Whatever you will order us to do, we will do, and we will honour you in everything. Come to our kingdom!”
The Elephant consented, and followed the Jackal. The Jackal brought him to a swamp. When the Elephant stuck fast in it, the Jackal said:
“Now command! Whatever you command, we will do.”
The Elephant said:
“I command you to pull me out from here.”
The Jackal began to laugh, and said:
“Take hold of my tail with your trunk, and I will pull you out at once.”
The Elephant said:
“Can I be pulled out by a tail?”
But the Jackal said to him:
“Why, then, do you command us to do what is impossible? Did we not drive away our first king for telling us to do what could not be done?”
When the Elephant died in the swamp the Jackals came and ate him up.
The Heron, the Fishes, and the Crab
A Heron was living near a pond. She grew old, and had no strength left with which to catch the fish. She began to contrive how to live by cunning. So she said to the Fishes:
“You Fishes do not know that a calamity is in store for you: I have heard the people say that they are going to let off the pond, and catch every one