A STAG was chased by the hounds. Blinded by fear he took shelter in a farmyard and hid himself in a shed among the oxen. An ox gave him this gentle warning:

“Unlucky you! Why bring about destruction on yourself like you do? Why like to be in the house of an enemy?”

The stag replied: “Oh, just allow me to stay where I am, and I’ll see what I can do to escape soon enough.”

And so it happened.

When evening came, the herdsman came to feed his cattle. But as luck would have it, he didn’t see the stag. Even the farm-bailiff with several labourers passed through the shed and never noticed him. The stag was happy to be safe in this way, and started to thank the oxen who had helped him in the hour of need.

One of them spoke up again: “We surely wish you well, an animal like ourselves, but the danger isn’t over yet. There is one more guy yet to pass through the shed. This one has as it were a hundred eyes, and till he has come and gone, your life is still in terrible danger.”

At that moment the master himself entered while complaining that his oxen had not been properly fed. He went up to their racks and cried out:

“Why is there so little fodder here? There isn’t half enough straw for them to lie on. Those lazy fellows haven’t even swept the cobwebs away.”

While he was doing his job and inspecting things like that, he caught sight of the tips of the antlers of the stag as they were peeping out of the straw. He called for his labourers and ordered that the stag should be seized and killed.