[pct-l] A story.....

["Bel&Karen" <rookie@olypen.com>]

Here's a story that is not my own, only has a little part of me and all the
other translations before it.

		Once there was a she-lion who was very heavy with the oncoming birth of
her kits.  Game had been very scarce, and her hunger was great.  She
followed the scent of a herd of sheep for many days, while her body was
getting ready for birth.  Out of desperate need, she hunted down a very
old, lame and scarred ram, but as she lunged at his flank the ram turned
and gouged the she lion badly with the tip of his horn.  The she-lion was
unable to move, and at that moment her body began its birthing.  One kit
came to life through her before she died.
	A ewe had just given birth to a stillborn, and her udder was heavy with
milk as her mother soul was heavy with longing for a babe, and so it was
she heard the helpless cries of the lion kit and nursed it - what mother
can ignore the cry of a newborn, friend or foe?  So it came to be that this
lion was raised among sheep, eating grass, thinking itself one of the
flock.
	The flock happened to pass below a butte, upon which a sage old
grandfather lion sat, his mouth watering with the anticipation of his next
meal.  From his hidden watch, his eye spotted a sight which enraged his
lion soul - there among the sheep was a lion cub!  The grandfather gave a
mighty roar and sprang to his feet.  He descended the butte and charged
into the flock, scattering the sheep in all ways.  He siezed the cub,
screaming, by its nape and carried it away from its birth family.  The
grandfather pinned the cub down with his sinewy paw and roared, `YOU ARE A
LION, NOT A SHEEP!  You disgust me!  You even smell like a sheep, you dumb
and mindless creature!  You were meant to be a king, a fierce beast of all
the land, courageous and wild, not to mindlessly follow and eat grass! 
Look at yourself!  Have you not sharp claws, golden fur, keen eyes, sharp
teeth?"
	And so it was that the grandfather restored natural order, teaching the
lion cub in ways of what it is to be a lion, not a lamb.

	The moral of this story is, if you are a lion, don't be a sheep.  Have
courage, roar!  `Walk the broad distance'
	see you on the Trail..... Shoshanna Coyote-Rains
* From the Pacific Crest Trail Email List |  http://www.backcountry.net   *

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