In the heart of the great green realm, King Lion VIII grew weary of his old companion. She had given him daughters of gentle grace, yet he yearned for a son to secure his throne and carry his name into the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there came to court a swift and beautiful falcon, dark of feather and sharp of wit. Her eyes were bright, her tongue was clever, and she knew the value of her own beauty. She would not accept a hidden nest among the lesser branches. If the King wished to breed her, she demanded a place beside him in the highest boughs: a crown, a household of her own and power enough to protect herself and the child she hoped one day to bear him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lion, blinded by desire, overturned the ancient laws of the canopy. He cast aside his first mate and raised the falcon to the royal perch. She became the second of six wives who would one day share the King\u2019s crown, and the forest marvelled at how swiftly she had risen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jewels glittered upon her feathers. Lands were placed beneath her talons. Creatures who had once ignored her now bowed as she passed. Yet her triumph brought her little peace. She knew how the King had won her, and she knew that the same King might one day weary of her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So she watched the court carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was proud, certainly and her tongue could be cruel when crossed. But beneath her pride lay a fear she dared not confess: that if she failed to give the King the son he desired, the great perch upon which she had built her life might prove no safer than the humble nest she had abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In time, her eggs hatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the child was a daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lion\u2019s delight faded. The falcon tried to please him with wit, beauty and devotion, but the King had begun to look beyond her. Around the throne gathered those who had never forgiven the bird for rising so high. They whispered that she was faithless, treacherous and false. Old enemies sharpened old grievances; new enemies invented new ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The falcon protested her innocence, but the more fiercely she defended herself, the more the court called her proud. At last, the whispers reached King Lion VIII\u2019s ear often enough to become, in his mind, truth. He, who had once defied ancient law for the falcon, now found ancient law convenient once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One grey morning, a silent wolf entered the royal chamber. He came from Calais, carrying a heavy iron axe. The falcon looked from the wolf up to the King. She understood then that the jewels, the lands and the golden perch had never truly belonged to her. They had been gifts from a sovereign whose affection was stronger than law only while his desire remained. She looked once more towards the nest where her daughter slept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then the axe was raised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moral<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pride may build a throne upon a branch, but the axe cares little for the feathers it clips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One grey morning, a silent wolf entered the royal chamber. He came from Calais, carrying a heavy iron axe. The falcon looked from the wolf up to the King. She understood then that the jewels, the lands and the golden perch had never truly belonged to her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,188,215,13],"tags":[443,444,235,445],"class_list":["post-4373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experimental-prose","category-fable","category-history","category-trails","tag-anne-boleyn","tag-falcon","tag-henry-viii","tag-lion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4375,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373\/revisions\/4375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurolit.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}