The king's falcon once escaped from the king's hand and landed in the window of a poor woman's house. She seized the falcon, thinking he was some kind of chicken.
"Your owner neglected you badly!" she exclaimed. "Your wings are overgrown, and your beak and talons need clipping. " She hacked away at the falcon's feathers and sawed down his beak and his claws.
"That's better!" she said.
When the king finally found his lost friend, the poor falcon nuzzled the king's hand as if to say, "I never should have left your side, and I will never leave you again."
Inspired by: The English prose version of Rumi in Tales from the Masnavi by A. J. Arberry, story 25.
Notes: This story is also told about Nasruddin in The Sufis by Idries Shah, free to read online at the Idries Shah Foundation; in that version, it is Nasruddin who clips the bird's feathers.
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