The Results of Education

A mother parrot gave birth to two chicks on a mountainside, but both were captured by a hunter while she was away searching for food. One chick managed to escape and was later found and raised with kindness by a wandering holy man in his hermitage, while the other remained trapped in the hunter's cage, kept among hunters and taught only their rough, threatening speech.

Years later, a king, separated from his royal guard when his horse bolted, happened to ride near the hunters' camp. The caged parrot there, raised entirely among violent men, greeted him with alarming, threatening words: "Bind him! Kill him!" -- startling the king so badly that he spurred his horse away in fear.

Riding on to another part of the forest, the king came upon the hermitage where the holy men lived, and there encountered the second parrot, the escaped sibling, who had been raised in a completely different environment. This bird greeted him with warm, gracious hospitality, inviting him to rest, offering cool water and sweet fruit, and calling on the hermits to honor their royal guest properly.

Astonished by the stark contrast between the two parrots, the king asked this second bird to explain, and the parrot recounted his own life story -- revealing that he and the threatening parrot from before had, in fact, come from the very same nest and the very same parents.

The tale closes with the plain observation that the company and environment surrounding a young creature, far more than its origin, shapes what kind of creature it becomes.