Panchatantra: The Jackal and the War-Drum

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

The Jackal and the War-Drum

[This story is told by Victor in The Loss of Friends.]

(14th-century Egyptian ms. of Kalila-wa-Dimna)

In a certain region was a jackal whose throat was pinched by hunger. While wandering in search of food, he came upon a king's battle ground in the midst of a forest. And as he lingered a moment there, he heard a great sound.

This sound troubled his heart exceedingly, so that he fell into deep dejection and said: "Ah me! Disaster is upon me. I am as good as dead already. Who made that sound? What kind of a creature?"

But on peering about, he spied a war-drum that loomed like a mountain-peak, and he thought: "Was that sound its natural voice, or was it induced from without?"

Now when the drum was struck by the tips of grasses swaying in the wind, it made the sound, but was dumb at other times.

So he recognized its helplessness, and crept quite near. Indeed, his curiosity led him to strike it himself on both heads, and he became gleeful at the thought: "Aha! After long waiting food comes even to me. For this is sure to be stuffed with meat and fat."

Having come to this conclusion, he picked a spot, gnawed a hole, and crept in. And though the leather covering was tough, still he had the luck not to break his teeth. But he was disappointed to find it pure wood and skin, and recited a stanza:

Its voice was fierce; I thought it stuffed
With fat, so crept within;
And there I did not find a thing
Except some wood and skin.
So he backed out, laughing to himself, and said:

I thought at first that it was full
Of fat; I crept within
And there I did not find a thing
Except some wood and skin."

And that is why I say that one should not be troubled by a mere sound.

The Jackal and the Iguana

Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel, with illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling (1922): webpage.

The Jackal and the Iguana

One moonlight night, a miserable, half-starved jackal, skulking through the village, found a worn-out pair of shoes in the gutter. They were too tough for him to eat, so, determined to make some use of them, he strung them to his ears like earrings and, going down to the edge of the pond, gathered all the old bones he could find together and built a platform with them, plastering it over with mud.

On this he sat in a dignified attitude, and when any animal came to the pond to drink, he cried out in a loud voice, "Hi! stop! You must not taste a drop till you have done homage to me. So repeat these verses, which I have composed in honour of the occasion:

Silver is his dais, plastered o'er with gold;
In his ears are jewels — some prince I must behold!"

Now, as most of the animals were very thirsty and in a great hurry to drink, they did not care to dispute the matter, but gabbled off the words without a second thought. Even the royal tiger, treating it as a jest, repeated the jackal's rhyme, in consequence of which the latter became quite cock-a-hoop and really began to believe he was a personage of great importance.

By and by an iguana, or big lizard, came waddling and wheezing down to the water, looking for all the world like a baby alligator.

"Hi! you there!" sang out the jackal; "you mustn't drink until you have said:

Silver is his dais, plastered o'er with gold;
In his ears are jewels — some prince I must behold!"

"Pouf! pouf! pouf!" gasped the iguana. "Mercy on us, how dry my throat is! Mightn't I have just a wee sip of water first? And then I could do justice to your admirable lines; at present I am as hoarse as a crow!"

"By all means!" replied the jackal, with a gratified smirk. "I flatter myself the verses are  good, especially when well recited."

So the iguana, nose down into the water, drank away, until the jackal began to think he would never leave off and was quite taken aback when he finally came to an end of his draught and began to move away.

"Hi! hi!" cried the jackal, recovering his presence of mind; "stop a bit, and say:

Silver is his dais, plastered o'er with gold;
In his ears are jewels — some prince I must behold!"

"Dear me!" replied the iguana, politely; "I was very nearly forgetting! Let me see—I must try my voice first — Do, re, me, fa, sol, la, si — that is right! Now, how does it run?

Silver is his dais, plastered o'er with gold;
In his ears are jewels — some prince I must behold!"

repeated the jackal, not observing that the lizard was carefully edging farther and farther away.

"Exactly so," returned the iguana; "I think I could say that!" Whereupon he sang out at the top of his voice:

Bones make up his dais, with mud it's plastered o'er,
Old shoes are his ear-drops: a jackal, nothing more!"

And turning round, he bolted for his hole as hard as he could.

The jackal could scarcely believe his ears and sat dumb with astonishment. Then, rage lending him wings, he flew after the lizard, who, despite his short legs and scanty breath, put his best foot foremost and scuttled away at a great rate.

It was a near race, however, for just as he popped into his hole, the jackal caught him by the tail and held on. Then it was a case of "pull butcher, pull baker," until the lizard made certain his tail must come off, and the jackal felt as if his front teeth would come out. Still not an inch did either budge, one way or the other, and there they might have remained till the present day, had not the iguana called out, in his sweetest tones, "Friend, I give in! Just leave hold of my tail, will you? Then I can turn round and come out."

Whereupon the jackal let go, and the tail disappeared up the hole in a twinkling, while all the reward the jackal got for digging away until his nails were nearly worn out, was hearing the iguana sing softly:

"Bones make up his dais, with mud it's plastered o'er,
Old shoes are his ear-drops: a jackal, nothing more!"

