The Envious Peahen

There was once a peahen who was very jealous of her husband’s beautiful bright tail feathers.

“Just look at him”, she’d say, bitterly, “Strutting up and down thinking he’s the bee’s knees.  Why can’t I have a fancy tail like his?  It’s just not fair”.

And so the peahen decided she would make her own tail and she went around gathering up anything that looked pretty and bright like other bird’s feathers or flower petals or blossoms that had fallen from trees, tying them onto her tail.

But the other creatures in the forest where she lived all thought she looked very silly with her fake tail and whenever she tried to strut about like a peacock her tail would just fall off.

Eventually the peahen gave up trying to copy her husband but her bitterness wouldn’t go away and, one night, in a fit of jealous rage she leapt on her husband and ripped out all his lovely tail feathers with her beak and claws.

The poor peacock. He was very sad about losing his tail and all the other creatures in the forest were sad too because they missed its bright colours.

But then, one day, the bright sun peered into the forest and heard the peacock sobbing and noticing that it had lost its tail asked the peacock what had happened.

Sadly the peacock told the sun what the peahen had done.

“And where are the feathers now?” asked the sun.

The peacock pointed to a pile of feathers that were lying on the ground nearby.

“Then I will put your peacock feathers where everyone can admire them”, said the sun, “And all the creatures in the forest when they see them will smile and say ‘There is peacocks tail’”.

And, picking up the peacocks feathers the sun spread them out across the sky and they became the first rainbow and, after that, even the envious peahen couldn’t help sighing and thinking how beautiful they were.