The Story of the Tortoise and the Geese

In South Behar there is a pond called the Pool of the Blue Lotus. Two Geese had lived there for a long time, and they had a friend in the pond, a Tortoise called Shelly-neck.

One evening the Tortoise heard some fishermen talking beside the water. “We’ll stay here tonight,” they said, “and in the morning we’ll catch the fish and the tortoises.”

The Tortoise was terribly frightened. He hurried to his friends the Geese and told them what he had heard. “Whatever shall I do?” he asked.

“First we must be sure the danger is real,” said the Geese.

“I am sure,” cried the Tortoise. “The first thing is to get away from it!”

“You could get away if you could go somewhere else,” said the Geese, “but how can you travel across the land?”

“Can’t you carry me through the air?”

“Impossible!”

“Not at all,” said the Tortoise. “You can hold a stick between your beaks, and I will hang onto it with my mouth. Then you can carry me easily.”

“That might work,” said the Geese. “But think carefully about your plan. If you open your mouth while we are carrying you, you will fall and be killed.”

“Do you think I’m silly enough to open my mouth?” said the Tortoise. “Not I! Come on, carry me!”

So the Geese picked up the stick, the Tortoise held on tight with his mouth, and away they flew. The country people saw this strange sight and ran after them.

“Look!” shouted one. “A flying tortoise!”

“When he falls, we’ll cook him and eat him here,” said another.

“No, let’s take him home for dinner!” cried a third.

“We can light a fire by the pond and eat him there,” said the first.

The Tortoise heard all these unkind words and got crosser and crosser. “Eat me? You can eat ashes!” he shouted, opening his mouth wide. Down he fell at once, and the country people caught him.

“So you see,” said the wise old Goose who told this tale to his king, “if you won’t listen to good advice, you will come to grief.”

About this story

This is a fable of the Hitopadesa, the Sanskrit “Book of Good Counsels,” here in Sir Edwin Arnold’s English. In the book it is told by the Goose, the wise minister of King Silver-sides the Swan, to show what happens to those who ignore good counsel.

In Arnold’s version the Tortoise and the Geese each tell another fable while they make their plan, about three fishes and about some herons and a mongoose. Those stories are left out here so the tale can be read straight through. The tortoise’s fate is left just as the original leaves it: he is caught.

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

Reading guidance: Ages 6–8 with adult preview; people threaten to cook the tortoise, who falls and is caught. This version stops at capture, rather than describing a death.

A closer reading

Shelly-neck invents a workable means of travel but underestimates a condition necessary for it to work. His promise not to open his mouth is easier to make on the ground than to keep while people threaten to eat him. The story tests planning for emotional pressure, not merely knowing a rule.

The spectators’ cruelty is part of that pressure. The tortoise’s anger is understandable even though speaking makes him lose his grip. The lesson should remain tied to this particular emergency; it is not a general instruction to stay silent when mistreated. Safety first can mean finding another time or way to answer.

Try this with the story

List the plan’s physical requirement and the unexpected emotional challenge. Give Shelly-neck a silent response he could use in flight, then a spoken response he could make after reaching safety.

Talk about it

• What must remain true for the carrying plan to work?
• Why is the warning harder to follow once the crowd threatens him?
• How could he respond to cruelty after reaching safety?

Related stories

• The Story of the Herons and the Mongoose — the fable the Geese tell the Tortoise in the Hitopadesa
• The Story of the Faithful Rajpoot — another tale from the same part of the Hitopadesa
• The Story of the Washerman’s Donkey — another short Hitopadesa fable about an animal who should have stayed quiet