Fable of the Hedgehog and the Birds*

Posted by jlubans on January 11, 2025  •  Leave comment (0)

null

The Latvian Natural History Museum animal of the year 2025 is the irredeemably cute but spiky mammal, the hedgehog.
And the announcement of this year's mammal inspires me to republish an original fable, The Hedgehog and the Birds which first appeared in this blog in March of 2016.

There was a Hedgehog who admired birds and their freedom. Every day, he sat in the meadow and looked to the sky dreaming about flying.
One day he climbed on the cliff and a flock of birds flew over him. The Birds asked him: Come with us, be one of us! Hedgehog was so excited about this idea that he immediately ran over the cliff to fly. And for one moment he flew with the birds. That moment did not last long.

Without wings you cannot fly or, as they say in Africa: A small elephant is not a rabbit.

The puzzling African proverb about small elephants and rabbits inspired this fable about flying hedgehogs.
Wishing you were something you are not does not always make it so.
Icarus, with his glued-on wings, soared too near the sun, and plummeted, like our hedgehog, to his demise.
Hedgehog - who has a special place in Latvian folklore and folk art - might have done better to hop onto a drone to ride alongside the birds.
Aesop has, it seems, little patience with those dissatisfied with their life situation.
The tortoise that badgered the eagle to take him aloft is soon dashed to pieces on a rock.
The bee that implored Jupiter for a weapon against those who steal his honey, gained a stinger only to die using it.
At the same time, the shipwrecked Athenian praying for rescue, is advised by a more pragmatic passenger: While you pray to Athena, start moving your arms! (How often did that bit of advice about helping yourself cross my mind when I was told something could not be done? Floundering, alas, was preferable to doing something.)

*From the 2016 workshop, Wisdom in a Thimble: Managers and Fables led by me at the National Library of Latvia in Riga. Written by Viktorija Vaitkune, Zane Zvaigzne, Gita Rusevica, Elita Vīksna, Agnese Kokneviča, Liene Kalneta and Eva Ausēja.

___________________
ONLY a click away, in plenty of time for Valentine?s Day:

And, my book on democratic workplaces and what leaders can do with limited resources and unlimited imagination, Leading from the Middle, is available at Amazon.

© Copyright all text John Lubans 2025