Pride Goes Before a Fall

In Tamil there is a proverb, Ahambhavam alai alikkum, “Self-pride brings destruction,” much like the English saying “Pride goes before a fall.” Kingscote and Sastri’s collection presents the following story as an illustration.

In a certain village there were ten cloth merchants who always travelled together. Once they had gone a long way from home to sell their cloth, and they were coming back with a great deal of money. Near their village lay a thick forest, and they reached it early one morning. Three notorious robbers lived in that forest, though the merchants had never heard of them. When the travellers were deep among the trees, the robbers jumped out in front of them with swords and clubs and ordered them to hand over everything.

The merchants had no weapons, so although there were far more of them, they gave in. The robbers took everything they had, even the clothes off their backs, and left each man nothing but a narrow strip of loincloth.

The robbers were very pleased with themselves. Three men had beaten ten! They sat down on the grass like three kings and ordered the merchants to dance for them before they went home. The poor merchants had lost everything but their loincloths, and still the robbers wanted more.

One of the ten was very clever. While he thought about their bad luck and the dance they were being forced to do, he noticed something. The robbers were lounging grandly on the grass, so sure the merchants were frightened that they had laid their weapons down beside them. So he stepped forward to lead the dance. He sang while the others kept time with their hands and feet. He began a song full of strange-sounding words: puli men and tiru men and a sa man.

The robbers did not know the code and thought it was just an ordinary dancing song. But it was really a message. The merchants in the tale share a trade code for discussing prices without customers understanding. In that code puli means ten, tiru means three and sa means one. The leader’s song was telling his friends: “We are ten men and they are only three. If three of us jump on each robber, nine will hold them down, and the one left over can tie them up.” The other merchants understood at once.

The leader started the song far away from the robbers and sang it through twice while the dancers slowly edged closer. The three thieves sat chewing betel and tobacco, enjoying their victory and suspecting nothing. Then the song began a third time. As the last beat of the chorus left the singer’s lips, the merchants split into three groups of three and each group threw itself on a robber. The leader, whom the others had left to finish the job, tore a long piece of cloth into narrow strips and tied the robbers’ hands and feet. The proud robbers rolled about on the ground like three sacks of rice.

The ten merchants took back all their goods and money, and picked up the robbers’ swords and clubs for themselves. When they got back to their village, they often entertained their friends and families with the story of their adventure.

About this story

This story is the fifteenth in the 1890 collection Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India (Project Gutenberg #37002), gathered by Mrs. Howard Kingscote with Pandit Natesa Sastri. The collectors open it with the Tamil proverb Ahambhavam alai alikkum, “Self-pride brings destruction,” and say the story is told by the common folk to illustrate it.

Their version prints the leader’s dancing song in Tamil with an English rendering, then explains the merchants’ secret number words: puli for ten, tiru for three and sa for one. A footnote adds that traders also use secret symbols to mark prices on their cloth. Another notes that the story shows such secret trade language is found all over India.

Read the original: Mrs. Howard Kingscote and Pandit Natesa Sastri, Tales of the Sun; or, Folklore of Southern India (Project Gutenberg #37002)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12; includes armed robbery, forced stripping to loincloths, humiliation and a physical counterattack.

A closer reading

At first, ten unarmed men cannot safely rely on their greater number against three armed attackers. The turning point is the robbers laying down their weapons. Their pride matters because it makes them ignore a changed balance of power, not because confident people must always fail.

The imposed dance becomes a way for the merchants to coordinate. A repeated song carries a plan and a shared timing signal, while its performance gives the dancers a reason to move closer. The robbers hear entertainment where the merchants hear instructions; the same words have different meanings for different listeners.

Try this with the story

Use ten counters to show how the plan assigns three groups of three and leaves one person free. Then invent a harmless classroom code for arranging those counters. Explain why a shared meaning and an agreed signal are both necessary; do not act out the attack.

Talk about it

• Why does having more people not solve the merchants’ problem at first?
• What changes when the robbers put down their weapons?
• How does the dance communicate both a plan and its timing?
• What is the difference between confidence and ignoring evidence of risk?

More stories like this

• Light Makes Prosperity — another South Indian tale explained by a Tamil proverb