THE JACKDAW AND THE RAVENS

Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE JACKDAW AND THE RAVENS

There was a jackdaw who was bigger than the other jackdaws. Scorning his fellows, he joined the company of the ravens, having decided to spend his life as a member of their flock. The ravens, however, did not recognize the voice of this bird or his appearance, so they attacked him and drove him away. Rejected by the ravens, he went back again to the jackdaws. But the jackdaws were angry about his presumptuous behaviour and refused to accept him. The final result was that the jackdaw had nowhere to go.
This is also true of someone who leaves his homeland, preferring to live elsewhere: he is treated with contempt abroad and is rejected by his own people for his presumptuous behaviour.

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.

Perry 123: Gibbs (Oxford) 327 [English]
Perry 123: Chambry 161 [Greek]

You can find a compilation of Perry's index to the Aesopica in the gigantic appendix to his edition of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965). This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the Aesopic fable tradition. Invaluable.