A folk tale is astory originating among the people and handed down by them. There aremeny flok tales in SriLanka. Here is one of them. This story is about the weaver bird.
Long ago, there was a skilled basket weaver. He was able to weave beautiful cane baskets. One day one of his friends came to his house and admired the beautiful baskets.Then he asked the weaver whether he could teach this craft to his son. Then the weaver gave the following reply.
“I can teach how to weave but he will have to help me in my work.” Heagreed to that condition and after one weekhis son came to the weaver’s house and began to work with him. Everyday, the boy had to go jungle and bring back some cane.It was a very difficult task. But he did everything happily. Within a short time the boy lernt toweave beautiful baskets. He could work faster than the weaver.
the weaver was jelous of the boy. One night, the weaver killed the boy. God sakra sow it. He was very angry. He disguised him self as an old man and came to the weaver’s house.
”Why did you kill that innocent boy?” he asked. The weaver thought for awhil and dicided to tellthe truth.
”I was jelous of the boy. So I killed” he said.
”You told me the truth. You will be able to weaver beautifully, but Iam going to change you in to a bird”said God sakra. the old weaverlooked sad.
”You killed your friend’s son. Your enemies will try to harm youryoung ones. You will have to work hard to protect them.” God sakra said. At once, the weaver vanished. In his place there was alittle brown bird. That bird is the weaver bird. It has to work hard to make its nest safe for its young ones. The enteranceto the nest is at the bottom, so snakes cannot get into the nest. The weaver bird is able to protect its young ones.
