The Big Book of Animal Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  ‘Climb on my back,’ said the elephant cheerfully, ‘and I will carry you home.’

  The elephant carried the man swiftly through the forest until they reached open country; then he left him on the outskirts of the city before returning to his cave.

  Now the forester was a greedy and cunning man and he knew that before he left Benares, the king’s favourite elephant had died. ‘The king would reward me richly,’ thought the man, ‘if I captured this fine animal for him,’ and straightaway he asked for a royal audience.

  The king was delighted with the description of the white elephant. ‘I would love to possess such a fine creature. Go back to the forest with a band of my most skilful trainers and if they succeed in capturing this rare elephant, you shall be well rewarded.’

  The forester had cunningly noted landmarks while riding back to Benares and he led the trainers to the lake where the white elephant was gathering bamboo stems for his mother’s evening meal. When the elephant saw the forester with the band of trainers, he knew he had been betrayed.

  He tried to escape but the trainers pursued him and soon succeeded in capturing him. Then they led him through the forest and entered Benares in triumph.

  The poor mother elephant, waiting for her son to return, felt certain that he had been captured.

  ‘What shall I do without him?’ she cried. ‘Who will bring me food and lead me to the lotus lake for water.’

  The heart of her son was equally heavy. ‘What will she do without me,’ he thought, ‘if only I had listened to her advice.’

  In spite of his unhappy look, the elephant found favour with the king, who declared he would ride no other animal. The elephant’s stable was richly decorated in his honour and the king rode him in state through the city.

  But a few days later the trainers came to the king in great distress saying, ‘Your Majesty, the white elephant is very sick and will eat nothing.’

  The king hurried to the stable and when he saw the elephant’s look of despair, he said, ‘Good animal, how you have changed! Why do you refuse to eat? Anything you wish will be granted to you.’

  ‘Great King,’ answered the elephant mournfully, ‘all I desire is to return to my poor blind mother in the forest, for while she is alone and starving, how can I eat?’

  Now the king was a good king and although he badly wanted the elephant for himself, he said at once, ‘Noble animal, your goodness puts mankind to shame. I give you your freedom to return to your mother at once.’

  The elephant thanked the king with a loud trumpeting, and left the city and went crashing back through the forest. When he reached the cave, he found to his joy that his mother was still alive.

  ‘Ah, my son,’ she said when he told her his story. ‘You should have listened to me. Human beings have always brought harm to our race.’

  ‘Not all of them, mother,’ he said triumphantly. ‘The king is noble and generous or I should still be in captivity. Let’s forget the treachery of the forester and think only of the king’s goodness!’

  The Boy Who Could See Footsteps

  ABOUT FIFTY miles from the city of Benares, in India, there once lived, in a great dark cave, a creature called a Yakka. She had the face of a horse and the body of a woman. She was strong and fierce as a tigress. And she lived upon the flesh of any man or beast whom she could trap.

  One day the Yakka caught a school teacher who was travelling alone towards Benares. She carried him off with great swiftness into her cave. When she saw that he was young and handsome, she asked him whether, if she spared his life, he would marry her. And the teacher, thinking that of two evils this would be the lesser, agreed to become her husband.

  Afterwards the Yakka grew more and more humane and gentle, gave up eating people and tried in various ways to improve her mind. However, she always feared that her teacher-husband would run away if he could, so she used to roll a huge stone in front of the entrance to the cave whenever she went out to collect food. And in this way the poor teacher was kept a prisoner.

  The Yakka was happy enough, and spent her days lying in wait for passing caravans. Fearful travellers were only too ready to part with food and spices, and upon these the Yakka and her husband lived. At length a little son was born to them. In spite of being cooped up in a dark, cold cave, he grew into a strong and clever boy. The Yakka was devoted to him and did all she could to make him and his father comfortable and happy. But the poor teacher pined for freedom. He longed for sunshine and fresh breezes, for the sights and sounds of the city.

