The Serpent and the Eagle – an English fairy tale from Aesop’s Fables with a podcast and list of vocabulary and expressions to improve your vocabulary, listening and reading comprehension
Source of story: Gutenberg Project at www.gutenberg.org
A serpent and an eagle were struggling with each other in deadly conflict.
The serpent had the advantage, and was about to strangle the bird.
A countryman saw them, and running up, loosed the coil of the serpent and let the eagle go free.
The serpent, irritated at the escape of his prey, injected his poison into the drinking horn of the countryman.
The rustic, ignorant of his danger, was about to drink, when the eagle struck his hand with his wing, and, seizing the drinking horn in his talons, carried it aloft.
One good turn deserves another.
You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.
used to say that a person should do something nice for someone who has done something nice for him or her
Source of definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/
English vocabulary and expressions
- Serpent: snake
- To struggle: to fight, tussle, brawl
- To strangle: to kill someone by choking
- To loose: set free, release
- Coil: a series of circular rings or loops
- Irritated: angry, furious, enraged
- Prey: victim, quarry
- Drinking horn: a container like an animal’s horn used to drink from in the past
- Talon: claw
- Aloft: in the air, in flight
