The Timid Hare and the Flight of the Beasts

Once a little hare was dozing under a palm tree. He woke up suddenly with a worrying thought: “What if the world broke into pieces? What would happen to me then?”

Just then some monkeys up in the tree dropped a coconut, and it thumped onto the ground right behind him. “The earth is breaking up!” the hare told himself. He leapt to his feet and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, without once looking back to see what had made the noise.

Another hare saw him dashing past. “Why are you running so fast?” “Don’t ask!” he panted. But the second hare chased after him, begging to know what was wrong. “Haven’t you heard? The earth is breaking up!” So the second hare ran too.

The next hare they met heard the news and joined them, and then another and another, until hundreds of hares were racing along together. They passed a deer and shouted that the earth was breaking up, and the deer ran with them. The deer called to a fox to come along, and the fox ran too. On and on they went, and an elephant joined the crowd.

At last the lion saw them all stampeding and heard them crying that the earth was breaking up. He thought there must be some mistake. He ran ahead to the foot of a hill in front of them and roared three times. They knew the voice of the King of Beasts and were afraid of him, so they stopped.

“Why are you running?” asked the lion. “Oh, King Lion, the earth is breaking up!” “Who saw it?” “Not me,” said the elephant. “Ask the fox; he told me.” “Not me,” said the fox. “The hares told me,” said the deer. One hare after another said, “I didn’t see it myself, but another hare told me.”

At last the lion came to the hare who had started it all. “Is it true that the earth is breaking up?” “Yes, King Lion. I was asleep under a palm tree, and I woke up and wondered what would become of me if the earth broke up, and at that very moment I heard it breaking, so I ran.”

“Then you and I will go back to the place where it began and see what’s the matter,” said the lion. He put the little hare on his back and off they went like the wind, while the other animals waited at the foot of the hill.

When they came near, the hare showed the lion the spot where he had been sleeping, and beside it the lion saw the coconut lying on the ground. “That noise must have been the coconut falling,” said the lion. “You silly hare!”

Then the lion ran back to the others and explained everything. If it hadn’t been for the wise King of Beasts, they might be running still.

About this telling

This fable comes from Ellen C. Babbitt’s Jataka Tales (New York: The Century Co., 1912; Project Gutenberg #62514), where it is called “The Foolish, Timid Rabbit.” The Jatakas are Buddhist birth stories. The book’s foreword, by Felix Adler, praises them for lessons “suitable for little people,” with “depths and depths of meaning” underneath. Babbitt’s version is short and has a simple pattern for young listeners: each animal passes the panic along, and the lion traces it back one by one.

The animal here is a hare to match this page’s title; Babbitt calls him a rabbit. The ending, where the animals “might be running still,” is hers.

Read the original: Ellen C. Babbitt, Jataka Tales (Project Gutenberg #62514)

Best for all ages — a short, funny fable about rumours, panic and checking the facts.

One noise, many witnesses?

The hare hears something real but gives it the wrong explanation. Each animal then repeats his conclusion as if it were new evidence. By the time the elephant joins in, the crowd looks convincing even though nobody has made a second observation. The lion’s useful question is therefore not how many animals agree, but who actually saw what happened.

The lion also carries the frightened hare back to the tree. That detail makes checking possible for someone who is too scared to return alone. His insult adds nothing to the investigation: reassurance and the fallen coconut do the useful work.

Draw two chains: the animals passing the warning forward, and the lion tracing it backward. Mark the one link where an observation becomes an assumption. Then give the lion a kinder final sentence that still explains the mistake.

Questions to ask

• Why did the hare think the earth was breaking up?
• Why did all the other animals believe him without checking?
• What did the lion do differently, and what can we learn from him?

You may also like

• The Monkey and the Crocodile — another animal fable from the Jataka tradition
• The Quarrel of the Quails — another short Jataka fable about birds who should know better
• Lion’s Share — another fable where the lion is king of the beasts