The Jackal And The Crocodile

Once upon a time, Mr. Jackal was trotting along gaily, when he caught sight of a wild plum-tree laden with fruit on the other side of a broad deep stream. He could not get across anyhow, so he just sat down on the bank, and looked at the ripe luscious fruit until his mouth watered with desire.

Now it so happened that, just then, Miss Crocodile came floating down stream with her nose in the air. ‘Good morning, my dear!’ said Mr. Jackal politely; ‘how beautiful you look to-day, and how charmingly you swim! Now, if I could only swim too, what a fine feast of plums we two friends might have over there together!’ And Mr. Jackal laid his paw on his heart, and sighed.

Now Miss Crocodile had a very inflammable heart, and when Mr. Jackal looked at her so admiringly, and spoke so sentiment ally, she simpered and blushed, saying, ‘Oh! Mr. Jackal! how can you talk so? I could never dream of going out to dinner with you, unless – unless – ’

‘Unless what?’ asked the Jackal persuasively.

‘Unless we were going to be married!’ simpered Miss Crocodile.

‘And why shouldn’t we be married, my charmer?’ returned the Jackal eagerly. ‘I would go and fetch the barber to begin the betrothals at once, but I am so faint with hunger just at present that I should never reach the village. Now, if the most adorable of her sex would only take pity on her slave, and carry me over the stream, I might refresh myself with those plums, and so gain strength to accomplish the ardent desire of my heart!’

Here the Jackal sighed so piteously, and cast such sheep’s-eyes at Miss Crocodile, that she was unable to withstand him. So she carried him across to the plum-tree, and then sat on the water’s edge to think over her wedding dress, while Mr. Jackal feasted on the plums, and enjoyed himself.

‘Now for the barber, my beauty!’ cried the gay Jackal, when he had eaten as much as he could. Then the blushing Miss Crocodile carried him back again, and bade him be quick about his business, like a dear good creature, for really she felt so flustered at the very idea that she didn’t know what mightn’t happen.

‘Now, don’t distress yourself, my dear!’ quoth the deceitful Mr. Jackal, springing to the bank, ‘because it’s not impossible that I may not find the barber, and then, you know, you may have to wait some time, a considerable time in fact, before I return. So don’t injure your health for my sake, if you please.’

With that he blew her a kiss, and trotted away with his tail up.

Of course he never came back, though trusting Miss Crocodile waited patiently for him; at last she understood what a gay deceitful fellow he was, and determined to have her revenge on him one way or another.

So she hid herself in the water, under the roots of a tree, close to a ford where Mr. Jackal always came to drink. By and by, sure enough, he came lilting along in a self-satisfied way, and went right into the water for a good long draught. Whereupon Miss Crocodile seized him by the right leg, and held on. He guessed at once what had happened, and called out, ‘Oh! my heart’s adored! I’m drowning! I’m drowning! If you love me, leave hold of that old root and get a good grip of my leg – it is just next door!’

Moral

Patience and strategic thinking defeat rashness and greed. The jackal’s calm endurance – waiting for the crocodile’s overconfidence to crumble – shows that virtue rewards the steady-hearted.

Historical & Cultural Context

India’s regional folk tale tradition is a vast oral inheritance carried by grandmothers, wandering bards and village storytellers, preserving moral wisdom, social commentary and cultural memory long before any of it was written down.

The Jackal and Crocodile belongs to the Panchatantra animal-fable tradition, where forest creatures embody human virtues and vices. Jackals appear throughout Indian folklore as clever survivors, celebrated especially in Rajasthani and Punjabi tales where they outwit more powerful predators. The crocodile represents greed and treacherous false friendship. This particular tale structure – the patient outsmarting the greedy – was beloved across South Indian (Aithihya Malai) and Bengali traditions, where it taught children about moral resilience. The riverside setting anchors the tale in the actual ecology of the subcontinent.

Reflection & Discussion

1. Why did the crocodile believe the jackal would give itself up?
2. What is the difference between patience and fear?
3. When is it wise to step away from danger rather than fight?

Did You Know?

