On a sunny day, two great foes met. The Eagle flew high above in the blue sky, and the Beetle was peering over the edge of his burrow on the cliff-side. When the Eagle saw the Beetle he swooped down and said:
“You are the one I want. I will carry you off to feed my nestlings with your flesh.”
“Not to-day, I think, friend,” said the Beetle. “Will you not wait till I come out to fight you?”
“Certainly not,” said the Eagle. “I never yet heard a Beetle speak, and want to know what you can say.”
The Beetle crept into his burrow, and as soon as he was inside turned round and round three times, and came out again. The Eagle thought it was some fresh sort of Beetle coming out, and flew at him, caught him up, and flew away. He understood then what the Beetle meant by saying he would fight him when he came out.
But the Beetle turned himself the other way, and rolled up a little ball, a piece of dung, and turned round and fought with the Eagle, who tried to catch him in his claws, but was obliged to come down just as the Beetle liked.
At last, when the Eagle was much out of temper, he flew away: but soon after came again. “It is a long time,” he said, “since I dined.” The Beetle answered: “If you want to make a good dinner, fight.” But the Eagle only was angered: he suddenly raised a storm, clouds appeared in the blue sky, lightning flashed out, and thunder pealed.
And he came down holding in his claws the Eagle “Want not, Waulk not,” the old proverb is wise, but the Beetle did not think at all of that. The lightning flashed and all was dark round about in the air: he strove hard and turned round, and round and round three times (but now stayed the way he was going), and at last the Eagle fell a thousand feet into the sea, and the Beetle flew away to the top of his mountain.
“You were wrong, you did not understand it,” said his wife.