Week 10 Storytelling: The Monkey and the Crocodile
The Monkey and the Crocodile
In the forests of India, there was a long and winding river that was the home of many crocodiles. On the banks of this river were several great trees, and in these trees lived dozens and dozens of monkeys.
On the opposite side of the river from the monkeys there were many exotic fruit trees, and the greedy monkeys gathered together to try and figure out a way to get across the river so that they could get this foreign fruit. One of the hatched a brilliant scheme.
"I'll trick one of those crocodiles to the rivers edge," he said, "and I will convince him to give me a ride across the river on his back, and then we will get the fruit!"
This seemed like a good plan to the other monkeys, so they began to try and coax a crocodile to the rivers edge. The monkeys knew that crocodiles often had a taste for monkey, so they thought they came up with the perfect plan to trick the crocodiles to the shore.
The bravest of the monkeys walked to the rivers edge and called out to the crocodiles, "Mr. Crocodiles! Come over here! There are some very bad monkeys on the other side of the river and if you take me over there I will bring you to them and you can eat those monkeys!"
One of the crocodiles swam up to the edge of the river and said, "I will take you across the river. Hop on to my back and we will go." So the monkey hopped onto the back of the crocodile and off they went.
Little did the monkey know, but the crocodile had already devised a scheme to get himself some monkey. But, like all good villains, he was not foolish enough to reveal his plans to the monkey. Instead, he kept quite until they reached the middle of the river and then he dove under the water.
The monkey, who did not know how to swim, held on as tight as he could to the back of the crocodile, and soon he drowned and the crocodile was final able to eat some monkey.
He later said that the gives the taste of monkey 2/5 stars.
Authors Note: In the original story the crocodiles are still trying to figure out how to eat some monkey and the monkeys still want to get fruit from the other side of the river, but its the crocodile that is trying to trick the monkey. In my story I have reversed those roles. Monkeys are often portrayed as being clever in most stories like this, but in mine the monkeys are not very smart and the crocodiles are the cunning character. I remember reading this story for the first time and thinking, "why would the crocodile reveal his plan half way through executing it (and the monkey)?" So, I did not have the crocodile reveal his plan, thus being able to execute it (and the monkey) properly.
Source: Babbitt Jataka Tales
Hi Taylor! I LOVE the way this story ends!! Although, for such a tasty-looking monkey, 2/5 stars is pretty harsh. I hope his Yelp review wasn't too negative.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I was confused why the crocodile would reveal his plan so early, but I'm glad that, for once in these stories, he was able to eat something!
I was really surprised at the ending here! Did not expect that complete reversal at all, I get it five out of five stars, haha. Anyways, this story was nicer to read than the first one and it really subverted my expectations, so I really enjoyed it. It ends a little fast after the crocodile eats the monkey but that just adds on to the sense of "wait what".
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