Tradition and story time — not medical advice
The Grain of Corn
Retold for young children from Tales of the Punjab: Folklore of India (collected by Flora Annie Steel, 1894), public domain.
A crow once snatched a single grain of corn from a farmer's wife while she was winnowing, and flew off to eat it on a tree branch — but the grain slipped and rolled away into a deep crack in the wood, out of his reach.
So the crow flew off to ask a woodcutter to chop the tree open, but the woodcutter said no. Undaunted, the crow flew on to ask a king to make the woodcutter do it — but the king said no too. On and on he flew, asking a queen to persuade the king, a snake to frighten the queen, a stick to strike the snake, a fire to burn the stick, water to douse the fire, an ox to drink the water, a rope to tie up the ox, a mouse to gnaw the rope, and finally a cat to chase the mouse.
As soon as the cat agreed to chase the mouse, everything tumbled into motion all at once — the mouse dashed off, so the rope agreed to tie the ox, so the ox agreed to drink the water, so the water agreed to quench the fire, and on and on, each one now willing, all the way back to the very beginning.
At last the woodcutter, seeing everyone else pitching in, cheerfully chopped open the tree — and the little grain of corn tumbled right out, and the clever crow finally got his dinner after all.
Talk about it (ours, not from the source): it took asking lots of different helpers, one after another, to solve one small problem. Can you think of a time a job needed lots of people working together?
Source: Tales of the Punjab: Folklore of India, collected by Flora Annie Steel (1894, Macmillan and Co.) — "The Grain of Corn". Public domain. Read the original.
Why public domain: US: first published 1894, more than 95 years ago, so public domain in the US. Collector Flora Annie Steel died 1929; public domain in India (life + 60 years) since 1989.