  One day his son said to him, ‘Father, why is my mother’s face so different from ours?’

  ‘Because she is a Yakka, son, and we are men.’

  ‘Then why do we live with her in this gloomy cave, instead of among our fellows?’

  ‘Because of the great stone which the Yakka rolls in front of the cave’s entrance. It is too heavy for me to move. But you have your mother’s strength—see if you can move it.’

  The boy sprang up and, setting his shoulder to the stone, easily rolled it aside. He seized his father by the hand and they ran until the teacher, unused to the light and air, became half-blind and dizzy from the exertion. Even the boy was breathless. They sat down to rest; but, before they had recovered enough to go on, they heard the thud of the Yakka’s feet in pursuit, and she soon caught up with them.

  ‘Oh, thankless husband and more thankless child!’ she cried. ‘Why do you run away? What did you lack in my home? You lay upon beds of leaf and moss. You ate dates and drank the wine of pomegranates.’

  ‘But, Mother,’ answered the boy, ‘we lack air and light, and these are more necessary to us than wine and dates.’

  ‘Come back with me and you shall have both,’ she said. So they returned, and she broke the great stone into splinters, and allowed them to wander into the woods and up and down the road; but whenever they got more than a kilometre away from the cave they would always hear her great feet thudding after them.

  One day the boy found out that his mother’s power extended only as far as the river one way, and as far as the mountains the other way. So when she was fast asleep, on a dark night, he and his father crept out of the cave and fled towards the river. They had just managed to reach the bank when they heard the sound of the Yakka’s feet thudding after them. But the boy did not pause. He hoisted his father on his back and waded up to his waist in the stream. Then, safe from the Yakka’s power, he looked back. ‘Come back, come back!’ she cried.

  ‘I will return one day,’ replied the boy. ‘We are men, and it is right that we should dwell among men. But you are my mother and have given me your love. I will return.’

  The Yakka knelt upon the river bank and wept tears into the running water; but father and son had already made their way to the other bank. She no longer pleaded with them; but, because she loved her child dearly, she told him he should take from her a talisman that should prove of great value to him in the world of men.

  ‘Take this stone,’ she said, throwing it across to him, ‘and hang it about your neck. By its power you will be able to see footsteps even twelve years after they have been made upon the ground by the feet of men.’

  The boy caught the stone and fastened it round his neck. Then, waving goodbye, he and his father took the road to Benares. All the way the boy saw thousands of footprints—prints that had long since disappeared from the sight of ordinary humans—and at first he was confused by these tell-tale signs of the men and women who had come and gone that way over the years; but he soon got used to them, and even began to single out the more interesting footprints, and by the time they reached Benares, he had come to the conclusion that no two footprints were the same.

  As soon as they arrived in the city, they went straight to the king’s palace, where the boy’s father was appointed a teacher in a school for young princes. The king soon heard from his ministers that the teacher’s son had the power of seeing long-vanished footsteps.

  ‘Should any robber tamper
with the king’s treasury, my son can trace the thief and find the valuables,’ the teacher announced to the chief minister. ‘Why not ask your royal master to take the boy into his service?’

  The king was only too glad to do so, for he was extremely rich and miserly, and lived in daily and nightly fear of being robbed.

  ‘How much does this boy expect us to pay him?’ was his first question.

  ‘A thousand rupees daily,’ said the minister.

  ‘Too much, too much!’ complained the king. But the boy held out for that sum, and the king at last agreed to it.

  Some months passed and, as the fame of the boy’s gift passed through Benares, no attempts were made to rob the treasury.

  The king was still unhappy about the fee he was paying the boy. ‘How are we to know that he is not an impostor?’ he complained. ‘We are paying him a thousand rupees daily, and he does nothing but sit upon an expensive rug near my marble fountain, playing chess with his father and drinking lemonade! I’m being cheated!’

