Mongolian lore explains the camel’s far-gazing posture as eternal waiting for stolen beauty

Evidence

To this very day — the Mongolians say — the camel is still waiting. That is why the camel, even now, is always stretching his neck and gazing far off toward the distant horizon: he is forever watching and waiting for the deer to come back with his antlers and the horse to come back with his tail. And whenever a camel comes to drink at a watering-hole, he gazes anxiously at his own reflection, remembering his lost beauty, and then lifts his head to scan the far distance once more. — , A Year of World Stories, 9209

Categorization

• FICTION: The image of an animal who keeps checking its own reflection, remembering a beauty it lent away and lost, is a powerful poetic seed for a story.