Spot's Captivity

A young fawn named Spot, only six months old and still not skilled at the herd's special escape-leap that older deer used to clear hunters' snares, wandered too far ahead one day and was caught in a trap while the rest of the herd escaped to safety.

The hunter, moved by pity at the sight of so young a creature, spared his life and gave him as a gift to a prince, who kept Spot as a beloved pet — bathed, perfumed, fed delicacies, and passed fondly from hand to hand among the curious court.

Despite every comfort, Spot never stopped missing the wild herd he had lost. One night in the rainy season, hearing thunder and watching lightning, his heart grew so full of longing that he recited a verse aloud, asking when he would run with the herd again, bracing against the wind.

The prince, terrified to hear a voice from nowhere and thinking himself possessed by a demon, fled the room in disarray and offered a great reward to any healer who could cure him.

A wise man who happened to be present understood at once and gently explained: it was only the deer, aching with homesickness in the rainy season, that had spoken — not a demon at all.

Relieved and moved, the prince ordered Spot released back into the very forest he had come from. What looked like an unbreakable comfort could never replace the simple freedom of running with one's own kind.