The Badger Among the Pigs
Once upon a time, at the edge of an old forest where cool waters flowed gently, there lived a proud badger. This badger took pride in the gleam of his jet-black fur and found great pleasure in giving everyone around him lessons in elegance. One day, the scents of walnuts and fruit spreading from the wide farm just beyond the forest made his nose ache. As he drew near the source of the smell, he saw with astonishment a whole herd of pigs revelling in the mud and feeding with appetite. Defeated by the rumbling of his belly, the proud badger set his disgust aside and slipped in among that insatiable crowd. At first he had planned only to nibble a little of the delicious food and return at once to the depths of the forest. But the feast on the table was so sweet that he completely forgot how the day was passing and the mud upon his own back.
In time the noisy and greedy manners of the pigs no longer seemed disturbing to the badger at all. The old and wise hound of the farm saw him from afar and called out to him with a friendly warning. "Hey, brother badger, what business does a noble animal like you have in this noisy herd?" But the badger shook his head boastfully and answered the hound with arrogance. "I am only enjoying these exquisite blessings; their filth will never cling to me." As the hound moved away with a deep sigh, the night suddenly wrapped itself in pitch darkness. Just at that moment the angry farmer, who wanted to protect the crops in his garden, came out with a great net in his hand.
While the pigs, who found no time to flee, trampled one another, the badger too was caught inside the enormous net. As the farmer tightly bound the harmful creatures he had caught, the badger began to thrash about in fear. "Set me free, my friend, I am not one of these dirty pigs, I am only an innocent dweller of the forest!" he cried. The farmer cast a cold and merciless look at the badger and pulled the knot of the net even tighter. "It is not the fur on your back that tells who you are, but the companions beside whom you stand," said the man with resolve. "If you have shared their table, you will of course share their fate as well," he said, and dragged them all away. The badger had to pay the price of his pride and his wrong friendships with regret in a dark cage. Closeness formed with the wrong people is doomed to leave even the purest intentions in the shadow of filth. He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas.