The King’s White Elephant

Once upon a time a group of carpenters lived on a riverbank near a big forest. Every day they took their boats to the forest to cut down trees and saw them into timber.

One day, while they were working, an Elephant came limping up to them on three legs. He lifted one foot off the ground, and the men could see it was puffy and painful. When the Elephant lay down in front of them, they found a large splinter stuck deep in it. Carefully they drew the splinter out and bathed the wound, so that before long it would heal.

The Elephant was very grateful. “These men have been so good to me,” he thought. “I must find ways to help them.”

From then on the Elephant worked beside them, tugging trees out of the ground. Sometimes he rolled the felled logs to the water’s edge; sometimes he carried their tools. In return the carpenters gave him plenty to eat three times a day.

This Elephant had a young son, strong and handsome and completely white. “I am getting old and weak,” the father thought. “I’ll bring my son to the forest where I work, and he can learn to help these men in my place.”

He explained to his son how kindly the carpenters had cared for him when his foot was hurt, and then he led him to the riverbank to meet them. The young white Elephant obeyed his father and worked hard, and the men made sure he never went hungry.

Each evening, when work was done, the young Elephant splashed about in the river, and the carpenters’ children joined him, both in the water and along the shore. His favorite game was to scoop them up in his trunk, perch them high in the trees and let them slide down onto his back.

Then one day the king sailed past and noticed the lovely white Elephant hard at work. He wanted it for himself straight away, and he gave the carpenters a huge sum of money for it. Then, with one last look at the children who had been his playmates, the beautiful white Elephant went away with the king.

The king was very proud of his white Elephant, and he looked after him with the greatest care all his life.

About this fable

“The King’s White Elephant” is the fourteenth tale in Ellen C. Babbitt’s Jataka Tales (1912). It begins with a kindness, a splinter pulled from an elephant’s foot, and the old elephant repays it by working for the carpenters and teaching his son to do the same.

Babbitt ends the story quietly, with the white elephant’s last look at the children he used to play with before he leaves with the king.

Read the original: Jataka Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Best for ages 6–8 — a gentle tale of kindness repaid, with an elephant who loves to play.

A closer reading

The first exchange grows from care: the carpenters treat the injury, and the elephant finds ways to help them. Work, food and companionship build a continuing relationship. The young elephant inherits that relationship, but his final look at the children shows that leaving it has an emotional cost.

The king pays the carpenters and promises good care, yet the elephant is not shown choosing the move. The quiet ending can therefore hold gratitude and sadness together. Readers can ask how a powerful person might take the animal’s established bonds seriously, instead of treating a generous payment as the whole story.

Try this with the story

Make a list of what the elephant gains and loses when he leaves: food, care, work and friendships may belong in different columns. Write a short farewell from one child, using the river game as a detail rather than inventing a new ending.

Talk about it

• How does care for the injured elephant become an ongoing relationship?
• What does the last look at the children suggest?
• Who makes the decision that the young elephant will leave?

More stories like this

• The Ox Who Won the Forfeit — a hardworking animal and a lesson in kindness
• The Banyan Deer (Nigrodhamiga Jataka) — a noble animal and a king
• The Grateful Crane — a creature who repays a rescue