The king, drinking tea on the balcony, spilled a drop of honey.
It fell to the street.
A fly landed on the honey.
Then a spider ate the fly.
A lizard devoured the spider.
A cat grabbed the lizard, and a dog grabbed for it too.
They fought.
The cat's owner came to the cat's defense; the dog's owner likewise.
Their friends and families began fighting.
The palace guard, sent to quell the violence, sided with the cat faction or dog faction, and the rioting spread.
Then civil war.
And so a kingdom fell...
because of a drop of honey.
Inspired by: "A Kingdom Lost for a Drop of Honey" in A kingdom Lost for a Drop of Honey and Other Burmese folktales by Maung Htin Aung and Helen G. Trager, 1968.
Notes: You can read the original story online at Internet Archive. I did my own longer version of the story here: The Drop of Honey.
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