Category Archives: PANCHATANTRA TALES
90. THE PEACOCK AND THE FOX
Once a fox was wandering in a forest. He saw a beautiful peacock sitting on the branch of a tree at a considerable height: ‘How can I have this peacock for my meal, thought the fox to himself. He knew, he could not climb up the tree to kill the peacock.
Applying his stratagem, the fox said to the peacock, “How is it that you are sitting in the tree? Don’t you know that it has been decided in a meeting of animals today that from now an animals and birds will not kill each other for food. Bigger fish will not eat smaller fish.”
89. THE OLD WISE CROW AND OWLS
There stood a huge banyan tree on the outskirts of a small town. Thousands of crows lived in this tree. Not far from the banyan tree, there was a mountain cave. Thousands of owls lived in it.
The king of the owls accompanied by his soldiers used to hunt crows during the night. Soon thousands of crows were killed and eaten up by the owls. One of the main reasons for the killing of the crows at such a large scale was, that they were unable to see clearly during the night. And the owls, being nocturnal, could easily locate the crows sitting in the tree during night hours. And the unfortunate crows were defenceless; they couldn’t flyaway for the safety of their lives.
88. THE OLD MERCHANT, HIS YOUNG WIFE AND THE THIEF
In a certain town, there lived an old merchant, by the name of Kamatura. After the death of his wife, he became so lovesick that he gave a lot of money to another merchant, so that he could marry his young daughter. However, his new wife was very unhappy and would not even look at her old husband. This is quite understandable.
87. THE MOUSE AND THE BULL
Once upon a time there lived a big bull in a village. The village was situated near a lake. One day, when the bull felt thirsty, he started walking towards the lake. There was a tiny mouse living in the same village. The mouse was sitting by the side of the lake and basking in the sun. The bull who was going to drink water from the lake stepped on the tail of the mouse. The mouse squeeked in pain. He looked at his tail. It was completely crushed. ‘This foolish bull has crushed my tail. I’ll bite this bull to death.’ The mouse said to himself and jumped on to the bull’s back and started biting him with his sharp teeth. The bull didn’t feel any pain. He was rather unaware of the presence of a little mouse on his back.
