The Frog and the Elephant

The tiger plotted to trap the elephant by issuing him a challenge. When he met the elephant, he asked, ‘Whom do the other creatures fear the most? Me or you? If they are more scared of me, will you agree to do whatever I tell you to?’

The elephant agreed to the tiger’s proposal.

Then, to prove that it was he, rather than the elephant, whom the other creatures feared most, the tiger set off for a nearby village. As he neared the village, he gave out a loud roar. When the villagers heard the tiger they were frightened. They drove their goats and cows into their sheds so that the tiger wouldn’t eat them. After this, the tiger returned to the forest and related to the elephant how scared the inhabitants of the village had been when they had heard his roar.

Now it was the elephant’s turn to prove how scared other creatures were of him. He approached the same village and let out a loud trumpet. When the villagers heard the elephant, they didn’t get scared at all. Instead, they all came out to see him. ‘Look at this wonderful elephant!’ they exclaimed. ‘Come, let us play with it!’ After a while, the elephant returned to the forest and related to the tiger what had happened.

‘I’ve won the challenge!’ said the tiger excitedly. ‘Now you must do whatever I tell you to.’

The elephant asked the tiger what he wanted him to do. The tiger replied, ‘Stand here, on this spot, without moving for an entire month. I will come to meet you here after the month is over.’

Why did the tiger tell the elephant to do such a strange thing? It was because he thought that if the elephant didn’t move for a month, he would not be able to get any food for himself. He would become so weak that he would collapse and then it would be easy for the tiger to eat him up.

The elephant did as he was told, but it wasn’t easy for him to stand still. ‘If I move even an inch, I will lose the challenge to the tiger. And if that happens, the tiger might eat me up!’ he feared. This thought troubled the poor elephant so much that he burst out crying. He cried so much that his tears created a small river.

A few days later, the forest went up in flames. Many animals were injured in the forest-fire. One of these was a little frog, whose entire body was badly burnt. Rushing out of the fire, it jumped into the river created by the elephant’s tears.

The frog was an inquisitive little creature. As it swam about in the river, it began to wonder where the river’s origin was located. To discover the river’s source it began to swim upstream, till it landed at the feet of the weeping elephant. It was surprised to see that the source of the river was the elephant’s tears!

‘Why are you crying, my friend?’ asked the frog. ‘You’ve cried so much that you’ve produced an entire river! I feel sorry for you, but I must thank you because otherwise I would have died of my burns. I jumped into the river that you’ve made, you see, as soon as my body caught fire.’

‘The tiger has asked me to stand still here for a month,’ replied the elephant. ‘If I fail to do so, I am bound to lose the challenge and then he might eat me up.’

The frog thought for a while, taking pity on the elephant.

‘I have a wonderful idea!’ he said after some time. ‘You saved my life and now I must save yours.’

‘But you are so tiny, and I am so big,’ said the elephant. ‘What can such a small thing like you do to save me?’

‘Don’t worry!’ the frog assured the elephant. ‘My plan is bound to work.’

When a month had passed, the tiger came to see the elephant. He was sure that the elephant had become very weak and that he could easily attack and eat him up.  There, he spotted the frog, too.

‘If you want to eat my friend, the elephant,’ said the frog to the tiger,’ you have to play a game with me. If you win, you can eat not just the elephant, but me, too.’

What was the game all about? It entailed jumping from one bank of the river to the other. The one who landed on the other bank first would be the winner.

The tiger readily agreed to the frog’s proposal. ‘How foolish this little frog is!’ he thought. ‘He is so small and I am so big. How silly of him to think that he could win this game!’

The frog told the tiger to try to jump first. As the tiger ran towards the river, the frog leapt onto the tiger’s tail. The tail went up in the air, over the tiger’s back, and the frog flew across the river, landing on the other side of the river before the tiger did!

‘I won the game!’ cried the frog excitedly. The tiger was alarmed, and ashamed, too, for it had lost the game to the little frog.

And do you know what the clever frog did next? When he had grabbed the tiger’s tail while jumping across the river, game he had plucked some hairs out of it, which he had kept safely hidden in his mouth. He took some of these hairs out of his mouth and showed it to the tiger. ‘See! I ate up your parents just now! These hairs are from their tails!’

You can imagine how shocked the tiger was! He was so scared that he ran away as fast as he could! He abandoned all his plans of eating the elephant!

And that was how the little frog saved the life of the big elephant. In doing so, he showed that even small creatures can do many big things.