The Countryman and the Snake

A farmer, walking home through the snow, found a snake lying frozen and motionless on the path, nearly dead from the bitter cold. Moved by pity despite knowing snakes could be dangerous, he picked it up gently and carried it home, warming it carefully by his own hearth fire.

As the warmth revived the snake's strength, its first instinct upon fully reviving was to strike, biting the farmer who had just saved its life. As poison spread through his body, the dying farmer understood, with his final breath, a hard truth: kindness shown to a nature that is fundamentally dangerous does not change that nature — it merely restores its strength to act on it.

The story was told for generations after as a caution against assuming gratitude from a creature, or a person, whose true nature you have never actually seen change — only the effects of the cold that had temporarily suppressed it.