The Snail and the Deer

The Snail and the Deer

Once, in a warm country, lived a deer who was very proud of his swift legs.

He loved racing along paths, leaping over roots, and boasting to everyone who moved more slowly.

One morning the deer saw a snail calmly crawling beside the road, leaving a thin shining trail.

The deer stopped and laughed.

“Snail, where are you hurrying?”

“I’m not hurrying anywhere,” replied the snail.

“That’s good, because no one would notice the difference!” laughed the deer. “By the time you reach the next bush, I could run around the whole square twice.”

The snail raised his feelers and looked calmly at him.

“Speed is a wonderful thing. But you should not laugh at someone who moves differently.”

“Really?” snorted the deer. “Perhaps you think you are faster than I am?”

“Let’s find out.”

The deer stopped laughing.

“Are you challenging me to a race?”

“Exactly. From this square to the well on the other side.”

“Agreed!” cried the deer. “This will be the shortest race of my life.”

But the snail knew something the deer did not.

There were several wells in the village. Snails lived near each one, and they all looked very much alike. Crows who liked sitting on the rims of the wells heard about the race and quickly spread the news.

That evening, the snail gathered his relatives.

“The deer is always mocking those who are slower,” he said. “Will you help teach him not to judge others only by speed?”

The snails agreed.

They made a simple plan. One snail would wait at every well. Whenever the deer arrived and called for his opponent, that snail would appear and answer, “I’m here!”

Morning came.

The deer stood at the starting place, impatiently striking the ground with one hoof.

The snail sat beside him, calm as though he had no race to run at all.

“Ready to lose?” asked the deer.

“Ready to begin,” said the snail.

“One, two, three!”

The deer shot forward. His legs flashed, dust swirled behind him, and within minutes he reached the first well.

He looked back. No one was there.

The deer smiled.

“Mr. Snail! Where are you?”

A little head appeared beside the well.

“I’m here. What took you so long?”

The deer’s eyes widened.

“How?”

“Perhaps we should race to the next well,” suggested the snail.

“Of course!”

The deer ran even faster. This time he did not look to either side. He reached the second well, breathing hard.

“Snail! Where are you?”

Another snail peered from beneath a stone.

“Here I am. I’ve been waiting.”

“That’s impossible!” cried the deer.

He demanded another race.

Then another.

And another.

At every well, the “same” snail was waiting.

“I’m here!”

“I’ve been here for ages!”

“Finally you arrived!”

The deer ran faster and faster, but his legs grew heavy. At last, beside another well, he stopped, sat in the shade, and spent a long time catching his breath.

“Enough,” he said. “I don’t understand how you do it, but I admit it: today I lost.”

Then snails began crawling out from behind the stones, one after another.

The deer stared and counted them.

“One... two... three... There is a whole family of you!”

The first snail slowly came closer.

“We helped one another. You were faster than every one of us. But you were so busy boasting that you never considered that small, slow creatures can be clever and cooperative too.”

At first the deer wanted to protest. Then he remembered how he had laughed at the snail and lowered his head.

“I suppose I deserved that.”

“Next time, simply don’t mock someone for being different from you,” said the snail.

The deer smiled.

“Agreed.”

From then on, whenever the deer met someone slow on the path, he did not laugh.

He remembered very well the day when the fastest legs in the village could not outrun a whole family of tiny snails.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