Stories · By the Water

The Bird Who Would Not Dig the Stream

12 min · Field and river · Wisdom · Letting go

In the old age when the waters were first guided into their channels, every creature of the forest came to shape the banks, all but one small bird, who chose the comfort of a high branch. She learns, slowly and without bitterness, that the flow does not come to those who did not join it, and finds at last a quieter way of being given to by the rain.

Retold from The Book of Nature Myths, by Florence Holbrook.

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Story 11 of By the Water, starting at 2:16:16.