0191. The Heron That Liked Crab-Meat

From The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, translated by Arthur W. Ryder, online at: The Gold Scales.

Notes. You can see the Jataka version of this story here: The Cunning Crane and the Crab.

Summary: The heron offers to transport the fish, but the crab is not so easily fooled.

Read the story below:

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THE HERON THAT LIKED CRAB-MEAT

(Mocomi YouTube)

There was once a heron in a certain place on the edge of a pond. Being old, he sought an easy way of catching fish on which to live. He began by lingering at the edge of his pond, pretending to be quite irresolute, not eating even the fish within his reach.

Now among the fish lived a crab. He drew near and said: "Uncle, why do you neglect today your usual meals and amusements?" And the heron replied: "So long as I kept fat and flourishing by eating fish, I spent my time pleasantly, enjoying the taste of you. But a great disaster will soon befall you. And as I am old, this will cut short the pleasant course of my life. For this reason I feel depressed."

"Uncle," said the crab, "of what nature is the disaster?"

And the heron continued: "Today I overheard the talk of a number of fishermen as they passed near the pond. 'This is a big pond,' they were saying, 'full of fish. We will try a cast of the net tomorrow or the day after. But today we will go to the lake near the city.' This being so, you are lost, my food supply is cut off, I too am lost, and in grief at the thought, I am indifferent to food today."

Now when the water-dwellers heard the trickster's report, they all feared for their lives and implored the heron, saying: "Uncle! Father! Brother! Friend! Thinker! Since you are informed of the calamity, you also know the remedy. Pray save us from the . . . this death."

Then the heron said: "I am a bird not competent to contend with men. This, however, I can do. I can transfer you from this pond to another, a bottomless one." By this artful speech they were so led astray that they said: "Uncle! Friend! Unselfish kinsman! Take me first! Me first! Did you never hear this?
Stout hearts delight to pay the price
Of merciful self-sacrifice,
Count life as nothing, if it end
In gentle service to a friend."

Then the old rascal laughed in his heart, and took counsel with his mind, thus: "My shrewdness has brought these fishes into my power. They ought to be eaten very comfortably."

Having thus thought it through, he promised what the thronging fish implored, lifted some in his bill, carried them a certain distance to a slab of stone, and ate them there. Day after day he made the trip with supreme delight and satisfaction, and meeting the fish, kept their confidence by ever new inventions.

One day the crab, disturbed by the fear of death, importuned him with the words: "Uncle, pray save me, too, from the jaws of death."
And the heron reflected: "I am quite tired of this unvarying fish diet. I should like to taste him. He is different, and choice." So he picked up the crab and flew through the air.

But since he avoided all bodies of water and seemed planning to alight on the sun-scorched rock, the crab asked him: "Uncle, where is that pond without any bottom?"

And the heron laughed and said: "Do you see that broad, sun-scorched rock? All the water-dwellers have found repose there. Your turn has now come to find repose."

Then the crab looked down and saw a great rock of sacrifice, made horrible by heaps of fish-skeletons. And he thought: "Ah me!
Friends are foes and foes are friends
As they mar or serve your ends;
Few discern where profit tends.
Again:
If you will, with serpents play;
Dwell with foemen who betray:
Shun your false and foolish friends,
Fickle, seeking vicious ends.
Why, he has already eaten these fish whose skeletons are scattered in heaps. So what might be an opportune course of action for me? Yet why do I need to consider?
Man is bidden to chastise
Even elders who devise
Devious courses, arrogant,
Of their duty ignorant.
Again:
Fear fearful things, while yet
No fearful thing appears;
When danger must be met,
Strike, and forget your fears.
So, before he drops me there, I will catch his neck with all four claws."

When he did so, the heron tried to escape, but being a fool, he found no parry to the grip of the crab's nippers, and had his head cut off.

Then the crab painfully made his way back to the pond, dragging the heron's neck as if it had been a lotus-stalk.

And when he came among the fish, they said: "Brother, why come back?"

Thereupon he showed the head as his credentials and said: "He enticed the water-dwellers from every quarter, deceived them with his prevarications, dropped them on a slab of rock not far away, and ate them. But I - further life being predestined - perceived that he destroyed the trustful, and I have brought back his neck. Forget your worries. All the water-dwellers shall live in peace."

A heron ate what fish he could,
The bad, indifferent, and good;
His greed was never satisfied
Till, strangled by a crab, he died.

