Story of the Clever Jackal

One night, packs of wolf were wandering around in search of food. Their leader was a clever, old jackal who could sniff any sort of danger in the air. He knew very well how to protect the members of his pack.

On the same night, some robbers had entered the forest. In fact, they had robbed a rich merchant on the highway. They had bought food, meat, wine etc. with the money and had come to the forest to have a feast and to share the loot among themselves. They ate and drank till they had finished all the food and the wine.

One of the rogues lost his senses under the influence of the wine. He started talking nonsense. He boasted of his bravery. He said that he could easily kill any wild animal. His friends laughed over his talks and said, “You are just kidding. You will not even be able to kill a jackal”.

At this, the main said, “I am going to kill a jackal. Then, I will cook its meat and eat it. I will not share it with anybody”. So saying, he picked up his sword and went deep into the forest. He thought, “I will not go to them until I have killed a jackal. The jackals are scavengers. I will pretend to be dead. When jackals will see me, they will come to me to eat me up. I will then pierce my sword through one of them and kill him”.

The robber then lay down the jungle path. Just then, he heard the howling sound of the jackals. He stopped his breath and pretended to be dead. The pack of jackals soon reached the spot where the robber was laying. When they saw a dead man lying on their path, they were filled with happiness. They were about to run and ate its flesh when their leader ordered them to wait. He said, “Wait till we are sure that he is really dead. The man may be simply wounded or he may even be pretending to be dead to trap one of us”. The leader of the jackal went near to the man. He could already sniff danger in the air. He sniffed that the man was alive.

The jackal then cautioned the members of the pack to be careful. He asked them to hide behind the bushes, while he himself went near the man quietly and took away the man’s sword from his hand. He then bit him on his hand. However, the jackal did not kill him. He ran and hid behind the bush.

The man was in a shocked state. He got up and tried to kill the jackal with a big stone that he found nearby. But the stone missed the jackals. The grew ashamed of himself. He had no courage to face his friends. Therefore, he decided to go home. He did not even get share of the loot.