The Eagle and the Fox

A N Eagle and a Fox had lived together as good neighbors, the former on the summit of a high tree, the latter in a hole at the foot of it. One day when the Fox was abroad, the Eagle swooped down and snatched the Fox's cub and carried it up to her nest, thinking that her high dwelling made her secure from the fox's revenge. The Fox returning upbraided the Eagle for such a breach of confidence and begged to have her young one returned to her. Finding that her entreaties availed nothing, the Fox snatched a brand from an altar fire which had been lighted hard by and proceeded to involve the whole tree in flames. The Eagle, to protect her nest and her own young ones, restored the cub to its mother, which she would not do in answer to the most earnest entreaties.