A worker put some wood into the furnace of an unlit boiler then tried to light it.

“What are you doing?”  his boss said.  “Studies show that there is a tight correlation between the amount of the wood and the heat of the fire.  Corporate wants us to do nothing but add more  wood.  Everything else is a waste of time.”

Moral:  You cannot start a fire by adding more wood.

Related: Light a Fire that will Never Go Out

And thus we saw, in the heavenly vision, the glory of the telestial, which surpasses all understanding;

And no man knows it

There was a large heap of wood in the campfire ring. But when the man tried to light it, it would not light. The wood was laid too thickly. The flames choked out. Much of the wood was punky and would by no means take a light.

The man removed bad wood and more bad wood and overstocked wood until all that was left were a small stick and three twigs. But those caught the flame and burned with light.

(more…)

Following on from Part I, read it first.

The wizard lands were stagnant. Millions striving to create their own language, their own script, their own scales, and not succeeding. Some few succeeding in a minor ways. A mere handful truly achieving greatness . . . and then dying, and their greatness dying with them.

The land without magic was not stagnant. Gleaming towers were there; and gleaming rockets to the Moon, and to Mars; and gleaming teeth. They were not stagnant. But if an angel were to jerk back the veil on time, you would see that their trajectory was a curve. Up and then over and then down. It would take no angel to see the signs that were already there. Their arts were complex enough now that no one person could achieve much in the way of greatness. But they were so far removed from want that struggle and suffering were no longer spurs to them either. Their growth had slowed. Movements and ideas insulated from reality were starting to spread. Individuals who wanted greatness were fighting for preeminence and celebrity instead. They had grown slowly and then for a few dizzying decades had grown very quickly. Now they would decline slowly and then very quickly.

But if the way of magic didn’t work, and the way of the country without magic didn’t work, what then?

A new thing was seen in the land. A boy was inspired with a new language. In it there were rules that made the language individual for each speaker. It captured their experience and their character. Their words would be shaded by their relationships with their family and their friends. Their achievements were built in. Only they could speak it. But others could understand them. Each one who learned the rules was able to create their own language, and speak words of power. And the words they spoke together, the songs they sung together, were more powerful still.

There once was a boy who was set to watch sheep. Some wolves gathered and he ran to the village for help. “Wolves! Wolves!” he cried. But shockingly, in describing the wolves he said that some of them were “bitches.” This was offensive. The villagers beat him a bit and then the village elder took him aside to counsel him. When the boy said that the wolves were already among the sheep right then, the village elder pointed out that the delay was entirely the boy’s fault. The slain sheep must be on the boy’s conscience. Finally the boy was let go to salvage the situation as best as he could on his own.

Wolves learn from experience even if boys do not, so the next time the wolves attacked they behaved and dressed in a very peculiar fashion, like an outrageous gay stereotype. The boy fought them but finally had to run to the village for help. He described the wolves as ‘acting gay.’ The villagers would have reacted badly in any case to this association of sexual minorities with vicious predatory beasts but they were even more concerned given the boy’s prior history of offensive conduct. They beat him thoroughly and lectured him long.

The next time the boy ran into town he said the wolves were painted in blackface and saying “n*****.” The villagers had put up with the boy’s antics for a long time, but saying “n*****” was really too much. They beat him almost to death and drove him out.

It was too bad about the sheep.

The ruler of that land was called the Tiger King.  He lived in great luxury and had utter sway from harvest to harvest.

When the harvest was in, he stepped down.  The time for choosing who would next wear the Tiger Crown came.

The choosing went like this.  They had a certain large field where they held a combat.  The last man standing among all the aspirants took the Tiger Crown for the next year.  But this was no ordinary combat.  Each man had to be mounted on a tiger.  Either his own, or one that would be provided.

More men were laid low by their own tiger then by another’s blows. (more…)

A great bear came out of his winter cave to see the sun rising pink over the still snow-patched fields and meadows.  The bare trees were dark against that brilliant light.  The bear was overwhelmed and had what he felt was a vision of true insight.  “Beauty is good,” he said to himself.

