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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

467. THE MOTHER, THE CHILD AND THE CROW
Perry 162 (Chambry 294)

The mother of a small baby consulted a soothsayer who told her that her child would be killed by a crow. Terrified, the mother ordered that a large chest be built and she shut her baby inside, protecting him so that no crow could harm him. She continued in this way, opening the chest at regular intervals in order to give the baby the food that he needed. Then one day, after she had opened the chest and was using an iron bar to prop up the lid, the child recklessly stuck his head out. At that moment, the iron bar -- it was a crow bar -- fell down on top of the boy's head and killed him.

Note: In the Greek the 'crow' (or, rather, korax, the 'raven') appears to have been an actual part of the chest, presumably a bar of black metal with a bend at one end, shaped like an English crow bar.


Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.