Somewhere in the country, under a banyan tree, there lived a pair of crows, husband and wife. Now, whenever the female hatched her eggs, a black cobra would come out of the hollow of the tree, climb up, and make a meal of them.
Nearby, under another banyan tree, there lived a jackal. The crows told him everything. ‘Friend,’ they said, ‘the black cobra creeps out of the hollow of the tree and eats up our children. Tell us, what can we do to protect them? It’s become dangerous for us to live here.’
‘Don’t give up hope,’ said the jackal, ‘it’s a fact that an enemy can be destroyed by a trick. An ordinary fellow, if he’s cunning, escapes being overpowered by the strongest of men. A very greedy heron, who was feeding on small, medium, and large-sized fishes, was killed by a mere crab!’
‘How was that?’ asked the female crow.
And the jackal told: THE STORY OF THE HERON AND THE CRAB