0143. The Cunning Crane and the Crab

From The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India by W. H. D. Rouse with illustrations by W. Robinson, online at: Internet Archive.

Notes. You can see another version of the story here: The Crab and the Crane.

Summary: A deceitful crane manages to fool the fish into putting their trust in the crane's help; the crab is not so easily fooled.

Read the story below:

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THE CUNNING CRANE AND THE CRAB

(W. Robinson)

Once upon a time a number of fish lived in a little pool. It was all very well while there was rain; but when summer came, and it began to be very hot, the water dried up and got lower and lower, until there was hardly enough to hide the fish.

Now not far away there was a beautiful lake, always fresh and cool; for it lay under the shadow of great trees, and it was covered all over with water-lilies. And a Crane lived on the banks of this lake.

The Crane used to eat fish, when he could catch any; and one day, coming to the little pool, he saw all the fish gasping in it, and thought of a neat trick to get hold of them without trouble.

“Dear Fish,” said the Crane, “I am so sorry to see you cooped up in this hole. I know a beautiful lake close by, deep and fresh and cool, and if you like I will carry you there.”

The Fish did not know what to make of this, because never since the world began had a crane done a good turn to a fish. You see it is just as absurd to suppose that a crane would help fish, as to think that a cat would be kind to a mouse.

So they said to the Crane, “We don’t believe you; what you want is to eat us.”

This was just what the Crane did want, but he did not say so. “No, no!” said he; “I’m not so cruel as all that. I have eaten a fish now and then”—he saw it was of no use denying that, because they knew he had—“but I have plenty of other food, and it goes to my heart to see you here. In this hot water you will all be boiled fish before long!”

“That’s true enough,” said the Fish; “the water is hot.”

Well, the end of it was, they persuaded an old Fish with one eye to go and see. The Crane took the one-eyed Fish in his beak and put him in the lake; and when he had seen that what the Crane said was true so far, he carried the Fish back again to tell the others.

The old Fish could not say enough to praise the lake. “It’s ever so big,” he said, “and deep and cool, just as the Crane said; and there are trees overshadowing it, and water-lilies are growing in the mud; and the whole of it is covered with fine fat flies! Ah, what a feast I have had!” And he rolled up his one eye at the thought of it.

Then all the Fish were eager to go. And now it was who should be first; every Fish was anxious to remain no longer in the pool. They came to the top of the water, all begging the Crane to take them to this beautiful lake.

“One at a time!” said the Crane. “I have only one beak, you know!” And he smiled to himself, for that beak was made to eat fish, not to carry them.

However, it was decided that as the one-eyed Fish had been so brave as to trust himself in the Crane’s beak, before he knew what the truth was, he certainly deserved to go first.

So the Crane took the one-eyed Fish in his beak, and carried him over to the lake. But this time he did not drop the Fish in; he laid him in the cleft of a tree, and pecked his one eye out with his beak; then he killed him, and ate him up, and dropped his bones at the foot of the tree.

By-and-by the Crane came back for another. “Now then, who’s next?” asked the Crane. “Old One-eye is swimming about, as happy as a king!” He picked up another fish, and served him like the first, dropping his bones at the foot of the tree.

And so it went on, until in a few days the pool was empty. The cunning Crane had eaten every single one of the fish! He stood on the bank, peering into every hole, to see whether there might not be a little one left somewhere. There was one, surely! No, it was a Crab. Never mind, he thought; all’s fish that comes to my net!

So he invited the Crab to come with him to the lake.

“Why, how are you going to carry me?” asked the Crab.

“In my beak, to be sure!” replied the Crane.

“You might drop me,” said the Crab, “and then I should split.”

“Oh no, I promise I won’t drop you!” said the Crane.

But the Crab had more sense than all the fish put together, and he did not believe in the Crane’s friendship at all. So he still pretended to hesitate, and at last he said: “Well, I’ll tell you what. I can hold on tighter with my claws than you can with your beak. I’ll come, but you must let me hold on to your neck with my claws. Then I shall feel safe.”

The Crane was so hungry that, without stopping to think, he agreed; and then the Crab got tight hold of his neck with his claws, and the Crane carried him towards the lake.

But after a while the Crab saw that he was being carried somewhere else, indeed to that tree where the Crane used to sit and eat the fish.

“Crane dear,” said he, “aren’t you going to put me in the lake?”

