In a forest where the pines touched the clouds, there lived a Bear who believed that everything he saw belonged to him. If he saw a bush of berries, he ate them all. If he saw a soft bed of moss, he slept on it, even if it belonged to a family of rabbits.
One morning, the Bear found a Beaver working hard on a dam. The Bear wanted to cross the river, but he didn’t want to get his paws wet.
“Small Builder!” the Bear bellowed. “Finish this bridge at once so that I may walk across. If it is not finished by sunset, I shall tear down your lodge and have you for my evening meal.”
The Beaver, though exhausted, bowed low. “Great Bear, the wood here is too soft for your magnificent weight. To hold a King such as yourself, I need the ‘Iron Logs’ from the middle of the Great Marsh. But alas, I am too small to carry them.”
“I am the strongest!” the Bear boasted. “Show me these Iron Logs, and I shall carry them myself.”
The Beaver led the Bear to a patch of deep, black peat and thick, heavy mud that looked solid but was actually a bottomless mire. In the center lay several heavy, water-logged trunks of oak.
“There they are,” the Beaver said. “But you must walk very quickly and stomp your feet hard to keep the mud from ‘sticking’ to your royalty.”
The Bear, eager to show off his power, charged into the marsh. He stomped his heavy feet with all his might, intending to snatch the logs and prove his strength. But with every heavy stomp, he sank deeper into the black muck. The harder he struggled and the more he thrashed his massive limbs, the faster the mud swallowed him.
“Help me, Beaver!” the Bear roared, now chest-deep in the mire.
“I am only a ‘Small Builder,’ remember?” the Beaver replied, nibbling on a willow branch. “I cannot pull an ‘Iron King’ out of the earth. Perhaps if you hadn’t been so heavy with pride, the ground would have held you up.”
The Beaver went back to his dam, and the Bear spent the rest of the day slowly wiggling himself out of the mud, arriving home cold, wet, and very, very humble.
The Moral: Pride adds weight to a man’s footsteps, making it easier for him to sink.
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