Reading Notes: Indian Fables and Folklore Part A

 Indian Fables and Folklore by Shovona Devi (1919)

The Moon by Alistair MacBain

• A herd of hare live by a herd of elephants who have started to take over the hares' home, and stampede them often. To solve this problem, one hare goes to the lead elephant while he is in a pool of water at night. The hare tells the elephant that he is desecrating a sacred place and that the hare is from the moon. The hare informs him that if he does not leave the moon will catch him. 
• When the elephant keeps shrugging him off the hare keeps saying that the moon is coming for him and when the reflection of the moon reaches the elephant he gets started and leaves with all the other elephants. 
• This fable shows that your problems can be solved by being clever. 
• A troop of monkeys jump around in the jungle at night guided by the light of the moon. However, when a cloud covers the moon they search for it and think that it has fallen. They see a reflection of it in a pool of water at the bottom of a well. They all make a ladder going down the well by hanging onto the tails, but this fails when the branch they anchored on broke. Thus, they all fall in.
• This fable shows the folly of rushing into things and how you must always be careful.