The Alligator and the Jackal

The story is from Old Deccan Days by Mary Frere, with illustrations by C. F. Frere (1868). Story page. (Full title: Old Deccan Days, or Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India, collected from oral tradition by Mary Frere.)

Note: You might be intrigued to see the same trick of the talking house in a story about Brer Rabbit: Hey, House! There is a lot of back-and-forth between Indian and African storytelling traditions, and you can see many of those motifs in the Brer Rabbit stories told by the slaves who were forcibly brought to America from West Africa.

The Alligator and the Jackal

A HUNGRY Jackal once went down to the river-side in search of little crabs, bits of fish, and whatever else he could find for his dinner. Now it chanced that in this river there lived a great big Alligator, who, being also very hungry, would have been extremely glad to eat the Jackal.

The Jackal ran up and down, here and there, but for a long time could find nothing to eat. At last, close to where the Alligator was lying, among some tall buirushes under the clear shallow water, he saw a little crab sidling along as fast as his legs could carry him. The Jackal was so hungry that when he saw this, be poked his paw into the water to try and catch the crab, when SNAP! the old Alligator caught hold of him.

'Oh dear!' thought the Jackal to himself; 'what can I do? This great big Alligator has caught my paw in his mouth, and in another minute he will drag me down by it under the water and kill me. My only chance is to make him think he has made a mistake.' So he called out in a cheerful voice, 'Clever Alligator, clever Alligator, to catch hold of a bulrush root instead of my paw! I hope you find it very tender.'

The Alligator, who was so buried among the bulrushes that he could hardly see, thought, on hearing this, 'Dear me, how tiresome! I fancied I had caught hold of the Jackal's paw, but there he is, calling out in a cheerful voice; I suppose I must have seized a bulrush root instead, as he says.' And he let the Jackal go.

The Jackal ran away as fast as he could, crying, 'O wise Alligator, wise Alligator! So you let me go again!' Then the Alligator was very vexed, but the Jackal had run away too far to be caught.

Next day the Jackal returned to the river-side to get his dinner, as before, but because he was very much afraid of the Alligator, he called out, 'Whenever I go to look for my dinner, I see the nice little crabs peeping up through the mud, then I catch them and eat them. I wish I could see one now.'

The Alligator, who was buried in the mud at the bottom of the river, heard every word. So he popped the little point of his snout above the water, thinking, 'If I do but just show the tip of my nose, the Jackal will take me for a crab and put in his paw to catch me, and as soon as ever he does I'll gobble him up.'

But no sooner did the Jackal see the little tip of the Alligator's nose than he called out, 'Aha, my friend, there you are! No dinner for me in this part of the river then, I think.' And so saying he ran further on, and fished for his dinner a long way from that place. The Alligator was very angry at missing his prey a second time and determined not to let him escape again.

So on the following day, when his little tormentor returned to the water-side, the Alligator hid himself close to the bank in order to catch him if he could. Now the Jackal was rather afraid of going near the river for he thought, 'Perhaps this Alligator will catch me to-day.' But yet, being hungry, he did not wish to go without his dinner; so, to make all as safe as he could, he cried, 'Where are all the little crabs gone? There is not one here, and I am so hungry, and generally, even when they are under water, one can see them going bubble, bubble, bubble, and all the little bubbles go pop! pop! pop!'

On hearing this the Alligator, who was buried in the mud under the river-bank, thought, 'I will pretend to be a little crab.' And he began to blow, 'Puff puff puff! Bubble, bubble, bubble!' and all the great big bubbles rushed to the surface of the river and burst there, and the waters eddied round and round like a whirlpool, and there was such a commotion when the huge monster began to blow bubbles in this way that the Jackal saw very well who must be there, and he ran away as fast as he could, saying, 'Thank you, kind Alligator, thank you, thank you. Indeed, I would not have come here had I known you were so close.'

This enraged the Alligator extremely; it made him quite cross to think of being so often deceived by a little Jackal, and he said to himself, 'I will be taken in no more. Next time I will be very cunning.'

So for a long time he waited and waited for the Jackal to return to the river-side, but the Jackal did not come for he had thought to himself, 'If matters go on in this way, I shall some day be caught, and eaten by the wicked old Alligator. I had better content myself with living on wild figs,' and he went no more near the river but stayed in the jungles and ate wild figs and roots which he dug up with his paws.

When the Alligator found this out, he determined to try and catch the Jackal on land; so, going under the largest of the wild fig-trees where the ground was covered with the fallen fruit, he collected a quantity of it together and, burying himself under the great heap, waited for the Jackal to appear.

But no sooner did the Jackal see this great heap of wild figs all collected together than he thought, 'That looks very like my friend the Alligator.' And to discover if it was so or not he called out, 'The juicy little wild figs I love to eat always tumble down from the tree and roll here and there as the wind drives them, but this great heap of figs is quite still; these cannot be good figs, I will not eat any of them.'

' Ho-ho!' thought the Alligator; 'is that all? How suspicious this Jackal is! I will make the figs roll about a little then, and when he sees that, he will doubtless come and eat them.'

