Text:

Informant: This was this story I heard all the time as a kid growing up. There was this crow who lived in a city next to a golden statue. There were seven or so precious gems in the statue. Expensive big ones. One blue one for each eye, one in the statue’s sword, one in the belt,  three in the crown.  They were all different colors. The statue started to see all of these poor people and the statue got really sad. The statue was like “I’m made of gold and jewels, but all these poor people are suffering” The statue told the crow to fly around town and find poor people to give the gemstones to. It would pick off a stone from the statue and find a different poor person each day to give one two. There was a girl selling matches, a blind man, a seamstress, a bunch of different types of people. The blind man got an eye and the matches girl got the one from his belt.  Because the statue asks the crow to do all of these things, the crow can’t migrate for winter. By the time winter arrives, the statue has given away all of it’s jewels. Even though it was still gold, it stopped getting all of the attention that it had before. It became an abandoned statue. Because it got so cold, the crow dies right in front of the statue or in the arms of the statue. The poor people became happy, but the crow died and the statue was abandoned. I think it’s supposed to teach you to like not help people at your own expense or something which I think is pretty messed up.

Context: I asked friends to share stories they heard as children and this was one of their replies.

Thoughts: This story reminds me a bit of the Giving Tree story. I agree with the informant that this seems to be an anti-philanthropy and also anti-poor.