The Jackal and the Pea-Hen

A jackal and a pea-hen swore to be friends forever. Every day they ate together and spent long hours in pleasant talk.

One day she had juicy plums; he had a young kid. After the feast she rose with a solemn air, scratched the earth, and sowed the plum stones in a careful row. “It is my custom when I eat plums,” she said, complacent and virtuous. “My mother brought me up in excellent habits, and with her dying breath she told me never to waste. These stones will grow into trees. Even if I do not live to see them, hungry peacocks will find a meal.”

The jackal felt mean. “Exactly so,” he answered loftily. “I always plant my bones for the same reason.” He dug a patch and sowed the kid’s bones at intervals.

Day after day they visited their gardens. Soft green shoots rose from the plum stones. The bones showed nothing. “Bones take a long time germinating,” said the jackal, pretending ease. “I have known them lie unchanged for months.” “My dear sir,” answered the pea-hen with sharp irony, “I have known them remain so for years.”

Time passed. Each visit made her more sarcastic and him more savage. At last the plum trees blossomed and bore fruit. She sat down to a feast of ripe plums. He had hunted badly that day and stood dinnerless, hungry, and cross.

“He! he!” she sniggered. “What a time those old bones of yours take coming up! But when they do—my!—what a crop you will have!” He was bursting with rage, but she would not stop. “Poor dear! You do look hungry. You may starve before harvest. What a pity you cannot eat plums in the meantime!”

“If I cannot eat plums,” said the jackal, “I can eat the plum-eater!” He sprang and gobbled her up.

The old telling closes with a bitter warning: ‘It is never safe to be wiser than one’s friends.’

About this story

“The Jackal and the Pea-Hen” is one of the short animal fables in Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab (1894), and it closes with a one-line warning about friendship. R. C. Temple’s only note explains that the plums are ber, the fruit of the jujube tree.

The friendship ends badly: the jackal eats the pea-hen. That ending is in the source and is kept, but it happens in one line.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab, 1894 (Project Gutenberg #6145)

Reading guidance: ages 9–12 with adult discussion. The jackal suddenly kills and eats the pea-hen; the historical moral should be questioned rather than taught as a rule.

A closer reading

The seeds and bones expose the difference between useful foresight and copying its appearance. The pea-hen plants something that can grow; the jackal imitates her gesture because he cannot bear to seem less responsible. His claim then traps him into defending a result that will never come. This is a specific failure of pride, not a reason to hide useful knowledge from friends.

The pea-hen’s repeated mockery changes helpful knowledge into a weapon of humiliation. Even so, the jackal remains responsible for killing her. The source’s closing warning can be read as a bleak description of living beside someone dangerous, rather than advice that victims should be less intelligent. Teasing and lethal retaliation are not equivalent wrongs.

Try this with the story

Compare the pea-hen’s first explanation of planting with her later remarks at harvest. Identify one sentence that shares knowledge and one that humiliates. Write an honest response the jackal could have made when the first green shoots appeared, before either character doubled down.

Questions to ask

• Why did the jackal pretend to plant his bones?
• Was the pea-hen being a good friend when she teased the jackal? Why or why not?
• The moral says it is never safe to be wiser than your friends. Do you agree, or would you change the moral?

Related stories

• The Jackal and the Partridge — another Punjabi tale of a jackal and a bird who try to outdo each other
• The Jackal and the Iguana — another Steel animal fable with a jackal and a sharp moral
• The Fox and the Grapes — an Aesop fable about pretending not to want what you cannot have