The Lion's Son and the Man
Once upon a time, deep in a dense forest where cool waters murmured, there lived a magnificent family of lions. The old king's young son took pride in his arrogance, believing himself the strongest being in the forest. The old father lion, however, always warned his son to beware of the creature called man. The little lion made light of his father's warnings and believed that no living thing in the world could be stronger than himself. At last one morning, despite all his father's efforts to stop him, he set out to find man and prove his strength. As he passed through the thick bushes, he met a weary horse carrying a heavy load on its back. Roaring proudly, the young lion asked why the horse went about so crushed and cowed, and whom it served.
Sighing, the horse complained of the unbelievable cunning and the oppression of the man who bound him with chains. Then on the road he met an enormous ox that trudged along with a ring in its nose, and he put the same question to him. The ox too said with deep sorrow that man, with his sharp mind, had condemned him to the yoke. Angered by these cowardly answers, the young lion increased his curiosity and his rage toward man even more. Just then he saw beside the path a thin man who was cutting wood with an axe in his hand. With a mighty roar the lion planted himself before the man and asked whether he could defeat him. Without turning a hair, the man said that his strength had stayed at home, but that he could fetch it if he wished.
Before going, the cunning man asked the lion to put his head into a split log so that he would not run away. The green lion, far too confident in his strength, wedged his head into the crack in the middle of the log without a thought. The man at once pulled the wedges out of the log and left the young lion pinned and helpless. However hard the trapped lion struggled, he understood that brute strength was of no use against the mind. When the man set free the lion who had learned his lesson, the young prince returned to his father in shame. Brute force is always doomed to bow before human intelligence. Brain is better than brawn.