could not stand it and cried:
- Ku-ka-re-ku!
And again, again, but there is no peacock. The rooster was sad. Waiting for noon to come. It's noon. The rooster crows again. No peacock. Waiting for the evening. Evening has come. The rooster crows again and calls the peacock, but the peacock has disappeared.
And so the peacock disappeared, and with it the beautiful outfit of the rooster.
Since then, the roosters call the peacock, who has taken away their former beautiful outfit, three times every day - morning, noon and evening.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru