The Raven, the Horse and the Slug

“Better beans and bacon in peace, than cakes and ale in fear”

-         Aesop, 620 – 564 BC

In a unique, one-off concert earlier today, three actors performed one of Aesop’s lesser known fables on the *C I C A* region (LEA13) – ‘The Raven, the Horse and the Slug’.

Although not generally known to the public, it was reportedly one of Aesop’s personal favourites.

‘The Raven, the Horse and the Slug’ is a tale of how a feathered and winged endothermic egg-laying vertebrate, a odd-toed ungulate mammal and a terrestrial gastropod mollusk challenge each other to a race to prove who is the fastest among them.

They decide the starting point for the race will be a nearby glasshouse where, as Aesop told it, “no stones have known to have been thrown”. The finish line was declared to be the peak of yonder grassy knoll “beyond the loving rain drops”.

The raven, horse and slug take the start line, guardedly checking that the others do not cheat. The sound of the next child laughing would be their starting signal…

And they're off!

The horse rides off towards the hill, quickly building up to a full gallop; the raven soars fast and high intending a parabolic rainbow arc to the mound; the slug sluggishly slugs her way past the starting line…

The raven and horse speed ahead, looking back at the poor slug as she sluggishly slugs herself an 1/8^th of an inch forward.

Neck-and-neck the raven and horse race towards their goal. At the foot of the hill, the horse’s hooves become bogged down by the wet mud from the rain; the raven descends like a stone, closing her eyes to the rain…

The raven wins, followed seconds later by the horse. The slug came in three and a half weeks later.

And the moral of the story is:

“Some times the end result is exactly as you would have expected”.

Credits:

‘The Raven’ performed by Cica Ghost

‘The Horse’ performed by Tutsy Navarathna

‘The Slug’ performed by Pixie Rain

Copyright expired circa 500BC.