The Fir and the Bramble

A vain fir is stopped short in her boasting by a clear-thinking bush.

Introduction

In this Aesop’s Fable, a gloating fir tree and a prickly (in every sense) bramble bush get themselves into a silly argument, which ends with a sobering reminder for the fir.

based on a fable by Aesop of Samos

IN the heat of a quarrel with a bramble bush, a fir tree began singing her own praises. “Shapely is what I am, and tall in perfect proportion; straight up I go, and the very clouds are my neighbours. Yet I am also the joist of the roof, and the keel of the ship. How, prickle-bush, can you compare with such a tree?”

“Take comfort in remembering that” the bramble retorted “when they come to fell you with axe and saw. How you will wish then that you were a bramble!”

And the moral of that is, that a celebrity has more glory than lesser lights, but must also run more risks.

based on a fable by Aesop of Samos

Based on the Greek of Babrius. See also an English version by Laura Gibbs.

Précis

During a heated argument with a bramble, a fir tree enumerated all the ways in which she was superior, in beauty and in usefulness to man. The bramble however simply reminded her that to be useful in house or ship building it was first necessary to be felled — something the bramble did not have to worry about.

The Fir and the Bramble

Introduction

Précis

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