So the great beast shook himself, and all the heap of little figs went roll, roll, roll; some a mile this way, some a mile that wat, further than they had ever rolled before or than the most blustering wind could have driven them!

Seeing this the Jackal scampered away, saying, 'I am so much obliged to you, Alligator, for letting me know you are there, for indeed I should hardly have guessed it. You were so buried under that heap of figs.' The Alligator hearing this was so angry that he ran after the Jackal, but the latter ran very, very fast away too quickly to be caught.

Then the Alligator said to himself, 'I will not allow that little wretch to make fun of me another time and then run away out of reach; I will show him that I can be more cunning than he fancies.' And early the next morning he crawled as fast as he could to the Jackal's den (which was a hole in the side of a hill) and crept into it and hid himself, waiting for the Jackal, who was out, to return home.

But when the Jackal got near the place, he looked about him and thought, 'Dear me, the ground looks as if some heavy creature had been walking over it, and here are great clods of earth knocked down from each side of the door of my den as if a very big animal had been trying to squeeze himself through it. I certainly will not go inside until I know that all is safe there. So he called out, 'Little house, pretty house, my sweet little house, why do you not give an answer when I call? If I come and all is safe and right, you always call out to me. Is anything wrong, that you do not speak?'

Then the Alligator, who was inside, thought, 'If that is the casem I had better call out that he may fancy all is right in his house.' And in as gentle a voice as he could, he said, 'Sweet little Jackal!'

At hearing these words the Jackal felt quite frightened and thought to himself; 'So the dreadful old Alligator is there! I must try to kill him if I can for, if I do not, he will certainly catch and kill me some day.' He therefore answered, 'Thank you, my dear little house. I like to hear your pretty voice. I am coming in in a minute, but first I must collect firewood to cook my dinner.'

And he ran as fast as he could and dragged all the dry branches and bits of stick he could find close up to the mouth of the den. Meantime the Alligator inside kept as quiet as a mouse, but he could not help laughing a little to himself as he thought, 'So I have deceived this tiresome little Jackal at last. In a few minutes he will run in here, and then won't I snap him up!'

When the Jackal had gathered together all the sticks he could find and put them round the mouth of his den, he set them alight and pushed them as far into it as possible. There was such a quantity of them that they soon blazed up into a great fire, and the smoke and flames filled the den and smothered the wicked old Alligator and burnt him to death, while the little Jackal ran up and down outside, dancing for joy and singing, 'How do you like my house, my friend? Is it nice and warm?

Ding, dong! Ding, dong! The Alligator is dying! Ding, dong! Ding, dong!

'He will trouble me no more. I have defeated my enemy! Ring a ting! Ding a ting! Ding, ding, dong!'

The Jackal and the Pea-Hen

Tales of the Punjab by Flora Annie Steel, with illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling (1894). Story page.

Note: A peahen is a female peacock (pea-hen v. pea-cock).

The Jackal and the Pea-Hen

ONCE upon a time a Jackal and a Pea-hen swore eternal friendship. Every day they had their meals together, and spent hours in pleasant conversation.

Now, one day, the Pea-hen had juicy plums for dinner, and the Jackal, for his part, had as juicy a young kid; so they enjoyed themselves immensely. But when the feast was over, the Pea-hen rose gravely, and, after scratching up the ground, carefully sowed all the plum-stones in a row.

"It is my custom to do so when I eat plums," she said, with quite an aggravating air of complacent virtue; "my mother, good creature, brought me up in excellent habits, and with her dying breath bade me never be wasteful. Now these stones will grow into trees, the fruit of which, even if I do not live to see the day, will afford a meal to many a hungry peacock."

These words made the Jackal feel rather mean, so he answered loftily, "Exactly so! I always plant my bones for the same reason." And he carefully dug up a piece of ground, and sowed the bones of the kid at intervals.

After this, the pair used to come every day and look at their gardens; by and by the plum-stones [196] shot into tender green stems, but the bones made never a sign.

"Bones do take a long time germinating," remarked the Jackal, pretending to be quite at his ease; "I have known them remain unchanged in the ground for months."

"My dear sir," answered the Pea-hen, with ill-concealed irony, "I  have known them remain so for years!"

So time passed on, and every day, when they visited the garden, the self-complacent Pea-hen became more and more sarcastic, the Jackal more and more savage.

At last the plum-trees blossomed and bore fruit, and the Pea-hen sat down to a perfect feast of ripe juicy plums.

"He! he!" sniggered she to the Jackal, who, having been unsuccessful in hunting that day, stood by dinnerless, hungry, and in consequence very cross; "what a time those old bones of yours do take in coming up! But when they do, my! what a crop you'll have!"

The Jackal was bursting with rage, but she wouldn't take warning, and went on: "Poor dear! you do look hungry! There seems some chance of your starving before harvest. What a pity it is you can't eat plums in the meantime!"

"If I can't eat plums, I can eat the plum-eater!" quoth the Jackal; and with that he pounced on the Pea-hen, and gobbled her up.

Moral—It is never safe to be wiser than one's friends.