Slow And Steady Wins The Race

Slow And Steady Wins The Race

The Tortoise And The Hare was the only story I remember that my mom read to me.

In my opinion, this story sucks, but it has a good moral. Before I say that I am gonna rant about how much it sucks. As a young chap, this was my go-to bed story, when I was seven. It was a simple story and wasn’t confusing. That was great because I could read at all in the first grade. But now that I am reading it back, the story kind of sucks, it’s still my favorite and it will always have a place in my heart for this story.

A little about the story. This story comes from Aesop's Fables and it’s one of his most known. It is a compilation of short stories about animals that act like people. Each story has a moral to it. They are attributed to Aesop, a Greek who lived in the sixth century Bc, but many of them are far earlier. The Tortoise and the Hare and The Fox and the Grapes are two well-known tales. And the ones I know have morals, some aren’t the best, but they can give you pretty good morals, I would say.

The moral of the story is slow and steady wins the race.

Tortoises are reptiles belonging to the Testudinidae family of the Testudines order. They are unique among turtles in that they are totally land-dwelling, whereas many other turtle species are at least somewhat aquatic. Leporids, such as hares and jackrabbits, belong to the genus Lepus. Hares are related to rabbits and belong to the same family. They're about the same size as rabbits and eat the same kind of plants, but they have longer ears and live alone or in couples.

Legally hares are faster than tortoises, but who needs logic, when you have fables (Fables are brief stories that teach a moral lesson. In the fable of the wolf and the sheep, for example, a wolf dressed as a sheep can simply infiltrate the sheep's pasture and make a meal of the sheep without raising any alarm. The conclusion of the story is that first impressions are often deceiving).

I hate this story, but childhood memories are great. Now the story:

A Hare was making fun of the Tortoise one day for being so slow.

“Do you ever get anywhere?" he asked with a mocking laugh.

"Yes," replied the Tortoise, "and I get there sooner than you think. I'll run you a race and prove it."

The Hare was much amused at the idea of running a race with the Tortoise, but for the fun of the thing, he agreed. So the Fox, who had consented to act as judge, marked the distance and started the runners off.

The Hare was soon far out of sight, and to make the Tortoise feel very deeply how ridiculous it was for him to try a race with a Hare, he lay down beside the course to take a nap until the Tortoise should catch up.

The Tortoise meanwhile kept going slowly but steadily, and, after a time, passed the place where the Hare was sleeping. But the Hare slept on very peacefully; and when at last he did wake up, the Tortoise was near the goal. The Hare now ran his swiftest, but he could not overtake the Tortoise in time.

This story will always be at the bottom of my heart and I am pretty sure it’s called the hare and the tortoise, but it sounds better the other way. The moral of this is don’t go slow unless you are in a race vs a hare and you are in a fable. If you aren't in a fable then go fast.