Loading…
78 items · showing 25–48
A famine drives a dog to a rich city, where the food is wonderful, the kitchens are careless, and the local dogs bite him every single day.
Too old to catch fish, a heron weeps on the bank and offers to carry them one at a time to a safer lake. Then a crab asks to go next.
Four friends walk towards the Himalaya with magic wicks. One finds copper, one silver, one gold — and one keeps walking.
Three scholars find a dead lion's bones and decide it is the perfect chance to test their learning. The fourth friend, who has no learning, climbs a tree.
After twelve years of study, four scholars set out for home — and on the road apply exactly the right quotation to every wrong thing they meet.
Two very clever fish and one plain frog overhear fishermen deciding to net their lake in the morning.
Halfway through robbing a cucumber field on a beautiful clear night, a donkey decides the occasion really calls for a song.
A tree-spirit offers a weaver any boon at all. His friend says ask for a kingdom; his wife has a far more sensible idea.
A miser lies awake under his one pot of barley meal, working out step by step how it will make him rich, married, and the father of a son.
One old monkey traces the chain from a greedy ram in the palace kitchen all the way to the killing of every monkey in the palace. Nobody believes him.
A demon takes the shape of a horse to spy on a rival he has entirely invented. A horse-thief walks into the stable and picks him as the best animal there.
A demon climbs onto a brahmin's shoulders and tells him to walk. The brahmin notices that the demon's feet are strangely soft, and asks why.
One belly, two heads. One head eats a sweet fruit and gives the rest away; the other head remembers it, and later finds a fruit of its own.
A mother will not let her son travel alone, so she fishes a crab out of the tank and sends it along in a camphor box. He humours her.
A lion and a bull become the closest of friends — until a jackal who wants his old job back begins to whisper to each of them.
Swans pay the king one feather each every six months for his protection. A newcomer they turn away carries a complaint straight to the throne.
A cobra in the tree's hollow eats every chick the crows hatch. Their friend the jackal suggests a theft rather than a fight.
Two rams back away and charge head-on, over and over. A jackal sees free blood on the ground between them and trots in.
A louse has lived unnoticed in a king's bed for years by moving very slowly. A visiting bug cannot wait for his turn.
A lion gives a lost camel his personal pledge of safety. When the lion is injured and his court is starving, they find a way around the pledge.
The sea carries off a tiny bird's eggs to teach him his place. He decides to empty the sea with his beak.
A monk keeps his savings under his arm day and night and trusts nobody. So the thief who wants them does not break in — he arrives as a disciple.
Fishermen pass the lake and say they will come back tomorrow with nets. One fish leaves that night, one plans to improvise, one says fate will decide.
An elephant snaps the branch holding a sparrow's nest. Four very small creatures put their heads together and work out how to bring down an elephant.