Panchatantra: The Bird With Golden Dung

From The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, translated by Arthur W. Ryder (1925).

The Bird With Golden Dung

[inside Book 3. Crows and Owls]

There was once a great tree on a mountain side. On it lived a bird in whose dung gold appeared.

One day a hunter came to the spot, and directly in front of him the bird dropped its dung, which at the moment of falling turned to gold. At this the hunter was amazed.

"Well, well!" said he. "For eighty years, man and boy, I have had bird-trapping on the brain, and I never once saw gold in a bird's dung." So he set a snare in the tree. And the bird, fool that he was, forgot the danger, and perched on the customary spot. Of course, he was caught immediately.

Then the hunter freed him from the snare, put him in a cage and took him home. But he reflected: "What am I to do with this bird of ill omen? If anybody should ever discover his peculiarity, it would be reported to the king. In that case my very life would be in genuine danger. I will take the bird and report to the king myself." And he did so.

Now when the king saw the bird, his lotus eyes blossomed and he felt supremely gratified. "Come now, guardsmen," said he. "Look after this bird with anxious care. Give him everything he wants to eat and drink."

Then a counsellor said: "He was hatched from an egg. Why keep him? You have no evidence save the mere incredible assurance of a hunter. Is gold ever present in bird-dung? Take this bird from the cage and set him free."

So the king, taking the counsellor's advice, freed the bird, who perched on the lofty arch of the doorway long enough to drop dung which was of gold. Then he recited the stanza:

I played the fool at first; then he
Who had me on his tether;
And then the king and counsellor -
We all were fools together.

After which he took his carefree flight through the atmosphere.

"And that is why I say:

I played the fool at first; then he
Who had me on his tether;
And then the king and counsellor -
We all were fools together."