Kids · 4 minThe Four Friends and the Hunter

Once upon a time, beside a quiet lake in a deep forest, three friends met every afternoon. Laghupatanaka the crow saw everything from the sky. Hiranyaka the mouse had a hundred holes and very sharp teeth. Manthara the tortoise had all the time in the world, and he used every bit of it.

One day a young deer came running through the trees and stopped at the lake, shaking from his ears to his hooves. "My name is Chitranga," he panted, "and a hunter has been after me since morning." The crow flew up to look, and he came back to say that the hunter had gone the other way. "Then sit down and drink," said the tortoise. "Nobody chases anybody here." The deer stayed, and from that day there were four.

They made an odd family. The crow kept watch. The mouse knew where the sweetest roots grew. The deer brought news from the far meadows. The tortoise listened to all of it, and at the end he said the one thing worth saying.

One evening the deer did not come. They waited until the sun touched the treetops. "I will go and look," said the crow. He found Chitranga on the far side of the forest with all four legs tangled in a hunter's net. "Keep still," the crow told him. "Help is coming."

He flew back as fast as his wings would go. Hiranyaka climbed on his back and held on with his eyes shut, for no mouse had ever been so high. When they landed, the mouse went straight to the net and began to bite, one thread and then another, and the deer did not move an ear.

The last thread was nearly through when they heard someone puffing along the path. It was Manthara, who had walked the whole way. "How could I sit at home," he said, "when my friend was in a net?" "But this is the worst place in the world for a tortoise!" cried the mouse. And just then the hunter came through the trees.

The deer sprang away. The crow flew up. The mouse dived into a hole. The tortoise walked off as fast as he could, which was not fast at all. The hunter looked at his bitten net and grew very cross. Then he saw Manthara. "Better than nothing," he said, and he dropped the tortoise into his cloth bag, tied the top and set off for home.

The three friends met behind a bush. "He came to help us," said the deer, "and now he is in the bag." The mouse sat and thought, with his whiskers going up and down. "Chitranga," he said, "can you lie very still? Crow, can you look greedy?" They both said that they could.

A little way down the path, on the grass beside the lake, the hunter saw a deer lying on its side with its tongue out. A crow was sitting on its head and pretending to peck. "What luck!" said the hunter. "This one has fallen down by itself!" He put his bag on the ground and tiptoed across the grass.

The moment his back was turned, the mouse ran out and bit a hole in the bag. Manthara crawled through it, went down the bank and slid into the lake with one small plop. The mouse was gone into the grass. Then the crow gave one loud caw, and the dead deer jumped up and flew away through the trees like the wind.

The hunter stood with his mouth open. He walked back and picked up his bag, and he looked at the hole for a long time. Then he went home, and he told his wife that there was something very strange about that forest. He never went back to the lake.

That evening the four friends sat by the water as they always did. "You came for me," said the tortoise to the others. "You came for me first," said the deer. "And you were the slowest rescuer in all the world," said the mouse, and they laughed until the frogs complained.

And so the old ones of that forest still tell their children: "One friend has wings, one has teeth, one has speed and one has patience. Alone, each of them is small. Together, there is no net that they cannot open."