The Camel, the Jackal and the Crow

In a certain forest there once lived a lion named Madotkata. He had three followers who went everywhere with him: a panther, a crow and a jackal.

One day the lion saw a strange creature wandering into his wood. It had escaped from a merchants’ caravan, and it looked so odd, with its long neck, knobbly legs and humped back, that the lion could not make it out at all.

“What on earth is that?” he asked in amazement.

The crow always knew when it was a good moment to speak. “That is a camel,” he said.

The lion was curious, so he had the camel brought before him. He promised the camel that no harm would come to him in that forest, and he made him one of his courtiers, to stay close by his side.

Time went by. Then one day the lion fought an elephant and was badly wounded. He grew sick and could not hunt, and he went hungry day after day, while his followers stayed fit and well around him. At last, worn out, he dragged himself about looking for food, but found none.

So he called his followers together in secret, all except the camel, and asked them what was to be done.

“Your Highness,” they said, “we must give you advice that suits the hard times we are in. What sort of friendship can you have with a camel? Why not eat him? He eats grass, so he is meant to be eaten by meat-eaters like us. And surely it is right for one to be sacrificed so that many can be fed.”

They could see that the lion was not happy about it. “Perhaps you will say that you cannot kill someone you have promised to protect,” they went on. “Then leave it to us. We will think up a plan that will make the camel offer you his own body.”

The lion gave his permission, and the crow worked out the plot. Then he went to the camel.

“Our master is weak with hunger,” said the crow, “but he is too proud to ask any of us for anything. So we have decided to win his favour by offering him our own bodies to eat. You had better do the same, so that he will think well of you too.”

The camel was simple and trusting, and he agreed. So he went along with the crow to see the lion.

First the crow stepped forward. “King, eat me,” he said. “I am my own master, and I give myself to you.”

“What use is a tiny creature like you?” said the lion.

Then the jackal said, “Eat me,” and the lion turned him down in the same way. Next the panther said, “Eat me,” and still the lion would not eat him.

Last of all the camel stepped forward. “Eat me,” he said.

And that was what they had been waiting for. The lion took him at his word. With the help of the crow and the others, he killed the camel, and they divided him up between them and ate him.

So the trusting camel, who had been promised safety, was tricked by his false friends into offering up his own life.

About this tale

This fable comes from the Kathá Sarit Ságara (“Ocean of the Streams of Story”), gathered in Sanskrit by Somadeva in the eleventh century and translated into English by C. H. Tawney (Project Gutenberg #40588). In Somadeva’s book the bull Sanjivaka tells it after a jackal warns him that his friend the lion now wants to kill him. The bull fears that, like the camel, he will be betrayed by a master who listens to wicked advisers.

Tawney’s footnote points readers to the same fable in Johnson’s translation of the Hitopadesha. It also notes that a version appears in Sagas from the Far East, a book of Mongolian tales.

Read the original: Kathá Sarit Ságara by Somadeva, C. H. Tawney translation (Project Gutenberg #40588)

Best for ages 9–12 — a dark fable about false friends, broken promises and how a group can trick someone who trusts them.

A closer reading

The offers of self-sacrifice look identical, but they are not made under equal conditions. The crow, jackal and panther know theirs will be refused. The camel sees the performance without knowing the agreement behind it, so copying them exposes him to a risk they never take.

The lion’s protection is not accidentally forgotten. He authorizes a plan designed to make killing seem permissible. This makes him responsible alongside the advisers; a ruler cannot preserve a promise merely by arranging for a trusting dependent to surrender it. The camel’s trust is exploited, not proof that he deserves his fate.

Try this with the story

Make a table of each animal’s offer and what that animal already knows. Explain why the same spoken words do not amount to the same choice when important information is hidden.

Questions to ask

• What do the three advisers know that the camel does not?
• When does the lion agree to break the purpose of his promise?
• How does the group make danger appear to be a normal act of loyalty?

You may also like

• The Story of the Bug and the Flea — another fable told at the same lion’s court
• Lion’s Share — another tale about a lion and the animals who serve him