the
main character of the
children's story, The Story of
Ferdinand (1936), written by
American author and illustrator Leaf Munro (1905-1976).
Ferdinand, a
bull, unlike the other
bulls who ran and jumped and butted their heads together, likes to
sit under his favorite tree and
smell the flowers. One
day, some men appeared looking for the biggest, fastest and roughest
bull to take to the bullfights. All of the
bulls except for
Ferdinand ran around snorting and leaping so the men would pick one of them.
Ferdinand instead went to
sit down, as he knew the men would not pick him-but he happened to
sit on a bee. The bee stung him and
Ferdinand leapt up snorting and butting. The men, seeing this, took
Ferdinand off to the fights. On the
day of the fight when "
Ferdinand the Fierce" rushed into the arena, all the men were scared
stiff and the crowd cheered and applauded as they
thought Ferdinand was going to fight fiercely.
Ferdinand, however, seeing the beautiful flowers in the women's hair,
sat down quietly in the middle of the
ring and smelled them. No
matter what was done,
Ferdinand wouldn't fight and just
sat there. He was finally taken back
home to continue happily smelling flowers.