Indian Fairy Tales | Page 3

OUT TO DINNER XXVIII. HOW THE WICKED SONS WERE
DUPED XXIX. THE PIGEON AND THE CROW
NOTES AND REFERENCES

THE LION AND THE CRANE
The Bodhisatta was at one time born in the region of Himavanta as a
white crane; now Brahmadatta was at that time reigning in Benares.
Now it chanced that as a lion was eating meat a bone stuck in his throat.

The throat became swollen, he could not take food, his suffering was
terrible. The crane seeing him, as he was perched an a tree looking for
food, asked, "What ails thee, friend?" He told him why. "I could free
thee from that bone, friend, but dare not enter thy mouth for fear thou
mightest eat me." "Don't be afraid, friend, I'll not eat thee; only save my
life." "Very well," says he, and caused him to lie down on his left side.
But thinking to himself, "Who knows what this fellow will do," he
placed a small stick upright between his two jaws that he could not
close his mouth, and inserting his head inside his mouth struck one end
of the bone with his beak. Whereupon the bone dropped and fell out.
As soon as he had caused the bone to fall, he got out of the lion's mouth,
striking the stick with his beak so that it fell out, and then settled on a
branch. The lion gets well, and one day was eating a buffalo he had
killed. The crane, thinking "I will sound him," settled an a branch just
over him, and in conversation spoke this first verse:
"A service have we done thee To the best of our ability, King of the
Beasts! Your Majesty! What return shall we get from thee?"
In reply the Lion spoke the second verse:
"As I feed on blood, And always hunt for prey, 'Tis much that thou art
still alive Having once been between my teeth."
Then in reply the crane said the two other verses:
"Ungrateful, doing no good, Not doing as he would be done by, In him
there is no gratitude, To serve him is useless.
"His friendship is not won By the clearest good deed. Better softly
withdraw from him, Neither envying nor abusing."
And having thus spoken the crane flew away.
_And when the great Teacher, Gautama the Buddha, told this tale, he
used to add: "Now at that time the lion was Devadatta the Traitor, but
the white crane was I myself_."

HOW THE RAJA'S SON WON THE PRINCESS LABAM
In a country there was a Raja who had an only son who every day went
out to hunt. One day the Rani, his mother, said to him, "You can hunt
wherever you like on these three sides; but you must never go to the
fourth side." This she said because she knew if he went on the fourth
side he would hear of the beautiful Princess Labam, and that then he
would leave his father and mother and seek for the princess.

The young prince listened to his mother, and obeyed her for some time;
but one day, when he was hunting on the three sides where he was
allowed to go, he remembered what she had said to him about the
fourth side, and he determined to go and see why she had forbidden
him to hunt on that side. When he got there, he found himself in a
jungle, and nothing in the jungle but a quantity of parrots, who lived in
it. The young Raja shot at some of them, and at once they all flew away
up to the sky. All, that is, but one, and this was their Raja, who was
called Hiraman parrot.
When Hiraman parrot found himself left alone, he called out to the
other parrots, "Don't fly away and leave me alone when the Raja's son
shoots. If you desert me like this, I will tell the Princess Labam."
Then the parrots all flew back to their Raja, chattering. The prince was
greatly surprised, and said, "Why, these birds can talk!" Then he said to
the parrots, "Who is the Princess Labam? Where does she live?" But
the parrots would not tell him where she lived. "You can never get to
the Princess Labam's country." That is all they would say.
The prince grew very sad when they would not tell him anything more;
and he threw his gun away, and went home. When he got home, he
would not speak or eat, but lay on his bed for four or five days, and
seemed very ill.
At last he told his father and mother that he wanted to go and see the
Princess Labam. "I must go," he said; "I must see what she is like. Tell