• Crocodiles have been around for over 200 million years, making them older than dinosaurs.
• India has one of the richest oral storytelling traditions in the world, with tales dating back thousands of years.
• Many Indian folk tales were passed down through generations before being written down.

What This Tale Teaches Us Today

Old stories keep their power because their lessons never stop being useful. Here is how this one still applies:

• Read the fine print before making big decisions. Many Panchatantra disasters come from hasty agreements.
• Humility is a survival skill. Proud characters in Panchatantra tales almost always lose.
• Generosity, when offered to the right creature, returns in forms you could not have predicted.

Why This Story Still Matters

This folk story from the Panchatantra preserves wisdom that Indian teachers have used for over two thousand years to teach practical ethics. The Jackal And The Crocodile is a small but finished piece of moral engineering – each character represents a recognizable human type, each decision is a lesson in how people actually behave. Indian grandparents still tell these stories to grandchildren for the same reason ancient royal tutors told them to young princes: because the patterns described in the Panchatantra are eternal. Those who listen early in life make better decisions for the rest of it.

Cultural Context and Continuing Influence

Folk tales like this one survived for hundreds of years through oral storytelling before any scholar thought to write them down. Grandparents told them to grandchildren, travelers traded them along roads and rivers, and mothers repeated them to babies who would one day repeat them to their own children. Each small retelling sharpened the story, discarded unnecessary parts, and polished the essential lesson. That long process of refinement is why a good folk tale feels so weighty – it has been shaped by thousands of listeners across generations, each contributing something small to the story we read today.

Modern readers sometimes wonder whether folk tales are still relevant in an age of apps and smartphones. The answer is yes, perhaps more than ever. The technology changes, but the underlying questions – about kindness, courage, loyalty, greed, family, fear, love – do not. These are the same questions that children asked around a fire in ancient India, around a hearth in medieval Ireland, around a campfire in 19th-century Korea. And they are the same questions children ask their parents today, just phrased differently. That is why a family that reads folk tales together is doing real cultural and emotional work, not simply entertaining itself.

Reading Folk Tales With Children

Reading folk tales aloud to children is one of the oldest and most effective forms of moral education. Unlike a lecture or a rule, a story slides past a child’s natural resistance and plants its lesson in the imagination, where it quietly grows. Years later, when the child meets a real situation that resembles the story – a bully at school, a dishonest coworker, a moment of temptation – the old tale rises to the surface of memory and offers guidance. That is why parents and teachers across every culture have trusted stories to do the work of raising good humans, long before formal schools or textbooks existed.

When reading this story with a young listener, try pausing at key moments and asking what the child thinks will happen next. Let them guess, even if they are wrong. That small act of prediction turns a passive listener into an active thinker. After the story ends, a simple open question – “What would you have done?” or “Who do you think was the smartest character?” – invites the child to connect the tale to their own life. Those conversations are where real learning happens, not during the reading itself but in the quiet moments that follow.

Older children and teenagers sometimes think they have outgrown folk tales. In reality, the best tales only deepen with age. A ten-year-old hears the surface plot; a fifteen-year-old notices the irony; a twenty-year-old sees the economic and political pressures on the characters; a forty-year-old understands the parents in the story for the first time. A good folk tale is a gift that keeps unfolding for decades. Families who read and reread the same stories across the years discover this naturally, and pass the discovery down.

A Final Word

Every folk tale carries within it the accumulated judgment of thousands of listeners across many generations. When a story has been told for a thousand years and still moves children today, that is not an accident. It is proof that the story is saying something true about the human condition. The wiser the listener, the more they see in a tale they have heard a hundred times before. Reading these stories slowly, out loud, with children beside us, we are joining the longest conversation our species has ever had with itself. Every tale we share is a quiet vote for patience, for meaning, and for the old idea that a good story is one of the finest things one generation can hand down to the next.

We hope this telling gave you something worth carrying into your day – a small lesson, a useful image, a question to ask your child at dinner. Folk tales do their best work in the hours and years after the reading ends, quietly shaping how we see the world and each other. Thank you for spending time with this story, and for keeping the old tradition of careful listening and thoughtful retelling alive.