Arturi's Tale
There once was a Fox, renowned for his wisdom and skill, who dwelled with his kit in the misted woods. On a cold, moonlit night, a pair of Sparrows brought him their child, the tendrils of Death clutching its shivering body. The Fox took the chick into his den, but for all his knowledge, he could not cure its ailment, and it breathed its last in his paws.
Driven mad in their grief, the vengeful Sparrows, aided by four of their kin, stole the Fox’s kit in the night. They delivered him to the Wolf, who had long hungered for the taste of fox-flesh. The Wolf devoured the kit, and the Sparrows departed to return to their flock.
When the Fox found what the Sparrows had done, rage clutched his own heart. In his cunning, he knew that the Rats, in their burrows beneath the earth, had always despised the songs of the Sparrows far above. The Fox descended to the kingdom of the Rats, and he promised them a forest free of the songs of the Sparrows. Intrigued, the Rats agreed.
The Rats could not find the Sparrows’ nest alone. But the crafty Fox could, and as the Sparrows slumbered in the hollow of a great oak, the Rats fell upon them to feast with tooth and claw. For the crimes of six, the flock perished, with nary an egg spared.
The misted wood is darkened, now, and the trees no longer sing with the songs of the Sparrows. But some say that the Rats hunt still—that a lone chick yet escaped their clutches, and that one day, they will find it, and gobble it up like the rest.