“Crane dear, indeed!” said the Crane, “do you suppose I was born to carry crabs about? Not I! Just look at that heap of bones under yon tree! Those are the bones of the fish that used to live in your pool. I ate them, and I’m going to eat you!”

“Are you, though!” said the Crab, and gave the Crane’s neck a little nip.

Then the Crane saw what a fool he had been to let a Crab put a claw round his neck. He knew that the Crab could kill him if he liked, and he was frightened to death at the thought. People who try to deceive others often pay for it themselves; and that is what happened to the Crane.

“Dear Crab!” said he, with tears streaming from his eyes, “forgive me! I won’t kill you, only let me go!”

“Just put me in the lake, then,” said the Crab.

The Crane stepped down to the lakeside, and laid the Crab upon the mud. And the Crab, as soon as he felt himself safe, nipped off the Crane’s head as clean as if it had been cut with a knife.

So perished the treacherous Crane, caught by his own trick. And the Crab lived happily in the beautiful lake for the rest of his life.

0077. The Crab and the Crane

From Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt, online at: Sacred Texts Archive.

Notes. This story is found in the Panchatantra tradition also, where the story is told of a crab and a heron.

Summary: A deceitful crane manages to fool the fish into putting their trust in the crane's help; the crab is not so easily fooled.

Read the story below:

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THE CRAB AND THE CRANE

(Ellsworth Young)

In the Long Ago there was a summer when very little rain fell. All the Animals suffered for want of water, but the Fishes suffered most of all. In one pond full of Fishes, the water was very low indeed.

A Crane sat on the bank watching the Fishes.

"What are you doing?" asked a little Fish.

"I am thinking about you Fishes there in the pond. It is so nearly dry," answered the Crane.

"Yes," the Crane went on, "I was wishing I might do something for you. I know of a pond in the deep woods where there is plenty of water."

"I declare," said the little Fish, "you are the first Crane that ever offered to help a Fish."

"That may be," said the Crane, "but the water is so low in your pond. I could easily carry you one by one on my back to that other pond where there is plenty of water and food and cool shade."

"I don't believe there is any such pond," said the little Fish. "What you wish to do is to eat us, one by one."

"If you don't believe me," said the Crane, "send with me one of the Fishes whom you can believe. I'll show him the pond and bring him back to tell you all about it."

A big Fish heard the Crane and said, "I will go with you to see the pond--I may as well be eaten by the Crane as to die here."

So the Crane put the big Fish on his back and started for the deep woods. Soon the Crane showed the big Fish the pool of water. "See how cool and shady it is here," he said, "and how much larger the pond is, and how full it is!"

"Yes!" said the big Fish, "take me back to the little pond and I'll tell the other Fishes all about it." So back they went. The Fishes all wanted to go when they heard the big Fish talk about the fine pond which he had seen.

Then the Crane picked up another Fish and carried it away. Not to the pool, but into the woods where the other Fishes could not see them. Then the Crane put the Fish down and ate it. The Crane went back for another Fish. He carried it to the same place in the woods and ate it, too. This he did until he had eaten all the Fishes in the pond.

The next day the Crane went to the pond to see if he had left a Fish. There was not one left, but there was a Crab on the sand.

"Little Crab," said the Crane, "would you let me take you to the fine pond in the deep woods where I took the Fishes?"

"But how could you carry me?" asked the Crab.

"Oh, easily," answered the Crane. "I'll take you on my back as I did the Fishes."

"No, I thank you," said the Crab, "I can't go that way. I am afraid you might drop me. If I could take hold of your neck with my claws, I would go. You know we Crabs have a tight grip."

The Crane knew about the tight grip of the Crabs, and he did not like to have the Crab hold on with his claws. But he was hungry, so he said: "Very well, hold tight."

And off went the Crane with the Crab.

When they reached the place where the Crane had eaten the Fishes, the Crane said: "I think you can walk the rest of the way. Let go of my neck."

"I see no pond," said the Crab. "All I can see is a pile of Fish bones. Is that all that is left of the Fishes?"

"Yes," said the Crane, "and if you will let go of my neck, your shell will be all that will be left of you."

And the Crane put his head down near the ground so that the Crab could get off easily. But the Crab pinched the Crane's neck so that his head fell off.

"Not my shell, but your bones are left to dry with the bones of the Fishes," said the Crab.