Also available in: ગુજરાતી · हिन्दी
A fable from the Panchatantra, retold for children in our own words. The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian collection of animal stories traditionally attributed to the scholar Vishnu Sharma. This story comes from Book 1: The loss of friends.
High in a banyan tree lived a pair of crows. Every year they laid eggs in their nest, and every year a snake slid up from a hole at the bottom of the tree and ate them.
The crows were heartbroken. They were small, and the snake was strong. So they went to their wise friend the jackal and asked what they could do.
“You cannot beat the snake by fighting,” said the jackal. “Use your wits. Let other people do the hard work for you.” And he whispered a plan.
The next morning the queen went to bathe in the river and left her golden necklace on the bank. The mother crow swooped down, picked it up, and flew off, slowly, so that the guards could follow her.
She flew to the banyan tree and dropped the necklace right into the snake’s hole. The guards ran up with their sticks, saw the snake curled around the gold, and drove it away for good.
The guards took the necklace back to the queen. And the crows raised their chicks in peace, high in the banyan tree, for many happy years.
The moral of the story
When you are small, a clever plan and good friends can solve a big problem.
Talk about it
- Why didn’t the crows just fight the snake?
- How did the jackal help?
- Who do you go to when you need good advice?
Tips for reading aloud
- Use a different voice for each animal.
- Pause before the turning point and ask, “What do you think happens next?”
- Open the picture book and press Read to me to hear it read aloud, with the pages turning by themselves.
More fables: the Panchatantra bookshelf.
