The Story of the Herons and the Mongoose

Before the Geese flew away with their friend the Tortoise, they warned him to think his plan through carefully, and they told him this little story.

Among the mountains of the north there is one called Eagle Cliff. Near it, in a fig tree, lived a flock of Herons. At the foot of the tree, in a hollow, lived a Snake, and he kept eating the Herons’ babies.

The parent birds cried and complained, until an old Heron gave them some advice. “Bring some fish from the pond,” he said, “and lay them one by one in a line from the hole where the Mongoose lives to the hollow where the Snake lives. When the Mongoose comes out after the fish, it will find the Snake, and when it finds him, it will kill him.”

The Herons thought this was a good plan, and they did just as the old Heron said. The Mongoose followed the fish and killed the Snake. But while it was doing that, it heard the young Herons cheeping up in the tree. After that, the Mongoose climbed the tree every day and ate up all the babies the Snake had left.

“So,” said the Geese, “look carefully at your plan before you begin.”

About this telling

In the Hitopadesa, translated from the Sanskrit by Sir Edwin Arnold, this very short fable is told by two Geese to their friend the Tortoise, just as he asks them to carry him through the air on a stick.

Arnold’s original is only a few lines long, and the retelling stays close to it. Its lesson, to think about what might happen next, is the warning the Geese give right before the Tortoise’s famous flight.

Read the original: Sir Edwin Arnold, The Book of Good Counsels from the Hitopadesa (Project Gutenberg #13268, The Herons and the Mongoose)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12; the snake is killed and the remaining nestlings are eaten. The short length does not make the content suitable for preschoolers.

A closer reading

The first part of the plan succeeds exactly as intended: the mongoose finds and kills the snake. The failure lies in treating that result as the end of the problem. The mongoose’s appetite does not disappear after removing a rival predator.

The fish trail also reveals the nest’s location to a new danger. This makes the tale a compact lesson in second consequences: a proposed helper’s interests may overlap with yours for one action and diverge immediately afterward. The geese use it to ask the tortoise to inspect his own plan beyond its first successful step.

Try this with the story

Draw two arrows from the mongoose: one toward the snake and one toward the nestlings. Mark which arrow the herons considered. Then name the question they needed to ask about what would happen after the snake was gone.

Questions to ask

• Which part of the plan succeeds?
• Why does success against the snake fail to protect the babies?
• What does the fish trail reveal to the mongoose?

Related stories

• The Story of the Tortoise and the Geese — the Hitopadesa tale this fable is told inside
• The Story of the Vulture, the Cat, and the Birds — another Hitopadesa fable about danger to baby birds
• The Story of the Cat Who Served the Lion — another very short Hitopadesa fable