The badger and the pigs

No. 7 on the route
 

As the days shorten and the leaves fall

a farmer from the Helbroek releases his pigs.

To the Felt migrates the mob, where among wooded banks

the acorns lie ready on the nutritious moss.

Where they gulped and gorged, a beautiful sight

and the bellies get fat as the farmer likes it.

One day, a badger lying in the thicket thinks:

'Tis time I too enjoyed such a snack.

A badger among pigs, that doesn't bother a dog,

so the badger scurries along, snatching acorns for two.

His belly is getting fatter and fatter and round,

won't be long before the badger counts as a piggy.

The day that comes next, you would rather forget,

Because sharp is the knife the farmer then comes with.

'Come here tender critters and thanks for the food,

now it's my turn, I'm eating my fill.

'But ho, wait a minute,' then says our badger,

If the animal is grabbed by its skin:

'I'm not a pig anyway, leave that knife in your bag,

Look closely at my head, at those stripes!

'May well be,' said the farmer, 'every boar's excuse,

but no pig will escape its fate here.

'I'll butcher you as it should be, just say 'bye' real quick

because your meat I can sell very well.

Quick a ruse, thinks the badger, for the knife is getting close

And then he shouts, "A dog, 'k's a dog!

And he then claws his paws like a Friesian stabby

And digs deep, very deep into the ground.

Ah, the farmer gets compassion when he looks at the piglet,

With those stripes so white, on his nice muzzle.

Release him, but the badger who digs through, yes he builds

rap a fortress and by day he never comes out of it.

© 2021 Geurt Franzen

after a fable of Phaedrus