Kids · 4 minThe Crows and the Snake

Once upon a time, in the garden of a king's palace, there stood a huge old banyan tree. Its branches went up and up and out and out, and at the very top, where the leaves touched the sky, two crows had built their nest. Their names were Kaka and Kaki, and they were the busiest crows in the whole city.

At the foot of the same tree, in a dark hollow between the roots, lived a big black snake. He was lazy and greedy, and he never went far for his food if he thought there might be something easier at the top of his own tree.

One spring Kaki laid three eggs, small and pale blue and speckled. The very next morning the crows saw the snake coming up the trunk, slowly, round and round, with his eyes on the nest.

Kaka and Kaki flew at him, cawing as loudly as they could, and beat at his head with their wings, until at last he slid back down to his hollow. But the next day he came again, and the day after that. Each time the crows chased him down, each time they were a little more tired, and each time he came a little higher.

"We cannot do this forever," said Kaki that night, sitting on the eggs. "One day we shall have to go and find food, and he will be waiting." "He is bigger than both of us together," said Kaka. "We cannot fight him, and we cannot move the eggs. What can we do?"

"We can ask someone wiser than us," said Kaki. So in the morning, while she stayed with the eggs, Kaka flew down to the palace lake, where an old tortoise called Kurma had lived for a hundred years.

Kurma listened to the whole story with his eyes half closed. Then he said, "You cannot beat a snake with your beaks. But you are crows. You are clever, you fly wherever you like, and people always run after a crow that has stolen something shiny. Tell me, who comes to bathe in this lake in the mornings?"

"The queen and the ladies of the palace," said Kaka. "They leave their jewels on the steps." "Then listen," said Kurma, and he told him what to do.

The next morning the queen and her ladies came down to the lake as usual. They took off their bangles, their earrings and their necklaces, laid them on a silk cloth on the steps, and went into the cool water, laughing. Two guards stood by the steps, leaning on their long sticks and half asleep.

Down came Kaki like a black arrow. She picked up the finest necklace on the cloth, a long gold chain with a green stone in the middle, and flew off with it, cawing at the top of her voice. "The crow! The crow has taken the queen's necklace!" shouted the ladies. The guards woke up with a jump and ran.

Kaki did not fly fast. She flew low and slowly, from roof to wall and from wall to tree, always just far enough ahead that the guards could not reach her, and always near enough that they could not lose her. Behind her the guards ran through the garden and round the stables, panting and waving their sticks. At last she came to the old banyan tree. She flew down to the roots, dropped the gold necklace into the dark hollow, and flew up into the leaves.

The guards came running up. "It went in there!" said one. "Into the hole!" He pushed his long stick into the hollow and poked about for the necklace. Out came a big black snake, very angry and very surprised, hissing. "A snake!" shouted the guards. "Drive it off! Drive it away!" They banged their sticks on the ground and shouted so loudly that the snake fled from the hollow, across the garden, over the palace wall and away towards the hills as fast as he could go. They chased him all the way to the river, and he did not stop until he was on the far side.

Then the guards fished the gold necklace out of the hollow, rubbed it clean and carried it proudly back to the queen, who gave each of them a silver coin.

The snake never came back to the palace garden. He found a new home among the rocks across the river, a long way from any crow. And at the top of the banyan tree, a few weeks later, three pale blue eggs cracked open, and out came three small, noisy and very hungry crows.

Kaka and Kaki carried a fat mango down to old Kurma to say thank you. Kurma only said, "Next time, ask earlier."

And so the elders say: what strength cannot do, a clever plan can. And when trouble is too big for you, there is no shame in asking someone wiser.