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The Farmer and The Cranes

Certain Cranes made a Farmer's newly-sown fields their home. The Farmer, for a time, was able to drive them off with an empty sling. The Cranes, however, soon learned the sling was empty and would not hurt them and so stayed when the Farmer next approached. Seeing this, the Farmer used stones in the sling and killed some of the Cranes when they did not move. The remaining birds saw this and decided the prudent thing to do would be to leave; which they did.

Townsend version

Some cranes made their feeding grounds on some plowlands newly sown with wheat. For a long time the Farmer, brandishing an empty sling, chased them away by the terror he inspired; but when the birds found that the sling was only swung in the air, they ceased to take any notice of it and would not move. The Farmer, on seeing this, charged his sling with stones, and killed a great number. The remaining birds at once forsook his fields, crying to each other, "It is time for us to be off to Liliput: for this man is no longer content to scare us, but begins to show us in earnest what he can do."

Moral

If words suffice not, blows must follow.

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