He painstakingly set to etch patterns in each claw using his other claws and gentle patient nibbles with his great jaw.  It took a long time.  The changes were subtle.  But when he was done he was an ordinary bear in all other respects, but each claw was truly beautiful.

In his rejoicing, he lifted a great log and tossed it, and felt the joy and glory of his strength.  “Strength is good,” he said to himself, and then improved his strength in the ways that even bears can do.  When he felt himself to be truly strong, even for a great bear, and with his claws truly beautiful, he went forth slashing and destroying.  He knocked down and ripped and tore and left broken trees and dying animals and dead men and women in his wake and horrible death and corruption.  In that way he became the first ogre and the grandfather of all that kind.

Moral:  Beware isolated beauty.  Beware isolated truth.

In a certain country there was a city that had a crown without a king and a throne without a monarch.  Elders ruled the place until a king should come.  The people were not just waiting, no.  Because in fact there was a test.  From time to time the elders would approach a likely candidate and test him to see if he was the new king.  The details of the test were not generally known, but the people did know the test was administered from time to time, though so far no candidate had been successful.  It was not known exactly what criteria the elders used.  They seemed to pay particular attention to the gleaming athletes in the gymnasia, but there were other ways too.  Again, the details were not generally known.

There was a man in that place who one day wondered why the king should not be him?  He was already fit but now he dedicated himself to athleticism and beauty.    He was frequently seen in the gymnasium, gleaming with olive oil, wrestling in the nude or hurling a discus or running.  He grew stronger and swifter and more handsome.  The people began to glory in him and as he did he felt the taste of kingship coming stronger over him.  But still no call from the elders came, so one day he went to them. (more…)

An ape scraped together some education and a chalkboard.  RULES, he wrote on it.

RULE NUMBER ONE: SHARE YOUR FOOD

He called the animals together and showed them the rule.  The lion had his doubts, but the ape reminded him that even kings were beneath the law.  By way of teaching the rule by example, the ape helped himself to generous samples of every animal’s food.

Later the ape gathered some tender shoots and was munching on them.  A number of animals who liked that sort of food gathered round for their share.  But “ah,” said the pe, and led them back to the chalkboard clearing.  There, written clearly under Rule Number One, was the following:

EXCEPTION ONE: Unless the Food is a Luxury.

Sharing is for necessities, the Ape explained.  Tender shoots are a delicacy, not a necessity.

The monkey objected, “you ate  most of my banana.   That wasn’t a necessity.”

“Oh, they are for apes,” the ape replied.  “But in any case . . .”  He turned to the chalkboard and wrote a new exception.

EXCEPTION TWO:  Unless the Food Requires Effort to Prepare.

“I had to dig for these tender shoots,” the ape explained.

“And I had to climb the tree for the bananas and you made me peel it for you!” was the monkey’s hot reply.

“I feel sorry for you, friend,” the ape said.  “But Exception Two didn’t exist back then.”

Moral:  the rules created by rule manipulators aren’t real rules.  The explanations they make aren’t real explanations.

Every day the flock trekked down all the way to the  river for a drink.  They went the same way every time; it was the closest point in the river, and the path had been trodden smooth.

One day, when they set of, an alert member of the flock said she saw some flickers of movement away off at their destination along the river.  The ram halted the flock for awhile and sniffed the air.  “Wolves, perhaps,” he said, and headed off the path into the rough country alongside the path to cross to a different point on the river.

At that, however, another member of the flock who was already showing signs of distress became even more agitated.

“You are breaking the norm!” she bleated.

Moral: We sometimes try to allay our fears with tried and trusted normalcy, when it is our normal course that has made us vulnerable to danger.

I dreamed Miss Swan went gliding along the sparkling water, white and sinuous and effortless, and as she came by Mr. Stork she gave a demure and graceful bob of her head.

