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The Fable of the Great Horned Owlby Barry J. Northern There once was a great horned owl who loved to hunt. He became known among the other owls for his great skill, even though his kind were hunters by nature. The other owls loved him, and so it was not long before he found himself a wife and made nest with her.Early in spring the couple's first clutch hatched, and soon five owlets were screeching for food. It was a large family, but Mother did not worry, for her husband's skills meant there would always be plenty for her and her children to eat. Nevertheless, before he set off for work early in the evening, she said to him."I shall miss hunting with you, husband, but I must stay at nest and keep our young ones warm.""Fear not, wife, for I will soon return." And then he swooped off the branch and was lost to the shadows of the deepening night.It was not long before Hunter returned, with food enough for the children. Mother fed her hungry owlets while Hunter flew off to find more food for her. Again he returned quickly, and she said to him."Have you eaten yet, Husband?""No, so I must get back to work.""Will you come back and eat with me? I will wait for you.""I may be some time yet, my love."Now it is the way of their kind for the menfolk to be smaller than the women, so Mother was confused. "Why, husband? For your own meal you need not catch prey so large as this leveret you have brought me, and you caught that quickly enough." "Ah but wife, my fellows have challenged me to hunt the porcupine. They are hard to catch, but they have challenged me and that is that. It will make a fine meal, but I will not be able to carry such a large catch back."Mother was upset that Hunter would not be home to eat with his family, but she knew how much her husband enjoyed the hunt, so she wished him luck. He left in high spirits, and did not return until the sun began to rise; when his wife was already asleep.Now Hunter enjoyed hunting with his fellows, and was proud to be known as the best hunter in the woods. Therefore he hunted long through the night displaying his skill, and accepting their challenges, and so rarely were his owlets awake upon his return, and he did not see them growing, nor did he eat with his wife.One October morning, when the sun had almost fully risen, he returned home triumphant, bursting with news of a tricky bat he had taken when no-one else had been able. He was pleased to find his wife still awake and waiting for him, standing out on the branch facing the low spring sun.Hunter settled next to her and said, "Why are you up so late my wife?""I have been waiting for you."Then Hunter saw the empty nest, and said, "Where are the children?""They are children no longer, husband. Today they have flown away to make their own lives.""But they are not old enough. I was going to teach them how to hunt like their father. Why did they not wait to say goodbye to me?"Then Mother turned to Hunter, and said. "They knew not their father, for he was never here." She shuffled away from him on the branch. "And I no longer I have a husband." And with that she flew from their nest, leaving Hunter to enjoy the fruits of the hunt alone.The desire to hunt left him then, and he remembered his own childhood, and something his own mother used to say came back to him."A family that eats together, keeps together."The Fable of the Great Horned Owl by Barry J. Northern is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here.Music "October" by The Scottish Guitar Quartet from Podsafe Audio.