After creating Middle Earth, the Prime Mover looked down on Her lands and smiled, bathing the creatures below with bright sunshine.
Then She realised that She had one last task left to do.
Plucking three large petals from a brilliant white rose, She cupped them in Her hands, turning the edges onto each other, rubbing them gently with Her thumbs.
Slowly, tenderly, the Prime Mover manipulated the rose petals until they became one, rising from Her cupped hands into the sunlight.
The emerging creature looked at her with tiny black blinking eyes, throwing its head back to sing a song befitting such a beautiful bird.
Its feathers, a light brown, shimmered like molasses, except on its chest, where the sunlight reflected from the whiteness with such brightness that it might blind those who looked upon it.
“There you are my little robin. Live long and protect your congenator, for the rose is a noble flower, pure and white in its innocence.”
With these words, the Prime Mover watched the robin flutter away into the blue sky.
* * *
The robin lived a long and happy life, exploring the world and all the trees growing there. It flew back and forth, singing sweetly, bringing much pleasure wherever it went.
One day, sensing the end of its life nearing, the robin decided that it should return to the plant that had engendered it.
* * *
“I have watched you as you roamed Middle Earth,” the rose said, greeting the robin that had alighted on its thorny stem. “You have brought much happiness to the creatures living there with your beautiful songs.”
The robin was about to repay the compliment when it noticed that the rose was hanging its flowers dejectedly, the petals faded, the edges ragged, as though pieces had been torn from them.
“What has happened to you?” the robin asked.
“I am dying. Each day the crows take a piece of me back to their nests for their young to eat. Each day I die a little more.”
“Oh Rose,” said the robin, its guilt pulling at its heart. “I let this happen to you. I should have been here to help you.”
“It matters not sweet robin. But quickly, go now. The crows will be here soon. I shall die now but I am happy to have seen you one last time.”
A dark shadow fell across the pair and a harsh voice called to the robin. “Away with you little bird. I have come for my petal.”
The little robin looked up at the big bird hovering above. The black wings seemed poised to thrash him down to the ground, and the long thick wicked beak, ready to swallow him.
Trembling, the robin stood its ground.
The crow dived, grabbing the robin in its sharp talons, two of which pierced its chest.
The rose called out to the crow to leave the robin be, and the robin, hearing the pain in the rose’s pleas, found an extra spurt of strength.
Tearing free of the talons, the robin attacked the crow, pecking at its eyes with such ferocity that the crow cawed in terror, frightening the crows in the nearby rookery, so that they all took off as one, turning the sky turned black.
Again and again the plucky little robin attacked any crow that ventured near and in the end the crows gave up and flew away, vowing never again to pick rose petals while a robin was nearby.
The robin was exhausted and flew back to the rose, which opened its flower wide, cradling the robin in its petals as the little bird’s lifeblood drained from its wounds, staining its white chest feathers a bright red.
The robin’s blood filled the flower and the rose’s petals turned a brilliant red too.
The robin died happy, cradled by the flower that had born it, and the rose swore that it would keep its red petals in honour of the plucky little bird.
And now, to this very day, if a little robin red-breast is singing nearby, no man has ever witnessed a crow pulling a petal from a red rose and making off with it.