This is one of my favorite stories in my early childhood. Perhaps, after this story I started to love birds. Especially, owls.

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There was a time when owls flew around during the day and they were feared by nobody. At that time, animals in the forest didn’t have their own color.

One day, the bright rainbow appeared after the rain. The rainbow was so beautiful that everyone in the forest was looking at it with the astonishment. Even the bear stood on his tiptoes to be closer to the rainbow. The wolf tried to reach to it from a tree stump, but he couldn’t. Everyone was raving about the beauty of colorful belt that embraced the entire sky. Only the raven wasn’t happy because he was very envious and he hated it when he wasn’t in the limelight. “Caw – caw,” he cried. “What are you looking at? It won’t be here forever, your miracle.” He got off the ground and hit the rainbow with his bill in the place where the rainbow joined the sky with the ground. Suddenly, the miracle faded and fell to colorful pieces. Before the rainbow disappeared, the owl was able to catch one of the small pieces of it. She put her trophy into a puddle after the rain and got… paint.

The next day, an announcement was made in front of the owl’s home: “I’ll paint anybody any color.” There was a big tumult in the forest. Everybody wanted to get a suitable color, but they couldn’t decide which one. The first one to take a risk was the pigeon. He said, “paint me in a color that'll make me look like smoke in the sky.” The owl dipped pigeon into the water with blue and grey paint and he became bluish-grey. The goose was so surprised that he asked, “Paint me a white color, please.” The goose became as white as snow. He was so happy to get painted, that he also asked to have his legs and beak painted the color of rowanberry. The fox came next. She asked in a gentle voice, “Honey, make me like the sun in May.” The fox walked away from the owl as red as fire. The wolf wasn’t able to ask, he just said, “I want to be invisible.” The wolf became as grey as dusk. Then came a panting bear. He said, “I don’t like to take baths. Please, paint me the color of soil.” The owl used up all the brown paint on the bear, but in the end, he was happy with his new reddish color.

Word of the painter owl traveled all over the world. Even a foreigner, the peacock, came to the owl. He spluttered in his foreign language, but the owl understood him. He wanted to be painted in all the colors at the same time. The owl mixed the paint she had and showered the peacock from a watering can. The peacock became as colorful as the rainbow.

Almost every animal visited the owl and everybody was happy with their new color. Only the raven was crawking: “This is no deal! The rain is going to wash off your paint!” And then the rain stopped, but the colors became even brighter. The raven became silent. He came to the owl and tried to choose a color for himself, but he didn't like any of them . At last, he tired of trying to choose one and demanded, “I want a color that nobody wears.” “Uff!” said owl. “That's a hard task! All my paint has already dried up!”

All day long the owl tried to think up something for the cranky raven. By evening, the sky was covered with clouds. Lightning flashed and struck a chimney. The owl saw it and was pleased. She said, “Raven, I found a color for you, but you will have to stay all night in that chimney!” The raven agreed.

In the morning, the owl got the raven out of the chimney. “Now,” she said, “you’ve got a color you’re going to be popular with!” Brightened up, the raven flew to the mirror, looked at himself, and went “Wow!”. He had become pitch-black from his beak to the tip of his tail. The raven got angry. He said, “Is this the color I asked for?” “But this is a color nobody has,” apologized the owl. The raven became angry, and, running around the mirror he shouted: “Crawk-crawk! I’ll catch you! Crawk-crawk! You'll pay for this! Crawk-crawk!”

The owl sees that things are getting bad, takes her brushes and disappears into her tree-hole. Since then, she stays at home all day. She leaves it at night while the raven sleeps.

The End.

Author: O. Chechin.