Mr. Stork, he bowed.  His stilt legs pushed back and his stilt body pushed forward.

And just like from her, from him I had an impression of great beauty.  In his own way.  It was not curved and elegant.  It was angular.  But it was a real bow with real grace–his body lent itself to the essence of bowing–and it was distinctly like a stork.

Moral: achieve the glory that is yours.

The old mansion on the edge of the woods rambled on and on.  Room after room after room.  Passage after passage.

It was said to be haunted.

It was said to lead to treasures if you went in far enough.

It was said that deep in, it led to other times and other places.

One boy went exploring far in and came to a peculiar double door.  The door was ornate and carved round about.  It led to what looked to be a large dark hall.  Not a passageway.  A hall in the old manorial sense.  But it was hard to see because the room was nearly pitch black.  There may have been, the boy was almost certain he saw, a gleam far off.  Some intuition told him that through the hall was the way to marvels.

But it was nearly pitch black and as he progressed a little way he discovered it was full of obstacles.  Things  lying on the ground, furniture, whatever it was, he kept tripping and falling.  Worse, he didn’t know where the other side was.  But Determination.  Grit.  Willpower.  He pressed on.  When he fell too  many times, he groped his way back to the opening doors–thankfully he’d left them open–and fell again and tried again.  Over and over, because Never Give Up.  He might still be there today, except along came another boy.  That boy had brought a light.

Comment: This is a story about a lot of things, but one thing it is about is grace.  Or revelation, which is a form of grace.  Only the Light will get you through.

A man who read stacks of books needed a new bookshelf.  After some thought, he found the a space for the shelves on one end of a room.  They fit perfectly.  He put the shelves up and filled them with books.

But he had put them up in front of cupboards, which he could no longer get to.

Moral: Think about the problems you could be creating, not just the problem you are trying to solve.

A castle builder decided to get really analytical.

“Statistics show,” he said, “that 95% of the part of the castle defenders use in combat is the top 5 feet.  But the lower parts of the castle are the great majority of the time and the expense of building.”

He mused.

“Think of how much more effective I can build if I skip straight to the only useful part instead of being blinkered by hidebound traditionalism.  I will call it The Castle in the Air ™!”

Moral: Numbers are no substitute for wisdom.

A troop of monkeys occupied a copse of trees one day where a path led down to a river.

A pride of lions used to take the path every day and were shocked when suddenly they found themselves under a rain of flung sticks, monkey poop, and rotten fruit.  Ducking, dodging, and growling, they  hustled off.

The monkeys loudly congratulated each other on their victory.  They then started to discuss the lions’ countermeasures.  Some said the lions would lie in wait at night and slowly try to pick off the monkeys.  Some said the  lions would sprint through in terror.  Others said they would just suffer the monkeys’ abuse.  The trees soon rang with the angry chatter of a hundred different arguments.

The next day, the lions came casually along the path as normal.  When they came close to the copse they cut away from the path and made a beeline for another point on the river, equally convenient.  Their new route kept them out of range of the trees.

Moral:  ???

Comment: This fable is meant as a companion to the fable of the Harassed Aurochs.  The lions were too strong and too indifferent for what they did to be considered a surrender.  It was masterful indifference. (more…)

A particular hunter took it into his head that if he could bell a few aurochs, the herd would be easy to find whenever he wanted.

The hunter persisted in his efforts for days. And mostly for nights. Night after nights the aurochs would find the hunter slowly creeping up on them with muffled bells and would have to flee or drive him off.

The nuisance wore on and on.

One bright morning an auroch cow made her way through the herd to the lead bull. She had a complacently bovine look on her face. Indeed, she looked smug.

“At least we can get some sleep,” she announced to the bull. “I have the answer.”

“Go on,” said the bull.

“By the hunter’s village there is a large pen. Let us go into that pen every night. The hunter will always know where to find us, so he will have no need to harass us with his sneaking and his bells.”

Moral: Surrenders are not solutions.