  The next night two thieves broke into the vaults where the treasure was kept. They took many jewels and much money, which they placed in sacks. Then they walked three times round the palace, passed through the gardens, climbed the wall by means of a ladder and finally reached a tank in the middle of a meadow. They dropped the sacks into the tank and then disappeared into the night.

  Next day, the king raised a terrible outcry. Some of the most precious of the crown jewels had been stolen! The thief must be found! Where was the boy who could see footsteps?

  ‘Here I am, sire,’ said the boy, hurrying to the king’s audience chamber. ‘I shall trace the thieves at once!’

  And starting from the vaults, he walked three times round the palace, passed through the gardens, climbed the wall at a certain spot and finally reached the tank in the meadow. He ordered a diver to enter the water and bring up whatever he could find at the bottom.

  ‘I have seen the footsteps of two men all the way,’ he said, ‘and they are men of distinction.’

  For some moments there was deep silence as they all stood around gazing down into the tank.

  People clapped and cheered as the diver brought up, one by one, the bags full of treasure. But the king, who appeared disappointed to see how well the boy was earning his salary, whispered to his minister, ‘This is all very well. He has recovered the treasure. But can he trace the thieves? Let us test him further.’ And turning to the boy, he said aloud, ‘Now find me these thieves.’

  ‘That should not be necessary now that the jewels and money are recovered,’ said the boy thoughtfully.

  But the king insisted. ‘I shall cut your salary by half if you cannot find the thieves. My heart longs to punish those rascals.’

  ‘Be careful of what you say, sire,’ said the boy. ‘If it is someone upon whom the people depend, what shall the people do?’

  ‘Punish him, of course!’ said the king, laughing.

  ‘Shall I name the thieves, then?’ asked the boy for the last time.

  ‘Yes, or I cut your thousand rupees daily down to a hundred!’

  ‘Yourself and your minister, O King! You are the thieves!’

  And when the people learned that their rulers stooped to all this trickery to fill their private coffers with wealth that should have been used for the benefit of the kingdom, they decided that these two were not worthy to hold positions of trust over them. So they dethroned the king and exiled him and his minister, and gave the crown to the boy who saw their footsteps.

  And did the boy ever see his mother, the Yakka, again?

  No one knew for certain, but it was said that he would mysteriously disappear on full-moon nights. And although his ministers followed him to try and find out where he went, they never succeeded, because the boy was careful not to leave any footprints of his own.

  The Tiger King’s Gift

  LONG AGO, in the days of the ancient Pandya kings of south India, a father and his two sons lived in a village near Madura. The father was an astrologer, but he had never become famous, and so was very poor. The elder son was called Chellan; the younger Gangan. When the time came for the father to put off his earthly body, he gave his few fields to Chellan, and a palm leaf with some words scratched on it to Gangan.

  These were the words that Gangan read:

  ‘From birth, poverty;

  For ten years, captivity;

  On the seashore, death.

  For a little while happiness shall follow.’

  ‘This must be my fortune,’ said Gangan to himself, ‘and it doesn’t seem to be much of a fortune. I must have done something terrible in a former birth. But I will go as a pilgrim to Papanasam and do penance. If I can expiate my sin, I may have better luck.’

  His only possession was a water jar of hammered copper, which had belonged to his grandfather. He coiled a rope round the jar, in case he needed to draw water from a well. Then he put a little rice into a bundle, said farewell to his brother, and set out.

  As he journeyed, he had to pass through a great forest. Soon he had eaten all his food and drunk all the water in his jar. In the heat of the day he became very thirsty.

  At last he came to an old, disused well. As he looked down into it, he could see that a winding stairway had once gone round it down to the water’s edge, and that there had been four landing places at different heights down this stairway, so that those who wanted to fetch water might descend the stairway to the level of the water and fill their water pots with ease, regardless of whether the well was full, or three-quarters full, or half full or only one-quarter full.

