Checking in with Aesop........................

A Woodman went into the forest and begged of the Trees the favor of a handle for his Axe. The principal Trees at once agreed to so modest a request, and gave him a young ash tree, out of which he fashioned the handle he desired. No sooner had he done so than he set to work to fell the noblest Trees in the wood. When they saw the use to which he was putting their gift, they cried, "Alas! alas! We are undone, but we are ourselves to blame. The little we gave has cost us all: had we not sacrificed the rights of the ash, we might ourselves have stood for ages."

Moral:  In yielding the rights of others, we endanger our own.

Aesop's Fable: The Trees and the axe

illustration via