A man repeated gossip about a neighbour. Within a few days the whole community knew the story. The person it concerned was deeply hurt. The man responsible for spreading the rumour learned that it was untrue.
He was sad and went to a wise man to find out how to repair the damage. "Buy a chicken and kill it. On your way home pluck its feathers and drop them one by one along the road," he said. Although surprised by this advice, the man did as he was told.
The next day the wise man said, "Bring all those feathers to me." The man followed the same road but the wind had blown all away. After searching for hours, he got only three.
"You see," said the sage, "It’s easy to drop them but impossible to get back. So it is with gossip. It doesn’t take much to spread a rumour, but once done you can never completely undo the wrong."
Chicken Feathers
