Do not expect water to run uphill

A viper pursued by hunters, asked a peasant to save his life.

To hide it from his persecutors, the peasant squatted down and let the snake wrap around his belly.

But when the danger had passed and the peasant asked the snake to leave his refuge, the latter refused to do so. Against the man's belly he felt sheltered and safe.

On his way home, the man saw a heron, approached him and told him in a low voice what had happened. The heron told him to squat down again and force himself to expel the snake. When the snake poked its head out, the heron grabbed it tightly, pulled it out of its shelter and killed it.

The peasant worried that the venom of the snake had remained inside him. Then the heron told him that, to cure himself of the poison of a snake, he had to cook and eat six white birds.

"You are a white bird," said the peasant, "I will begin by eating you." And he took the heron, put it in a bag and took it to his house; He hung up the bag and told his wife everything that had happened.

"I am surprised at your attitude," the woman said, "the bird does you a favor, it frees you from the evil you carried in your belly and, in fact, saves your life, and you catch it and talk about killing it."

Immediately, the woman freed the heron, which went flying. But in doing so, he ripped the eyes of the peasant's wife.

When you see that the water runs uphill, it means that someone is returning a favor.

Unknown origins in Africa

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Do not expect people to do something that are not by nature their way of acting.

The peasant did the favor to the snake that was in a hurry, hoping that it would be grateful and not take advantage of it. But the nature of the snake, as a creeping animal, is not to be grateful and kind, but to be opportunistic and mean, so that the snake acted in the only way that could act to remain feted against the belly of man.

The heron helped the peasant in distress, without noticing that for the human, she is simply food.

And finally the woman, who did not learn anything from the story, freed the heron, who immediately ripped his eyes out.

The moral of this fable can apply in all the days of your life, do not expect the snake does not act like a snake, do not expect the human does not act as a human, do not do a favor waiting for people to act in a way that does not it's their own, do not get in the mouth of a lion, hoping that this, out of kindness, act in a different way to that of a predator, and finally, do not expect the water to run uphill just to return you a favor.