He decided to make a statue of the bird at the foot of the statue of the prince

        Once upon a time there lived a good prince.  He ruled his country very wisely and treated his people kindly.  The people admired him for his kindness and loved him very much.

        One day this prince fell ill.  The people tried their best to cure him but they could not save him.  The price died after about a month of sickness.  The country was silent.  The people felt terribly unhappy.  They decided to make a statue of their prince over his grave for remembrance.  It took many years to finish building it.  They used pieces and pieces of gold to cover the statue and the eyes were made of diamonds.

        One rainy day it happened that a swallow lost its way.  The rain fell very heavily.  The swallow decided to seek shelter under the statue.  It stopped at the foot of the prince.  After the rain had at long last stopped and it was dry again everywhere the swallow decide to fly away.  As soon as it stood up a drop of water fell on its head.  The swallow was surprised.  It thought that rain had started to fall again so it waited.  After some time it found that it was not raining but that the water came from the eyes of the statue prince.

        The swallow flew and stood on the shoulder of the price and watched the tears coming out of his eyes.  The swallow then asked the price why he was crying.  The statue prince told the bird that he was crying because he could not bear to see his people suffer so much.  he asked the swallow to help by taking a piece of gold from his body and give it to a poor family whose son was dying.  The swallow took the piece of gold and flew away to the house of the poor family.  Soon it came back to the statue prince.  Tears still rolled down from the eyes.  The swallow felt sorry for the prince and decided to help it to do more work by flying to and fro taking pieces of gold to every poor family.

        At last no gold was left, only the two diamond eyes which helped it to see the suffering people.  The statue still could not bear to see the suffering and asked the swallow to take one of the diamonds to a poor family.  Later, as it came back the statue prince told the swallow to take the other diamond to a dying beggar.  After that the statue could not see anymore, but the swallow stayed with it all the time.

        One day heavy rain started to fall again.  It rained so heavily that the swallow was wet all over its body.  It felt very cold but still could not bring itself to depart from the kind statue prince.  So it died at the foot of the statue.

        After some days one of the poor people to whom the swallow had taken gold found the swallow there.  He decided to make a statue of the bird at the foot of the statue of the prince, and there they remained together for ever after.

        That is why people say that the swallow is a kind bird.