The Prized Steer

The story of the prized steer is a popular Sharan cautionary tale that teaches the reader the folly of relying overmuch on mystics and fortune-tellers. The story is of particular interest to Dominion anthropologists and sociologists as its rationalist thrust serves as an interesting contrast to the highly superstitious cultures of the Sharan Peninsula.

Summary

The tale of the prized steer begins with a proud farmer, his prized steer, and the approaching spring harvest celebrations. The farmer and his wife were without children as the spirits had not thought to bless them with this gift. Instead, they treated their land and their animals as their children, taking good care of them and treating them as best as they could.   One day, their best stonesteer cow gave birth to a runt of a bull calf that struggled in the first hours of its life. So much so the farmer and his wife thought it would not live to see the next day. But they cared for it all the same and saw how hard it fought to survive. They nurtured it through the years, treating it as the son they could not have and, under their care, it grew up to easily be one of the strongest and most robust bulls their little farm had ever seen.   When the steer finally reached an age where it could be used to breed, the farmer figured it would be prudent to show it off in the hopes that other farmers from the region would pay good money to have it breed their cows. The annual steer competition that came with the spring harvest seemed like a wonderful opportunity but entry into the competition also cost a bit of money. And so the farmer consulted a fortune-teller, as he thought it might be a waste to go through all the effort if he wouldn't win.   While the fortune-teller told him that his steer was likely to win, she also told him that the steer was destined to die a gruesome death before the competition ever arrived. Terrified of the fortune, the farmer went to great lengths to protect the steer. He kept it in its pen to ensure it wouldn't accidentally trip on a stone and break its neck. He guarded it day and night so that no wild beast could sneak into the barn and kill it. He gave it feed he'd painstakingly combed through to ensure there weren't any sharp bits of metal or poisons that could harm it.   For months until the festival, the farmer kept the steer under lock and key, protecting it from every threat he could conceive of. But when the time for the festival came, the steer, which had wasted away in the months it was kept confined, took a single step outside of its pen before its heart gave out and it collapsed, dead.

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