Everybody knows the fabled story of the tortoise and the hare, at least the primary lesson that "slow and steady wins the race." Not too long ago, I heard the phrase in reference to financial investing, and it took me a little while to warm up to the thought. Eventually, I wrote a blog about it and then I attempted to find images online matching the finishing moment, envisioning the drawing in the book from my childhood with the turtle tumbling over the finish line to win. Ya know, after stopping to pull the rabbit out of a hole that he had fallen in while looking back to check how far ahead he was.
That's when I realized that the entire Internet had no record of my version!
I grew up mainly knowing this obscure slant of the tale, and while I may have heard the proper version where the hare inexplicably takes a nap during the race, I never thought it was the most popular version. I always assumed that the one I knew was the one everyone was being taught. After all, the lesson was still the same.
Unless you actually analyze the moral of the story further.
Without question, the moral of the tortoise and the hare is "slow & steady wins the race." But why? If anything, the primary lesson from all versions is "never give up" or "always try your best" with a secondary lesson that "karma always wins."
I was amazed by this revelation. Mostly by the pure uniqueness of the version I had always known. I did multiple Internet searches in pursuit of this version, but each time I found absolutely nothing related to my version, but I found a few other amusing shifts in the story. The most common alternate version is that the bunny stopped to eat some carrots from a garden that he almost passed. After eating his fill of carrots, he got sleepy, which makes sense because overeating can make you sleepy. He decided to take a nap because he was so far ahead. That's where it syncs up with Aesop's fable.
Another more distant version that I found was from West Africa where the turtle tricked the rabbit by having three cousins appear to be him each time the rabbit passed a new turn, so the rabbit thought the turtle kept catching up and passing him by, only to try harder and harder to the point of exhaustion, at which point the competing turtle easily overtook him to win. (Actually, that version was especially unfair because the original turtle holed up near the finish line through the entire race, unless that rabbit was hated among the local animal kingdom, so a sub-lesson of humility was implied.)
Regardless, my version where the rabbit fell into a hole when he turned to look to see how far back the turtle was, and then pleaded with the turtle to pull him out of the hole when the turtle caught up to him. The turtle reluctantly agreed, and as he pulled the rabbit out, he tumbled across the finish line to win the race. That version was a bit serendipitous. If they were more than a tumble away from the finish line, then the well-rested bunny would have easily won (albeit, it would have been an empty victory with all the onlookers knowing that the turtle only lost because he stopped to help the rabbit).
Regardless, slow & steady won the race. Unlike the rabbit whose inability to focus made him unreliable to the point that he (A) forgot he was in a race, and stopped for food, (B) did not notice the difference between one turtle to another, or (C) hit a pitfall while watching what his opponent was doing.