  Now the well was nearly empty. The stairway had fallen away. Gangan could not go down to fill his water jar so he uncoiled his rope, tied his jar to it and slowly let it down. To his amazement, as it was going down past the first landing place, a huge striped paw shot out and caught it, and a growling voice called out: ‘Oh Lord of Charity, have mercy! The stair is fallen. I die unless you save me! Fear me not. Though King of Tigers, I will not harm you.’

  Gangan was terrified at hearing a tiger speak, but his kindness overcame his fear, and with a great effort, he pulled the beast up.

  The Tiger King—for it was indeed the Lord of All Tigers—bowed his head before Gangan, and reverently paced around him thrice from right to left as worshippers do round a shrine.

  ‘Three days ago,’ said the Tiger King, ‘a goldsmith passed by, and I followed him. In terror he jumped down this well and fell on the fourth landing place below. He is there still. When I leaped after him I fell on the first landing place. On the third landing is a rat who jumped in when a great snake chased him. And on the second landing, above the rat, is the snake who followed him. They will all clamour for you to draw them up.

  ‘Free the snake, by all means. He will be grateful and will not harm you. Free the rat, if you will. But do not free the goldsmith, for he cannot be trusted. Should you free him, you will surely repent of your kindness. He will do you an injury for his own profit. But remember that I will help you whenever you need me.’

  Then the Tiger King bounded away into the forest.

  Gangan had forgotten his thirst while he stood before the Tiger King. Now he felt it more than before, and again let down his water jar.

  As it passed the second landing place on the ruined staircase, a huge snake darted out and twisted itself round the rope. ‘Oh, Incarnation of Mercy, save me!’ it hissed. ‘Unless you help me, I must die here, for I cannot climb the sides of the well. Help me, and I will always serve you!’

  Gangan’s heart was again touched, and he drew up the snake. It glided round him as if he were a holy being. ‘I am the Serpent King,’ it said. ‘I was chasing a rat. It jumped into the well and fell on the third landing below. I followed, but fell on the second landing. Then the goldsmith leaped in and fell on the fourth landing place, while the tiger fell on the top landing. You saved the Tiger King. You have saved me. You may save the rat, if you wish. But do not free the goldsmith. He is not to
be trusted. He will harm you if you help him. But I will not forget you, and will come to your aid if you call upon me.’

  Then the King of Snakes disappeared into the long grass of the forest.

  Gangan let down his jar once more, eager to quench his thirst. But as the jar passed the third landing, the rat leaped into it.

  ‘After the Tiger King, what is a rat?’ said Gangan to himself, and pulled the jar up.

  Like the tiger and the snake, the rat did reverence, and offered his services if ever they were needed. And like the tiger and the snake, he warned Gangan against the goldsmith. Then the Rat King—for he was none other—ran off into a hole among the roots of a banyan tree.

  By this time, Gangan’s thirst was becoming unbearable. He almost flung the water jar down the well. But again the rope was seized, and Gangan heard the goldsmith beg piteously to be hauled up.

  ‘Unless I pull him out of the well, I shall never get any water,’ groaned Gangan. ‘And after all, why not help the unfortunate man?’ So with a great struggle—for he was a very fat goldsmith—Gangan got him out of the well and on to the grass beside him.

  The goldsmith had much to say. But before listening to him, Gangan let his jar down into the well a fifth time. And then he drank till he was satisfied.

  ‘Friend and deliverer!’ cried the goldsmith. ‘Don’t believe what those beasts have said about me! I live in the holy city of Tenkasi, only a day’s journey north of Papanasam. Come and visit me whenever you are there. I will show you that I am not an ungrateful man.’ And he took leave of Gangan and went his way.

  ‘From birth, poverty.’

  Gangan resumed his pilgrimage, begging his way to Papanasam. There he stayed many weeks, performing all the ceremonies which pilgrims should perform, bathing at the waterfall, and watching the Brahmin priests feeding the fishes in the sacred stream. He visited other shrines, going as far as Cape Comorin, the southernmost tip of India, where he bathed in the sea. Then he came back through the jungles of Travancore.